The Collected Writings of James Henley Thornwell

Lecture I PEELIMINAKY OBSERVATIONS

Relative importance of the science of Theology. Its Nomenclature and its Scope.

I. Nomenclature of Theology. Vindication of the term Theology. Its usage among the ancient Greeks. Patristic usage. Scholastic usage. Modern usage. Scholastic distinctions of Theology. Komish and Re- formed Scholasticism.

II. Scope and nature of Theology. 1. Definition of Theology. Is Theology a science? Its relation to religion. Object of Theology. 2. Plan of these lectures answering to a threefold division of Theology. 3. Source of our knowledge of Theology. Principle of Theology according to Romanists ; according to Rationalists ; according to orthodox Protest- ants. Respective spheres of Reason and Revelation Page 25

Lecture II THE BEING OP GOD

The union of all our powers in the recognition of the Being of God. Religion, or the spiritual knowledge of God, is the highest form of life and the consummation of our being. The method of proof is to consider man first as a rational, secondly as a moral, and thirdly as a religious being.

I. The testimony of speculative reason. The root of this faculty is the law of causation. This law defined as both a law of thought and a law of existence. In the Theistic argument the contingency of the world proves an eternal and necessary cause, and this by immediate inference. This Cosmological argument vindicated from the charge of soi)histry, yet defective. The general order and special adaptations in the universe prove an intelligent cause. This Teleological argument the complement

3

4 CONTENTS.

of the preceding ; and the two comLmed prove the being of an Infinite Intelligence. The Ontological argument criticised.

II. The testimony of man's moral nature. Personal responsibility in- fers the Being of God. 1. Commands imply a lawgiver. 2. Duty im- plies a judge. 3. Sense of good and ill d&sert imjalies moral government. Hence, Conscience an immediate affirmation of God. It reveals the same God with reason, but in higher relations.

III. The testimony of man's religious nature. The principle of wor- ship in man implies the Being of God. Under the Gospel the knowledge culminates in communion with Him. Thus man finds the complement of all his powers in a living and personal God. In what sense the know- ledge of God is innate, li is mediate and representative Page 53

Lecture III

man's natural ignokance of god.

Man led to God by the structure of his own being, yet unassisted reason always ignorant of Him.

I. The nature of this ignorance explained as due to some foreign influ- ence. Statement and consideration of its two causes : 1, the malignity of Satan ; and 2, the depravity of our nature. The influence of depravity (1.) in the sphere of si>eculation — perverting first the reason and then the imagination ; (2.) in the sphere of morals through a perverted conscience ; (3,) in the sphere of worship, by means of idolatrous inventions.

II. The profounder ignorance of man's heart even where there is speculative knowledge. Divine influence the only remedy.

III. The question of the resiionsibility of the heathen for their igno- rance of God. Heathenism the consummation of depravity in the intel- lectual, moral and religious nature of man Paye 74

Lecture l Y

THE NATURE AND LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD.

Two extremes of opinion : that He is perfectly comprehensible and that He is perfectly incomprehensible. In the middle, betwixt these extremes, the truth that God is at once known and unknown. As absolute and in- finite He is unknown, but He is manifested through the finite. As pro- perties reveal substance, so the finite reveals the infinite. Our concep- tions of the attributes of God derived from the human soul and embrace two elements : one positive — the abstract notion of a particular perfection ascribed to God in the way of analogy and not of similitude ; the other negative — a protest against ascribing to God the limitations and condi- tions of man, and a regulative principle at once to warn and to guide. This relative analogical knowledge of God the catholic doctrine of theo- logians.

CONTENTS. 5

Tlie objection rebutted tbat this knowledge gives no true representation of the Divine Being. Equally valid against all knowledge. It is not only true and trustworthy, but adequate for all the purposes of religion. Characteristic of man, whether in a state of unmixed probation, of sin, or of partial recovery. Does not weaken but strengthens the grounds of re- ligious worship. This relativeness of our knowledge of God in harmony \Jt^ . with the teachings of Scripture.

It follows that no science of God is possible. The belief of the contrary is the source of most heresies. Our ignorance of the Infinite solves the most perplexing problems of Theology., Page, 104

Lecture V THE NAMES OF GOD

God's nature and perfections disclosed in the use of personal and at- tributive names. Each one contributes its share to the Ecvelation. They diminish in number as the Revelation advances. Comparative predomi- nance of the names Elohim and Jehovah in the Pentateuch. Import of the name Elohim as indicating the Trinity in Covenant ; — of the name Jehovah as expressing absolute plenitude of being and His relation to man as his Redeemer and Saviour ; — of the name Jah as setting forth God's beauty and glory ; — of the name Adonai as implying dominion founded in ownership ; — of Shaddai as representing God the Almighty and Supreme ; — of El as indicating His irresistible power ; — of Elyon as revealing God as the Most High. The Greek names Kvptoq and feof ex- plained Page 143

Lecture VI THE NATURE AND ATTKIBUTES OF GOD

God as He is in Himself cannot be defined. But we may represent our conceptions of Him in language. He must be conceived of as substance and attributes. Two definitions of God considered. The best definition is that of the Shorter Catechism. This, after having a defect supplied, will best answer the two questions. Quid sit Deus f and, Qualis sit Beus ?

Our notion of the Attributes, whence derived ? These are not separa- ble from the Essence of God. Said to be all radically one. This is dis- proved first from the doctrine of the Trinity, and secondly from the law of our own minds. The distinction of virtual or eminent and real differ- ence which plays so important a part in theological treatises. Applied to the question of the oneness of all the Attributes, God is shown to be eminently all that the universe contains, and accordingly One, but giving rise to diversity. This is ingenious, but unsatisfactory juggling with scho- lastic technicalities. We are constrained to make distinctions in the at- tributes of God, but the whole subject transcends the sphere of our faculties.

6 CONTENTS.

Since we can know God only as of distinct attributes, some classification of them is important. Seven schemes of distribution are signalized. Substantially they are nearly all the same. The fundamental distinction is between those attributes which refer to God's necessary existence and those which refer to Him as a Personal Spirit. Classifications of Dr. Hodge and Dr. Breckinridge considered. The simplest division is grounded in the distinction between those which pervade the whole being of God and those which are special and determinative — these latter being subdivided into intellectual and moral.

It is proposed, accordingly, to treat first of the Nature of God, and then to unfold the Attributes in the order here set forth Page 158

Lecture VII SPIRITUALITY OP GOD

This the foundation of all religious worship. Also the foundation of the Divine attributes. Scripture proof of it. The ancient heathen phi- losophers concur. Both a negative and a positive truth.

I. It is negative in that it denies to Him the properties of matter. Ancient and modern Aiithropomorphites. Defence of Tertullian from this charge. The Anthropomorphism of Scripture explained. The im- materiality of God implied in the prohibitions to figure Him by images.

II. It is positive in that it affirms Him a person possessed of intelli- gepce and will. This implies separateness of being in opposition to every form of Pantheism. The notion of God's spirituality involves — 1. Life in Himself and necessary activity ; 2. This activity one of thought and will ; 3. The unity and simplicity of His being ; 4. His power of communion with our spirits ; 5. That He cannot be represented by images. Accord- ingly, Idolatry is a twofold falsehood Page 173

Lecture VIII

THE INCOMJrUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD.

These are universal and all-pervading, characterizing the whole being and every perfection of God.

I. His Independence. The term used with reference to the grounds of God's being, and implies that He is uncaused. This mystery not more incomprehensible than caused being. Both transcend our faculties. Certain modes of expression regarding this subject criticised. God's in- dependence involved in every argument for His being. The Scriptures also presuppose it throughout. It pervades every determinate perfection of God as well as His being.

II. His Eternity. This term used with reference to the duration of His being. Vain attempts by the Schoolmen to define it. All our con- ceptions of it must be purely negative. But these negations cover trans- cendent excellence.

CONTENTS. 7

III. His Immensity. This term used with reference to tlie extent of His being. How distinguished from His Omnipresence. Precludes all mixture with other beings or objects. Not the mere virtual presence of His power, which is to deny His infinity. The Scriptures full of this amazing perfection of God, and herein make manifest their own Divine origin. Special sense in which the Scriptures sometimes speak of God's presence. His immensity as incomprehensible as His eternity. Practical uses of the doctrine.

IV. His All-sufBciency. This term used with reference to the contents of His being. He contains the plenitude of the universe. The sense ex- plained in which the perfections of all creatures are in Him formally, eminently or virtually. The value of this truth as a regulative principle of faith.

V. His Immutability. This applies to the permanence of God's being. Only another form of asserting the simplicity and oneness of the Infinite. A self-evident truth, and abundantly proclaimed in Scripture. Appears to be contradicted by the fact of creation. By reason of our ignorance we cannot solve the difficulty. The Divine essence not modified by the In- carnation of the Son, nor by any changes which take place in the universe. Scriptures which ascribe change to God. Foundation of all our hopes and fears. It is the immutability of goodness and truth. Disparity be- twixt God and the creature. Rebuke of arrogance, cavilling and mur- murs Page 189

Lecture IX CREATION

Five hypotheses of the relations between the finite and the infinite : viz. — 1, that of the Atheists ; 2, that of the Eleatics ; 3, that of the Pan- theists ; 4, that of the Dualists ; 5, that of the Theists. The first two dis- counted immediately, as having in our times no advocates of considera- tion. The fourth is also to be discounted at once, as being a disguised Atheism. The only scheme which remains inconsistent with Creation is Pantheism, which is the prevailing tendency of modern philosophy.

The fundamental postulate of Pantheism is the impossibility and ab- surdity of Creation. A fourfold outline of the Pantheistic objections. All these arguments have the same capital vice of attempting to grasp what transcends our faculties. The infinite is not to be known, but believed.

Detailed reply to these objections of Pantheism. The first one shown to be based on a double misconcej)tion. The second one retorted on the Pantheists. In the third place, it is shown that Pantheism does not ob- viate the difficulties which arise from the knowledge and from the will of God ; that it transcends our power to conceive of the nature of Divine knowledge or the operation of the Divine will, while yet there are grounds upon which we can conceive that God might choose to create. Fourthly,

8 CONTENTS.

Pantheism aggravates instead of diminishing the objection to Creation from the existence of evil by lodging it in God's very nature.

Positive argument for creation from the data of consciousness : 1, The world has a real, separate existence ; 2, it is finite ; 3, these two imply that it began ; 4, it had a cause, and that cause the Creator. The inva- riable tendency of speculation to contradict the most palpable deliver- ances of consciousness. 5. The Creator must be eternal and necessary. Only God can create or annihilate. This principle is vital in Theology and fundamental in the Evidences Page 206

Lecture X

Calvin's definition of true wisdom as the knowledge of God and of our- selves. Man a microcosm. The subject to be considered : I. As to the distinguishing characteristics of man ; II. As to his condition when he came from the hands of his Maker ; III. As to the destiny he was to achieve.

I. Man essentially a person. Keason and Will distinguish humanity and involve the existence of a soul in man. Vindication of man's im- mortality upon other than scriptural grounds.

II. The question of man's being created in infancy or with his powers matured. Pelagian and Popish theories. In puris naturalibus. 1. Adam not created an infant, either in mind or in body, 2. Not created indif- ferent to holiness and sin. 3. The indirect testimony of Scri^jture on this

• subject : (1.) Adam had the gift of language in its most difiicult and com- plicated relations ; (2.) Eve was created a mature woman ; (3.) The pair received a commission which involved their being mature ; (4.) Adam was not a rude, warlike, destructive savage. 4. The direct testimony of Scripture is not definite as to Adam's knowledge of nature, but very ex- plicit as to his moral condition. A looser and a stricter sense of the ex- pression, " image of God." The strict and proper sense is holiness mani- fested in knowledge and righteousness. Adam was endowed with both the knowledge of God and rectitude of disposition. The Devil has a per- sonal and spiritual nature, but not the " image of God." In what sense the holiness of Adam was natural. 5. Adam's holiness was natural, but not indefectible. The difference between confirmed and untried holiness. How could the understanding be deceived and the will perverted in the case of a holy creature ? Several unsatisfactory solutions of this problem considered : those of Pelagians, of certain Papists and of Bishop Butler. The Orthodox solution brings in the freedom of man's will. The differ- ence between freedom not yet deliberately chosen and freedom as a neces- sity of nature. This is the doctrine of Calvin, of the Confession, of Tiir- rettin and of Howe, but fundamentally diflerent from the Pelagian.

III. The end of man's creation. Man's relation to God was that of a servant Page 223

CONTENTS. 9

Lecture XI MORAL GOVERNMENT

The subject of consideration is — I., the essential principles of moral go- vernment ; and II., Avhat is implied in the relation of a servant.

I. The essentials of moral government are — first, that the moral law should be the rule of obedience ; and secondly, that rewards and punish- ments should be distributed on the principle of justice. The notion of justice is founded in our moral nature. Analysis of conscience into three cognitions : 1, the perception of right — an act of the understanding ; 2, the feeling of obligation — which belongs to the emotions ; 3, the conviction of merit or demerit — a sentence passed by the mind upon itself. These are logically distinguishable, but fundamentally the same. The sense of good and ill desert is a jDrimitive notion. It is an indissoluble moral tie which binds together merit and right, demerit and wrong. This morail principle of administration constitutes government moral. Conscience expresses itself in hopes as well as fears, but obliterates all claims from a past righteousness. It demands perfect obedience, and counts all other null. The creature's whole immortal life is one, and at whatever moment its perfection is lost, all is over. Eepresentation an admissible, yet not necessary, principle of pure moral government.

II. The relation of servant. Three differences betwixt a servant and a son : 1, the expectation of a servant is based on his own merit — of a son on the fullness of Divine benevolence ; 2, the access of a servant to God is not full and free and close like that of a son ; 3, to a servant the law si^eaks of obligations, to a son of privileges.

These views of moral government and the relation of a servant are scriptural. Exposition of Romans ii. 6-11, and of Ezekiel xxxiii. 12, seq.

Moral government to be carefully distinguished from moral discipline. The law knows no discipline but growth. Discipline provides for the formation of holy habits and the eradication of propensities to evil. The law knows how to punish, but not to reform. It knows no repentance ; once a sinner, always and hopelessly a sinner. Four distinctions between government and discipline specified. In fine, Discipline is of Grace — Government, of Nature Page 252

Lecture XII THE COVENANT OF WORKS

The way is now open to examine the peculiar features of the dispensa- tion vinder which man was placed immediately after his creation. The servant was to become a son, and so there was grace in the first covenant as truly as in the second. Although the adoption was of grace, yet it must also be a reward of obedience, for man was not to be arbitrarily pro- moted. An important modification of the general principles of moral

10 CONTENTS.

government is introduced by which probation is limited as to time. This brings into the Divine economy a new feature, viz. — justification. These are free acts of God's bounty, and accordingly are matters of pure revela- tion, as the religion of man must always be. The dispensation under which these modifications of moral government are introduced is called the Covenant of Works.

This covenant defined, and the precise sense given in which the term covenant is applied to this dispensation. The two essential things of the covenant.

Prior to the discussion of these, another modification of moral govern- ment is considered, by which the probation is limited as to the persons in- terested, and Adam becomes the representative of all his race. This is a provision of pure goodness. Adam, the root, because to be the head. Kepresentation of grace. Imputation proceeds from the federal tie and not from the natural.

Thus two principles have entered which pervade every dispensation of religion to our race — the principles of justification and imputation — key- notes both of the legal and evangelical covenants.

I. The fii'st essential of the Covenant of Works is its condition. This was obedience to a positive precept. Bishop Butler on the difference be- twixt moral and positive precepts criticised. The real difference stated. Butler criticised again on the ground of preference of the moral to the positive. Peculiar fitness of the positive to be the condition of the Cove- nant of Works. Why the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was called by that name. The explanation overturns various hypotheses — as that the effects of the fruit of the two trees were physical effects, and that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a sacrament.

The positive, however, cannot supersede the moral law nor repeal it, for that law was written upon the heart of man. The positive was added to the moral, and Adam was placed under a twofold law. Through the posi- tive the issue to he tried might be determined more speedily and more fully ; yet it was the whole twofold law, both moral and positive, under which man was placed. This view confirmed by Scripture. Moreover, the sanction of the positive must have been wholly unintelligible, unless the moral law had established the conviction of good and ill desert. Tlie importance of this whole discussion set forth.

II. The second essential is the promise of the covenant. Moses, respect- ing it, says nothing directly. But the Scriptures must needs arbitrate, and both indirectly and positively they do teach what was the promise of the covenant. Under four heads the Scripture doctrine set forth that the promise was eternal life. The tree of life was a sacramental seal of the promise. Warburton's view of the covenant criticised.

III. The penalty of disobedience. Warburton's and two otlier theories discussed. Tlie true view of the penalty. It includes all pain. It is death, spiritual, temporal and eternal.

IV. The conduct of man under all this display of Divine benevolence.

CONTENTS. 11

The record is a history of facts. An evil spirit is present. The sin of man was tlie deliberate rejection of God, aggravated by his relations to God, by the nature of the act, and by its consequences.

V. The relations of man to the covenant since the fall Page 264

Lecture XIII V

ORIGINAL, SIN.

The phrase Original Sin as used in a wide sense by the Westminster Assembly, in a narrower one by Calvin, Turrettin and nearly all the Ee- formed. The author of the expression was Augustin, who had three uses for it. In this lecture it is employed in the narrower sense, yet the notion of guilt is not excluded. For the question how guilt can precede existence must be met. It is remitted, however, until the second part of the discus- sion.

I. How all the early confessions, Lutheran and Reformed, held Original Sin : 1. As being the very mould of man's nature. 2. As negative, the destitution of all holy principles ; and as positive, an active tendency to all evil. These but two sides of one and the same thing. 3. As universal and all-pervading. But they distinguished between loss of faculties and extinction of spiritual life. Man retained reason, conscience and taste. Yet these faculties, though not destroyed, were all weakened. Augustin's language on this point Avas objectionable. The phrase total depravity used in two senses, and might be used in a third ; but it never was employed to signify that men are as wicked as they could be. 4. As hereditary.

The doctrine as thus stated, if true, is appalling ; if not true, it ought to be easily disproved, for the facts of the case are patent, and the reasoning short and simple.

The doctrine must be true, but as it may be exaggerated, it should be examined with the utmost candour and solemnity.

In investigating the facts upon which it is grounded, the first fact en- countered is, that of the universality of sin. Every human being has often done wrong. The second is, that in all there is a stronger tendency to evil than to good. The third is, that the best of men complain of its indwelling power. The fourth is, that it makes its appearance in the youngest chil- dren. These extraordinary facts can be explained only upon the doctrine of Original Sin.

But a tendency to sin may be admitted without confessing the total de- pravity taught by the Reformers, and the question arises : Is there no middle ground between Pelagians and the Reformed ? The Sensationalists have their theory and the Semi-Pelagians theirs, which maintain a natural ability quite different from that of the Arminians. We must consider, therefore, if there be really anything good in man.

If there be, he must both perceive the excellence of God and desire to commune with Him, for both these elements belong to holiness. But Scripture denies to man both of these, and the experience of all the re-

12 CONTENTS.

newed confirms the Scripture. The case of unrenewed men of high prob- ity does not at all contradict this testimony ; eminent conscientiousness may be conjoined with eminent ungodliness. The virtue of the Stoics was pride; that of Christianity is humility. Holiness and morality differ as the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems. As the one puts the earth in the centre, the other the sun, so the one makes man supreme, the other God.

A passage of Miiller on Sin is criticised at length, and four distinctions

pointed out between holiness and morality. In what sense man is capable

of redemption. The real tendencies of human nature are exhibited

amongst tlie heathen. The summing up shows that man is totally desti-

■; tute of holiness and dead in trespasses and sins.

II. The question of hereditary guilt now recurs. There are two ques- tions : First, how sin is propagated ; Second, how that which is inherited can be sin. The various theories of Stapfer, Pictet, Turrettin and Edwards are considered, and the whole difficulty is found to lie in Avhat to these divines presents no difficulty : viz. — in the imputation of guilt. Respect- ing this second question, the difficulty is stated in its fullness. Then, by way of approaching a solution, the question is first considered, whether hereditary depravity can really be sin. The views of Papists and Remon- strants, as represented by Bellarmin and Limborch, pass mider review ; also those of Zwingle, and then of the other Reformed divines. Then the tes- timony of Scripture is taken, and arguments from Scripture definitions of sin, and from the relation of inward principle to outward action, and from death behig the penalty of original sin, are combined to prove that the de- pravity in which we are born constitutes us really guilty before God. Then the testimony of our conscience concludes the argument.

Touching the way in which we receive this corruption only two suppo- sitions are possible : One, that the sinful act which produced it was our own act ; the other, that it was the act of another.

The question of ante-mundane i^robation is introduced, and Pythagoras, Plato, Origen, Kant, Schelling, Miiller are quoted as holding that theory. Two insuperable objections are brought against it, and then it is also shown to be totally inconsistent with Scripture. It is then considered whether our relation to Adam may not furnish a ground for imi^utation. Adam was our natural head, and he was also our federal head, and the only point to be examined is whether this latter is founded in justice. An affirmative conclusion has been reached on two different grounds : 1, that of generic unity ; 2, that of a Divine constitution,

1. If there was a fundamental unity between Adam and his race, it is clear that he could justly be dealt with as their federal head. He was the race, and could be treated as the race without any fiction of law. Plere we see the precise relation betwixt the federal and the natural unity — the former presupposes the latter. Imputation harmonizes the testimony of conscience. According to the Scriptures it is immediate and not mediate, as one class of theologians have taught. Two other statements of the case are considered, and the conclusion is reached tliat a generic unity between

CONTENTS. 13

Adam and his sons is the true basis of the representative economy in the Covenant of Works.

2. The second theory of an arbitrary Divine constitution is summarily dismissed.

How the individual is evolved from the genus which contains it is ac- knowledged to be a mystery.

The theory of representation alone consists with Scripture and with con- science Page 301

Lecture XIV THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN

Theological importance of the doctrine of the Fall. We can know neither ourselves, nor God, nor the Redeemer, without appreciating the moral features of our present ruin.

I. The first question is. What is Sin ? And our first determinations of it must be objective ones. 1. It is the transgression of the moral law, and this law is concerned not only with action, but also with the will and with the dispositions which lie back of it ; with the heart as well as with the life. 2. It is disobedience to God. 3. It is the contradiction of God's holiness.

Our second determinations of sin are subjective. Man's relation to God as the expression of His will and the product of His power is the true ethical ground of right and wrong. The specific shape which obedience must take is supreme devotion and undeviating conformity. This supreme devotion is expressed in Love, yet love does not, as Miiller supposes, ex- haust the whole of duty towards God. It is the motive, but not the whole object-matter of obedience. Toward the creature Love is also to be grounded on the common relation to the Creator. Sin, therefore — 1, in- volves a denial of dependence on God. 2. The next step is positive es- trangement from God. 3. Then it resolves itself, thirdly, into self-aifirma- tion. The whole subjective determination of Sin, therefore, may be stated as self-afiirmation.

An objection maybe made to this analysis from certain affections in )/f. man which seem to evince disinterested love. And here divines of New England have erred, who put self-love for the subjective determination of — sin, and hold to a reflex operation of the mind in the case of all those af- fections. But the true explanation is that those elementary principles are a part of our nature itself, and that they exist back of the will.

It is to be noticed that both the objective and the subjective determina- tions of Sin coincide and harmonize in Selfishness, which is the root of our disturbed moral life.

II. But there remains the question, What is the formal nature of Sin ? 1. Some have sought to ground moral distinctions in the Will of God, but this is itself grounded in His Nature, which is their ti-ue ground. Tlius, they are eternal and immutable, and they make us to be like or unlike

14 CONTENTS.

God. 2. Some ground them in the tendency to make ourselves or others happy, but this is to ground them in the creature. If grounded in any tendency at all, it should be in the tendency to promote God's glory. But we can neither know our own good, nor the good of others, nor the glory of God, until we know what Good itself is. And the question recurs, What is the Right? To this question the answer is, that the Eight is an original intuition which conscience apprehends, as consciousness the ex- ternal world and ourselves. Conscience does not make, but declares it. The right is a reality, but under manifold forms, as truth, justice, benevo- lence, temperance ; and the common relation of all these to conscience is grounded in their common relation to the holiness of God. 3. The third step is to investigate the nature of Holiness. It differs from the right as a faculty from its object. It is a subjective condition. It is not a single at- tribute, but is an attribute of all God's attributes, and is the fullness and unity of His nature. In man holiness is not a detached habit, but a na- ture, and the Scriptures illustrate it by life. It is supreme devotion to God as the supreme good. It is the notion of the right carried up to the notion of the good, and the heart must respond to the conscience in choos- ing it. The right and the good are objectively the same, and the same subjectively in all holy things ; but not in sinners, for man has lost the perception of the good. 4. The fourth step is to consider the nature of Sin from the same qualitative point of view. It is the not-right. The dis- tinction of privation and simple negation considered. The Augustinian doctrine of sin as privation. Peter Lombard quoted. The motive of the doctrine with Augustin was to vindicate God from the authorship of Sin. Van Mastricht, De Moor and Burmann quoted. The Master of the Sen- tences quoted again. The distinction by later theologians of Sin in the concrete and in the abstract. An expression of Augustin explained. The Vitringas and Wesselius referred to as refuting and defending this theory. Objections to the theory : (1) founded on a double confusion ; (2) fails of the purpose for which it was invented ; (3) contradicts consciousness and requires an extravagant and shameful distinction ; (4) destroys all real significance in the creature, and abolishes the distinction between the effi- cient and the permissive decrees. On these grounds the theory must be rejected. Moral distinctions not exclusively subjective. There is a prin- ciple of unity in the life of sin as there is in the life of holiness. It is op- position to God ; it repudiates His authority, and it commits treason against His sovereignty.

This qualitative consideration of good and evil conducts to tlie same re- sults in relation to the nature of Sin reached by estimating its objective and subjective aspects regarding the law ; and the formal i)rinciple of Sin is seen to be enmity against God.

III. It has been, assumed throughout this discussion that only a rational being can sin, but the precise conditions of responsibility remain to be stated. Holiness demands the living unity of all our higher faculties, and sin is the perversion of them all. In particular, there is no moral worth

CONTENTS. 15

in acts where tlie consent of the heart and will is not found. But the acts and the habits which are beyond the control of a sinner's will, are they by his inability stripped of their sinfulness ? A distinction must be made here between inability original and inability penal. What the advocates of what is called natural ability really mean by this term. Man's inability is the result of his own choice, and is therefore penal. He is competent only for Sin, but is held responsible for the nature God gave to him ; and the law of God must ever be the standard of his life. To apostate creatures actual ability, therefore, can never be the measure of obligation. Two ap- palling facts of every sinner's consciousness Page 352

Lecture XV

THE POLIiXJTION AXD GUILT OF SIN.

Two inseparable properties or effects of sin — pollution and guilt.

1. The notion of the macula or stain of sin exhibits the connection of the beautiful and the good, the deformed and the sinful. Ground of the con- nection ethical and not aesthetic. Sin is the real and original ugly, and its power to make us disgusting is its jjolluting power. As the vile and mean it makes ashamed. Our sensibility to the estimation in which others hold us is a clear instance of a moral administration carried on in this life, and the full elucidation of the filthiness of sin demands that it be explained. Public opinion abashes us only when it accords with our inward senti- ments, and was designed to have force only as representing the judgment of truth. But our own moral nature is never alive to the full shame of sin so long as we can fancy it concealed. At the judgment sin is to be ex- posed, and a perpetual source of torture for ever to the wicked will be the everlasting contempt to which they shall awake.

2. Guilt divided into potential and actual; the one is intrinsic ill desert, the other condemnation. Popularly it is taken in the former, theologi- cally in the latter sense. The sense of guilt or remorse contains two ingre- dients— the conviction that sin ought to be punished, and the conviction that it will be punished. The second conviction involves the other ele- ment of guilt — that is, actual condemnation ; for guilt in the conscience is a present sentence of death by God. The punishment of sin is no less neces- sary than certain. The object of penal justice is not the reformation of the offender, but the vindication of law. Scruples about capital punishment always a sign of moral degeneracy. This account of the sense of guilt in- volves two propositions — first, one sin entails on us a hopeless bondage to sin ; second, one sin involves endless punishment. The sense of guilt in- tolerable now, but two circumstances in the future will add inconceivably to its terrors — first, it will operate more intensely ; second, it will for ever reproduce the past at every moment. This illustrated in dreams and the experience of persons drowning. Nothing ever forgotten. How shall the lost tolerate for ever their own memory ?

The Scriptures sustain these theological determinations of guilt. With

16 CONTENTS.

out this distinction of the stain and the guilt of sin, we could not under- stand Imputation, nor the diflerence between Justification and Sanctifica- tion. This distinction pervades Scripture and lies at the foundation of the whole scheme of Redemption. A distinction of guilt by Papists approved, but their use of it condemned Page 400

Lecture XVI DEGREES OF GUILT

Stoical parados. Testimony of Scripture. Jovinian and Pelagius. Doctrine of the Reformers and of the Westmmster Assembly. Two grounds of distinction amongst sins : the first is in the object-matter of the law ; the second in the subjective condition of the agent. Yet some sins of ignorance reveal greater malignity than some sins against knowledge. The erring conscience necessitates sin whether resisted or obeyed, and the only remedy is spiritual light. A precise scale of iniquity, like that of the Romish confessional, preposterous and delusive. Sins classified as — 1, of presumption ; 2, of ignorance ; 3, of weakness — but all malignant and deadly. The Papal distinction of veiiial and mortal sins. Protestants hold that no sin is venial in its own nature, yet all, save one, may be cancelled by the blood of Christ. To a very partial extent a modified sense of the Papal distinction has been adopted amongst Protestants. The unpardon- able sin is not final impenitency ; nor insult to the Person of the Spirit ; nor peculiar to the times of the miraculous efiusion ; but is sin agaiiast the Spirit in His oflicial character Fage 425

THEOLOGY, ITS PROPER METHOD AND CENTRAL PRINCIPLE. A REVIEW OF BBECKINBIDGE's OBJECTIVE THEOLOGY.

Thought and action neither contradictories nor opposites, and the great debater was not unlikely to prove a great teacher of Theology. ^yU The argument from final causes for the being of a God as presented in -I ' modern systems of Theology not only inconclusive, but pernicious. It — makes Deity but a link in the chain of finite causes, and degrades the Creator to the huge Mechanic of the world. Dr. Breckinridge gives to final causes their true place, which is to set forth the nature and the per- fections of God ; — given a Creator, we can deduce from them that He is intelligent and spiritual.

The conception of this book is the grandeur and glory of Theology con- sidered simply as an object of speculation, which leads the author to sepa- rate the consideration of the Truth from the consideration of its effects, and also from the consideration of errors. And it is in this form an original conception. The clue to his plan is the method of the Spirit in the production of faith.

CONTENTS. 17

Following Foster in part, Dr. Breckinridge argues illogically against Atheism.

He concentrates liis energies upon the third book, which treats of the Nature and Attributes of God. Tlie central ideas of his division of these are three: viz. — Being, Personal Spirit and Absolute Perfection, And he makes five classes of Attributes, calling them Primary, Essential, Na- tural, Moral and Consummate. This division and the nomenclature criti- cised.

In relation to the great problem of modern philosophy concerning the Infinite and Absolute, this work takes' very definite ground, and that ground the safe and true middle, that we know the existence of the Infi- nite as truly as of the finite, but cannot comprehend it. The views of Cousin, Hamilton and Kant compared. Dr. Breckinridge's views quoted \i

and strongly commended.

Beginning with a survey of man in his individual and social relations, and demonstrating his universal and irremediable ruin, this treatise pro- ceeds in a second book to consider the Mediator in His Person, Offices and Work ; and as in Christ only we know God, the Divine character, perfec- tions and glory are the culminating points in Book Third. In another book the sources of our knowledge of God are consecutively considered, and then the fifth and last book brings us back to Man in his ruin and misery. Primeval Innocence, the Covenant . of Works, the Entrance of Sin, the FaU, Election and Eedemption, are all now discussed in sixty pages, the rigid method of the author requiring that the philosophy of all these questions be remitted to his third volume, and that now, for the most part, only the Scripture facts and doctrines be presented.

The wish expressed that Dr. Breckinridge had dwelt more largely on the Nature of sin, and particularly the First sin. How a holy creature could sin is a profoundly interesting question, and it is to be regretted that the author, with his evangelical views, had not grappled with it like Bishop Butler, and given us more satisfactory results.

The doctrine of the work respecting hereditary depravity and imputed ■ guilt criticised.

Having viewed the whole treatise, the judgment is expressed that the author has realized his own ideal as far as it could possibly be done. The unction of the book is beyond all praise, and it pervades the whole.

The peculiarities of Dr. Breckini-idge's teaching are thus seen to be the separation of dogmatic from polemic Theology, and the concatenation of the truths of religion upon the principle of ascent and descent, or induc- tion and deduction. The question is now raised, whether Dr. Breckin- ridge's peculiarities as a theological teacher should be copied, and it is answered in the negative.

In conclusion, the attempt is made to find a central principle which shall reduce to unity all the doctrines of religion, and Justification is set

forth as that central principle Page 445

Vol. I.— 2

_ V

CONTENTS.

THE PERSONALITY OF GOD.

Ancient representations, uninspired and inspired, tliat God cannot be known, and a modern one that His very essence is compreliensibility. To explain such contradictory conclusions, we must understand what has ever been the problem of Philosoi^hy and the methods by which she has in- vestigated it. That problem is to unfold the mystery of the universe— whence it came and how it was produced — being in itself and in its laws — the causes and the principles of all things. In every such inquiry the answer must be — God. But when the further question is, What is God, and how do all things centre in Him ? difierent results are reached, according to the difierent views of the nature of the universe and its relation to its cause.

Three ancient theories of the universe stated — the third one named makes God the essence of all things, and they but manifestations of His substance.

Modern speculation has pursued essentially the same track, but has taken its departure from a difierent point. The Material was the ancient point of departure, but the modern is Consciousness. God is made to be the complement of primitive cognitions. Thus both ancient and modern speculation reduces everything to a stern necessity. Pantheism and Posi- tivism, however differing in other respects, unite to deny a Personal God.

I. What is it to be a Person ? A simple and primitive belief is not to be defined, but we may describe the occasions on which it is elicited in consciousness, and the conditions on which it is realized.

1. The first circumstance which distinguishes this notion is Individualitij. Every instance of knowledge is the affirmation of a self and a not-self. When we assert the Personality of God, we mean to assert that He is dis- tinct from all other beings and objects.

2. Intelligence and will belong to the idea of Personality.

3. Absolute Simplicity is equally essential to self-hood.

These are the properties which we affirm in maintaining the Personality of God. He is an absolutely simple Intelligence, having consciousness and will, who can say " I am," " I will," " I know," and He is not a blind fatality, nor a mere necessary princii^le or law.

Tliis statement corrects the ignorant misapprehension that person im- plies bodily figure or material shape. God is a Personal Spirit.

II. The difTerence immense between admitting and rejecting such a Being.

1. In the field of Speculation. Pantheism in every form of it deduces all from God with rigorous necessity, and makes all philosophy a priori and deductive. The belief of God makes the universe to be whatever He may will, and philosophy becomes an inquiry into His designs, and the method of induction becomes the true and only method of inquiry. The counsel of His will then becomes the goal of philosophy. .

CONTENTS. 19

A comparison of what the inductive philosophy has accomplished, with the results of Pantheism.

2. In the field of Morals. Theism makes God a ruler and man a sub- ject. Pantheism deprives us of will and puts us under inviolable neces- sity. It annihilates all moral diflerence of actions and makes Sin a fiction. It is hostile to every principle which holds society together, which imparts to states their authority and to the family its sacredness. S]jeculations which strike at the Personality of God cannot be harmless.

3. In the field of Religion. To make God everything can be no better than to make Him nothing. Piety is subverted when there is no object of its regards. Religion consists necessarily in veneration and love, whicli must presuppose a Person. The highest form of religion is communion with God. It comes to an end when you remove a Personal God.

4. As to the credibility of Revelation in itself and in its miraculous cre- dentials. Intelligence and will controlling subordinate intelligences may well render miracles necessary. And then if God be a Person, He may be expected to delight in intercourse with His creatures, for Personality seeks union Pmje 491

NATUEE OF OUR RELATION TO ADAM IN HIS FIRST SIN. A REVIEW OF BAIRd's ELOHIM REVEALED.

The central topic of this book is the doctrine of Original Sin. It claims to relieve the question of hereditary sin of most if not all of its difficulties. Acknowledging its great merits in other respects, it is pronounced in refer- ence to its main design a failure. The theory is a numerical identity of nature between Adam and his posterity, so that his sin is not constructively and legally, but strictly and properly, theirs. Generation communicates not a like nature, but the very same. The father substantially and essen- tially, though not personally, is reproduced in his offspring.

Nothing new in all this — as old as the introduction of Realism into Theology. The book is a reaction against the entire ciu-rent of modern thought, both in Theology and philosophy — a formal protest against Nom- inalism and the spirit of the inductive philosophy grounded in Nominalism, and also against the received system of orthodoxy grounded in the same. Statement here of the qualified sense in which the author gives his alle- giance to Realism.

1. The first j^oint considered is Dr. Baird's notion of nature, and it is concluded to be the bond of unity to the whole race^ sustaining the same relation to human persons which the substance of the Godhead does to the inefiable Three. Adam and his posterity are one substance.

2. The next point is the relation between person and nature — it is that of efiect and cause ; person is a product of the nature. The person is but an instrument through which the nature works, and it is no great thing to be able to say " I."

20 CONTENTS.

3. The third point is the law of generation, which, according to the author, is such that the first man is the efficient cause of the existence of all other men. The reasonings of Dr. Baird in relation to the nature of man resemble those of the Pantheists in relation to the nature of God. Sundry difliculties in the way of his theory of generation suggested.

Upon these grounds the writer explains our interest in Adam's sin ; it was strictly ours — as strictly as if committed in our own persons. Adam was every man, and so every man sinned in Adam. But some other con- clusions will follow as rigidly as this one : namely — first, that every man is responsible for every sin of Adam, seeing that his nature was implicated in every sin of his life ; and secondly, that Adam, penitent and believing, must have begotten penitent and believing children, seeing that the natui'e always flows from parent to child as it is in the parent.

The consequences of Dr. Baird's theory to our current theology are —

1. There is no imputation of Adam's sin, but his sin is ours, and we are held to be actually guilty of it.

2. That the twofold relations of Natural and Representative head in which Adam stood to the species are confounded.

That the Reformers did not hold such a theory is proved not by quota- tions, which would require too much room, but by several considerations — among them that they held our sins to be imputed to Christ. Here Dr. Baird is forced to retract, and does retract altogether, his entire phi- losophy of guilt and punishment.

Dr. Baird's theory completely solves all difficulties in relation to heredi- tary sin ; the only difficulty is in that theory itself. Given a numerical identity of nature transmitted from father to sons, and the moral condition of it in tlie one is as inexplicable as in the other. But Adam's children being not Adam, but themselves, two questions arise which have ever been difficult to solve : one, how that which now and here begins its being can begin it in a state of sin without an imputation on the character of God ; the other, how that which is inherent can be our crime. Dr. Baird exults in the thought that he has demolished the fortress of Edwards and his disciples, but while their doctrine has difficulties, his is an absurdity.

There are but three hypotheses supposable : 1, That we had an ante- mundane being and sinned then, which conditions our mundane liistory ; 2, that we had a being in our substance and committed sin in our sub- stance, though not in our persons ; 3, that we sinned in another standing in such relations to us as to make us morally one with him. The first two remove the difficulty, but substitute a greater one. The third is the scheme of the Bible.

Dr. Baird's account of the Covenant of Works seriously defective.

His representations of the propagative property of man fanciful, and also degrading to the Divine image in man Page 515

CONTENTS. 21

APPENDIX A.

Discourse delivered by Dr. Thornwell, upon being inaugxj- \/

RATED AS Professor of Theology Page 573

APPENDIX B. Questions upon the Lectures in Theology., Page 5S3

APPENDIX C.

Analysis of Calvin's Institutes, with Notes and Comments.

Page 597

APPENDIX D. Questions on Calvin's Institutes Pat/e 642

PREFATORY NOTE.

Sixteen Lectures are here given to the Public : Lecture I. Preliminary and setting forth the Nomenclature and Scope of Theology ; Lecture II. On the Being of God ; Lecture III. On Man's Natural Ignorance of God ;

Lecture IV On the Nature and Limits of ovir Knowledge of God ; Lecture

V. On tlie Names of God ; Lecture VI. On the Nature and Attributes of God ; Lecture VII. On the Spirituality of God ; Lecture VIII. On the Incommunicable Attributes ; Lecture IX. On Creation ; Lecture X. On Man ; Lecture XL On Moral Government ; Lecture XII. On the Covenant of Works ; Lecture XIII. On Original Sin ; Lecture XIV. On the State and Nature of Sin ; Lecture XV. On the Pollution and Guilt of Sin ;

Lecture XVI On Degrees of Guilt

Tlie Author proposed to divide Theology into three parts : the first treating of God and of Moral Government in its essential principles ; the second of Moral Government as modified by the Covenant of Works ; and the third of the same, as modified by the Covenant of Grace. These Six- teen Lectures cover with tolerable completeness the ground of the first two parts. Death cut short the full execution of his plan. In the good providence of God, hoAvever, it has been so ordered that the writings he published during his lifetime may be classified so as to constitute, in connection with these Lectures, in some degree, a full and systematic pre- sentation of the whole of Theology, as he conceived of that Science.

Dr. Thornwell prepared these Lectures for his classes in Theology, and he wrote them all twice over, but he did not prepare them for the press. This will account for the somewhat fragmentary appearance exhibited in the closing parts of one or two of them. Sundry loose papers in his hand- writing being found laid away in some of the Lectures, and marked as Addenda, they have been put into brackets and inserted, in a different type, in the margin of the pages where they seemed respectively to belong.

At the opening of Lecture VIII. the Author speaks of his intention to take up the subject of the Trinity immediately after closing that discussion of the Attributes ; but this promise was evidently forgotten by him, and he proceeds at once, in the Ninth Lecture, to the subject of Creation. Instruction to his classes respecting the Trinity was of course given, Cal- vin's Institutes being his text-book.

23

Lectures in Theology.

Lecture I PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS

IF the place of a science depends upon the dignity of its object, the worthiness of its ends, or the intensity and purity of the intellectual energies it evokes, the science to which I am now about to introduce you, must confessedly stand at the head of all human knowledge. It is conversant about the sublimest object, aims at the noblest ends, and calls into play the whole spiritual nature of man. Aris- totle, from the intrinsic excellence of the being whose reality and nature it is its business to investigate, pronounced it the first philosophy and the most exalted of sciences ; Locke places it " incomparably above all the rest," where it is cul- tivated according to its own liberal and free spirit, and not degraded " into a trade or faction ;" and both Aristotle and Locke regard it " as the comprehension of all other know- ledge," so that without it all other knowledge is fragment- ary, partial and incomplete. Let us briefly attend first, to the nomenclature, and then, to the scope of this science. I. Its common title is Theology ; a word nowhere found in the Sacred Scriptures, though the simple

Nomenclature. p -..■., . -, „

terms oi which it is composed are of not unfrequent occurrence. As it was not the office of inspira- tion to present the truths of salvation in a scientific form,

25

26 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. [Lect. I.

no more than it is the office of nature to jiresent the facts of the universe in a scientific form ; as God

Vindication of the „l • /• ii.1'

^, , never makes science tor us, but only gives

term Theology. ' •' o

US the data out of which we must construct it for ourselves ; it is not to be expected that a word shoukl be found in the Scriptures designating a science which it was not their function to realize. The progress of specula- tion gives rise to technical terms in religion as well as in philosophy ; and when they have been introduced to relieve an obvious need, they are not to be rejected because they are not expressly written in the Scriptures. Many other words, such as Original Sin, Trinity, Homoouslan, and Pe7'- son, as applied to the distinctions of the Godliead, which the necessities of controversy led the Church to adopt for the 2)urpose of fixing scriptural truth and guarding against the insinuations of error, are not to be met with in so many syllables in the Sacred Volume. " They are not there," as Turrettin ^ remarks, " as to sounds and syllables, formally and in the abstract ; but they are there as to sense, or the thing signified, materially in the concrete." " AYhere names," says Calvin,^ " have not been invented rashly, we must be^vare lest we become chargeable with arrogance and rashness in rejecting them." And in reply to those who, like the ancient heretics, insist upon confining us to the ipsissima verba of Scripture, to the exclusion of all foreign terms, we may adopt the language of the same illustrious Reformer in another passage of the same illustrious book : ^ " If they call it a foreign term, because it cannot be pointed out in Scripture in so many syllables, they certainly impose an unjust law — a law which would condemn every interpre- tation of Scripture that is not composed of other words of Scripture." Equally judicious are the remarks of Owen, ^\\\o, though persuaded that Theology was not precisely the term by which the Christian Doctrine should be designated, was yet content to waive his scruples and to merge his diffi-

1 Loc. I., Quest. 1, ? 2. « i^gt. Lib. I., c. xiii., | 5.

^ Lib. I., c. xiii., ? 3.

Lect. I.] PRELIMIXAEY OBSERVATIONS. 27

culties into acquiescence in prevailing usage. " Many/' says he/ "pertinaciously oppose the use of the words theology and theologians. Inasmuch as these words have been imported from the heathen, and have no counterparts in the Sacred Scriptures, it is useless to debate about them with any great zeal. When a name is too pompous and imposing for the thing to which it is applied, its application is injurious ; and when its use is a question of keen and in- genious disputation, the uncertainty which attaches to the name is apt to be transferred to the thing. Moreover, as these words have been employed to designate an art and a class of men skilled in it, inconsistent with the simplicity of the Gospel, they seem, neither in their origin nor use, to be adapted to express the Christian Doctrine or its teachers. Still, as in every inquiry, the subject of it must have some name, let us, with proper precautions, remain content with that which common consent has introduced. Let us only be careful to expound with accuracy the thing which the name is designed to represent."

Among the ancient Greeks, Theology was applied to any

Cage of the term cbsscrtation, whcthcr in prose or poetry, of

Theology among the whicli the gods wcrc the subjcct. It was

ancient Greeks. • ' < n ~ mi • i • i ■ , i

Aoyo:: Tie[)t oeuu. Iheir genealogies, births and works, their battles, amours and marriages, were all called Theology; and the writers who treated of these matters were all called Theologians. Pherecydes of Syros was the first who received the name. He was the teacher of Pythagoras, and wrote a book the title of which has been variously given, kTzzd/iu-j^oc, dsoxpama, deoyovca, dsoXoyia. He is said to have been the first person who treated of such subjects in prose. The poets and mythologists, such as Homer, Hesiod and Orpheus, were all, in the Greek sense of the term. Theologians. Aristotle was the first to use Theology in a scientific sense. He distributed speculative philosophy into three principal branches — Physics, Mathe- matics, and Theology ; among which he assigned the first

1 Tlieologoum, Lib. I., c. 1, I 3.

28 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. [Lect. I.

place to Tlieology, by which he intended to denote the science of pnre existence, or the science of being as being, abstracted from all consideration of its sensible accidents.^ Theology with him, therefore, was only another name for ontology or metaphysics.

The Christian fathers used the term to desiji-nate the general doctrine concerning God, whether

Patristic usage. °

essentially or j^ersonally considered. Any one who treated of God and the Holy Trinity was said to theologixe. They applied it siDecially to the doctrine of the Divine nature of Jesus Christ in contradistinction from economy, dcxovofiia, the doctrine of His human nature. Peter Abelard, in the twelfth century, was the first to employ the term in reference to the scientific

Scholastic usage. j. .' /» , -, „ -,. . xt

treatment of the truths of religion. He was followed by the schoolmen, and from them, with occa- sional protests, sometimes against tlie term itself, and some- times against the latitude of meaning allowed to it, it has come down to us.

It is now used in a wider or in a narrower sense. In the

wider sense, it embraces not only a particular

Modern usage. Wide discipline, but all the brauches of know-

sense. i '

ledge that are tributary to it. It includes whatever is necessary to fit the teacher of religion for his work — apologetics, hermeneutics, the history of the Church and of doctrines. Even pastoral care and the composition and delivery of sermons are considered, in the curriculum of

study, as so many departments of Theology.

Narrow sense. . ' . . . ^ "^

In its narrow sense, it is restricted to a par- ticular science, the science of Religion.

Before proceeding to a more detailed account of its nature, it may be well to apprise you of some of the divisions and distinctions which have been accustomed to be made.

The first is that oi Archetypal and Ectypal. Archetypal theoloffv has been defined the infinite

Ardietypal and Ec- ^''

typai. knowledge which God possesses of Himself.

^ Metaphys., vi. 1.

Lect. I.] PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 29

But in this sense, it obviously cannot be the standard or measure of knowledge to us. It cannot be the pattern to which ours has to be conformed. Omniscience cannot be separated from the essence of God, and we should have to be infinite and self-existent ourselves, before we could know as God knows. The definition has, therefore, been re- stricted by others^ to the standard existing as an idea in the Divine mind of the knowledge which God has willed that we should attain. He has manifested Himself to intel- ligent creatures, and manifested Himself for the purpose of being known. The measure of knowledge which He thus chooses to communicate is before Him as the archetype or pattern in conformity Avith which ours must be regulated. When thus conformed to the Divine ideal, our knowledge becomes Ectypal — the express image or resemblance of that which God has proposed as a model.

But even in this sense, it is evident that the idea in the divine mind can never be the immediate standard of truth to us. We cannot enter into tlie consciousness of God, and therefore cannot know His thoughts, as they lie in His infi- nite understanding, without some medium of external reve- lation. They must, in some way, be manifested or else re- main for ever a secret with Himself. That revelation or manifestation becomes, accordingly, our immediate stand- ard— that is, the archetype of which our knowledge must be the immediate ectype or expression. " No doubt," says^ Owen,^ " God has in His own mind an eternal idea or con- cept of that truth which He wills that we shall attain. And upon this all our theology depends ; not immediately, indeed, but upon that act of the Divine will by which it has pleased Him to reveal this knowledge to us. For no one has seen God at any time ; the only-begotten who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath revealed Him.^ The revela- tion, therefore, of the mind and will of God — ^that is, the Word — is that doctrine concerning which we treat, in con-

1 De Moor, c. T., ? 7. See also Turrett., Loc. I., Quest. 2, | 7. * Theologoum, Lib. I., c. iii., § 2. ^ John i. 18.

30 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. [Lect. I.

forinity with which all our concepts of God, of His worship, and of the obedience due to Him, must be framed." In other words, the true archetypal theology is not the idea, as a thought or concept in the mind of the Eternal, but that idea as revealed and expressed in the Sacred Scriptures. Hence archetypal theology resolves itself into what is called the theologic principle.

Theology has again been divided, according to the condi- union, Vision, sta- ^^o^ ^^^ wliicli the possessors of it are con- '^'"°i- templated, into the Theology of Union, the

Theology of Vision, and the Theology of the Stadium.

The Theology of Union is the knowledge of God and of His will which pertains to the human nature of the Lord Jesus Christ by virtue of its personal union with the eternal Word. This knowledge, though finite, is far more perfect in degree than that which any of the saints can acquire. He was anointed with the Spirit above measure. Hence, as implying the unction of the Spirit, it has also been called the Theology of Unction. The unction of the Spirit, how- ever, is common with Christ to all believers, and though He possesses it in a larger measure, it is yet not a term which designates what exclusively belongs to Him. The Theology of Union is, therefore, the more distinctive phrase.^

The Theology of Vision, called also the Theology of the Country, from heaven the dwelling-place of the saints, and the region in which this theology is enjoyed, is, first, the knowledge which angels possess who stand in the presence of God ; and next, the knowledge which the spirits of just men made perfect possess when translated to their heav- enly home.^

The Theology of the Stadium is that which pertains to men while strangers and pilgrims in this mundane state. They are regarded as running a race ; the goal and the ]irize are still before them. It is also called the Theology of Travel- lers, Viatorum, in contrast with the theology of the country, because its possessors are contemplated as engaged in a jour- 1 De Moor, c. L, § 8. ^ De Moor, c. i., § 9.

Lect. I.] PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIOXS. 31

ney to the eternal world. They seek a city which hath foundations. From the circumstance, too, that it is depend- ent upon study as the ordinary means of acquiring and aug- menting it, it has received the name of the Theology of Study} This, of course, is the only theology with which we have to do, and when the term is used without a quali- fying epithet, it is this alone which is meant. " The term," says Turi'ettin, " is equivocally and abusively employed when it is applied to the false theology of Gentiles and heretics ; less properly when predicated of the original and infinite wisdom by which we conceive God as knowing Himself in an ineffable and most perfect manner (for the word theology is not competent to exjjress the dignity of this knowledge), or when applied to the theology of Christ [that of union], or the theology of angels ; it is properly em- ployed when applied to the theology of men as travellers."^ Theology has further been distinguished as Natural and Revealed; these epithets indicating the

Natural and Revealed. i • i i

sources irom which the knowledo-e is de- rived. In this sense, natural theology is that knowledge of God and of human duty which is acquired from the light of nature, or from the principles of human reason, unassisted by a supernatural revelation. Revealed theol- ogy, on the other hand, is that which rests on Divine reve- lation. This distinction is real, but it is useless. There are truths which reason is competent to discover, as there are other truths which can only be known by a special com- munication from God. But tlie religion of man has never been conditioned exclusively by natural truth. In his un- fallen condition he was placed under a dispensation which involved a supernatural revelation. He has never been left to the sole guidance of his reason, and therefore a mere natural theology, in the sense indicated, has never been the sufficient explanation of his state.

Natural Theology has been otherwise defined in con- tradistinction from Supernatural, as the science of Natural 1 De Moor, c. i., I 10. 2 Lo^. I., Ques. 1, I 9.

32 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. [Lect. I.

Religion, or the knowledge of that religion which springs from the relations, whether essential or natural™^ ''"'^ ^^^^^' instituted, wliicli subsist between God and the rational creature. It was the theol- ogy of Adam before the fall— the theology of the covenant of M'orks ; and though remnants of it still linger in the human mind, the perfect knowledge of it can only be ob- tained from the Christian Scrij^tures. Supernatural theol- ogy is the science of salvation — the doctrines of man's religion considered as a sinner and as redeemed by the mediation of Christ. The true contrast, therefore, is not that of natural and revealed, but that of natural and super- natural— ^the natural indicating the religion of man in one aspect ; the supernatural, his religion in another. Both are equally revealed. The only difference is, that we could know absolutely nothing of the supernatural without reve- lation, while we can know something of the natural by the unassisted light of reason.

The distinction of theology into True and False is sim- ply, as Turrettin remarks, an abusive ap-

Trne and False. i- x- J? i X^ 1 ^^ J

plication 01 terms, jbrror can be called science only by catachresis. True Theology is the only theology, and the doctrines of Pagans, Mohammedans and Heretics receive the appellation in consequence of their rela- tion to. the same general subjects.

Theology has been divided, according to its matter, into

TJieoretioal and Practical, or Dogmatic and

Theoretical and -,^71 • i i •

Practical; Dogmatic Moral — the tcrius 111 cach coutrast being and Moral. vlQq^ syiionymoiisly. The theoretical or

dogmatic treats of the doctrines of religion ; the practical or moral, of the graces and duties.

According to the manner of treatment, theology has again

Thetic and Antithe- ^ccn divided iuto Thctic aud Antithetic; or

tic; or Didactic and Didactic aud Polcmic ; or Dogmatic and

Polemic ; or Dogmatic , r^ • • i 7-17 1 • rm

aud Polemic, or criti- Fokmic, OY Critical, or ±jlenctic. Ine

cal.orElcnctic. ^^^^ ^^^^ J^^ ^^^.^^ ^f ^.J^ggg COUtrastS, tlictic,

didactic, dogmatic, implies that the doctrines are discussed

Lect. I.] PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 33

without reference to the controversies to which they have given rise. The design is simply to state, to prove and to ilhistrate the truth. The second term, antithetic, j^olemic, critical, elenetic, implies that the errors of heretics are dis- tinctly refuted. The mode of treatment is controversial. The two methods are often combined, and the theology is then called didactico-polemical, or dogmatico-polemical, or elenetic. It may be well to remark that the phrase dog- matic theology does not always bear the sense assigned to it above. The word oojua may signify either an opinion con- cerning a doctrine or the doctrine itself. In the former sense, dogmatic theology is the history of opinions concern- ing the doctrines of religion. In the latter sense, it is the scientific statement of the doctrines themselves. In the former sense, it is principally used in the Church of Rome, and was so employed by Protestant writers until the com- mencement of the eighteenth century.^

Theology may be considered as a habit of knowledge resident in the mind, or as a body of truth

Sulijective and Ob- , j.'ll l Txi^f

. ^jj^.p systematically arranged. in tiie lormer

aspect it is called Habitual, Subjective,

Concrete and Utens ; in the latter it is Objective, Abstract,

Systematic and Docens.

Theology has again been distinguished with reference to the order and arrangement of its contents.

Scholastic and Posi- l j.i i j. i j? t • ' i

ti^g and the general style ot discussion, into

Scholastic and Positive. "The positive," says Marck,^ " is not rigidly restricted to logical rules. The scholastic proceeds in a method more truly disciplinary, a most useful and ancient institution." " Positive and scho- lastic are not to l)e distinguished from each other," says De Moor,^ " as if the one were conversant about the exposition of Scripture, and the other a treatise of doctrines and com- monplaces. For doctrines are obviously to be treated in the exposition of Scripture, and commonplaces and doc- trines must depend upon the genuine sense and authority ^ Knapp, vol. i., p. 28, 29. ^ Medull. I., xxv. ^ Comment., c. i., xxv. Vol. I.— 3

34 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. [Lect. I.

of Scripture. The true distinction is that Positive Theology is not strictly confined to logical rules ; it gives itself more oratorical freedom of style. Scholastic Theology proceeds in a method more disciplinary [more strictly adapted to teaching] and reduces Divine truths to certain heads accord- ing to the rules of logic for the use of Christian schools."

It must be remembered that Marck and De Moor were both advocates of the Scholastic Theology, and have conse- quently failed to j3oint out its most objectionable feature. Its great defect was not its logical method, nor its contempt of the embellishments of rhetoric, but the manner in which it used its method. It gave no scope to the play of Chris- tian feeling ; it never turned aside to reverence, to worship or adore. It exhibited truth, nakedly and baldly, in its ob- jective reality, without any reference to the subjective con- ditions which, under the influence of the Spirit, that truth was calculated to produce. It was a dry digest of theses and propositions — perfect in form, but as cold and lifeless as a skeleton. What it aimed at was mere knowledge, and its arrangements were designed to aid intelligence and memory. A science of religion it could not be called.

The most perfect examples of this method — those who, in the Reformed Church, have been called, by way of emi- -mence, Scholastics — are the divines of the Dutch school. It reached its culmination in Gisbert Voetius.^

There arose in the same school in the time of Voetius

another class of divines who, from their method of treating

the truths of religion, were distinguished as Federalists.^

The celebrated Cocceius was the founder

Federalists. /. i . ^ . i • t • i

01 this class. Among his disciples are ra*iked Burmann, Braun and Witsius. The regulative principle of their method was the doctrine of the Cove- nants. They consequently treated religion according to the historical develoj)raent of the covenants, and infused into their works a decidedly subjective, experimental s])irit. The true method of Theology is, no doubt, a combination

1 Ebrards' Cliristl. Dogmat. Abs., ii., ^ 39. ^ Id., ^ 40.

Lect. I.] PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 35

of the Scholastic and Positive. Truth must be exhibited warm and glowing from the fullness of the Christian heart. It must be not nakedly truth, but truth according to god- liness. The writer must know it, because he has been taught by the Spirit and feels its power. This living con- sciousness of its preciousness and sweetness and glory is absolutely essential to save a system from the imputation of a frozen formalism. There must be method, but method without life is a skeleton. Infuse life, and you have a noble organism.

It may be well to guard you against confounding the Reformed Scholastics with those of the

Romish Scholasticism. /« t-> mi

Church of Rome. They had this in com- mon, that they were slaves to a logical method. But they differed widely in the source from wdiich they derived their materials, and, of course, in the nature of the materials themselves. The Reformed Scholastics acknowledged Scrip- ture as the only infallible rule of faith and practice. Their problem was to digest, under fit and concatenated heads, the doctrines and nothing but the doctrines of Scri^iture, with the inferences that lawfully follow from them. The Scho- lastic Theology of Rome, on the other hand, received as authoritative, in addition to Scripture, the opinions of the Fathers, the Decrees of Councils, the Bulls of Popes, and even the philosophy of Aristotle. It is commonly divided into three periods: 1. The period of its rise. It began in the twelfth century with Peter Lombard's Four Books of Sentences, in which he compendiously arranges the Theologv of his time under Distinctions and Sentences, taken for the most part from Hilary, Ambrose and Augustin. The First book treats of God, His Unity and Trinity; the Second treats of Creation, particularly the creation of angels and men, of Free Will, Divine Grace, and of Sin, both native and actual ; the Third treats of the Incarnation, of Redemp- tion, of Faith, Hope, Charity, and of the Ten Command- ments ; the Fourth treats of the Sacraments and of Escha- tology. 2. The second period is signalized by the writings

36 PRELIMIxNARY OBSERVATIONS. [Lect. I.

of Albertus Magnus, wlio introduced the philosophy of Aristotle as a principle or source of authoritative truth in questions of Tlieology. He flourished in the thirteenth century, and such was his industry that his published works fill twent}^-one folio volumes. To the same period belongs Thomas Aquinas, the celebrated pupil of Albert, who, in his great work, the Summa Theologice, brought the Scholastic Theology to perfection. 3. The third period begins in the fourteenth century, and may be characterized as the period of frivolous discussions. This was the age of Durandus, the Doctor Resolutissimus, and of the still more celebrated Duns Scotus, the Doctor Subtilissimus.

II. Having adverted to these preliminary distinctions in order that you may be at no loss to under-

Scope of the Scieuce. • i i

stand them whenever you meet with them in your reading, I now proceed — 1, to define the science ac- cording to my own conception of its nature ; 2, to develoj) the plan upon which these Lectures shall be prosecuted ; and 3, to indicate the source from which our knowledge must be authoritatively derived.

1. I accept the definition, now generally given, that

Theology is the science of religion ; that is.

Definition of Theology. ,.■,'" (, -, ...■,,■•

it IS the system ot doctrine m its logical connection and dependence, which, when spiritually dis- cerned, produces true piety. There is a twofold cognition of Divine truth — one natural, resulting from the ordinary exercise of our faculties of knowledge, and the other super- natural or spiritual, resulting from the gracious illumination of the Holy Ghost. The habit which corresponds to the first, like every other habit of science, is mere speculative knowledge. The habit which corresponds to the other i.s true religion. The doctrine, to use the expressive analogy of St. Paul,^ is the mould, and religion the image that it leaves upon the heart, which the Spirit has softened to re- ceive the impression. There is, first, the truth, and that is theology ; there is next the cordial and spiritual apprehen- 1 Eom. vi. 17.

Lect. I.] PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 37

sion of it, and that is the obedience of faith, which is synon- ymous with true religion. In other words, the truth object- ively considered is Theology ; subjectively received, under Divine illumination, it is religion. In relation to religion, therefore, Theology is a science only in the objective sense. It denotes the system of doctrine, but not the mode of ap- })rehension. The cognition which produces the subjective habit to which Theology corresponds is not knowledge, but faith ; and depends, not upon speculation, but upon the Word and the Spirit of God. It knows, not for the purpose of knowing, but for the purpose of loving.

Some have been unwilling to concede to Theology the title of Science, partly on the ground above

Objections to calling -Tiijiiii ii-j t j -i

it a Science. indicated, that the habit corresponding to it

is not natural, but supernatural ; and partly on the ground that it does not spring from principles of reason, nor proceed by logical deductions. It does not, in other words, find a place under the Aristotelic definition of science. These objections are easily discharged. The first is obviated at once by the simple consideration that science is used only in an objective sense. And surely no one will deny that revealed truths constitute a logical and coherent system. They are mutually dependent and con- nected, and capable of being digested under concatenated heads. They form a true theory of religion. In the next place, it is not to be overlooked that there is a natural knowledge of theology which is pure science ; which rests in speculation ; which knows, according to the familiar adage, only that it may know. This natural knowledge is the in- strument of spiritual cognition. It is the seed which the Holy Spirit quickens into vital godliness. We must first know as men before we can know as renewed men. Theol- ogy, as thus ending in speculation or in theory, can be taught, but religion must be implanted.

As to the other objection, it may be replied that science should not be arbitrarily restricted to systems excogitated by the wit of man. As one science may begin from prin-

38 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. [Lect. I.

ciples demonstrated in another, so there is no reason why that shoukl not be denominated a science which is logically constructed from the data of faith. We may as readily accept from revelation as from the intuitions of reason our first principles. In each case we begin with the indemon- strable and the given.^

AVith these explanations and distinctions, it is easy to solve the difficulty which has been raised as to the question whether theology is a speculative or practical science — whe- ther its end, in other words, is knowing or doing. Emi- nent divines have pronounced it to be practical, on the ground that truth is in order to godliness, or that the end of the doctrine is the sanctification of the heart. But it must be recollected that it is not as science that the truth sancti- fies. It is not the doctrine which transforms by its own inherent and native energies, but the Spirit by a power beyond the truth, and of which the truth is only the instru- ment. If the question be, however, whe-

Nature of Religion. -,,.-, ■, ■, >

ther religion, the supernatural product of the truth, is speculative or practical, the answer is, that it is exclusively neither. It is not cognition alone, neither is it action alone, nor feeling alone. It pertains exclusively neither to intelligence, emotions nor will, but it is a pecu- liar state, a condition of life in which all are blended in in- dissoluble unity. It is at once love, obedience and know- ledge. Spiritual cognition is not bare knowledge, but it is a state of the soul which involves all the energies of our be- ing. It knows by loving and loves by knowing. It dis- cerns and feels by the same operation. It is a form of spiritual life which includes and fuses the intellectual, the active and the emotional elements of our nature. It is the health of the wdiole soul, the consummation and perfection of our being ; or, as Solomon expresses it,^ " the whole of man." Here our faculties all centre and rest with the fullness and satisfaction of unimpeded exercise. To know is not relig-

1 Thos. Aquin., Sum. Pars Prima, Quest. 1, Art. 2.

2 Eccles. xii. 13.

Lect. I.] PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 39

ion, to feel is not religion, to do is not religion ; bnt to know by a light which at once warms and enlightens, which makes us, at the same time and in the same energy, know and feel and do — that is eternal life — the life of God in the soul of man. Logically, we can discriminate the elements which enter into this unity, but really, they can never be divided or separated in the exercises of true religion. We can distin- guish, but we cannot disjoin.

As religion involves in unity, cognition, emotion and will, there must be some object in which the qualities adapted to these functions and energies are indissolubly united. There must be some object which at once presents truth to the understanding, beauty and grandeur to the emotions, and rectitude to the will. There must be some object in which they become one, as religion is a subjective unity in which they are inseparably blended. There must be an outward corresponding to the inward. That object is God.' He is at once the true, the beautiful, the good. As the true. He addresses Himself to the intelligence, as the beautiful to the emotions, as the good to the will. He must be known, and known by spiritual cog- nition, or there is no religion. " This is life eternal," said the Divine Teacher,^ " that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." He, in what we are able to know of His character, perfections and works, is the object of all religion. His will, in its purity and holiness, is the measure of all duty, and His glory the standard of all beauty. He is absolutely one ; and truth, beauty and holiness are one in Him, and therefore one in the spiritual energies which they evoke in us. It is of the highest importance to understand that religion is not wholly subjective and one-sided. It is not a vague sense of depend- ence, nor a blind craving, nor an indefinite feeling of emp- tiness and want. It consists of determinate states of con- sciousness, which can be logically discriminated as those of intelligence, emotion and will ; and these states are condi- ^ Aquin., Sum. Pars Prima, Quest. 1, Art. 7. ^ John xvii. 3.

40 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. [Lect. I.

tioiied by conscious relations to an outward object. There can be no religion without truth ; there can be no religion without love; there can be no religion without the spirit of obedience. There must, therefore, be something known ; something perceived as beautiful ; something acknowledged as supreme. There must be a determinate object or quality for each department of our nature. If religion did not de- mand determinate cognitions, emotions and volitions, dis- tinct exercises of the spiritual nature conditioned by an object suited to elicit them, a man might be justly called religious whatever he believed, however in other respects he felt, or however he acted, if inwardly he cherished the sen- timent of vague dependence and want into which the advo- cates of exclusive subjectivism resolve the essence of j)iety. It would signify nothing wdiether he believed in one God or a thousand, whether he worshipped stocks or stones, or the figments of his own mind; as long as he possessed a certain indescribable subjective state, he could be called truly religious.

In our notion of religion, therefore, there are two errors which we must seek to avoid. The first is, that it is a com- bination of separable habits ; that the knowledge, love and obedience involved in it are successive states, which may be disjoined from each other, but which in their coexistence constitute piety. This is a mistake. Spiritual cognition includes the perception of the beautiful and the good. The same energy wdiich knows God unto salvation knows Him in the unity of His being as the perfection of truth, beauty and holiness. The perception of His glory is the effulgence of this unity.

The second error is, that religion can be understood apart from its object. It must be distinctly recognized as condi- tioned and determined by the object. It is the nature and relations of the object which make it what it is. The know- ledge of God, therefore, as a manifested object, is the indis- pensable condition of all true religion. The subjective states, as conditioned by this object, differ from analogous

Lect. I.] PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 41

subjective states, as conditioned by other objects, in the cir- cumstance that in the one case they are or ought to be in- dulged without measure ; in the other, under limitations and restrictions. An infinite being demands the homage of the whole soul ; a finite being, a homage graduated accord- ing to the degree of its excellence. We must love a creature, and trust a creature, with a moderated confidence and love. We must love God and trust God with the whole soul, strength, and heart. Religion, in other words, contemplates its object as the infinite and the absolutely perfect. It is this quality of the object which determines the peculiar character of our religious energies.

2. Man being the subject and God the object of religion, it is evident that we can never hope to un-

The Plan of these ^lerstaud itS doctriuCS without kuowiug Lectures. o

something of both terms of this relation. Calvin was right in resolving true wisdom into the know- ledge of God and of ourselves. It' is the relations betwixt us on which religion hinges. God must be given, man given, and the relations between them given, in order to construct a solid science of Theology. It is further evident that these relations are either such as spring from the very nature of the beings, giving rise to duties and obligations, on man's part, that are essential and unalterable ; or such as have been instituted by the positive will of the Creator. Given God as Creator and Moral Ruler, and there necessa- rily emerges a moral government, or a government adminis- tered on the principle of distributive justice. Rectitude to a moral creature becomes the natural and unchanging law of its being. God, however, in His goodness, may transcend, though He can never contradict, the principle of justice. He may do more, though He can never do less, than simple equity demands. If He should choose to institute a dispen- sation under which a greater good than we had any right or reason to expect is held out to us, the nature of this dis- pensation would have to be considered in treating of the doctrines of religion ; and if more than one such disjiensation

42 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. [Lect. I.

^ were established, each would have to be considered, and con- sidered in its historical development, in determining the re- lations which condition religion. Religion never contem- plates its object absolutely, but in relation to us ; and insti- tuted relations are as real, and give rise to as real duties, as natural.

The Scriptures assure us that two such dispensations ha\'e been instituted, aiming at the same general end, but contem- plating man in different states or conditions, and therefore accomplishing the result by different means. One, called the Covenant of Works, contemplates man as a moral being, able to obey and fulfil the will of the Creator ; the other, called the Covenant of Grace, contemplates man as a fallen being, a sinner, incapable of propitiating the favour of God. Both contemplate the exaltation of man to a higher condition of being, to the adoption of sons into God's family.

A complete Treatise of Theology, according to these state- Answering to a ments, must fall into three parts: (1.) The Thieefoui Division of dcvclopment of tliosc csscutial rclations

TllCOlOfiTV,

betwixt God and man out of which arises a moral government, together with an exposition of the fun- damental principles of such a government. This part, embracing the being and character of God, the original state of man, and his natural duties and obligations, might be called Preliminary, or Introductory. (2.) The development of the modification of moral government in its principle and application, as realized in the Covenant of Works. This part might be called Natural Religion, as it treats of the form in Avhich man became related to God immediately upon his creation. (3.) The development of the Covenant of Grace or the scheme of Redemption. This part may be called Supernatural Religion, or the Religion of Grace, and embraces all that is peculiar to Christianity. To state the same thing in another form : the first part treats of God and of moral government in its essential principles ; the second part treats of moral government as modified by the Covenant of Works ; the third part treats of moral government as

Lect. I.] PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 43

modified by the Covenant of Grace. The point of unity between the two covenants is their concurrence in a common end ; the point of divergence, the different states in which man is contemplated. Both are answers to the question, How shall man be adopted into the family of God ? But the Covenant of Works answers it with reference to man as a moral creature, in a state of integrity ; the Covenant of Grace answers it with reference to man as a sinner, under the condemnation of the law. These three divisions seem to me to exhaust the whole subject of Theology.

3. We come now to the question, Whence are we to de- rive the truths of Theology, and how are ledgTrTheZgy"" ^c to kuow that they are truths? that is, What are their sources, and what is their measure ? It is the question concerning what is called the Principle of Theology. Three answers have been given — that of the Romanist, that of the Rationalist, and that of the orthodox Protestant.

The principle of the Romanist is the authority of the Church. Nothing, in the sphere of religion, mruis"^'*^ °^ ^'"^ ^" ^^ ^^ ^® accepted as true or received as an article of faith, which has not been proposed and defined by the Church. She still retains the Apostolic commission, and is the onlv accredited orran of God's Spirit for the instruction of mankind in all that pertains to life and godliness. Her voice is heard, first, in the Scrip- tures, which are not only received upon her testimony, but are dependent upon her authority for their right to regulate the faith and practice of mankind. They are absolutely nothing except as she endorses them and interprets them. She speaks, in the next place, through the tradition of the Fathers ; and, finally, through the writings of Doctors, the decrees of Councils, and the bulls of Popes. The Church, in this view, is the Supreme Oracle of God. She is the final depository and infallible teacher of all the truth that pertains to the salvation of a sinner. She occupies precisely the place which the apostles occupied in the first age of Christianity.

44 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. [Lect. I.

It is needless to say that the Theology which thus emerges is a stiff and lifeless body. Its members are mechanically joined without the organic unity of life. It is a digest of aphorisms and dicta, dry as a skeleton and cold as an iceberg. The whole theory misconceives the office and functions of the Church. She is the product and not the principle of truth, and her own claims must be vindicated on the same grounds on Avhich every other article of faith ultimately rests. The thcologic principle must lie back of her, or she could never be recognized as the institute of God. The truth has made her, she has not made the truth. She is a teacher, it is true, but she teaches only as she has been taught ; and the principle of Theology must be sought in the principle upon which she proposes the doctrines that she teaches. While, however, the Church is not to be accepted as an arbiter of faith, Ave must avoid the opposite extreme of treating her instructions with levity and indifference, as if she were entitled to no more respect than a private teacher. Her testimony is a venerable presumption in favour of the Divine authority of all that she proposes. As an organic body, having an historical existence grounded in great truths, having an historic life implicated in these truths — as she has grown out of them and sprung from them — it is obvious that they must have pervaded the con- sciousness of her children, and that her testimony to them is entitled to a respect analogous to that Avhich attaches to states and empires concerning their origin, their constitu- tion and their government. The Church is not an accidental society that owes its existence to the voluntary compact of its members. It is not a mere political or moral organiza- tion. It is a society Avhich has grown out of the facts of redemption. It is the body of Christ ; and as appointed to teach, the presumption is that it teaches in His name, and by His authority, the very truths which lie at the basis of its own existence. Its own authority is nothing ; it claims to be only a witness, and its testimony is entitled to pro- found respect until it has been sJKnvn that it is not sup-

Lect. I.] PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 45

ported by the Word. It is important that we learn to venerate the Church. The unhappy division into sects, and the perverse abuse of the principle of private judgment, have had a tendency to degrade the Church, in the eyes of many Protestants, to the level of a mere voluntary society. They look upon it as an association for religious purposes, analo- gous to societies for the promotion of temperance or any other moral end. They overlook its Divine constitution, its historic connection with the facts of redemption, and its organic unity as the supernatural product of the Holy Spirit. They forget that, in its origin and idea, it is the embodiment of the Gospel. INIelancthon ^ has, in a few preg- nant W'Ords, happily defined its sphere and jurisdiction : " As the gospel commands us to hear the Church, so I say that the assembly in which is the Word of God, and which is called the Church, must be heard, even as we are also commanded to hear our pastors. Let us therefore hear the Church teaching and admonishing, but let us not regulate our faith by the authority of the Church. The Church has no right to make articles of faith; she can only teach and admonish." So also in the Loci Communes, under the head De Ecclesia : " The Church is, indeed, to be heard as a teacher, but faith and invocation depend upon the Word of God, not on human authority. Let us not despise the Church as teaching, but let us know that the only judge or arbiter of truth is the Word itself." ^ This testimonial and teaching function of the Church is a safeguard against rash innovations, presumptuous speculations and fantastic crudi- ties, and in this light the Reformers steadily maintained it. It is a check upon bold and audacious spirits, who, if they did not hear the Church, might be tempted to indulge in the most absurd and extravagant excesses of doctrine.' The principle of the Rationalist is that human reason is Principle of the Ka- the sourcc aud mcasurc of all religious *'°"'^"^'^- as of all natural truth. Religion is con-

* De Ecclesia et Auctoritate Verbi Dei. Opera Omnia, Pars Secunda, p. 124.

* Opera Omnia, Pars Prima, p. 129. ^ Loci Com., Ibid.

46 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. [Lect. I.

sidered simply as a department of philosophy, and noth- ing is to be accepted in it, any more than in any other sphere of philosophical inquiry, which does not authenti- cate itself to intelligence as the explicit evolution of what is implicitly contained in the human consciousness. Man, according to this theory, is the measure of the universe. The difference betwixt the Rationalist and the Romanist reminds one of the difference noted by Bacon betwixt the empirical and rationalist philosojDhers. " The empirical philosophers," says he, " are like pismires ; they only lay up and use their store. The rationalists are like the spiders ; they spin all out of their own bowels. But give me," he adds — and this, as we shall afterward see, illustrates the Protestant principle — " give me a philosopher who, like the bee, hath a middle faculty, gathering from abroad, but digesting that which is gathered by his own virtue."^

The defectiveness of this principle is seen, first, in the fact that it precludes the supposition of any supernatural revelation. It construes the human mind into an absolute standard of the possibility of truth. It authoritatively pronounces that there can be no intelligible reality beyond the domain of human consciousness. Theology, according to this view, can embrace nothing but what we liave called the introductory or preliminary portion of it. This is the only field in which mere reflection and analysis can find materials for working on — the only field in which the data of science can be extracted from ourselves. If there are dispensations superinduced by the voluntary goodness of God, which are solely the offspring of will, and not the evolutions of eternal principles of rectitude, they can, of course, only be known by express and positive revelation. Rationalism undertakes to say that no such dispensations can exist — that there can be no such transactions betwixt God and the creature as those implied in the Covenants of Works and of Grace. The only jjrinciple upon which such a doctrine can be maintained is the impersonality of God,

^ Apophthegms.

Lect. I.] PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 47

and the consequent reduction of all the forces in the uni- verse to a law of blind, immanent necessity. Kationalism, in other words, if maintained as a logical necessity, subverts the first principles of Theism.

In the next place, even in the sphere to which it restricts religious truth, it leaves the theologic development in a very precarious and unsatisfactory state. If religion is not a habit of science, but a new and Divine life — if it is not a mode of speculation, but a new mode of being — the analysis of our spiritual phenomena, considered as so many manifesta- tions in consciousness, cannot be expected to give us the key to that Divine life, that work of the Spirit, which underlies all these appearances. Indeed, we should have, consist- ently with Rationalism, to deny the facts of any such life. The work of the Spirit is as completely subverted as the gracious dispensations of the Father. But should we ad- mit that there is nothing in Christian experience transcend- ing our natural consciousness, still the difficulty of repro- ducing its phenomena accurately in reflection, and generaliz- ing the laws upon which they are dej^endent (a difficulty common to all moral and intellectual speculations), is greatly enhanced by the mixture of good and evil, the confusion of holy impulses and remaining depravity, the oscillations of our hopes and fears, which would render it next to im- possible to separate the precious from the vile, and to exhibit in scientific form the real principles which constitute piety. Hence, unless we are prepared to restrict the possibility of religious truth to the low sphere of mere natural relations ; unless we are prepared to limit the condescension and good- ness of God, and to deny to Him any exercise of free-will in His dealings w^ith His creatures ; unless we are prepared to change the very nature of religion, and to make it simply a development in the sphere of morality and law, — we are compelled to renounce the principle of the Rationalist as an inadequate source of theologic truth. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in a narrow philos- ophy. Given dispensations above nature as conditioning

48 PRELIMIXARY OBSERVATIONS. [Lect. I.

religion, and a revelation express and positive must inter- vene. Instituted by the voluntary goodness of God, they can only be known by a communication from Him. Pro- ducts of free-"\vill, and not the result of thejjature of things, they can be known only as they are reveal^. Here reason, however it may authenticate, can discover nothing by its own light. The relations being given, it can see the duties and obligations thence arising ; but the facts which consti- tute the relations, being deductions from no necessary prin- ciples, have to be accepted as matters of faith. To the extent, then, that religion involves anything more than the funda- mental and essential elements of moral government, it in- volves the necessity of Divine Revelation. God alone is competent to testify to His own free acts and determinations. Hence, we are driven to the Protestant doctrine, that the

true principle, the only infallible source Principle. "^ ^^ ^" ^"^^ mcasure of religious truth, is the Word

of God — such a revelation being neces- sary to a full and perfect development of the laws which determine all our spiritual exercises, and absolutely indis- pensable to furnish the objects out of which most of them spring. AVhen we speak of Revelation as the final and ultimate authority in theology, we mean the Sacred Scrip- tures. JSTothing else can present the credentials without which the claim to inspiration must be dismissed as uncer- tified. Tradition can hardly preserve the simplest narrative from exaggeration or perversion for a single month, and to suppose that it has transmitted, unimpaired, Christian doc- trines for eighteen centuries is to suppose a miracle which we have no right to expect. Writings are the only perma- nent records of truth, and God has illustrated His infinite goodness in giving us a perfect and infallible rule of relig- ious truth in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, which are His Word. The Bible, therefore, is the Religion of Protestants — the supreme standard of faith and duty. The authority of the Bible depends upon the question of its inspiration, and the final and conclusive proof of that elicits

Lect. L] preliminary observations. 49

a princii^le in Protestantism which exempts its theology from the dead, traditional formalism of the theology of Home. That principle is, that the truths of the Bible authenticate themselves as Divine by their own light. Faith is an intuition awakened by the Holy Ghost, and the truth is neither known nor believed until it is consciously realized by the illuminated mind as the truth of God. In- tuition does not generate, but it perceives the truth. Rea- son, under the guidance of the Spirit, appropriates and digests it. The knowledge is immediate and infallible. The Bible becomes no longer a letter, but a spirit, and religion is not a tradition, but a life. Hence, Protestantism has all the warmth and vigour and spirituality of Ration- alism, without its dangers of confounding fancies with facts, dreams with inspiration. The Word supplies an external test, Avhich protects from imposture and deceit. The Spirit educates and unfolds a Divine life under the regulative guidance of the Word. The Bible and the Spirit are there- fore equally essential to a Protestant theology. Theolo- gia (says Thomas Aquinas) a Deo docetur, Deum docet, et ad Deum dudt. It springs from God as the source, treats of God as its subject, and tends to God as its end.

The respective spheres of Reason and Revelation, accord- ing to the foregoing views, are very dis-

Reason and Revela- .'.i ii tji i , ■/>

tion, tmctly marked. In the department of

necessary moral truth — that is, of essen- tial rectitude — reason is a source of knowledo-e ; but as it is darkened and obscured by sin, its princij)les and deductions are not infallible. Revelation presents these data, as the reason would have presented them, in its normal state, free from uncertainty and error. When so presented, even the fallen reason accepts them, perceives their autopistic charac- ter, and rectifies its own aberrations and mistakes. Here revelation brings out into the clear light of reflection what before was involved in spontaneous consciousness, but not distinctly eliminated, or, if eliminated, mixed witli false- hood. The primitive intuitions of reason are always cer- VoL. I.— 4

60 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. [Lect. I.

tain, but it is one tiling to feel their power and quite an- other to reduce them to formal and precise propositions. No revelation can contradict them, but it may elicit them as distinct and manifest phenomena of consciousness.

In the next place, in reference to supernatural dispensa- tions, reason, though wholly incapable of discovering the data in the free acts of the Divine Will, yet when these are once given by revelation as matters of fact, can discern the obligations which naturally arise from them. It can dis- cern the fit and becoming, the pulchrum et honestum in the new circumstances in which we are placed, and it can col- lect, compare and elaborate into scientific unity the truths which are brought within its reach. But in no case is rea- son the ultimate rule of faith. No authority can be higher than the direct testimony of God, and no certainty can be greater than that imparted by the Spirit shining on the Word. An accredited revelation, like an oath among men, should put an end to controversy.

But the question may arise. Can that be an accredited revelation which contains things that are contradictory to reason ? If by reason we are here to understand the com- plement of those primitive truths and cognitions, with the legitimate deductions from them, which enter into the uni- versal consciousness of the race, spontaneously considered, there is and can be but one answer. These fundamental facts of consciousness cannot be set aside without annihilat- ing all intelligence. To deny them, or to question them, is to reduce all knowledge to zero, or to skepticism. No reve- lation, therefore, can contradict them without committing an act of suicide ; it would destroy the very condition under which alone it can be known and received as a revelation.

But suppose that the laws of intelligence and the jn-imitive intuitions of the soul are not violated by what jirofesses to be a Divine revelation, is reason competent to judge, upon internal grounds, of the truth or falsehood of its contents ? Here we must make a distinction. The contents of revela- tion may embrace things that are strictly natural, that fall

Lect. I.] PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 51

within the sphere of human experience and observation. There may be alhisions to geography and history, to civil and political institutions, to the manners, customs and con- dition of different countries and people. Surely, in relation to these the human understanding, when furnished with the proper sources of knowledge, is competent to judge. It de- serves to be remarked, however, that truth in these respects is only a presumption but not a proof, of truth in others. A book may contain no blunders in the sphere of the natural, and yet not be from God. Neither, on the other hand, would error in these respects convict a professed revelation of imposture, unless it claimed to be infallible in all matters. It is conceivable that God might leave men to themselves Avhen touching upon subjects within the compass of their natural powers, and yet supernaturally guard them from error in all that transcends the sphere of experience. The contents of a revelation may — indeed to justify its name it must, contain things that are strictly supernatural — things "which eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither have entered into the heart of man to conceive. In relation to this class of contents, reason has no standard of judgment. It cannot say beforehand what a revelation ought to contain ; it cannot even prescribe the form in which it should be given ; and therefore cannot object to it for containing things contrary to an arbitrary opinion. The objects of cognition, both in the natural and supernatural world", must alike be given. As it is the office of intelligence to study nature as it is, and not to deny its existence because it hap- pens not to be what our vain fancies imagine it ought to be, so it is the office of reason to study the facts of revelation as they are given, and not to indulge in chimerical speculations as to what oua-ht or ousjlit not to have been communicated. The attitude of reason here is simply that of a recipient. It listens and accepts the Word. As the outer world manifests itself, and is not created by reason, so the supernatural world is manifested through revelation, and is not the pro- duct of speculation. As we depend absolutely upon our

52 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. [Lect. I.

senses and faculties for the knowledge of material phe- nomena, so we must depend absolutely uj)on Divine revela- tion for all supernatural phenomena. They may be mys- terious ; that is to be expected. They may be incompre- hensible; that naturally results from their transcendent character. But we have mysteries in nature, and we carry in our OAvn bosoms proofs of a substance whose reality can- not be doubted, but whose being cannot be fathomed by the line of human intelligence. The soul and self are as inex- plicable as the sublime mysteries of Scripture.

But while reason cannot judge of the truth or falsehood of supernatural data upon any internal grounds, there is an important function which she may perform. She may illus- trate the harmony of Divine truth, not only with itself, but with all other truth. She may show that the same eternal principles which are exemplified in ISTature are exemplified also in Grace, and that the same objections which an arro- gant philosophy arrays against the one press with equal force against the other. God is one, and however manifold His works, they must all bear the marks of the same hand. They are all really, though in different degrees, impressions of Himself. They are all, in a certain sense. His word.

Reason may also derive an internal proof of the authen- ticity of Revelation from the beauty, symmetry and glory of the dispensation it makes known. The supernatural world is not a chaos. Redemption is not an arbitrary series of events. A glorious plan pervades it, and the whole scheme from its beginning to its consummation is a marvellous exhibition of the manifold wisdom of God. Unassisted reason, when it inquires in a candid spirit, can partially discern the traces of Divine intelligence and glory, but when illuminated by the Spirit it wants no other evi- dence of Divine interposition. The truth overpowers it with a sense of ineffable glory, and it falls down to worship and adore ; for faith is only reason enlightened and recti- fied by grace.

Lecture II

THE BEING OF OOD.^

THERE arethree questions in relation to God which a com- petent theology must undertake to solve : the first con- cerns His existence, the second His nature, the third His perfections, — An sit Deusf Quid sit Deus f Qualis sit Deus ? We begin with the first. Religion, which is the spiritual knowledge of God, we

have seen, is not a single energy, intellect- Religion, the high- i i j.' i j. j. i?

est unfty of our being, ^al, moral or cmotional ; nor a state of

mind in which each energy succeeds the

other so rapidly as to make the impression that it is com-

^ [1. If the amount of speculation which a subject has elicited is any in- dication of the difficulties which surround it, the question of the Being of God must be the most difficult within the compass of human inquiry. It would seem to be the universal sentiment of philosophers, the answer of SImonides the poet to Hiero the king. But in this case, it is not so much the difficulty as the transcendent importance of the subject that has provoked such a mass of discussion. The number of books upon the elementary question of Theology is perhaps greater than upon any other topic within the whole sphere of speculation. The controversy with Atheists has perhaps exceeded in the mass of its contributions the contro- versy with Deists. The confessed importance of the two inquiries, Is there a God ? and. Are the Scriptures a revelation from God ? is the secret of the interest they have elicited.

2. In this case, as in many others, it has happened that the very sim- plicity of the truth has been an occasion of perplexity. Many have sought for erudite proofs of what God meant should be plain and ad- dressed to every understanding. Self-evident truths require no proof; all that speculation can do is to distinguish them and to indicate the cha- racteristics which define them. The attempt to i^rove the existence of matter, of an outward world, of our own souls, is simply absurd. They authenticate themselves. All that philosophy should undertake is to

53

54 THE BEING OF GOD. [Lect. II.

posed of them all as separate and separable elements. It is the whole energy of our being carried up to the highest unity. It is the concentration of our entire spiritual nature into one

show that these are primitive cognitions, and to be received upon their self-manifestation with an absolute faith. The Being of God is so nearly a self-evident truth that if we look abroad for deep and profound argu- ments, or expect to find it at the end of a lengthened chain of demonstra- tion, we shaU only confuse what is plain, and mystify ourselves with vain deceit.

3. If the end of our being is religion, if we are made to glorify God and to enjoy Him for ever, there must obviously be a special adaptation of our nature to the knowledge of God. If religion is not wholly a de- lusion, the evidence of the Being of God must lie very close to us. This was the confession of the ancient philosophers, of Socrates and Plato.

4. Hence, we find that the belief of a Deity has been coextensive with the race. It is as natural to man to be religious as to be social or politi- cal. His mind craves a God even more intensely than his heart craves society. There must, therefore, be something in man which recognizes the existence of God, without the necessity of laboured and formal dem- onstrations. It must be an obvious and a palpable truth. The diflicul- ties which have emerged in speculation have been the result of trying to be deep where the subject was plain and patent.

5. This is confirmed by the fact that the very same process of specula- tion which has superinduced doubt in relation to the Being of God, has also superinduced doubt as to the existence of an outer world and the existence of our own souls. The arguments which have led men to say that there is no God, have also led them to deny the reality of any sub- stance, whether material or spiritual.

6. The result of these skeptical speculations has been not the proof of the non-existence of God, but the impossibility of proving that He does exist. There is and can be no demonstration of Atheism. The utmost that can be done is to affirm that if a God exists we cannot certify the fact to our own consciousness.

7. There is no doubt that there is an antecedent credibility in favour of the existence of God, from the fact that this hypothesis is a satisfactory solution of all the phenomena of the universe. It gives one mystery, the Divine Being Himself, and solves every other mystery. It pours a flood of light upon all else besides. It begins with the incomprehensible, but it ends in the comprehensible. Every other system begins and ends in the incomprehensible. If the question of God had none but a specula- tive interest connected with it, this presumption would perhaps be more readily acknowledged.

8. Revelation is as really a proof of the existence of God as nature. It is not exclusively a question of natural theology, in the sense of that theology which depends upon the unassisted light of reason.]

Lect. II.] THE BEING OF GOD. 55

form of life. It is a condition in which intellect, conscience and heart are blended into perfect union. One exercise cannot be separated from the others. It is hence neither speculative nor practical — it is a state in which speculation and practice completely coincide. If this view of the na- ture of religion be correct, the cognition of God, who is the , , , object matter of religion, must be the con-

The knowledge of J .

God, the contiibntion tributiou of all our facultics, and not the result of any single department of our nature. Give man mere intellect without conscience, will or heart, and he could never attain to any just conception of his Maker. He might comprehend a single relation of God — that of cause ; but apart from the power necessary to produce the given effect and the intelligence necessary to explain the order of the world, he would know nothing of what his philosophy compelled him to postulate as the first cause. A God who is merely intelligence and power is no God at all. He might be sufficient to satisfy the needs of speculation in the sphere of ontology — a substance among substances, a cause among causes — but there Avould be no more impulse to worship Him than there is to worship the secondary causes which emerge in the same region of thought. The other faculties necessarily imply intelligence. There can be no conscience without knowledge — it is a pecu- liar form of cognition. There can be no emotion without knowledge — that also is a special form of cognition.

In appreciating the argument for the Being of God it is important to recollect that each higher de- esfformTf ufl, ^'^'" g^^^ ^f life cmbraccs all the others. The animal has all that belongs to the vege- table, and something more ; the rational has all that belongs to the animal, and something more ; the moral has all that belongs to the rational, and something more ; and the re- ligious has all that belongs to the moral, and something more. The addition in each case is not something capable of being detached — it is fused into the other. The two make a new form of life as simple and as indivisible as each

56 THE BEING OF GOD. [Lect. II.

element separately. The animal is not the vegetable, plus a something which you can separate from it, but the vege- table in perfect fusion with the something that modifies it. In the same way, the rational and the animal are not two factors which make up a compound in which you can dis- criminate the precise posture of each, but a whole, as single and indivisible as each of the factors it combines. But while every higher includes every lower form of life, and reduces it to the unity of its own being, yet what is really inseparable may be considered as logically distinct, and we may approximate a just view of the higher by apjjrehending the nature of all the lower it absorbs. Religion, accordingly, being the highest form of life, constituting

and the consiimniatiou ,i p i^' d ••jII*

ofouriieiucr. ^^^^ '^'^ry periectiou ot our spu-itual bemg,

and fulfilling all the functions ascribed by the Greek philosophers to their Wisdom, though possessing a strict and perfect unity, may be considered in reference to the lower forms of life it includes, and in this way a clearer notion conveyed than could be attained without this logical resolution. The best way to authenticate our knowledge of God is to show that it is the consummation of our beina; — that without God. man is left a maimed and imperfect crea- ture. Each element of his spiritual being points to God, and when all are combined they give, in their normal condi- tion, the true and living God of Revelation. This method of presenting the subject is simple and progressive, and the result when attained is seen to be exactly the being that we seek. It is felt to be the same God whom every part of our nature proclaims, since the voice of every j)firt is finally taken up in the voice of the whole.

In conformity with this method we may look upon man successivelv as a rational beino;, as a moral

Threefold constitu- ^^j^^^^ ^ ^ rcligious bciug ; and wc shall

see that speculation in its fundamental law reveals a God; moral distinctions are grounded in His nature and government ; and religion contemplates Him as a being of ineffable beauty and glory.

Lect. II.] THE BEING OF GOD. 57

I. Let us consider, first, the testimony of speculative

reason. By speculative reason we mean

The testimony of ^j^^^ principle in man which prompts him

speculative reason. ■•• -i J- a

to account for existing phenomena. His apprehensive faculties furnish him with the materials of knowledge ; reason digests these materials into science by generalizing the facts and ascertaining the causes upon which they depend. It answers the question, Why things are as we see them to be ? The root of this faculty is the law of causation. This law is not, as some philosophers have rep- resented it, a deduction from experience ; nor is it, as Ham- ilton imagines, a confession of our impotence to conceive an absolute commencement. It is a fundamental law of belief

The law of causa- ^7 ^hich the ordcr of existence is made tion, a fundamental Capable of detcction by human intelligence. This law is not, as Kant would have us believe, a merely regulative principle, which adjusted the relations of our thoughts without any objective validity or any power to certify that things really were as we thought them. On the other hand, every law of thought is, at the same time, a law of existence. If oiu* thoughts represent real beings, the connections of our thoughts will answer to the connections of the things. If they represent imaginary beings, then the connections are connections that would ob- tain if the things were real. The truth is, intelligence would be a mere delusion if the fundamental law of reason were shut up within the limits of a rigorous subjectivity. It would be impossible to extend our knowledge beyond the circle of actual experience. Even the testimony of others as a source of knowledge would have to be excluded, since the ground upon which we ultimately credit the reports of others is this same law of cavise and effect. Taking, then, the law

This law is a law ^^ causatiou as at once a law of thought of existenco, as well and a law of cxistcncc, whenever it sets out

as of thought. o ^ i • mitt

from the real it must necessarily lead to the real. If we have effects that are real, we must find causes that are real. In the theistic argument we begin, in the

58 THE BEING OF GOD. [Lect. II.

first place, with beings that are real. We set out from facts which fall w^ithin the sphere of our experience. We start from the Avorld around us. Here is being, and being in a constant state of flux and change. It is being that began. If it were necessary, it would be immutable. Whatever necessarily is, necessarily is just as it is and just what it is. f The contingency of the world is as obvioxis

The contingency of O J

the world proves a ne- as its existcuce. An infinite succession

cessary, eternal cause. ^ ^ . -, ^ i i i •

ot finite and changeable objects is a contra- diction. If the world began, it must have had a Maker. The conclusion is as certain as the law of causation. The conclusion is not that we must think it as having had a Maker — that to us it is incogitable in any other relation, though in truth it might have had an absolute beginning — but that it exists under this condition of having been caused. To put the argument in another form : If there is any being at all, there must be eternal, unchangeable, necessary being. If there is any existence, there must be self-existence to ex- j)lain it. Either the beings that we see are self-existent, or they have been made. If they have been made, there must be a Maker — and as there cannot be an infinite regression of causes, the Maker must be absolutely underived and self- sufiicient. This is the argument in a brief compass which results from the law of causation as applied to the contin- gency of the world. It is simple, conclusive, unanswerable. You will perceive that it consists of two elements : one, a 'posteriori, given in experience — the contingency of the world ; the other, a priori, contained in the constitution of our nature.^

^ [The existence of God is really a cognition of the human soul, like the cognition of matter or of ourselves. It is so inseparable from the de- velopment of reason that wherever we find a man, we find one who is not a stranger to the existence of God, The real problem of Theology is not to prove that a God exists, as if she were instructing the ignorant or im- parting a new truth to the mind, but to show the grounds upon which we are already in possession of the truth. It is to vindicate an existing faith, and not to create a new one. The belief itself is universal — as uni- versal as the belief in the soul. However men may differ on other points, they agree in this. Religion is prior to civilization, and has been justly represented as the first teacher of the race. The question is : How this

Lect. II.] THE BEING OF GOD. 69

The a jrnori element is a guarantee for the objective validity of all that the reason in obedience to it deduces from the other. You can state the argument in the form of a syllo- gism, but you are not to suppose that the conclusion flows from the major premise as something contained in it.^ On the other hand it is simply legitimated by it, and the real „, , . , ^ ^ . character of the ratiocination is that of im-

The beiug of God is

proved by an immedi- mediate inference. By the very nature of the reason, in apprehending the world as contingent we apprehend it as having been originated. We are not conscious of any succession of ideas at all. It seems to be an intuition of God, which is awakened in the soul upon the occasion of its coming into contact with the world. But God is not an object of intuition. If He were, we would know Him by some faculty of immediate perception. We know Him only mediately through a law of reason which gives His being as an immediate inference from the facts of experience.

The argument from the contingency of the world ^ is what , . , Kant has called the cosmological proof.

This cosmological o ^

argument not sophis- Like all tlic othcr proofs from pure reason, he has pronounced it to be a specious sophism ; and yet he admits again and again that it is the necessary progress of our reason. It is certainly remark- able that our reason should be so constituted as necessarily to seduce us into error; that in obeying its most urgent and

belief arose, and upon what grounds it may be authenticated ? We shall attempt to show that it is the necessary oflspring of reason — that it springs from the very constitution of the soul.]

^ [The argument is not a syllogism, it is not a demonstration ; and God is not the object of an intuition, but it is an immediate inference, like the connection between thought and existence. One truth necessarily implies another, and this necessary connection is intuitively perceived, lleason is so constructed that as soon as it cognizes any being, it must cognize God. The inference from one to the other is immediate, intuitive, neces- sary.]

^ [The argument from the contingency of the world is also developed by Des Cartes, in another form, as an argument from the imperfection of the world. It is beautifully expanded by Cousin, p. 127, seq.J

60 THE BEING OF GOD. [Lect. II.

imperative impulses we should only entangle ourselves in the mazes of delusion, instead of being conducted into the clear light of truth. If reason in such inquiries were pre- sumptuous or perverted, if she were acting in contradiction to her own laws, the fallacious result could be easily ex- plained. But when it is confessed that she is pursuing the tendencies of her own nature, that she is imjjelled by the very nature of her constitution not only to engage in these speculations, but to draw these very conclusions, the infer- ence would seem to be that reason was given, not as an organ of truth, but as a faculty of deceit. The manner in which Kant undertakes to convict reason of sophistry in the conduct of the cosmological argument will have no weight with those who are not imbued with the principles of the Critical philosophy as to the nature of human knowledge. He takes for granted that the laws of thought have only a subjective validity, and that the matter of our knowledge is only a series of subjective phenomena. Of course the argu- ment must be deceitful according to a philosophy like this. It must be admitted, however, that this cosmological ar- gument fails to give us any other concep-

yet it is defective. , r»/^iii i*

tion of God that that of necessary being. It stops at His absoluteness. From His necessity and eter- nity you can infer nothing as to His nature and attributes. He is the first substance, the cause of all things, while un- conditioned Himself.

Reason, in obedience to the same law of causation, takes

another step in which she equally sets out

The teleological ar- /> lA e i. c • t^ • •

gy^jpjjj from the lacts ot experience. It is impos-

ble to contemplate the universe, as far as it falls under our observation, without perceiving that it is really a kosmos, a scene of order and of law. The most untutored peasant, as well as the profoundest philosopher, is alike capable of apprehending the general fact. The motions of the heavenly bodies, the succession of the sea- sons, the alternation of day and night, the exquisite organi- zation of plants and animals, and especially the structure

Lect. II.] THE BEING OF GOD. 61

of the human frame, are such conspicuous manifestations of order that the most careless observer

General order, , , . , , ,^,

cannot fail to be impressed with it. The perception of this order does not require a knowledge of the ends to be answered by it. We may be satisfied that it exists where we do not understand its ultimate pur- pose or design. A man ignorant of machinery may feel that there is a plan in the structure of a watch, or of a ship, or of a cotton-mill, though he does not compre- hend the subordination of the parts, nor how the end they aim at is answered. He may see some ancient monument of art, and be struck with the order that reigns in it, though he has no idea of the purpose for which it was intended.

General order is one thing, special adapt- timis ^^'^ "^ atapta- ^tions are auotlicr. In special adaptations

we know the end and understand the means by which it is accomplished. The eye as adapted to vision is an instance of special adaptation ; the stomach as adapted to the functions of digestion is another. Science is constantly enlarging our knowledge in the wonderful adaptations of nature, and science is daily deepening the impression of general order. Indeed, the tendency of physical science is to make a god of the law of order — to resolve it into a primordial necessity which precludes the possibility of any breach upon its course. Now here is an effect, a phenome- non, to be accounted for. There must be a cause of this

order, and reason intuitively perceives that

prove an intelligent •j.ii- • J.^ i 1 j_- /> •j_

^g^^gg intelligence is the only explanation oi it,

as necessary being is the only explanation of contingent being. Order implies thought, purpose, de- sign. It is the prerogative of mind alone to plan and to arrange. The adjustment of means to ends is a combina- tion of reason, and reason knows her own footprints. This is what Kant calls the physico-theological argument. It is commonly called the argument from final causes, or the teleological proof. Kant^ admits that it deserves to be 1 Crit. Pure Keason, p. 383. Bolin's Trans.

62 THE BEING OF GOD. [Lect. II.

mentioned with respect. " It is," he says, " the oldest, the clearest, and that most in conformity with the common rea- son of humanity. It animates the study of nature, as it itself derives its existence and draws ever new strength from that source. It introduces aims and ends into a sphere in which our observation could not of itself have discov- ered them, and extends our knowledge of nature by direct- ing our attention to a unity, the principle of A^hich lies beyond nature. This knowledge of nature again reacts upon this idea — its cause — and thus our belief in a Divine Author of the universe rises to the power of an irresistible conviction. For these reasons it would be utterly hope- less," he adds, " to attempt to rob this argument of the authority it has always enjoyed. The mind, unceasingly elevated by these considerations, which, although empirical, are so remarkably powerful and continually adding to their force, will not suffer itself to be depressed by the doubts suggested by subtle speculations ; it tears itself out of this state of uncertainty the moment it casts a look upon the wondrous forms of nature and the majesty of the universe, and rises from height to height, from condition to condi- tion, till it has elevated itself to the supreme and uncondi- tioned Author of all."

It must be confessed, however, that this argument, if

taken alone, fails to demonstrate the exist- snffioienrofTe'Jn "" ^^^^ of au Infinite Author of the universe.

It proves intelligence, but it does not prove that that intelligence may not be derived. It exhibits God as arranging the order which prevails. He is only, in the light of it, the Architect of nature. For all that appears, matter may have existed independently of His will ; and His knowledge of it may have been derived from observation and experience analogous to our own. He may have studied the jjroperties and laws of the materials He has used in the structure of the universe, and His power may, like ours, consist in obedience to the laws of the substances with which He had to deal. The argument, in other words,

Lect. II.] THE BEING OF GOD. 63

does not conduct us beyond a subtle anthropomorphism.

In itself, therefore, it is incomplete, but when added to the

cosmological which gives us a Creator —

but it complements . „ , ■. T> •

the preceding one, and au luiinite, eternal, necessary Jieing — we together they demon- perceivc that this Being is intelligent, that

Btrate God. ^ _ °, ^ i i i

He is an almighty Spirit, and that the thoughts of His understanding have been from everlasting. Here, too, as in the other case, the argument is an imme- diate inference from a determinate form of experience, that of order and beauty, to a designing mind — the inference being guarantied by a law of thought which is, at the same time, a condition of existence.

These two arguments exhibit the steps by which, in the Reason in its nor- sphcrc of specuktiou, the rcasou ascends to mai use, ascends to ail intellio;ent Autlior of the Universe. They are steps which, in the normal de- velopment of reason, would seem to be inevitable. It is prompted, by its very nature, to inquire into the causes of things. This is the foundation of all philosophy. Take away the notion and the belief of cause, and the idea of a Kosmos becomes absurd, and that of philosophy a palpable contradiction. Unless, therefore, our reason is a lie, there is a God who made us and ordained the order which constitutes the beauty and the glory of the Universe.^ These heavens and this earth, this wondrous frame of ours and that more wondrous spirit within, are the products of His power and the contrivances of His infinite wisdom. External nature, to reason in her normal state, becomes an august temple of the Most High, in which He resides in the ftdlness of His being, and manifests His goodness to all the works of His hands. I^othing is insignificant, nothing is dumb. The heavens declare His glory. The firmament showeth His

^ [We must study God in His works, as children who cannot look the sun in the face behold its image in the limpid stream. Simon., p. 25.

One mav almost define philosophy in all its branches as a method of reaching the infinite through the finite. Simon., p. 29.

He adds, " all philosophy is full of God, and all the sciences are full of philosophy."]

64 THE BEING OF GOD. [Lect. II.

handiwork. The day elicits from the countless multitude of beings revealed by its light a tribute to His praise ; and the night, with its array of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres wheeling unshaken through the void immense, utters a sound which is audible to every ear and intelligible to every heart. Science, when it has con-

and adores Ilim. /-nt

ducted us to God, ceases to speculate and begins to adore. All the illustrations which it has gathered in the fields it has explored are converted into hymns, and the climax of its inquiries is a sublime doxology.

Among the arguments of speculative reason, it has been usual to class what has been called the

The ontological i i • i r ^^■^ • j. J j. l,

proof criticised. ontoiogiccd proot. Ihispreteuds to be an

a iwiori demonstration of the existence of God. It is found, in its germ, in the philosophy of Plato, and under different forms of development it has been trans- mitted, through the Schoolmen, to Des Cartes and Leibnitz, The German philosopher put the last touch to it. Indeed he has so modified it that it requires careful attention to recognize, in its new form, the speculations of Anselm, and even of Plato before him. The new form, as given by Kant,^ is substantially this : " Perfect being contains all reality, and it is admitted that such a being is possible ; that is to say, that its existence implies no contradiction. Now, all reality supposes existence. There is, therefore, a thing possible in the concept of which is comprised existence. If this thing be denied, the possibility of its existence is also denied, which is contradictory to the preceding." The ar- gument is thus expressed by Leibnitz himself: " Uns, ex cujus essentia sequitur existentia, si est jyossibile, id est. Est axioma identicum demonstratione non indigens. Atqui Deus est ens ex cvjus essentia sequitur ipsius existentia. Est de- jinitio. Ergo Deus, si est possible, existet per ipsius conceptus neGessitatem." This means that God is, if He is possible, because His possibility — that is to say. His essence itself — carries with it His existence, and because it would be a 1 Cousin, Pliilos. Kant, pp. 120, seq.

Lect. II.] THE BEING OF GOD. 65

contradiction to recognize this essence and refuse to it existence.^

To me, the objections of the German critic to the conclu- siveness of this argument are perfectly insuperable. A sub- jective necessity of thought implies an objective necessity of existence only when the thought is a real thing. We may imagine a being, and attribute to it attributes which necessarily imply other attributes ; but these attributes can- not be inferred to have a real existence unless the subject to which they are ascribed is first postulated as real. We may conceive a being in which necessity of existence is posited as an attribute ; but if the subject is only a conception of the mind, the necessity of being is equally subjective. We can- not pass from thought to existence unless the thought begins in existence. " Existence," as Kant has justly remarked,^ " is not an attribute, a predicate which determines tlie idea of the subject. When I say that God is all-powerful, the attribute all-poioerful determines the idea of God ; but when I conceive God as simply possible or real, the idea of Him rests the same in both cases ; here it is certain the real in- volves nothing more than the possible. If it were otherwise, the idea which we have of any thing would not be complete until we had conceived it as possible. It follows that if I conceive a being as perfect, I may perplex myself as much as I please by trying to evolve from the idea the real exist- ence. The question of existence always remains, and it is not from the conception of the object conceived as possible that we can draw the concept of its reality. We are there- fore obliged to quit the concept of an object if we would accord to it real existence."

Whatever charm this species of reasoning has for spec- ulative minds, it is certain that it can ter-

It terminates in « , i • j. l, j. x' mi

empty abstractions. mmatc ouly m empty abstractions. The

truth is, the secret of its influence is the

firm conception and belief of a necessary being as actually

existing which we derive from the cosmological proof.

1 Cousin, Phil. Kant, p. 123. ^ Cousin, ibid., p. 122.

Vol. .1—5

66 THE BEING OF GOD. [Lect. II.

There we start out from the real and are conducted to the real in this most sublime and overpowering of all concep- tions. The idea of necessary being never emerges until the fact of contingent being is given/ and then in this fact the reason perceives by immediate intuition that the eternal and independent is given too. Having thus reached the concept of necessary existence, we proceed to draw inferences from it as a real characteristic of God.

From the nature of the case, the being of God never can be demonstrated in the strict and proper sense of the term. He is contained in nothing. It may be manifested, but not deduced.

Consigning, therefore, this argument to the tender mer- cies of the metaphysicians, let us see the

esn owiic \\e pesult to wliicli wc arc conducted bv the

have been conducted. "

other two. If the conclusion which they yield is an immediate inference guarantied by the funda- mental law of intelligence, the conclusion inevitably fol- lows that we can know nothing aright without knowing of God. He becomes the principmm cognosccnd'i , as well as the principium cssendi. He is the fountain to which all the streams of speculation converge. Truth is never reached — the why is never adequately given until you ascend to Him. Intelligence finds its consummation in the knowledge of His name.

II. We come now to a higher spiritual energy or a higher

form of spiritual life. We are to contem-

Conscience in man ^

demands the existence platc man as a moral bciug, and we shall

find that his conscience, still more imper-

[1 We may observe, further, that we do not positively think necessary being ; we only believe it as the indispensable condition or cause of the contingent. It does not lie in the consciousness as an absolute dictum — " There is necessary being ;" but only as a hypothetical consequent — " There must be if there is contingent being." The whole force of the belief turns upon this if. Take away contingent being, and consciousness knows nothing of the necessary. We deny, therefore, the Cartesian assumption that we have the idea of a necessary being as an original and absolute datum of consciousness. To admit its hypotlietical character is to resolve the argument into the cosmological.]

Lect. II.] THE BEING OF GOD. 67

atively than speculative reason, demands the existence of God. Our moral cognitions are wholly unintelligible upon any other scheme than that of a personal God. The pecu- liarity of these cognitions is that they involve the sense of personal responsibility. The right comes to us in the form of commands and not of simple propositions ; it is known as duty ; it is felt to involve the distinction of merit and demerit, or of rewards and punishments administered upon the principle of distributive iustice. Now

Three aspects m ^ -"^ ^ •'^

which our moral cog- there are three aspects in which these cog- nitions lead to the im- j^- . ^^^j. ^^^ immediate inference of a

mediate inference of J J

this just and right- jnst aud rightcous God : 1. Considered as commands they imply an Author who has a right to prescribe laws — an Author wdiom we are bound to obey. A law without a lawgiver is unmeaning jargon. Conscience appears in us as the organ of an authority not its own. It is in its normal state the voice of God in the soul of man. 2. Consider these commands as giving rise to a sense of duty, and there emerges the idea of a judge to whom we are responsible. Obligation and superior will are correlative terms ; where there is no superior will there may be rectitude, but there cannot be duty. God is in no sense the subject of obligation. Conscience, then, in proclaiming a duty proclaims a supreme will. 3. Consider conscience as giving rise to the conviction of good and ill desert, of rewards and punishments justly and righteously distributed in contradistinction from mere pleasures and pains, and you have first a moral government directly affirmed, and then the prospect of perfect happiness to the righteous uncondition- ally held out. This connection betwixt happiness and vir- tue must be a sheer delusion unless He who promises is able also to perform ; but He cannot be able to perform un- less He possesses unlimited dominion over all beings, states and conditions. Hence emerges the notion of an infinite and all-powerful Euler, with a will morally determined, as well as with intelligence and mere benevolence of character. This is an outline of the argument from our moral

68 THE BEING OF GOD. [Lect. II.

cognitions -which might be impressively expanded. It is enough to put you in possession of the steps of the reason- ing. This argument, it is conceded by

Kant and Hamilton rr x i O" •xtt-it tt 'Ij.

upon this argument. ^aut and feir W iHiam Hamilton, is con- clusive and irresistible. In conscience they recognize an immediate affirmation of God. How upon the principles of the Kantian philosophy it is any more valid than the arguments from speculative reason, I am unable to comprehend. If intelligence is false in its fundamental utterances, it is difficult to see upon what ground the veracity of conscience can be consistently main- tained. If man's nature is a lie in one respect, it may be a lie ill the other. Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.

But Avhat I wish particularly to impress upon you is, that as man rises to a higher sphere of

In the higher sphere ^ ^ • -i

of life man rises to Spiritual lifc, lic nscs to more precise and uons of God Tnd To clefinitc couccptious of the character and the sense of responsi- attributes of God, and lias the highest evidence that the subject which he cog- nizes in the sphere of speculation is precisely the same subject that meets him in the sphere of duty. To the notions of intelligence and goodness are now added the notions of rectitude, of justice, of will. To the relations of a Creator and great First Cause are now added the rela- tions of law, of responsibility, of moral government, of rewards and punishments. Every element of personality is now secured. We have a Being tliat knows, that wills, that judges. Then, as in the notion of the ultimate felicity of virtue there is implied an absolute dominion over all things that exist, the God whose law is virtue is seen to be the same as He who created the heavens and the earth, and gave to them their exquisite beauty and order. There is no pretext for saying that intelligence reveals one God and conscience another. In the notion of responsibility, they both meet, and are found to be one and the same.

The sense of responsibility, or the authority of conscience, is perhaps the argument most efficacious of all in keeping

Lect. II.] THE BEING OF GOD. 69

alive the sense of God. As long as it is implicated in the conviction of duty, men must obliterate

Conscience an argu- J '

ment for God in our from their miuds all moral distinctions

homes and bosoms. i/> ,i , •, p,i iTf«r»

belore they can get quit ot tlie beliei oi a God. It is an argument which we carry with us. It is in our homes and our bosoms. We need not ascend into heaven to seek the Author of the moral law, nor descend into the deep to learn the mystery of His being. The Word is nigh us, in our hearts and in our mouths.

If this reasoning be just, we perceive that all moral

philosophy must find its ultimate ground

God the ground of -^^ q^^_ rpj^^ distiuctiouS of mOral gOOd

all moral distinctions, o

and the soul of every aucl cvil arc a riddlc, au enigma, an in-

social and political in- tit -pi • r^ -\

etitution. explicable mystery, it there is no God.

The entire system of social order, the fab- ric of government, the criminal jurisprudence of states be- comes unmeaning, or is reduced to a mere system of pru- dential and precautionary measures to prevent j)hysical hurt. Take away God, and, considered in his ethical con- stitution, man becomes the sport and the scandal of the universe. He is au enormous lie, and those very elements of his being in which he exults that he is superior to the brutes, — those grand conceptions of the true, the good, the just — are mere chimeras, which foster a pride that in the eyes of those who know his real condition makes him ridiculous, and cheats him of pleasures that he might enjoy, by .empty phantoms. But if the law of causation in the world of speculation and the law of duty in the moral world are true and faithful witnesses — and these are the principles which guarantee the argument in their respective spheres — then as certainly as man has a reasonable soul, so certainly there is a God. He cannot explain himself with- out God. He perceives »s clearly as the light of the sun that either he himself is a mere bundle of contradictions, or he was made in the image of a supreme Creator, who is holy and wise and good. Speculative reason might perplex itself about the first substance, but when conscience speaks

70 THE BEING OF GOD. [Lect. II.

the personality of God is as plain as the law of duty. He is felt to be no primordial necessity, no self-developing life of nature, no soul of the world ; but He is Jehovah, dis- tinct from all and yet pervading all — the everlasting God who speaks and it is done, who commands and it stands fast. III. There is still a higher form of life than that of in- . tellio-ence or duty. There is a state of

The testimony of o J

man's highest form of tlic soul wliicli calls out cvcry Spiritual energy in delighted and unimpeded exer- cise. It transfers to the elements of intelligence and obli- gation an element borrowed from the heart. It is the ele- ment of love — an element involving not only tlie cognition of the true, the just, the right, but the cognition of the beautiful and glorious. Rectitude is no longer appre- hended as a duty, and clothed in the cold garb of author- ity ; it comes to us in the freshness and sweetness of life, and we delight in it as the highest and purest energy of the soul.^ This new form of life is religion. To know that there is a God is not to be religious ; to know that virtue is our law is not to be religious ; even to practise from the sense of obligation is not to be religious. You must con- template God under the forms of beauty — the beauty of holiness — and imitate His life of spontaneous and blessed rectitude before you become truly religious. Hence, in religion every department of our nature is called into play, and called into play under the law of love, or worship, or adoration. Now when our nature reaches this stage, the knowledge of God as existing becomes a fixed element of our consciousness. We have the witness in ourselves. But this stage is never perfectly reached in this life, and no- , where reached at all, except among those

Tlie principle of / x o

worship universal in who arc illuminated by the grace of the

gospel. But in all men there exist traces

1 [The religious nature manifests the identity of the object of its wor- ship with the God revealed in conscience, tlirough the medium of the notion of rectitude, which is the measure of holiness objectively consid- ered. The moral ruler of conscience is the God of beauty and glory of the heart.]

Lect. II.] THE BEING OF GOD. 71

of the principle of worship — there exist sentiments of pious veneration which show what man's nature normally is, and which serve to complete the argument from the human soul for the being of God. Men everywhere must worship. They feel that their being is not complete without an object of worship. Hence the schemes of superstition, of idolatry; hence the temples, the altars, the sacrifices which exist among all people. Hence, too, the systems of Divination, of Sorcery, of Magic. There is a tie which binds man to the spiritual world. He craves communion with it and resorts to vain eiforts to penetrate its mysteries. As the religious principle exists in the form of a blind craving where it has any develop- ment in the life, we can conclude nothing from it as to the character of the beino; it seeks. Having lost the element of a genuine adoration, grounded in the ineifable holiness of God, it creates objects for itself that are but the reflec- tion of the moral state of the worshipper's own soul. But the reliy-ious sentiment does certainly prove

If man s nature is ~ •' J-

to worship, there must that tlicrc uiust be au objcct corrcspoudiug to it. If it is the nature of man to wor- ship, there must be a being to be worshipped, or that nature is again a lie. But when this law of worship is developed under the gospel, it becomes not merely the knowledge of God, but it becomes communion with God. It reveals His personality in the most convincing light, because we know that He speaks to us and we speak to Him. It reveals His glory. Here our knowledge reaches its culmination. We find the true centre and rest of our being — to glorify God and to enjoy Him for ever.

I have now given you an outline of the arguments by _ .,, . ,, , . which man fortifies his faith in the being

Faith in the being O

of God springs out of of God. I havc taken the human soul in

man's nature. i-i /. /••, ••, it/.

tlie higher forms ot its spiritual hie — as rational, as moral, as religious, and I have shown that the laws, under which these departments of his being operate and act, lead necessarily to the immediate inference of a

72 THE BEING OF GOD. [Lect. II.

God, infinite, eternal, necessary, intelligent, moral, volun- tary, free — a personal Being ineifably glorious in the light of His holiness. I have pictured the normal progress of reason, or rather of the whole spiritual man, and I have shown that man finds the complement of his intelligence, his conscience and his propensity to worship only in such a living and personal Jehovah. The argument lies close to him — so close, that if he can know any thing he can know God.

You can now understand the sense in which the doctrine In what sense the should bc undcrstood that the knowledge knowledge of God is of God is inuatc. Thc thcory of innate ideas in the sense of formed and developed propositions has been long since exploded. So far as any objective reality is concerned, the child is born Avith a mind perfectly blank. Consciousness is dormant until experience awakens it by the presentation of an object. But though destitute of formed knowledges, the mind has capacities which are governed by laws that constitute the conditions of intelligence. Under the guidance of these laws it comes to know, and whatever knowledge it obtains in obedience to them is natural. Now, as the knowledge of God necessarily emerges from the operation of these laws as soon as our faculties are sufficiently matured, that knowledge is natural — as natural as that of the material world or of the existence of our own souls. We cannot think rightly without think- ing God. In the laws of intelligence, of duty and of wor- ship He has given us the guides to His OAvn sanctuary, and if we fail to know Him, it is because we have first failed to knoAV ourselves. This is the conclusion to which we are legitimately conducted.

This view of the subject dispenses with the necessity of

postulating a presentative knowledge of

ness, and"' our know- God, through a faculty of apprchensiou

ledge of God mediate adapted to thc coguitlon of the Divine

and representative. i ~

Being, as perception is adapted to the cog- nition of external objects. God is not given to us as a phe- nomenon of experience. There is no God-consciousness apart

Lect. II.] THE BEING OF GOD, 73

from the necessary inferences of reason. All our knowledge of Him is mediate and representative. He is what intelli- gence finds in the inquiries which it raises upon the phe- nomena of experience. But the fact that philosophers have The conviction of Tesortcd to sucli thcorics as those of the in- God lies close to our tuitioual thcologj is a proof of how closely the conviction of a God lies to our nature. INIen have felt, wdth irresistible certainty, that He exists. The fact being indisputable, when they have been driven by sophistical objections from one method of certifying it, they have immediately resorted to another. When they have been unable to vindicate it as an inference, they have re- solved it into immediate perception ; when they could not ground it in discursive reason, they have grounded it in faith, and made faith a faculty instead of a mental function. The import of all is, that the notion of God cannot be ex- pelled from the human soul. He is, and our nature pro- claims that He is, however we may explain the manner of the fact.

LECTUKE III.

3IAN'S NATURAL IGNORANCE OF GOD.

WE have seen that the human mind has been constituted with a special reference to the knowledge of God. It was made to know Him. It contains elements of faith, or laws of intelligence, which, when normally

Man made for the t i , j i i i*

knowledge of God, applied to the phenomena of experience, necessitate the inference that there is a God, and, apart from all disturbing influences, would con- duct to a just apprehension and a true worship of His name. The very principles by which man is capable of knowing any thing have their proper termination in God. Indeed, he cannot justly be said to know at all without the recogni- tion of the First Cause. This knowledge, we have seen, is not a remote deduction, but an immediate inference. The finite and contingent give the infinite and eternal upon the same principle on which thought gives existence. The ar- gument, The world exists, therefore God is, is of the same kind with the celebrated enthymeme of Des Cartes : Cogifo ergo sum. But while the grounds of the knowledge of God are thus laid in the very structure of the mind, while its primitive and indestructible faiths find their natural ter- mination in Him, it is yet matter of experience that no one has ever, in point of fact, attained to right yo^^.oes no a ain ^^^ worthy conccptioiis of the nature and character of God by the unassisted light of reason. The world by wisdom knew not God. Here, then, is a singular phenomenon. Reason, under sound and healthful culture, must, from its very laws, reflect the image

74

Lect. III.] man's natueal ignorance of god. 75

of God. INIatured by a normal growth, it could not fail to find in Him the source of knowledge as well as the fountain of being. Man has implicitly, therefore, what he never realizes explicitly — a germ which never expands and ma- tures— a seed which never springs up into a vigorous plant nor bears healthful fruit. This is the positive testimony of Scripture, as well as the dictate of observation and experi- ence : " Because that which may be known of God is mani- fest in them ; for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead ; so that they are with- out excuse. Because that when they knew God, they glori- fied Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was dark- ened. Professing Uiemselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds and four- footed beasts, and creeping things." ^

The question now arises, How is this singular anomaly to be explained? How is it that while all

A siugular anomaly. i i i • />

may know, and ought to know, none in fact do know? To answer this question is the design of the present lecture.

But let us settle, in the first place, precisely the nature of that ignorance with which we have to deal. If it were ab- solute and entire, if the reigning doctrine of the human race were the hypothesis of Atheism, it would be impossible to vindicate Theism upon any grounds of reason. Were there no sense of God and no sense of religion, it would be as idle to speculate upon theology, as to speculate upon morals where no sense of obligation and of rectitude obtains. The argument of our last lecture sliows conclusively that a vague sentiment of religion, of dependence, responsibility and wor- ship, and a corresponding conviction of the existence and moral government of a supreme intelligence, are coextensive ' Rom. i. 19-24.

76 man's natural ignorance of god. [Lect. hi.

■with the race. What we affirm is, that while the existence

A more precise state- o^ ^ocl and a general sense of onr relations

ment of man's natural to Him are SO groundcd in the soul as to

ignorance of God. , , i • f» i t •

make man, wherever he is found, a religious creature, no just and consistent notions of His nature, His character and His attributes are anywhere compassed by natural light ; and that wherever apprehended at all. He is apjjrehended in no such light as to generate the dispositions and emotions which constitute true piety. In other words, apart from revelation. He is nowhere rightly represented in thought, and even with revelation He is nowhere truly loved and worshipped without special grace. The speculative knowledge of the heathen is not only defective, but grossly erroneous ; and spiritual cognition is the product of the Holy Ghost alone by the Gospel. That this is the truth, the re- ligious history of mankind abundantly demonstrates. What Paul wrote centuries ago has always been true of those who are destitute of the light of revelation — there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. Amid all the temples and altars and sacrifices and costly oblations which figure in heathen and superstitious worship, there is nowhere an offering to the true, except as to the unknown God. Throughout the earth there is not a heart which beats in love at the mention of His name or is touched with a sentiment of pure devotion to His service, except where the Word and the Spirit of Christ have taken their lodg- ment. The whole world lieth in wicked-

Explanation demanded. in i • i •

ness. How shall we explain this mourn- ful phenomenon ?

I. It is clear that this state of things is most unnatural in

the strict and proper sense of the term ; that is, it contradicts

the ideal of humanity. It is equally clear that a force

originally foreign must have entered as a

A foreign disturbing ^lig^urbing clemeut into the development

element; twofold. ^ '-' e> i

of reason, and turned it aside from the line of its right direction. There must be a steady and perma- nent cause, where the effects are so uniform and constant.

Lect. III.] man's natural ignorance op god. 77

We are justified by Scripture, and warranted by observation and analogy, in asserting that this foreign, disturbing force is twofold : the power of sin as a principle of evil within us, a law of death continually counter-working the law of the Spirit of life ; and the power of Satan, the evil one himself, whose influence upon the human race has only been increased by the success of his first experiment. These two powers, in their joint operation, are sufficient to explain the aston- ishing anomalies of the religious history of the species. To these two causes, the depravity of man and the malignity of Satan, we owe it, that while there is a general, if not an universal, conviction of the existence of a Supreme Being, when men undertake to frame a just and consistent concep- tion of His character, relations and works they pass through every conceivable shade of error, from the disgusting grossness of Fetichism to the deceitful refinements of Pan- theism. The God they represent in thought is often a mon- ster, sometimes a beast, but never the living and true Jeho- vah. Let us advert in the first place to the power of Satan. 1. Since the fall this malignant spirit has entered into , , . , , human nature in a manner somewhat anal-

The kind and ex- tent of Satan's power ogous to that in wliich tlic Spirit of God

in and over men. i -n . ,1 -1 . />it tt ^

dwells m the hearts or believers. He has an intimate access to our faculties, and though he cannot, like the Holy Ghost, work at their roots so as to change and transform their tendencies, he can yet ply them with representations and delusions wliich shall effectually incline them to will and to do according to his pleasure. He can cheat the understanding with appearances of truth, fascinate the fancy with pictures of beauty, and mock the. heart with semblances of good. By a whisper, a touch, a secret sug- gestion, he can give an impulse to our thoughts, and turn them into channels which shall exactly subserve the pur- poses of his malice. In all this he does no violence to the laws of our nature. He insinuates himself into our facul- ties, and works by them and through them according to their own constitution. He disturbs neither the spontaneity

(8 man's natural ignorance of god. [Lect. III.

of the understanding nor the freedom of the will. As the work of the Holy Ghost in the saints is by no means incon- sistent with their full responsibility and their entire moral agency, so the work of the devil in the rcin'obate makes it none the less their work, and leaves these dupes of his malig- nity and craft without excuse for their sin. Unlike the Holy Ghost, he has no creative power. He can impart no new nature. He can only avail himself of what already exists to his hand. His power, like that of every other finite being, consists in obedience to the laws of the subject upon which he operates. Its secret lies in his knowledge and his skill. In our fallen condition he has no need to change our nature ; it is already adapted to his purposes. It is a fit instrument for executing his fell designs against the kingdom and the glory of God upon earth. These representations of the indwelling of Satan in the human soul, and of his consequent power and influence for evil, are the uniform teachings of Scripture. He is there de- scribed as the prince of the power of the air ; the sjiirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience ; the god of this world, who blinds the minds and hardens the heart of the impenitent and reprobate and seals them up in final unbelief; the strong man armed, who holds undisturbed possession of the palace of the human soul, until a stronger than he invades and casts him out. Men, on the other hand, are represented as his servants, his children, his cap- tives, his dupes, and the obedient subjects of his will. His dwelling in them as a spiritual fact was authenticated be- yond the possibility of doubt by its extraordinary manifes- tations in the case of the demoniacs of the New Testament. To all this must be added that, in that pregnant passage which spans the history of time, the contest betwixt light and darkness — betwixt the children of God and the im^ieni- tent — is described as a contest betwixt two opposing armies, the heads and leaders of which are the Seed of the woman and the Scrjient. This passage teaches us, too, that the kingdom of darkness is not a series of occasional insurrec-

Lect. III.] man's natural ignorance of god. 79

tions, but an organized conspiracy of evil. Its deeds of wickedness are not sudden, spasmodic, extemporaneous eifusions of desperate and impotent malice ; they are parts of a plan, a great, comprehensive scheme, conceived by a master mind and adjusted with exquisite skill, for extin- guishing the glory of God. The consolidated empire for so many centuries of Paganism, the persecuting edicts of im- . , perial Rome, the rise and brilliant suc-

An organized sys- a '

tern of evil in the ccss of Mohanimedauism, the corruptions of the Papacy, and the widespread deso- lations of modern infidelity, can never be adequately under- stood without contemplating them as parts of an organized system of evil, of which the gigantic intellect of the devil is the author, while men have been the guilty and unwit- ting instruments. They have answered his ends and played obsequiously into his hands, while they vainly supposed that they were accomplishing purposes of their own. He has, in his sphere, a providence in imitation of that of God, and to this providence his children and subjects are adroitly moulded. They take their place and act their part under his superintending eye.

The ultimate design of Satan in all his machinations is to -,, ^ . , „ , insult the majesty of God. A liar from

The design of Satan J *'

as to God, and as to the beginning, his first lie was a blasphemy, and every other has been like unto it. His great aim, in reference to man, is to transfuse into the human soul his own views of the Divine character, works and government. His ready access to our faculties, his in- timate union with us by virtue of our native depravity, his familiar acquaintance with the laws of our being, his long experience and his angelic skill, render it easy for him to insinuate his own thoughts and impart his own spirit to the minds of those whom grace has not rescued from his hands. Where he cannot destroy he perverts and cor- rupts. As he cannot extinguish reason, and therefore can- not utterly eiface the general sense of a superior power, he exerts his ingenuity to distort all the elements of reason,

80 man's natural ignorance of god. [Lect. III.

understanding, conscience and religion into vehicles of slan- derous impressions of God. As we must have a God and a religion, he will take care that the God whom we acknow- ledge shall be unworthy of respect, and the religion which we j)rofcss a disgrace to our nature. AVith such a teacher, and with such hearts as ours have been rendered liy the fall, it is no wonder that men have everywhere come short of the glory of God and changed it into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things.

It is a fearful truth that our nature is in such intimate

alliance with the Devil. But there is

Nothing incredible j^^thing incrcdiblc in it. If there be a

in all this. o

spiritual world and we are spiritual be- ings, that world must touch us in some points. God's works are not disjointed and isolated. All is dependent upon each, and each is dependent upon all. The eternal throne is the only independent thing in the universe. That spirit can be present to spirit is manifest from the daily intercourse of life, from the power of friendship, and especially from the ties of the family. That spirit can enter into actual union with spirit is apparent from the fundamental facts of re- demption. Christ is in us aiid we in Him, and God in both. Believers, too, are one with each other. The union of Satan with the world is not the same in kind with the union of Christ and His people ; it is only analogous to it. He is not our sin in the full sense that Christ is our life. He has no creative power, but he is our tempter, our seducer, an ever-present prompter of evil to our thoughts and hearts, an ever-present sophist to disarm truth of its point and to commend falsehood to our embrace. To say that all this is mysterious is to say nothing to the point. The soul is a mystery, thought itself is a mystery, all know- ledge begins and ends in mystery. The moral history of man, whether with respect to the fall or redemption, loses itself in clouds of mystery which no understanding can penetrate but the infinite understanding of God. It is for

Lect. III.] man's natural ignorance of god. 81

us to accept the facts, however their explanations transcend our faculties.

2. While, however, man's ignorance of God is to be largely attributed to the craft and sophistry of the Devil, we are not to forget the human side of the phenomenon, and construe ourselves into innocent victims and dupes. We have already said that Satan does no violence to the liberty or faculties of man. He avails himself of the constitution of our own nature, and especially of our depravity as fallen beings. He gives an impetus and direction to our own spontaneous tendencies. His power is purely moral. Apart from our corruption he can only annoy ; he cannot deceive. To understand, therefore, the immediate cause of man's mis- representations of God, we must consider the power of de- pravity as a law of abnormal develop- ^^^in, a iseasem e j-^g^^ -^ ^j^g goul. As a pcrvadiug State

it has a necessary tendency to distort the faculties from their legitimate bent and expression. It is to the mind what disease is to the body. Holiness, on the other hand, is health, and communion with God, life and power. We might as reasonably expect that the secretions of the animal system should go on comfortably and smoothly amidst the heat and agony of a fever, as expect sound con- clusions in relation to Divine subjects from a reason to which Gocl is not present as the Father of lights. Sin is as really blindness to the mind as it is hardness to the heart, and the soul under the dominion of sin must be turned aside from the normal evolution of its real and original tendencies. Its activities, however intense and vigorous, must be set in the wrong direction. It is a great error to imagine that depravity confines its mischief to the heart, or to those fac- ulties which are immediately conversant about the distinc- tions of right and wrong. Its seat is the

It extends to all our i jj. ' ^ i i_ i c

p^^^j,,.g soul, and not any smgle department of our

spiritual nature, and as disease extends its

influence to all the functions of the body, so sin extends to

all the powers and faculties of our being. In sin, therefore.

Vol. L— 6

82 man's natural ignorance of god. [Lect. III.

as the disturbance of the normal exercise of our faculties, as distorting and perverting our energies, as a law of abnormal development, we see a cause that is adequate to explain the phenomenon in question. But this general view is not sufficient to content our thoughts. We look abroad upon the world, and as we contemplate

A more partinilar .■> •pi-ir> n t • ,i

statement neoUfui. ^he manitold lorms 01 religious error, the various superstitions, the disgusting rites of worship, the monstrous and hideous symbols of the Godhead, and the cruel penances and gross immoralities which prevail in heathen lands — when we consider all the abominations which have long passed and still pass under the sacred name of worship — we wish to see how these errors have been engendered, and how they have been propagated and spread. It does not satisfy us to trace them to sin in the general. That does not explain how these errors rather than others have arisen. We want to know tlie causes which have set the human mind in these particular direc- tions. We desire to see the forms which sin has assumed in producing these disastrous effects. The general notion of depravity already contains in it the notion that man must be ignorant of God, but there must be special influences of depravity to account for the enormous lies which have taken the nartie of truth, and the awful blasphemies which have taken the name of worship.

We do not pretend to be able to indicate the immediate origin of all the errors that prevail. That would require an amount of learning, an amount of philosophy and an amount of historical detail altogether unsuited, even if we possessed them, to lectures like these. Our task is humbler and more limited. We propose to illustrate how" de- dcpnivuy!' ^^^^"^^ °^ pravity enters as a disturbing and pervert- ing element into the sphere of speculation, and gives rise to false gods ; how it enters into the sphere of morality, and corrupts the first principles of duty ; and how it enters into the sphere of worship, and converts the temple of God into the abode of monsters. Man never

Lect. III.] man's natural IGNORANCE OF GOD. 83

degrades God until he has first degraded himself, and the degradation of God keeps pace with the degradation of him- self. He must become unnatural before he can have an un- natural religion.

(1.) Let us examine, first, the influence of depravity upon the speculative knowledge of God. This

Its influence on the • ^ ^ • -t n ^ ^ t lj.j'

speculative knowledge IS the kiud 01 kuowlcdgc Contemplated m a of God through the gyg^gj^ ^f gound philosophv or metaphvsics.

reason. •' i i ^ i ^

It is the knowledg-e which results from the application of the law of causation to the phenomena of ex- perience. This species of knowledge, one would think, being so accessible, lying so near to our faculties, ought to be sound and true ; and yet it is always erroneous, defective and debasing when not corrected by Divine revelation. ]N'ow, in this sphere, sin first appears in the form of vain

speculations. Those speculations are vain

Tanity of mind. i • i i • i i i

which relate to questions that transcend the scope of our faculties — which undertake to comprehend the incomprehensible and to carry knowledge beyond its first principles. The creature, as dependent and finite, can never hope to compass an absolute knowledge of any thing. In- telligence begins with principles that must be accepted and not explained ; and in applying these principles to the phe- nomena of experience, apparent contradictions constantly emerge that require patience and further knowledge to re- solve them. But the mind, anxious to know all and restless under doubt and uncertainty, is tempted to renounce the first principles of reason and to contradict the facts which it daily observes. It seeks consistency of thought, and rather than any gaps shall be left unfilled, it plunges every thing into hopeless confusion. Instead of accepting the laws of intelli- gence, and patiently following the light of reason, and sub- mitting to ignorance where ignorance is the lot of his nature, as limited and finite, and joyfully receiving the partial knowledge which is his earthly inheritance, man, under the impulse of curiosity, had rather make a world that he does understand than admit one which he cannot comprehend.

84 man's natural ignorance of god. [Lect. Ill,

When he cannot stretch himself to the infinite dimensions

of truth, he contracts truth to his own little measure. This

is what the Apostle means by vanity of mind. To illustrate

it by an example : Reason asks, and asks

Example. it-)

very properly, vV hence came the world '. The law of causation, an original and therefore an incompre- hensible faith — a principle to be accepted, not proved — answers that it was created. Curiosity asks : How is it pos- sible that a thing can be created out of nothing ? and because it cannot comprehend the mystery of the commencement of being, it fancies a contradiction in the notion of creation, and then denies the original principle of faith, which positively affirms that God is a Creator. It must know all, or it will know nothing. Apparent contradictions, accepted as real, force it upon hypotheses which the primitive data of intelli- gence do not justify, and which, therefore, must be false. So with the immortality of the soul. It is an elementary principle of reason, a spontaneous and

Another example. n • ^ o i ^ t\

necessary faith oi the human race. But instead of accepting it as a fact as certain as our conscious- ness, and waiting for further light to solve the mysteries which comj)ass it, .vain speculation undertakes to reconcile it with the double fact of the unity of man as compounded of soul and body, and the dissolution of the body ; and because it fails to make thought consistent with itself, denies what its own nature intuitively affirms. It pronounces immor- tality to be impossible, because the identity of man depends upon the coexistence of soul and body, and the body un- questionably perishes. The problem in all speculation is harmony of view ; thought must be consistent with itself. Aiming at this ideal, a creature of imperfect knowledge must often be tempted to deny the plainest truths, because it cannot see how they are to be made to correspond with other truths which are equally indisputable. Difficulties appear as contradictions, and as the mind cannot think at all but in obedience to the laws of identity and contradiction, these difficulties must lead it into serious and fatal error.

Lect. III.] man's natural ignorance of god. 85

But were the reason sound and healthful, it would perceive at once that there could be no contradiction in the case — that things equally proved to be true must be harmonious ; and it would instantly resolve all further perplexity into its ignorance, and wait patiently for more light. In this im- patience to compass consistency of thought,

This vanity of mind, ^ • j j coufusiou aS tO the boUudaricS

proof of tlie disturbing

power of Bin, and the of faith and spcculatiou, there is proof of

fruitful source of error .it.i- /»• -r, • i •,

in relation to God, the disturbing power 01 sm. it IS depravity which so perverts the soul as to make it violate the laws of its own constitution and the essential conditions of knowledge. In its normal state it would see at once that none of its original beliefs could be questioned, and that any speculation which leads to such a result must be suicidal. This vanity of mind is a fruitful source of error in relation to God. It may not only deny Him as Creator, but it may deny the very law upon which His existence, as a first cause, is demonstrated. It may find contradictions in the law, if extended beyond the world of phenomena, and conclude that there is no bridge between the visible and the invisible. It may find in finite and contingent being the grounds of its own phenomena, and thus preclude the neces- sity of going beyond the world for the solution of its mys- teries. For examples of this vanity we need not go back to the ancient philosophers. We have them in our own age and at our own doors. The very same

in our own age as well ,iir> i,- ^ • ^ • ' i

as of old. method oi speculation which m ancient

times made matter eternal and reduced God to the level of the finite and conditioned, has, in modern times, denied with equal confidence the possibility of creation, and reduced God to a substance without attributes or a being without determinations. He has been degraded to a level with nothing, or treated as merely the infinite possibility of things.

The root of this vanity is most certainly pride. Man is

The root of it is unwilliug to acknowledge his condition as

P'''^^- one of only partial knowledge. He is

86 man's natural ignorance of god. [Lect. III.

hence reluctant to comply with the terms upon which alone any solid knowledge is attainable. In the eifort to be omni- scient he trangresses the laws of thought, and the consequence of intellectual transgression is no less fatal in the sphere of speculation than of moral transgression in the sphere of duty. He is struck with blindness, his foolish heart is darkened. It is this same pride which kept the world for so many ^„ , , ., centuries ignorant of the true method of

Effects of pnue up- o

on philosophy in the philosophy. That mctliod is only a state- ''''^* ' ment of the form and limits of our know-

ledge, and as long as man was not content to restrict him- self within those limits ; as long as he aspired to compass in his thought the essential nature and properties of being and the whole system of the universe, he was left to blunder as a fit retribution for his presumption. It was not weak- ness, it was pride, that seduced him from the way of truth. Pride, in the sense of self-independence and self-sufficiency, is the very core of sin, and it was but a development of its real spirit and temper when man undertook to make his own understanding the absolute measure of truth. We are apt to represent the aberrations of philosophy as springing from infirmity, from the want of proper guides or suitable helps, like the mistakes of a child in its first effi)rts to walk. But this is an error ; the law of truth is in man's reason, and if he errs it is because he presumptuously overlooks, denies or despises it. He has the guide, but will not fol- low it. His vain speculations are in defiance of, and not in obedience to, the intellectual laws of his own constitution, and his errors are at once sins and judgments.

We have seen how vanity of mind superinduces a denial of the primitive cognitions of reason, and plunges specula- tion into regions inaccessible to our faculties, or sets man on efforts to attain a species of knowledge which is not adapted to his nature. To this may be added the ^^crotchetsforprinci- ^^.^^^^^^^^3 ^^ ^cccpt crotchcts for princi- ples, and analogies for inductions, upon slight and accidental grounds — grounds of superficial plans-

Lect. III.] man's natural ignorance of god. 87

ibility or apparent competency to explain a given class of phenomena. These false maxims, once admitted, work mis- chief in the whole extent of their application. If accepted as universal truths, they must convert philosophy into a vast collection of delusions. Take, for example, the crotchet that in all knowledge there must be a resemblance between the immediate object and the mind — that the soul can cognize only through something analogous to itself — and you have at once the foundation of an absolute system of idealism. You deny the possibility of an immediate perception of matter — an immediate knowledge of any things but our own thoughts — and the step is easy from the denial of the knowledge of the external world to the denial of its exist- ence, and then the progress is natural to universal skepticism. Another element which must be taken into the account in estimatino; the tendency of sin to per-

Influence of sin upon ~ j i.

speculation through vcrt spcculatiou is tlic irrcgular influence

the imagination. r>. -j.- r\ "D^Tlx Ij.

ot imagination. Our iiiugnsh translators seem to have regarded Paul as particularly signalizing this faculty as the seat of vanity ; " they became vain in their hn- ax/inations." Butler styles it a " forward delusive faculty." Its true office is to be a handmaid to the understanding, vivifying its conceptions and imparting a glow of life and

beauty to the knowledge of nature. It is

The true office of ,i -i • ,i i i • i, i.'

thisfticuitv "^^ medium through which our emotions

are excited in the absence of their appro- priate objects. By imagination we mean not simply the power of vividly representing to the mind the objects of its past perceptions or of its present thoughts, but that combi- nation with other faculties by virtue of which new forms and new objects are created. It is by virtue of this faculty, in this sense, that theories in science are constructed from remote analogies — that accidents give intensity to the con- ception of particular objects, and make them the centre of associations which exist only in the heated mind. Taken in this sense, we may say with Hunie,^ that " nothing is ^ Treat. Human Nat. b. i., p. iv., ? 7.

88 man's natural ignorance of god. [Lect. III.

more dangerous to reason than the flights of unagination,

and nothing has been the occasion of more mistakes among

, ., philosophers. Men of bright fancies may,

Delineation of its ••■ •■• '-> •' '

influence wiieu per- in this rcspcct, bc Compared to those an- gels whom the Scriptures represent as cov- ering their eyes with their wings." The influence of im- agination in perverting speculation appears in the tendency to frame an hypothesis from slight and accidental coinci- dences. The imagination represents the connected things so vividly that we are tempted to cognize the connection as a necessary part of themselves. Hence the substitution of fancied for real causes; hence superstition substituted in the place of j)hilosophy ; hence arise the arts of magic and the belief of prodigies and signs. We can see how, through the irregular influence of the imagination, objects that have become strongly associated with our joys and sorrows may be invested with attributes that do not belong to them ; as, for example, the vegetable, the mineral, the beast, that from some accidental circumstance has been the occasion of im- j^arting to us a valued good or delivering us from a dreaded evil. The object henceforward becomes the centre in our minds of a whole class of associations waked up by the vividness of our emotions. We insensibly attribute to it intelligence and design, and end by making it a god. The imagination takes the place of reason, and attributes to the fancied cause all the properties and attributes of the real Author of our blessings. In the same way natural objects become centres of thoughts awakened by disgust, and end in being made the personal objects of hatred and contempt. The causes which first set the fancy to work in particular directions it is impossible to specify. Here Satan has a commanding field of operation. But the fancy once set to work we can readily perceive how the facts

Key to polytheism. . i , i i c l^

of experience and the phenomena ot nature can be completely transformed. We have the key to the polytheism which has prevailed in all heatlien lands. We know the forge in which its innumerable gods have been

Lect. III.] man's natural ignorance of god. 89

made. We know the author of their various attributes and works. Now, here is a pregnant proof of the disturbing power of sin. A faculty which God intended to be a hand- maid and minister is made the guide of our nature. Rea- son takes the place of a subordinate, and man creates by the same process both worlds and gods for himself. Here, too, we see the same principle of pride — the exaltation of his own being. He makes and unmakes ; he becomes creator and Lord ; he becomes the supreme God of all.

Combine now these two causes, a perverted reason and a perverted imagination ; replace the laws of belief by ground- less crotchets, and picture the world in the colours of fancy ; let false principles and a lively imagination unite their re- sources, and let the end be consistency of thought in a scheme of the universe ; and we have a key to human delu- sions in the sphere of speculation. We can see the door through which sin introduces the prolific progeny of error, superstition, witchcraft, sorcery, idolatry and even athe- ism itself.

(2.) But we proceed to signalize another form in which sin still more fearfully perverts the nature

The perverting in- *' ■■■

fluciice of sin in the aud character of God. It is through the

sphere of morals, • n c m • itt i

iniiuence ol an evil conscience. We do not propose to consider the manner in which depravity dis- torts our moral judgments themselves, often leading us in speculation to question the first principles of right or to resolve them into modifications of pleasure and pain. We do not allude to its power in misleading its victims in the estimate of their own character, or in blinding the mind to the atrocity of particular instances of wickedness. The . „ . , ,. point we have in view is to illustrate the

especially in relation i

to the character of tcudcncy of a pervcrtcd conscience to mis- represent the nature and character of God. McCosh^ has strikingly illustrated what he calls " an attract- ing and repelling principle" in the religious life of our fallen race. " First, there is a feeling in man," says he, " prompt- ' Divine Government, p. 44.

90 man's natural ignorance of god. [Lect. ni.

ing him to seek God, if haply he may find him. Transient feelings of gratitude, the fear of danger, the keen sense of sin, the fear of punishment, all these would draw or drive him into the presence of God." After enumerating the cir- cumstances under which this feeling conspicuously operates, he proceeds to mention that " there is also a repelling prin- ciple, and it is the latter which is so very mysterious. It is a fact — and the explanation is to be found in an evil con- science— that there is something in human nature which would drive man away from his ISIaker. When his better feelings would prompt him to fall down before God, a hand from behind is felt to be holding him back, and he hesitates and procrastinates till the time for action is over." To the action and reaction of these opposite principles he traces the

" strange contradictions of the human soul " thotrir '"^ in relation to_ religion. "It is drawn to

God, and yet it is repelled from God when it comes near him, as the electrified ball is repelled as soon as it comes in contact with the object which attracted it. Man is constrained to acknowledge God, and constrained to tremble before the God whom he acknowledges. He would escape from God only to feel that he is chained to him by bonds which he cannot break. He would flee fi"om God, but feels himself helpless as the charmed bird with the eye of the serpent fixed upon it. He would go forth like Cain from the presence of the Lord, but he has God's mark upon him, and is still under his eye in all his wanderings. He would flee from the presence of God, like the rebellious projihet, into a region of thought and feeling where the re- membrance of God can never trouble him, but it is only to find himself brought back by restraints laid upon him. In his conduct toward his God there is prostration and yet rebellion ; there is assurance and yet there is terror. When he refuses to worship God, it is from mingled pride and alarm ; when he worships God, it is from the same feelings ; and the worship which he spontaneously pays is a strange mixture of presumption and slavish fear. Hence, the vibrat-

Lect. III.] man's natural ignorance of god. 91

ing movements of the world's religious history. Under this double influence, attractive and repulsive, man's eccen- tric orbit is not so much like that of the planets, with their equable motion and temperature, as like that of the comets, now approaching, as it were, within the scorching beams of the central heat and light, and again driven away into the utmost and coldest regions of space, and seeming as if they were let loose from all central and restraining influence."

To appreciate the result produced by the joint operation of these two principles, so happily signalized by McCosh, it must be borne in mind that the attraction is without love, and the repulsion without reverence. The sympathies which draw men to God do not spring from any sense of the Divine excellence or any apprehension of the Divine glory. There is nothing approximating to a spirit of fellowship. Their needs and their burdens, their weaknesses and dangers, or the transient play of emotions upon sudden occasions of benefits received or ills averted, — these are the cords which attract us to our Maker. In the effort to escape from God guilt is the predominant controlling motive. \Ye fear and tremble, but we are not awed into any just

Fearing, yet hating, . .

reverence lor His majesty, or any just con- ception of the sanctity of His justice. We hate while we tremble.

When now we call to mind that a man seeks harmony in his conscience as well as in his speculations — that he is as anxious to be at peace with himself in the reflections which he makes upon his own life and character as to be sensible of mutual consistency and coherence in his philosophical in- quiries— we can easily perceive that an evil conscience must evil conscience ^^ ^ perpetual sourcc of false representations must misrepresent of God. Whcn guilt raulvlcs iu tlic brcast, the man blasphemes the justice of his Judge. His self-love will prompt hira to stigmatize the punishment of himself as remorseless cruelty ; and taking the hue of liis own feelings, he will clothe God in colours of blood. He will become a monster who must be avoided or appeased.

92 man's natural ignorance of god. [Lect. Ill,

Hence those savage religions which startle as much by the ferocity of their rites as by the enormous blasphemy of their doctrines. Or, when the rites of propitiation are less revolt- ing, they still lead to a degradation of God by figuring Him as a being who can be bribed, wheedled or cajoled. A guilty conscience, unwilling to relinquish its iniquities and yet anxious to be delivered from apprehensions of punish- ment, prompts a man to represent the Deity as subject to the weaknesses and follies of humanity. The whole system of worship is projected upon the principle of ministering to the vanity of the Almighty. As His justice is regarded as personal revenge, the satisfoction of that justice consists in soothing His wounded pride. God is to be flattered and caressed with external marks of submission and esteem ; He is to be flattered or insulted accordingly as He conducts Him- self well or ill to the worshipper. The real spirit of idola- trous worship, as a spirit of bribery, flattery and deceit, is seen in the manner in which the heathen were accustomed to treat their gods when they refused to succour them in times of distress. Thucydides tells us that during the prevalence of the plague in Athens the temples and images and altars were entirely deserted and religion treated with contempt, because their prayers had not been successful in staying the progress of the pestilence. " The ancient Egyp- tians," says McCosh, " in times of severe national distress, took their sacred animals to a secret place and put them to death, and threatened their gods that if the calamity did not pass away they would disclose the mysteries of Isis or expose the members of Osiris to Typhon. Augustus re- venged himself for the loss of his fleet by storms on two several occasions, by forbidding the statue of Neptune to be carried in the procession of the gods." Conscience fills the mind with prejudices against the nature and character of God, as a personal insult to ourselves fills our hearts with prejudices against the man, however excellent in himself, who has mortified our self-respect. We cannot judge rightly of one whom we hate and one whom we fear. In this way

Lect. III.] man's natural ignorance of god. 93

the guilty are betrayed into the most insulting reproaches of their Maker, The being whom their fears picture is a strange and hideous combination of malice, of weakness and of vanity. No wonder that under the united influence of guilt, self-love and the power of sin, under the united in- fluence of an evil conscience and of evil passions, men have made to themselves a God whom it is a shame to worship. When to these causes we add the force of imagination, when we give it impetus and energy by the very intensity of the feelings, we have the key to the monsters which, under the name of deities, have accelerated that degradation of the species in which they took their origin. Here we have the The true solution of truc solutiou of supcrstitiou and will-wor- Bupeistition and will- ship, whether they appear in forms of cruelty and blood, or in the softer shapes of flattery and pretended praise. These same causes also lead to a bold denial of providence. The repulsive principle drives off all thoughts of God and the Divine government ; and it is even made a proof of His dignity and blessedness that He takes no interest in the affairs of men. If He exist at all. He exists in solitary selfishness, and never permits His eternal slumbers to be broken by such petty concerns as the acts or fortunes of His creatures. He is despoiled of His providence in compliment to His majesty. The Epi- curean, in his refusal to worship, illustrates, only in a differ- ent way, the same low thought of God as a victim of vanity, which the devotee of superstition carries out in his deceitful homage. Thus it comes to pass that none know God. The Ajjostle touches the core of the difficulty when he traces it to their invincible repugnance to give Him the glory which is His due. They refuse Him the love to which His infinite holiness is entitled. His light departs from the soul; it henceforward gropes in darkness ; stumbles at the first prin- ciples of truth ; enthrones imagination as the regulative measure of thought ; and when roused by a guilty conscience and evil passions gives us a being whom it would be our honour to despise. The heart begins in malice, and ends

94 man's natural ignorance of god. [Lect. III.

by the creation of a Deity who is a fit subject for that malice.

(3.) We have now seen how conscience, in the bosom of a sinner, becomes a fruitful source of ignorance and mistake in relation to God. We have seen how it crouches and flatters — how it seeks to purchase peace by rites and sacrifices that involve any suffering but that of the crucifixion of sin. But there is a principle which prompts man to worship some- thing as an object in which it can find complacency. It is not content with distant homage ; it wants something in which it can feel that there is a mutual sympathy with itself — something which shall take the place of that commu- nion with God which constitutes the essence of true religion. The perverting in- ^his principle of worship or of fellowship fluence of sin in the -with God, uudcr tlic pcrvcrtlng influcncc

sphere of worship. r» • i i i • • i /» •

oi sm, becomes an additional source of ig- norance and error. The God whom it seeks cannot be found. The living God has retired ; He has left the soul to dark- ness and solitude. Hence a substitute must be found, and the result is the invention of images as symbols of a presence whij3h is no longer real. We imitate communion by the embrace of the idol. We transfer to it the sentiments of reverence which we profess for God, and by a natural de- lusion we impart to it a fictitious consciousness of our rev- erence and respect. This want of a present God, and this determination to make Him present, have no doubt exerted a wide influence in the inventions of idolatry. The reaction of the image upon the mind of the worshipper, in depressing his religious knowledge, is too obvious to require illustration. This seems to have been also the opinion of Calvin^ as to the origin of idolatry : " That idolatry has its origin in the idea which men have that God is not present with them unless His presence is carnally exhibited, appears from the example of the Israelites. Up, said they, make us gods which shall go before us ; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not ^ Instit. Lib. I., c. xi., § 8. ,

Lect. III.] man's natural ignorance of god. 95

what is become of him. (Ex. xxxii. 1.) They knew, indeed, that there was a God, whose power they had ex- perienced in so many miracles, but they had no confidence of His being near to them, if they did not Avith tlieir eyes behold a corporeal symbol of His presence as an attestation to His actual government. They desired, therefore, to be assured by the image which went before them that they were journeying under Divine guidance. And daily expe- rience shows that the flesh is always restless, until it has obtained some figment like itself with which it may vainly solace itself as a representation of God. In consequence of this blind passion, men have, almost in all ages since the world began, set up signs on which they imagined that God was visibly depicted to their eyes." According to this view idolatry is a confession that God has departed. It is the effort of human presumption to countervail the consequences of His absence, or rather the invention of human pride to do without Him. It is literally bringing Him down to us. The account which has now been given of the causes of man's ignorance and errors in relation to

These views con- r^ i . , i • i ,i

firmed by Paul, ^OQ sccms to me to DC preciscly the same

as that which Paul has given in the pas- sage from his Epistle to the Romans, already cited. The root of the evil was the depravity of their hearts, manifested in their refusal to glorify God as God. They had no real love to His name, they saw no beauty in His holiness, and felt no sympathy with His glory. They were destitute of true religion. Instead of contemplating the Divine Being %vith reverence, gratitude and delight, they became vain in their reasonings — in their speculations upon his nature, his attributes and his relations to the creatures. Sin appears in the understanding as a principle of vanity, and, in leading men to deny the first principles of intelligence, makes their minds cease to be intelligent. Their unintelligent heart was darkened. Intelligence in its fundamental laws being sub- verted, men become a prey to their passions, their fancies, their prejudices and their fears, and pass through all the

96 man's natueal ignorance of god. [Lect. III.

stages of religious degradation until they make themselves as vile as the gods they have invented.

Substantially the same is the teaching of Solomon, that God hath made men upright, but they have

and by Solomon. . .

sought out many inventions. ihe word translated inventions has special reference to the subtleties of vain speculation. It is applied (2 Chron. xxvi. 15) to " the engines invented by cunning men" introduced by Uzziah into Jerusalem, "to be on the towers and on the bulwarks to shoot arrows and great stones withal." It ex- actly expresses, as Hengstenberg suggests, " those so often plausible and brilliant reasonings of the natural under- standing which perplex the heart and lead away from the wisdom that is from above ; those speculations of a heart turned away from God, which are perpetually penetrating into the Church from the world; those profane and vain babblings and oppositions of science, falsely so called, against which the apostle utters his warning in 1 Tim. vi'. 20." Hengstenberg very justly adds : " Since the fall, man has forgotten that he should, in the first instance, take up a receptive position in relation to the wisdom that is from above, and that such a position is the only right one ; but instead of that he goes hunting after his own phantastic and high-flown thoughts. The only way of throwing off this severe disease, and of escaping from the bonds of one's own thoughts and imaginations, is to unlearn the serpent's lesson, ' Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil ;' to re- turn to our dependence on God ; to renounce all self-acquired knowledge ; and leaving all our own fancies and conclusions to sink in Lethe's stream, to accept the Divine teachings alone, according to our Lord's saying in Matt. xi. 25 : ' I thank thee, O Father, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.' " ^ If we have succeeded in exhibiting the real causes of re- ligious error and perverseness — if we have shown that there is a disturbing power in sin which hinders and counteracts the ' Comment on Eccles. vii. 29.

Lect. III.] man's natural ignorance of god. 97

normal development of reason, the religious condition of the world, however low and revolting, has no tendency to diminish the arguments which the light of nature affords to the being and attributes of God. That which may be known of God is clearly manifested, though men may put a veil upon their eyes and refuse to see it. They may shroud themselves in the darkness of their corruptions, but the light shines around them notwithstanding their blindness. To prove that human ignorance upon this subject is universal is only to prove that corruption is universal. The effects must be coextensive with the operation of the cause. In the sense of nature as created, all may and ought to know God ; in the sense of nature as corrupted, practical atheism is our sad inheritance.

II. But if man in his fallen and degenerate condition could yet compass a just speculative know-

The profounder igno- it r r^ t ii" j.j-1

ranee of man's heart. l^dgC of God aud hlS government, there IS

a profounder ignoraiice which would still settle upon his heart. This speculative knowledge is largely attained in countries which are distinguished by the light of the Christian revelation. The humblest peasants are familiar with truths of which Plato and Aristotle had no glimpse. They are sound upon questions which distract, perplex, torment, confound the understandings of presump- tuous sophists. They know that God is an eternal, inde- pendent, personal Spirit ; that He made the heavens and the earth ; that He governs all creatures and all their actions ; and that He is infinitely good as He is infinitely great. But, with all this knowledge, they yet fail to glorify Him as God. They want that loving light which warms as well as con- vinces. They want the beams of that beauty and glory which shall make them love and adore. They have no

communion with Him. Sin, as the nega-

Sin Winds us to the ,• /» .i i-n /• /^ i • . i i p

glory there is in God. ^^^^ ^^ ^'^^ l^^G of God lU thc SOul of man,

is a principle of blindness to all that in God which makes Him an object of delighted worship. Corrupted nature can never give birth to a single affection Vol. I.— 7

98 man's natural ignorance of god. [Lect. III.

which is truly religious. Depravity seals the man against all the energies which are involved in genuine holiness. In order to this spiritual, vivifying Divine knowledge, there must be an influence from above, opening our blind eyes and touching our wayward hearts ; and in order to this in- fluence there must be redemption, atonement, reconciliation with God. The cross is the only place where men can truly find God, and the incarnate Redeemer the only being in whom a sinner can adequately know Him. Apart from the mediation of Christ there is and can be no real godli- ness in any portion of our fallen race. All had gone astray, and all were perishing upon the dark mountains of error. Still, though the speculative knowledge of God can pro- indirect benefit, ^lucc uo truc rcligiou, it docs always pro- froni the mere specula- ducc an amendment of public manners. It

tive knowledge of God. . . . • i •

drives away superstition with its cruel and its deceitful rites ; it elevates the standard of general moral- ity ; and, if it does not make man intrinsically better, it makes him externally more decent. The morality of Chris- tian nations is far in advance of that of heathenism in its palmiest days. Crimes to which Athens and Rome attached no stigma — the unnatural lusts which were there indulged without shame — dare not confront the public opinion of any Christian state. Speculative knowledge gives a right di- rection to the conscience ; restraining influences are multi- plied, even where sanctifying grace is not felt. Read Paul's appalling description of the civilized heathen society of his day, and you will be sensible, at once, of the prodigious change which Christianity, as an external institute, has wrought in the manners of the people among whom it is re- ceived. The crimes which he mentions would be driven in Britain and America to cover themselves with the darkness of night and hide their heads in holes and corners. It is not that men are intrinsically better; they are only less wicked. It is not that their hearts are changed, but Chris- tianity has hemmed them in with restraints. They love God no more now than in the days of Nero ; but their depravity

I

Lect. Ill], man's natural ignorance of god. 99

has been tiirnecl into other channels, and moral forces are

combined to repress their lusts, of which the heathen never

had a notion. The Gospel, therefore, is an immense bless-

„, „ , „ ins;, even where it does not communicate

The Gospel exalts o'

where it may not re- salvatiou. It cxalts man where it does not redeem him. It sets moral powers to work

which are mighty in their effects, even though they fail to

reach the seat of the disease.

III. A question now remains which in a mawkish and skeptical age deserves to be thoroughly un-

Heathenism : a mis- i x j j.i x* • j.i 1

fortune or a crime ? dcrstood— the qucstioii conceming the moral estimate which should be put upon the errors and superstitions of those who are destitute of the light of revelation. There are many who represent hea- thenism as a misfortune and not a crime, and exhibit its victims as objects of pity and not of indignation. Men have gone so far as to maintain that the primitive condition of man was one of rudeness and ignorance, and that the various superstitions of the world have been successive steps in the progressive education of the race. The abominations of idolatry are the innocent mistakes of childhood. It has been further alleged that they are sincere in their worship, and as they honestly aim to pay homage to His name, God will graciously accept the will for the deed. These and all similar apologies are guilty of a fundamental error. They mistake the real secret of man's ignorance of God. So far are the heathen from feeling after Him w^th any real desire to find Him in His true character, that the grand purpose of their inventions is to insult and degrade Him, and to reign supreme in His place. Looked at in its true light, heathenism is a crime, or rather a combination of crimes, so enormous and aggravated that the marvel is how a God of infinite justice and purity could endure it for a single day. Its mother is sin and its daughter is death. In judging of it, men imperceptibly lose sight of the fact that the heathen are men like themselves, rational, moral, religious ; that they have a nature in all respects like ours — the same primitive

100 man's natural ignorance of god. [Lect. Ill,

cognitions, the same laws of belief, the same conscience in its fundamental commands, and the same instinct for personal communion and worship. Their constitution, as spiritual, responsible beings, in no respect differs from our own. Taking this thought along with us, we must of course judge of their principles, their character and conduct as the prin- ciples, character and conduct of rational beings. To the bar of reason they are certainly responsible. Now our whole argument has shown that these reasonable beings, in close conspiracy with the devil, have systematic-

A systematic perver- ii ,t -i j.Ij.1"

sion of reason. ally corruptcd and perverted their reason.

They have suppressed its utterances when- ever it speaks to them of God. They have listened to it in the affairs of life, but when it points to the Invisible and Supreme, they have boldly said to it that it lied, and that they would follow another light. Is there nothing monstrous in this ? Heathenism is really an attempt to put out the eye of the soul — nay more, to extinguish the very being of the soul ; for its essence is intelligence, and intelligence is sujjpressed in these very contradictions to first truths implied in heathenism. Then, again, rational beings are bound to regulate their faith by the laws of evidence. They are not to believe without just proof. They must give a reason for the faith that is in them. Bring heathenism to this test, and what are its proofs of its countless rabble of gods ? What evidence can it adduce for the Divine appointment of its monstrous systems of worship ? If the question were asked, Who hath required this at your hands ? what rational answer could these reasonable beings give ? These systems are so manifestly the products of their imagination, the spawn of a whorish fancy by a corrupt heart, that they would, perhaps, be amazed that any evidence were exacted. Then what shall we say to the crimes which The crimes which it ^j^^j^. religiou has sauctificd ? Those brutal

sauctines. o

lusts ; those bacchanalian revels ; the open contempt of all the ties which bind man to his fellows ; homicide, fratricide, parricide ; what shall we say of these.

Lect. in.] man's natural ignorance of god. 101

and of the men who have made it a merit, an act of devotion to God, to be stained with these enormities ? Their con- sciences judge right in the ordinary relations of life ; they know the obligations of truth, justice and benevolence. How can they be justified in extinguishing this conscience, this voice of God within them, when they touch the subject of religion ? If they are responsible at all, surely they are responsible for crimes like these. Nothing can excuse them which does not remove them from the rank of moral beings.

Add to this that in the matter of worship they oifer flattery for praise, bribes for penitence, and wages for sin. They have no love to God, no spiritual communion with their Maker, though their nature tells them this is the very life and soul of worship. Instead of this holy and spirit- ual exercise they substitute the presence of stocks and stones, of birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things, and would j)alm oif this mummery to an image as an adequate compensation for the absence of holy love.

If anything can be said with truth, it is that heathenism is unnatural and monstrous. And how can it be main- tained that a man is innocent when he has done violence to all that is great and noble about him ? What is heathen- ism in its last analysis but a determined effort in the alli- ance and interests of hell to extinguish reason rather than admit the true God? As to the notion that idolaters are sincere in their worshij^, if it means that

The plea of their lie- ,i it j.1 • i • j.1 j. • xl

ing" sincere." ^^^^J oelicve thcu^ lics, that IS the very core

of the charge against them. How can they as reasonable beings believe without guilt a mass of stupendous falsehoods which outrage common sense ? Their reason never brought them to this pass ; it was something which silenced reason. If by " sincerity" is meant that they design the honour of God, then the core of their guilt again is that they have such thoughts of God as to suppose that He can be pleased with what would degrade a man. He who thinks to honour me by slander and insult, by making me approve and reward the most abominable crimes,

] 02 man's natural ignorance of god. [Lect. III.

has certainly strange notions of honour ; and the more sin- cerely they honour God after this fashion the more they deserve to be damned for hushing that monitor of God which speaks spontaneously in their consciences.

It is a shame to apologize for idolaters. We may pity them, but we must condemn them. They are without ex- cuse. Their ignorance is wilful and obstinate.

The true view of heathenism is, that it is the consumma- „ ,, . . ^^ tion of human depravity. It is the full

Heathenism is the i -^

consummation of de- development of the principle of sin in its '"'*" ■^' workings upon the intellectual, the moral,

the religious nature of man. It is a development directly counter to that which is normal and right. It is the last stage which the mind reaches in its retrograde movement. It is as complete an unmaking of the work of God in man as it is possible to conceive. The only sense in which it is a preparation for the gospel is that it shows the hopelessness of man Avithout it. God has permitted it to take place on a large scale that He might demonstrate the real tendencies of sin. If the fact were not before our eyes, we might be tempted to doubt whether reasonable beings could sink so low. If we knew nothing of history, and for the first time were made acquainted with the various schemes of idolatry and superstition, we should hesitate in attributing to those who invented and those who received such systems the epi- thet of rational. They could not, we should be apt to feel, be men like ourselves. But there stands the fact, and there it stands as an unanswerable proof, that sin is the murderer of the soul. It extinguishes the life of intelligence, the life of conscience and the life of religion. It turns man into a monster and clothes his Maker in garments of slianie, and when it has done its Avork of death it complacently wipes its mouth and says, " I have done no evil." Surely the Avicked shall be turned into hell, with all the nations that forget God.

As to the first authors of idolatry, it deserves further to be mentioned that they not only sinned against the light

Lect. III.] man's natural ignorance of god. 103

of reason, but against the light of revelation. Adam and ^, ^ . , , ^ the patriarchs were not left Avithout Divine

The first idolaters '■

sinned against reveia- guidance in relation to the worship of God. They had an express law which they knew to be from Him. Those who departed from this law, or corrupted it by their own arbitrary inventions, were guilty of wilful and deliberate apostasy. They did not like to retain God in their knowledge. The principle which prompted their apostasy is the principle which lies at the root of all the subsequent aberrations of their children. None sought after God, none desired the knowledge of His ways, none were disposed to glorify His name ; and the con- sequence was that they were given up to walk in the light of their own eyes and after the imagination of their own hearts, and instead of light to embrace only the shadow of death.

Lecture IV THE NATURE AND LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD

"ITrE have already said that all the speculations of the ' ' human mind in relation to the Supreme Being may be reduced to three questions : An sit Deus f Quid sit Deus f Qualis sit Deus f — that is, they all have reference either to His Existence, His Nature or His Attributes. The first has been the subject of the precedino; lectures :

Quid sit Deus? '' ^ ^ '

the second now demands our attention. To the question concerning the nature and extent of our Two contradictory kuowledgc of God, two auswcrs directly answers : (1.) God per- contradictory havc bccu returned by philo-

I'ectly comprehensible. , ^-^ ■, ,^ ti/-^t

sophers. One party has amrmed that God is not only comprehensible in Himself, it being His nature to be intelligible, but that the actual compreliension of His essence, as made up of the ideas which constitute absolute reason or intelligence, is the condition of intelligence in re- lation to every other object. We may not only know Him, but we can know nothing else without knowing Him. " Philosophy," says Cousin,' " will not deny the accusation of wishing to penetrate into the depths of the Divine essence which common opinion declares to be incomprehensible. There are those who Avould have it incomprehensible. There are men, reasonable beings, whose vocation it is to comprehend and who believe in the existence of God, but %vho will believe in it only under the express condition that this existence is incomprehensible. What does this mean ? Do

^ Introduc. to Hist. Phil., Linberg's Trans., p. 132. 104

Lect. IV.] LIMITS OF OUE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 105

they assert that this existence is absolutely incomprehensi- ble? But that which is absolutely incomprehensible can liave no relations which connect it with our intelligence, nor can it be in any wise admitted by us. A God who is absolutely incomprehensible by us is a God who, in regard to us, does not exist. In truth, what would a God be to us who had not seen fit to give us some portion of Himself, and so much of intelligence as might enable His wretched crea- tui'e to elevate himself even unto Him, to comprehend Him, to believe in Him ? Gentlemen, what is it to believe ? It is, in a certain degree, to comprehend. Faith, whatever be its form, whatever be its object, whether vulgar or sublime — faith cannot but be the consent of reason to that which rea- son comprehends as true. This is the foundation of all faith. Take away the possibility of knowing, and there remains nothing to believe, for the very root of faith is re- moved. Will it be said that God is not altogether incom- prehensible?— ^that He is somewhat isomprehensible ? Be it so, but let the measure of this be determined, and then I will maintain that it is precisely the measure of the com- 2)rehensibility of God which will be the measure of human faith. So little is God incomprehensible that His nature is constituted by ideas, by those ideas whose nature it is to be intelligible. . . . God, the substance of ideas, is essentially intelligent and essentially intelligible."

The other party represents the Divine nature, in common with the nature of every other being, as inSipSlnsTwe!'"^ Utterly beyond the reach of thought. It never can be a positive element of con- sciousness. God is and ever must be the great unknown. The language in which the writers of this school sometimes express themselves is so strong as to convey the notion that God is so entirely aloof from all relation to our faculties that we know, and can know, absolutely nothing about Him but the bare fact of his existence.

" We cannot," says Bishop Browne, as quoted by Pro-

106 LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. [Lect. IV.

fessor Fraser/ " be said only to have indistinct, confused and imperfect apprehensions of the true nature of God and of His real attributes, hut none at all in any degree. The true meaning of the word incomj)rehensible is that we have no idea at all of the real, true nature of God." Those patris- tic representations of the Deity which make Him " the un- known subject of attributes absolutely unknown/' to which Bishop Browne subsequently refers, are traced by Berkeley^ to the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. This author, Berkeley observes, " hath written upon the Divine attri- butes in a very singular style. In his treatise of the Celes- tial Hierarchy he saith that God is something above all essence and life, ut:e(} Tzaaav ouaiav xai qtorjV) and again in his treatise of the Divine names, that He is above all wisdom and understanding, u>t£/> no.aav aoifiav xal auveatv ; ineffable and innommable, dypr^ro^; xal, di^wi^v/uoc; ; the wisdom of God he terms an unreasonable, unintelligent and foolish wisdom, TT^v dXoyov xal dvouu xal fio)f>dv aotfiav. But then the reason he gives for expressing himself in this strange manner is, that the Divine wisdom is the cause of all reason, wisdom and understanding, and therein are contained the treasures of all wisdom and knowledge. He calls God uTiipaoifoz xal uTtiit^w^, as if wisdom and life were words not worthy to express the Divine perfections ; and he adds that the attributes, unintelligent and unperceiving, must be ascribed to the Divinity, not xaz iUst<f'iu by way of defect, but xad' bTiEpoY^YjV, by way of cminency, which he explains by our giving the name of darkness to light inaccessible." This mode of dealing with the Divine nature Berkeley very happily characterizes as " the method of growing in expres- sion and dwindling in notion, as clearing up doubts by non- sense and avoiding difficulties by running into affected con- tradictions."

Sir William Hamilton, whose philosophy by no means leads to a total denial — on the other hand it expressly pos- tulates a necessary faith and a relative knowledge — of trans-

• Essays in Philos., p. 216. ^ Minute Pliilos., Dial, iv., § 19.

Lect. IY.] limits of our KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 107

ceudcnt Existence, has yet, at times, expressed himself in terms which justify the remark of Professor Fraser,' that " the Scottish philosopher seems to cut away every bridge by which man can have access to God." To maintain the absolute incognoscibility of God is to maintain the absolute imj)ossibility of religion. The philosopher, accordingly, who in modern times has so triumphantly demonstrated that ontological science is a " mere fabric of delusion," was but consistent with himself when he resolved the essence of religion into obedience to the moral law.

The truth lies between these extremes ; God is at once known and unknown. In His transcendent

Truth in the midJle. -p, . , i i • n '

Beuig, as absolute and infinite, though a necessary object of faith. He cannot be an object of thought. We cannot represent Him to the understanding, nor think Him as He is in Himself. But in and through the finite He has given manifestations of His incomprehensible reality, which, though not sufficient to satisfy the demands of spec- ulation, are amply adequate for all the ends of religion. Human knowledge is the same in form, whatever may be the diversity of its objects. The knowledge of God is, con- sequently, not different in kind from the knowledge of any other being. Though unlimited in Himself, the absence of limitation in Him does not remove the limitation of our faculties, and we are compelled to know Him, as men, under the same conditions and restraints under which we know the

finite. There are three conditions which

Three roiiditions of • , -i rri

all kuowiedge. cousciousncss iicvcr can transcend, ihe

first is, that the immediate matter of our knowledge is not things as they are in themselves, but things as they appear — phenomena, and not the transcendent reality which underlies them and imparts to them their coherence and their unity. We know matter, we know mind, not absolutely as matter or mind, but as that which appears to us under the forms of extension, solidity, figure, motion, etc., or that which appears to us under the forms of thinking, 1 Essays in Philos., p. 222.

108 LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. [Lect. IV.

feeling, willing. Our knowledge, therefore, is confined to phenomena, and to phenomena only. Another condition is, that we know only those appearances of things which stand in relation to our faculties. There may be other appearances which they are capable of presenting to other intelligences. It would be unphilosophical to assume that our senses ex- haust all the properties of matter, or our consciousness all the properties of mind. All that we can say is, that they exhaust all the appearances or phenomena which we are ca- pable of knowing. Others may exist, but their existence to us is a blank. De non apparentibus et non existcntibus eadem est 7'atio. The third is, that in knowing phenomena, and the phenomena related to us, we are irresistibly impelled to pos- tulate a transcendent something beyond them, as the ground of their coexistence and uniformity. As these " phenomena appear only in conjunction," says Sir William Hamilton,^ " we are compelled by the constitution of our nature to think them conjoined in and by something ; and as they are phe- nomena, we cannot think them the phenomena of nothing, but must regard them as the properties or qualities of some- thing that is extended, solid, figured, etc. But this some- thing, absolutely and in itself — i. e., considered apart from its phenomena — is to us as zero. It is only in its qualities, only in its effects, in its relative or phenomenal existence, that it is cognizable or conceivable; and it is only by a law of thought which compels us to think sometljing absolute and unknown, as the basis or condition of the relative and known, that this something obtains a kind of incomprehensible reality to us." To this unknown something, in its generic sense, as comprehending the basis of all phenomena, we ap- ply the name of substance ; in its specific sense, as indicating the basis of the phenomena of extension, we call it matter ; as indicating the basis of the phenomena of consciousness, we call it mind or spirit. " Thus mind and matter " — I re- sume the Avords of Hamilton — " as known and knowable, are only two different series of phenomena or qualities ; mind ' Metaphys., Lect. viii.

Lect. IV.] LIMITS OF OUE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 109

and matter, as unknown and unknowable, are the two sub- stances in which these two different series of phenomena or qualities are supposed to inhere."

Hence in our knowledge of the finite there are evidently two elements or factors. There is, first, the

PliPiioniena and sub- 1 j.' 11 ll'l i

gjj^^^g relative and phenomenal, winch can be con-

ceived and known ; this is the j)roper object of thought. There is, secondly, the substance or substratum, the quasi absolute, which cannot be represented in thought, but which is positively believed as existing. One element addresses itself to intelligence and the other to faith. Both are felt to be equally true. Both concur in every cognition of the finite. Take away the belief of substance, and you destroy the unity of phenomena ; take away the conception of phenomena, and you destroy the conditions under which the belief of substance is realized. It is in and throuo-h the phenomena that substance is knoicn; they are the manifest- ations of it as a transcendent reality ; it is a real existence to us under these forms. As, then, the properties of matter Properties reveal ^"^ miud are rclativc manifestations of substance, and the fi- transccndeut rcalitics beyond them, so the

nite the infinite. . • i i i •

finite, considered as such, is a relative manifestation of an absolute and infinite being; without whom the finite is as unintelligible as a phenomenon with- out substance. The notion of cause is a necessary element of reason. The notion of the finite is the notion of an eifect, of something dependent in its being. A finite absolute is a contradiction in terms. The causal nexus as much necessi- tates the belief of the infinite and absolute when we contem- plate the finite and dependent, as the nexus of substance and accident necessitates the belief of substance when we contem- plate phenomena. Without the infinite, no finite — without the absolute, no relative, is as clear and unambiguous an ut- terance of human reason as no properties without a subject. "The really necessary causal judgment," says Professor Fraser,^ " has, as it seems to us, another reference altogether, 1 Essays, p. 242.

110 LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. [Lect. IV,

than to laws of nature and uniformities of succession among the finite changes of the Universe. It is a general expression of the fundamental conviction of reason, that every finite event and being dependfi on and practically reveals infinite or trans- cendent Power. It is a vague utterance of dissatisfaction with an absolutely finite Universe — totum, teres atque rotun- dum — and of a positive belief, not only that finite objects exist, but that they do not exhaust existence, seeing that they depend on God. We are intellectually dissatisfied as long as the object of which we are in quest is within the range of logical laws, and therefore recognized as a power only in- definitely great. The dissatisfaction projects reason beyond the realm of finite, and therefore scientifically cognizable, existence. The mental necessity which thus conducts us to the Transcendent Being and Power, with or without the in- tervention of finite beings and second causes, is the root of the only truly necessary causal judgment we can discover." The finite accordingly is a real, though oi;ily a relative, manifestation of the infinite. It gives the fact of its exist- ence; we know that it is, though we do not know it as it is.

In all this there is nothing peculiar either in our know- ledge or our ignorance of God. The mystery which shrouds His being is the same in kind with the mystery which shrouds the being of every other object. In both cases there are the same elements — an incomprehensible reality ■which transcends the capacit}' of thought, and comprehensi- ble phenomena which are readily moulded into the forms of the understanding ; and in both cases the comprehensi- ble is the exponent, the manifestation, the all that is know- able by us, of the incomprehensible. Properties reveal sub- stance, and the finite reveals the infinite — not that properties

are like substance, or the finite like the In- infinUel'b-irreTelis u! ^"1^. Wc havc uo right to make the one

rejiresentative of the other. But projicr- ties arc the modes under which substance appears to our understandings, and the finite the mode under which the

Lect. IV.] LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. Ill

absolute appears. " We know God," says Calvin/ " who is Himself invisible only through His works. Therefore the apostle elegantly styles the worlds za jxr] ex (faiuo/xii^cou ^Xenofitva, as if one should say, ' the manifestation of things not apparent.' This is the reason why the Lord, that He may invite us to the knowledge of Himself, places the fab- ric of heaven and earth before our eyes, rendering Himself, in a certain manner, manifest in them. For His eternal power and Godhead, as Paul says, are there exhibited. And that declaration of David is most true, that the heav- ens, though without a tongue, are yet eloquent heralds of the glory of God, and that this most beautiful order of nature silently proclaims His admirable wisdom. ... As for those who proudly soar above the world to seek God in His unveiled essence, it is impossible but that at length they should entangle themselves in a multitude of absurd fig- ments. For God, by other means invisible, as we have already said, clothes Himself, so to speak, with the image of the world in which He would present Himself to our con- templation. They who will not deign to behold Him thus magnificently arrayed in the incomparable vesture of the heavens and the earth, afterwards suffer the just punish- ment of their proud contempt in their own ravings. There- fore, as soon as the name of God sounds in our ears, or the thought of Him occurs to our minds, let us clothe Him with this most beautiful ornament ; finally, let the world become our school, if we desire rightly to know God."

As it is the causal nexus which upon the contemplation

of the finite elicits in consciousness the necessary belief of

the Infinite, and as the effects which we behold, being effects,

cannot be the attributes or properties of God, the question

arises. What are the intuitions by which

The question. • i i i

we represent in thought the comprehen- sible element of our knowledge? How, in other words, do we think God ? AVhat are the data which we combine in the conception, and what is our security that these data ' Comment, on Genesis, Argument (Calvin Transl. Soc), vol. i., pp. 59, 60.

112 LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OP GOD. [Lect. W.

are +he real appearances of such a Being to minds like ours?

To this the only satisfactory answer which can be given is, that all the intuitions, or, as Locke would express it, all the simple ideas, which enter into the complex notion of God, as thought by the human understanding, are derived from the human soul. The j)0ssibility of theology depends upon the postulate that man reflects the image of His Maker. We have seen that reason is so constituted that when adequately developed it spontaneously ascends from the phenomena of exj^erienee to a First Cause, an abso- lute and infinite Being which it is constrained to construe as intelligent, powerful and good, as a just moral Ruler and the supreme object of worship) and adoration. Intelli- gence, wisdom, power, liberty, goodness, justice, truth, right- eousness and beauty, — these are attributes without which God is God no more. Whence do we derive these con- cepts ? Whence are our notions of know-

All concepts of God i -i -t l x j.1 o ^Tti

from the humaa soul, ledge, gooduess and truth? \\ hence our notion of power? Most evidently they spring from our own minds. Our own consciousness is the storehouse from which they are drawn. We can conceive no intelligence but the human ; Ave can think no power but that which is suggested by the energy of our own wills ; we can have no moral intuitions but those which are given by our own consciences. Man, therefore, sits for the picture that he sketches of God. But is God only man upon a larger scale? Is the infinite only a higher degree of the finite ? It is a saying of the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite — and it has generally been accepted as a sufficient indication of the truth — that in ascending from the creature to God we pro- ceed by the method of causality, of negation and of emi- nence. In the way of causality I am constrained to affirm that every perfection which is contained in the effect was previously contained in the cause. But as the perfections of the creature exist under many limitations and conditions which are inconsistent with the notion of the Infinite, I am

Lect. IV.] LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 113

led in the way of negation to remove those restrictions and defects, and to posit the perfections in the abstract. Then, by the way of eminence, I strive to represent these perfec- tions as expanded even to infinity. Thouglit struggles to magnify until it sinks back upon itself exhausted in the effort. Examples of all these methods the Scholastic divines^ profess to find in the Scriptures. Thus, Psalm xciv. 9, 10 is an instance of the way of causality : " He that planted the ear, shall He not hear ? He that formed the eye, shall He not see ? He that chastiseth the heathen, shall not He correct ? He that teacheth man knowledge, shall not He know?" In Numbers xxiii. 19 we have an illustration of the method of negation : " God is not a man, that He should lie ; neither the son of man, that He should repent. Hath He said, and shall He not do it ? Or hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good ?" The method of eminence is signalized in Isaiah Iv. 8, 9 : " For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."

This is the- process — and it is a process natural to reason, as inevitable as the laws of thought — by which we are led to the belief of an absolutely perfect being. The notion of an ens realissimum is not the arbitrary product of the fancy, but the necessary result of speculation, when a cause is sought for the manifold phenomena of the finite. Relative perfection is construed as the manifestation of the absolute. It is the form under which it aj)pears to our con- ditioned consciousness. It is not the same with it, nor like it, but reveals it — reveals it as existing ; reveals it as a neces- sary article of faith conceived only under analogy. The relative perfection, in other words, is the form or symbol under which the absolute appears.

And here let me explain the terms absolute and infinite in their relation to God, which have become household words 1 De Moor, c. i., ? 13. Vol. I.— 8

114 LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. [Lfxt. IV.

of modern philosophy. The absokite is that which is self- existent and underivcd — which exists with- Jd%'nuTLvi^'l out dependence upon, or necessary relation to, any other being. The infinite is that which includes all reality, all being and all perfection within itself. It is the totality of existence. It is not the unfinish- able of Sir William Hamilton, for that is essentially imper- fect. It is that . absolute which he has described as the Telecoz of the Greeks — a complete whole, to which nothing can be added and from which nothing can be taken. In the senses here explained the infinite and the absolute co- incide. They are only different phases of one and the same thing. There can be no infinite without the absolute, no absolute without the infinite. There cannot be necessary self-existent being which is not also unconditionally un- limited being. Hence, among divines, the absolute and in- finite are, for the most part, interchangeable terms. " The metaphysical representation of the Deity," says Mansel,^ "as absolute and infinite, must necessarily, as the profoundest metaphysicians have acknowledged, amount to nothing less than the sum of all reality. ' What kind of an absolute being is that,' says Hegel, ' which does not contain in itself all that is actual, even evil included?' We may repudiate the conclusion with indignation, but the reasoning is unas- sailable. If the absolute and infinite is an object of human conception at all, this, and none other, is the conception re- quired. That which is conceived as absolute and infinite must be conceived as containing within itself the sum, not only of all actual, but of all possible modes of being. For if any actual mode can be denied of it, it is related to that mode and limited by it ; and if any possible mode can be denied of it, it is capable of becoming more than it now is, and such a capability is a limitation. Indeed it is obvious that the entire distinction between the possible and the actual can have no existence as regards the absolutely infinite ; for an unrealized possibility is necessarily a relation and a limit. ^ Limits of Eel. Thought, Lect. ii.

Lect. IV.] LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 115

The scholastic saying, Deus est actus purus, ridiculed as it has been by modern critics, is in truth but the expression in technical language of the almost unanimous voice of philo- sophy, both in earlier and later times." To this quotation may be added a confirmatory quotation from the Living Temple of John Howe : ^ " Necessary being is most unmixed or purest being, without allay. That is pure which is full of itvself. Purity is not here meant in a corporeal sense [which few will think], nor in the moral ; but, as with metaphysi- cians, it signifies simj)licity of essence. And in its present use is more especially intended to signify that simplicity which is opposed to the composition of act and possibility. We say, then, that necessary being imports purest actuality, which is the ultimate and highest perfection of being. For it signifies no remaining possibility, yet unreplete or not filled up ; and consequently, the fullest exuberancy and entire con- fluence of all being, as in its fountain and original source. We need not here look further to evince this than the native import of the very terms themselves, necessity and possibility ; the latter whereof is not so fitly said to be excluded the former, as contingency is, but to be swallowed up of it; as fullness takes up all the space which were otherwise nothing but vacuity or emptiness. It is plain, then, that necessary being engrosses all possible being, both that is and (for the same reason) that ever was so. For nothing can be, or ever was, in possibility to come into being, but what either must spring, or hath sprung, from the necessary self-subsisting being. So that unto all that vast possibility a proportionable actuality of this being must be understood to correspond. . . . Necessary being can never alter, and consequently can never come actually to be what it already is not ; upon which ac- count it is truly said. In ceternis, posse et esse sunt idem. Wherefore in it is nothing else but pure actuality, as profound and vast as is the utmost possibility of all created or produ- cible being ; i. e., it can be nothing other than it is, but can do all things ; of which more hereafter." 1 Pt. I., chap, iv., I 2.

116 LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. [Lect. IV.

Now the question arises, What can we know, or rather

what can we think, of absohite and infinite perfection ? As

The absolute not de- infinite and absolute, it is obvious that we

finable, yet the mind canuot represent it in thought at all. We

demands it. i p • i •

cannot define it so as to make it enter as a jJositive element in consciousness. But still absolute per- fection is an imperative demand of reason ; the relative is unmeaning without it. The human mind cannot dispense with the faith of it. So far from being a chimera, or a mere illusion of metaphysical speculation, it is rooted and grounded in the very structure of the soul. But because we cannot conceive the perfections of God, as they are in themselves and as they exist in Him — that is, because we cannot think them as infinite and absolute — does it follow that in trying to think them we think nothing at all ; or if we think anything, we think only a delusive appearance ?

This brings us back to our original question, to answer which it must be recollected that our con-

The question answered. . /. . f r-i -i

cejjtion of the perfections of God embraces

two elements — a positive and a negative one. The positive

one is the abstract notion of any particular perfection, such

Positive and negative ^s wisdom, intelligence, justice, truth, be-

eiements of the con- nevolcncc Or powcr, fumishcd by the phe-

ception. .

nomena of our own consciousness. Ihe negative one is a protest against ascribing the perfection to God under the limitations and conditions of human experi- ence.

A perfection abstractly considered is only a generalization of language ; it is incapable of being realized in thought ex- cept as given in some special and definite manifestation. Knowledge in the abstract, for example, has no real exist- ence ; it is only a term expressive of that in which all single acts of knowledge concur, and applicable alike to every form

of cognition. It marks a relation which uni- Go^wviedgir''" versally obtains. Now, when we attribute

knowledge to God, we mean that there exists in Him a relation analogous to that signalized by this term-

Lect. IV.] LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 117

among us. "Wlien we undertake to realize the relation as it exists in God, we transcend the limits of our faculties. "VVe can only say that it is to Him what the highest perfection of cognition is to us. But as we are obliged to think it in some concrete form, we conceive it as a species of intuition, in which the Divine consciousness penetrates at a glance the whole universe of being and possibility, and surveys the nature and relations of things with absolute, infallible cer- tainty. The relation in Him expresses all that we compass by intuition, reasoning, imagination, memory and testimony. The analogy is real and true. The things analogous are by no means alike. God has not faculties like ours, which are as much a badge of weakness as a mark of distinction and honour. He knows without succession, and apprehends all relations without reasoning, comparison or memory. He is not subject to the condition of time nor the necessities of in- ference. But though knowledge in Him is manifested dif- ferently from knowledge in us, yet the essence contained in the abstract relation finds its counterpart in a manner suited to an infinite consciousness. Hence we think Divine, under the analogy, not under the similitude, of human cognition. There is that in Him which stands in the same relation to certainty as intuition to us. And Locke long ago remarked that we can have a clear and precise notion of relations, even when the things related are very partially or obscurely ap- prehended.

In the same way power, abstractly considered, expresses the relation of a cause to its effect. In itself

and how we attribute • •, • •. i

to Him power, ^^^ ^^^1 ^^ morc conccivc it lu its humau

than its Divine manifestations. It is that in the cause which produces the effect, and we think it only in connection with its effects. Now, this relation is con- ceived as subsisting in God with reference to the products of His sovereign will. There is something in Him analogous to what we experience in the operations of our own Avills. We think of void space. We conceive it occupied by body which has just been called into being. We cannot repre-

118 LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. [Lect. IV.

seut the rationale of creation, but we can clearly compre- hend the kind of relation implied in the creative fiat. It is as intelligible as that between impulse and motion.

The same holds in the case of goodness, justice and love, and all the moral and intellectual perfec-

goodness, justice, love. , i • i -i i * i • i

tions which we ascribe to the Almighty. The abstract notions are generalizations from the sphere of our own experience, and we think them in God as some- thing; which is the same to Him as these relations are to us. The thing positively represented is the human manifestation in its purest form, but it is attributed to God in the way of analogy, and not of actual similitude. His infinite perfec- tions are veiled under finite symbols. It is only the shadow of them that falls upon the human understanding. Such is the process. A perfection is given in man under manifold forms and conditions. The perfection is reduced to an ab- stract notion, equally realized in all and equally cogitable in all, but in itself actually inconceivable. We ascribe it to God in the perfection of its essence as an abstract notion, and endeavour to think it under relations in Him analogous

to those in which it is revealed in us. We aiw^rau^gSr"' ai-e sure that there is something in Him

which corresponds to these relations in us. Hence the positive element in our efforts to think God is always analogical.

"Thomas Aquinas," says Berkeley,^ "expresseth his sense of this point in the following manner : All perfec- tions, saith he, derived from God to the creatures are in a certain higher sense, or (as the Schoolmen term it) eminently in God. Whenever, therefore, a name borrowed from any perfection in the creature is attributed to God, we must ex- clude from its signification everything that belongs to the imperfect manner wherein that attribute is found in the creature. Whence he concludes that knowledge in God is not a habit, but a pure act. And, again, the same doctor observes that our intellect gets its notions of all sorts of 1 Minute Philos., Dial, iv., U 20, 21,

Lect. IV.] LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 119

perfections from the creatures, and that as it apprehends those perfections, so it signifies them by names. Therefore, saith he, in attributing those names to God we are to con- sider two things : first, the perfections themselves, as good- ness, life and the like, which are properly in God ; and, secondly, the manner which is peculiar to the creature, and cannot, strictly and properly speaking, be said to agree to the Creator. And although Suarez, with other Schoolmen, tcacheth that the mind of man conceiveth knowledge and will to be in God as fiiculties or operations by analogy only to created beings, yet he gives it plainly as his opinion that when knowledge is said not to be properly iu God, it must be understood in a sense including imperfection, such as dis- cursive knowledge, or the like imperfect kind found in the creatures ; and that none of those imperfections in the know- ledge of men or angels, belonging to the formal notion of knowledge, or to knowledge as such, it will not thence fol- low that knowledge in its proper, formal sense may not be attributed to God ; and of all knowledge taken in general for the clear, evident understanding of all truth, he expressly affirms that it is in God, and that this was never denied by any philosopher who believed a God. It was indeed a cur- rent opinion in the schools that even being itself should be attributed analogically to God and the creatures. . . . But to prevent any man's being led by mistaking the scholastic , , , ,. , ,^ use of the terms analogy and analogical

Scholastic use of the "^ "^ ^ ^

term anaingicai ex- into an opiuiou that wc canuot frame in ^ '""^ ■ any degree a true and proper notion of

attributes applied by analogy, or, in the school phrase, 'predicated analogically, it may not be amiss to inquire into the true sense and meaning of these words. Every one knows that analogy is a Greek word used by mathematicians to signify a similitude of proportions. For instance, when we observe that two is to six as three is to nine, this similitude or equality of proportion is turned analogy. And although 2')roportion strictly signifies the habitude or relation of one quantity to another, yet in a looser and translated sense it

120 LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. [Lect. IV.

liatli been applied to signify every other habitude, and con- sequently the term analogy comes to signify all similitude of relations or habitudes whatsoever. Hence the School- men tell us there is analogy between intellect and sight, for- asmuch as intellect is to the mind what sight is to the body, and that he who governs the state is analogous to him who steers a ship. Hence a prince is analogically styled a pilot, being to Ijie state as a pilot is to his vessel. For the further clearing of this point, it is to be observed, that a twofold analogy is distinguished by the Schoolmen — metaphorical and proper. Of the first kind there are frequent instances in Holy Scripture attributing human parts and passions to God. When He is represented as having a finger, an eye or an ear — when He is said to repent, to be angry or grieved — every one sees that analogy is merely metaphorical, be- cause those parts and passions taken in the proper significa- tion must in every degree necessarily, and from the formal nature of the thing, include imperfection. When, therefore, it is said the finger of God appears in this or that event, men of common sense mean no more but that it is as truly ascribed to God as the works wrought by human fingers are to man, and so of the rest. But the case is different Avhen wisdom and knowledge are attributed to God. Passions and senses, as such, imply defect, but in knowledge simply, or as such, there is no defect. Knowledge, therefore, in the proper, formal meaning of the word, may be attributed to God proportionably — that is, preserving a proportion to the infinite nature of God. We may say, therefore, that as God is infinitely above man, so is the knowledge of God infinitely above the knowledge of man, and this is what Cajetan calls analogia proiwih facta. And after this same analogy we must understand all those attributes to be- long to the Deity which in themselves simply and as such denote perfection. We may, therefore, consistently with what hath been premised, affirm that all sorts of per- fection which we can conceive in a finite spirit are in God, but without any of that alloy which is found in the crea-

Lect. IV.] LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 121

tures. This cloctriDe, therefore, of analogical perfection in God, or of knowing God by analogy, seems very much mis- understood and misapplied by those who would infer from thence that we cannot frame any direct or proper notion, though never so inadequate, of knowledge or wisdom as they are in the Deity, or understand any more of them than one born blind can of light and colours."

This passage of Berkeley, aimed at the theory of Bishop

Browne, maintained in the Divine Analogy, which seems to

l^reclude the possibility of any real or certain knowledge of

God, labours under one defect. It takes

Berkeley criticised. , .

for granted that we have a positive notion of knowledge, wisdom and every other human perfection, simply and in themselves. Yet no one has more conclusively shown than himself that abstract terms have no objects cor- responding to them, but are only contrivances of language for the abridgment of human thought. They express noth- ing that can ever be conceived apart frOm individuals. We cannot, therefore, think knowledge in general except as mani- fested in some particular instance of cognition. In the given instance we can leave out of view what is special and distin- guishing, and attend only to what equally belongs to every other instance ; but something that has been given in intui- tion must be represented in thought. Hence, to attribute knowledge to God is to think Him as knowing in some way. We must take some form of human consciousness and trans- fer it to Him. But the most perfect form, that of intuition itself, is manifested in us under conditions which cannot be applied to God. But the most perfect form is the highest under which we can conceive it. As, therefore, we cannot attribute it in this finite form to God, all that we can say is that knowledge in Him is analogous to knowledge in us. It is a relation which implies absolute certainty and infalli- bility. We attribute the finite to God mel^t'aprotesr '''" ^^^^^ ^ protcst that the finite form only expresses a similarity of relation. Again, the difference betwixt Divine and human know-

122 LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. [Lect. IV.

ledge is not one simply of degree. It is a difference in kind. God's knowledge is not like ours, and therefore we are utterly unable to think it as it is in Him. We can only think it under the analogy of ours in the sense of a simi- larity of relations. It is to Him what ours is to us. It is to the whole universe of being, actual and possible, what ours is to the small portion that presents itself to our faculties.

This protest is only a series of negations — it affirms sim- ply what God is not, but by no means enables us to conceive what He really and positively is. It is the infinite and ab- solute applied to the attributes which we are striving to represent. Still these negative notions are of immense im- portance. They are clear and pregnant

Importance of these /• • j.i j. j.i • • x j j.

negative ideas. couiessions that there IS a transcendent

reality beyond all that we are able to con- ceive or think, in comparison with which our feeble thoughts are but darkening counsel by words without knowledge. They reveal an unknown sphere to which the region of the the known bears no more proportion than a point to infinite space. They stand as an awful warning of the immensity of human ignorance. Besides this, they are regulative prin- ciples, which indicate how far Ave are at liberty to reason from the positive element of our knowledge, and apply our conclusions to God. When the potency of these conclusions lies in the finite forms under which the abstract perfection is thought, and not in the perfection itself, abstractly con- sidered, we may be sure of error. We are then making God altogether such a one as we ourselves, and transfer- ring to Him the limitations and conditions which attach to our finite consciousness. Incalculable mischief has been done by reasoning from human conceptions of the attributes of God under their human manifestations, and silently over- looking those salutary negations which if attended to would at once convict our conclusions of blas-

The negative ele-

m nt of positive ng- phcmy. Hcucc the negative in thought has a positive regulative value. It is a beacon to warn us and to guide us.

Lect. IV.] LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 123

The result of this inquiry into the nature and extent of our knowledge of God may be summed up

Sum of results. • ^ n ^^ • ' ' A 1

ni the lollowmg propositions. As we know only in and through our own faculties, our knowledge must be determined by the nature of our faculties. The conditions of consciousness are such that we can never directly appre- hend aught but the phenomenal and relative ; and yet in the apprehension of that we are constrained to admit a real and an absolute as the necessary explanation of appearances. The infinite is never apprehended in itself; it is only known in the manifestations of it contained in the finite. As exist- ing, it is known — it is a positive affirmation of intelligence ; but it cannot be translated into the forms of the understand- ing— it cannot be conceived, except as the annihilation of those limitations and conditions which are essential to the possibility of human thought. We know that it is, but we know not lohat it is. In our actual concept of God, while we are constrained to recognize Him as an infinite and ab- solutely perfect being, yet we are unable to realize absolute and infinite perfection in thought. We only know that it must be ; but our utmost efforts to grasp it amount to nothing more than the transmutation of a series of negations into de- lusive affirmations. The matter of our thought, in repre- senting the Divine perfections, is taken from the phenomena of human consciousness. The perfections which we experi- ence in ourselves are reduced to their utmost abstraction and purity, and then applied to God in the way of analogy. We do not know His perfections, consequently, as they are in themselves or in Him, but as they appear to us under finite forms and symbols. This analogical conception, however, is accompanied with the belief that the relative necessarily im- ])lies the absolute ; and therefore in the very act of imperfect thought our nature protests against the imperfect as an ade- quate or complete representation. We feel that we see through a glass darkly — that it is only a glimpse of truth that we obtain ; but the little, though partial and defective — a mere point compared to the immense reality — is inexpress-

124 LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. [Lect. IV.

ibly iirccious, for its object is God. If it is only the hem of His garment that we are permitted to behold, it impresses us with a sense of His glory.

This relative, partial, analogical knowledge of God is the Catholic doctrine of theologians. If au- heie.''° "^"'"^ ^* °'"' thorities were needed, I might quote them even ad nauseam. Let a few examples suf- fice. " His essence, indeed," says Calvin,^ " is incompre- hensible, utterly transcending all human thought; but on each of His works His glory is engraven in characters so bright, so distinct, and so illustrious that none, however dull and illiterate, can plead ignorance as their excuse." Again : ^ " Hence it is obvious that in seeking God the most direct path and the fittest method is not to attempt with presump- tuous curiosity to pry into His essence, which is rather to be adored than minutely discussed ; but to contemplate Him in His works, by which He draws near, becomes familiar, and in a manner communicates Himself to us."

" The terms by which attributes are predicated of God," says Cocceius,^ " are employed in condescension to our modes of thinking and speaking. For, as Nazianzen affirms, to know God is difficult, to speak Him is impossible ; or rather, to speak God is imj^ossible, to know Him is still more im- possible. His attributes are to be understood analogically. The perfections which we find in the creatures testify to a fountain inconceivably more perfect in God, to whicli the creature is in some measure assimilated and bears M'itness."

" We cannot have," says Charnock,^ " an adequate or suit- able conception of God. He dwells in inaccessible light — inaccessible to the acuteness of our fancy, as well as the weakness of our sense. If we could have thoughts of Him as high and excellent as His nature, our conceptions must be as infinite as His nature. All our imaginations of Him can- not represent Him, because every created species is finite ; it cannot, therefore, represent to us a full and substantial notion

1 Inst., Lib. I., c. v., I 1. ^ i^gt.^ Lib. I., c. v., ? 9.

2 Sum. Theol., c. ix., ? 33. * Works, vol. i., p. 274.

Lect. IV.] LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 125

of an infinite being. We cannot think or speak worthily enough of Him, who is greater than our words, vaster than our understandings. Whatsoever we speak or think of God is handed first to us by the notice we have of some perfection in the creature, and explains to us some particular excellency of God, rather than the fullness of His essence. . . . But the creatures whence we draw our lessons being finite, and our understandings being finite, it is utterly impossible to have a notion of God commensurate to the immensity and spirit- uality of His being. God is not like to visible creatures, nor is there any proportion between Him and the most spiritual." In another place he says,^ " God is, therefore, a spirit incapable of being seen, and infinitely incapable of being understood. . . . There is such a disproportion be- tween an infinite object and a finite understanding, that it is utterly impossible either to behold or comprehend Him."

" It is a true rule of theologians," says Macrovius,^ " that God and the creature have nothing in common but the name. The reason is, because God differs from a creature more than a creature from nonentity." ^

" God," says Augustin,^ " is ineffable ; we can more readily say what He is not than what He is."

I come now to consider the objection, that if our know- ledge of God is only relative and analogical,

The objection that . ® •' . o ^

relative and auaiogi- it canuot DC acccptcd as any just or true cai knowledge does not representation of the Divine Being, but of

represent God to us. i ~'

something essentially different. It is not God that we know, but a mere series of appearances — the products of our own minds, which we have substituted in His place and hypostatized with His name. If nothing more were meant than that we do not know God as He is in Himself, and as, consequently, He knows Himself, the objection would certainly have to be admitted. No such knowledge is competent to the creature. The finite can

^ Vol. i., p. 256. ^ Theol. Polem., c. iv.

3 Cf. Th. Aquin. Sum. Theol., Pars Prim., Qu. xii., 3, 4. * Enarrat. in Psalm Ixsxv. 12.

126 LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. [Lect. IV.

never hope to comprehend the Infinite as the Infinite com- prehends itself. But if it is meant — which it obviously must be if the objection is designed to destroy the foundations of religion — tliat our knowledge of God does not apprehend the appearances which such a being must make to minds con- stituted like ours, that the things which we think are not real manifestations of the Infinite, adapted to our faculties of intelligence, the objection is assuredly without reason. Either our whole nature is a lie, or the Being whom we thus know under finite symbols is the supreme and everlasting Jehovah. We know Him as the cause, the prime producing cause of all that exists ; and this is no delusion. The re- lation in which He stands to His works is clear and unam- biguous, though the mode in which He realizes it transcends our capacity of thought. We know Him as intelligent and good. Wisdom and benevolence are conspicuously displayed in the general order and special adaptations which fall within the compass of our experience; and unless that primitive law of intelligence which compels us to think design as the only adequate explanation of such phenomena is a lie, then we are sure that God is wise and knowing and good. Con- science gives Him as a moral ruler, and consequently as the supreme disposer of all things ; and unless conscience is false, the testimony must be accepted as true. Every part of our nature points to Him, and bears record to His character in the relations which He sustains to us. We must, therefore, construe our whole nature into an organ of deceit, or recog- nize these partial and relative conceptions as just conceptions of God as far as He appears to us. Beyond that appearance we do not venture to go. Every step we take in reaching our highest conceptions of God is a step under the impulse and direction of principles of belief which constitute an es- sential part of our being, and without which we should be little better than the beasts that perish. Our knowledge as far as it goes is true, if our faculties are not false. If our faculties are false, any other knowledge which was in and through them would be equally liable to suspicion. The

Lect. IV.] LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 127

symbols under which we represent God are not arbitrary creatures of the fancy, but the necessary products of thought in obedience to laws which it cannot transgress ; and which, while a proof of limitation and defect, are, at the same time, a guarantee of truth. All that we pretend is to know God as He appears, and what we maintain is that it is really He who does so appear.

The objection in question is equally valid against all

human knowledge. It is the old cry of all knowfedge"*^ ^ ° tlic skcptic. It is uot matter that we

know, it is not mind that we know ; it is only the phenomena of which we are conscious, and these phenomena may be the fantastic creations of the thinking subject, or shadows which come and go upon the surface of our being without any cause to which we can assign them. How do we know that the j^roperties which we attribute to matter really represent anything in matter, or how do we know that such a thing as matter exists at all ? How do we know that thought, volition, feeling are the properties of any j)ermanent subject, rather than transient events which succeed each other in time without being at all de- pendent upon each other, or upon aught else, for their existence ?

There is but one answer to all such sophistical objections.

We are obliged to trust in the veracity of Answer to the ob- cousciousncss. We kuow bccausc wc be-

jection.

lieve. Consciousness assures us of our own existence as a thinking subject, and consciousness also assures us of the existence of another world without us. We accept matter and mind as facts, because our nature constrains us to believe them. The phenomena under which we think them, the same consciousness represents as the appearances which the'i/ make to us ; and therefore we accept them as their appearances, as their attitude and relation to our intel- ligence. It is precisely the same with our knowledge of God. The man, therefore, Avho is free from scruples as to the existence of the soul or the material world, who is per-

128 LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. [Lect. IV.

suadcd that the phenomena which they present to him are not vain and delusive shows, but sober and permanent real- ities, is inconsistent with himself in denying equal certainty to our knowledge of God. His argument, legitimately car- ried out, would land him in universal skepticism. It is enough that we have the same guarantee for the truth and certainty of our knowledge of God as we have for the truth and certainty of our own being and the existence of an outer world. The knowledge of both is subject to the same lim- itations, the same suspicions, the same cavils. They stand or fall together. If one is shadow, all is shadow ; if one is solid, all is solid and substantial. There is no middle ground. We know absolutely nothing, or what we know is true as far as we know it. Our knowledge is imperfect because we are imperfect. The plenitude of being cannot appear to us, but what our faculties are capable of receiving is none the less to be relied on because they do not receive all that actually exists.

" It does not follow," says Mansel,^ " that our representa- tions are untrue because they are imperfect. To assert that a representation is untrue because it is relative to the mind of the receiver, is to overlook the fact that truth itself is nothino; more than a relation. Truth and falsehood are not properties of things in themselves, but of our conceptions, and are tested not by the comparison of conceptions with things in themselves, but with things as they are given in some other relation. My conception of an object of sense is true when it corresponds to the characteristics of the ob- ject as I perceive it, but the perception itself is equally a relation and equally implies the co-operation of human faculties. Truth in relation to no intelligence is a contra- diction in terms. Our highest conception of absolute truth is that of truth in relation to all intelligences. But of the consciousness of intelligences different from our own we have no knowledge, and can make no application. Truth, therefore, in relation to man admits of no other test than '^ Limits of Eel. Thought, Lect. v.

Lect. IV.] LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 129

the harmonious consent of all human faculties, and as no such faculty can take cognizance of the Absolute, it follows that correspondence with the Absolute can never be re- quired as a test of truth. The utmost deficiency that can be charged against human faculties amounts only to this : that we cannot say that we know God as God knows Him- self— that the truth of which our finite minds are susceptible may, for aught we know, be but the passing shadow of some higher reality which exists only in the Infinite Intelligence."

Confusion has no doubt been introduced into the subject by silently interpreting phenomenon and appearance as equiv- alent to a sham or dream. They are contemplated as void of reality. But what is reality ? What is the only reality which our faculties can grasp ? It is not a thing in its ab- solute nature, as it exists in itself independently of any per- ceiving mind ; nor even a thing, as Mansel expresses it, " as it must manifest itself to all possible intelligences under all possible laws of apprehension." But reality is that which we perceive to exist, and we perceive it as existing under the relation in which it stands to our faculties. The phe- nomenon is nothing but the reality manifested to conscious- ness under the conditions of consciousness itself. It is not, then, a sham, a dream, a mere shine. The contrast of reality is those fictions or creatures of imagination wliich in dreams may be mistaken for realities, but which in our waking moments we know to be manifestations of nothing apart from ourselves. Hence a phenomenal or a relative is none the less a real knowledge ; it is the knowledge of real existence as that existence is manifested to us. The exist- ence is independent of us ; the manifestation is in and through the relation of the object to our consciousness. But I proceed to affirm, in the next place, that our rela-

This knowledge of ^^^e analogical knowledge of God is not God both true and only truc and trustworthy, but amply ade-

adcquate. r> ii i c t • t

quate lor all the purposes oi religion. It does not satisfy the needs of speculation, but it is admira- bly adapted to the ends of devotion. If it is lacking in that

Vol. I.— 9

130 LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. [Lkct. IV.

characteristic which has a tendency to puff up, it is not lack- ing in the other and nobler quality — the tendency to edify. In order to appreciate the force of this consideration, it must be borne in mind that man's j)resent

It is also adapted to t,. . i /» i i t , i ,

our present condition, couditiou IS uot hual and Complete, but initial and preparatoiy. He is looking forward to a better and more exalted state. The know- ledge which he needs is the knowledge which will best adapt him to acquire and intensify those habits of thought and of feeling and of action which shall find their full scope in his future condition. His present business is education, and not satisfaction or enjoyment. To say that he needs education is to say that he is imperfect, and that there are impediments to his proficiency which it demands patience, industry, energy and perseverance to surmount. These imj)ediments serve at once as a motive to stimulate exertion, and as the means of fixing more firmly into the character the activities they call forth. The inten- sity of an action measures its tendency to generate and ma- ture a habit. To a being under discipline an absolute know- ledge of Divine things, were such a knowledge conceivable or possible, would be wholly unsuitable. There would be no room for faith, for consideration, for candour, for the bal- ancing of motives ; there would be no trial of one's love of truth, or duty, or good. If we knew as God knows, we should be as God is. What discipline requires is a mixed state, in which men may to some extent control their opin- ions and regulate their choice — a state in which evil, to say the least, is possible. In such a state the real principles which determine and constitute the moral character of the man are capable of being fully displayed. Error may be accepted as well as truth, temptations may prevail as well as be overcome, man may revolt from as well as obey God. But the great thing to be attained is the habit of entire acquiescence in the will of God as a matter of free, volun- tary choice. God presents Himself as a portion to the soul to be chosen, not forced upon it ; and in order that the choice

Lect. IV.] LIMITS OF OUE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 131

may have its full significancy in determining and express- ing character, it must be made under circumstances in which there can be motives and inducements to the contrary. Hence our imperfection in knowledge is the badge of our probationary condition. Absokite, demonstrative certainty would preclude all trial, all choice — that is, a state to be won as a prize, and not one in which to begin a moral career.

In our present condition we have just that kind of know- ledge which is suited to our circumstances and our destiny. Man's earthly state may be contemplated in three aspects : 1. As a state of pure and unmixed proba-

Three aspects of ,• . i-ii ,i o , r»i' 'iii

man's earthly state. ^^^n, lu which by thc free act of his will he was to determine the permanent type of his being. 2. As a state of sin and misery, the legal and natural consequence of his free determination in his previous state. 3. As a state of partial recovery, in which he is to acquire a meetness for the inheritance of the saints in light. Contem- plated in his first estate, he had to the full that relative ana-

The relative analo- logical kuOwlcdgC which falls tO the lot of

gicai knowledge of ^ig facultics. He kucw his relations to

God suited to tlie first, r^ t t •

(jrod as his creator, his moral ruler and his final reward. He knew the rule of his duty, both natural and positive, and was w^arned of the consequences which must result from transgression. But his knowledge, as im- perfect and analogical, was founded in faith ; it rested upon principles which he was obliged to accept, but which he could not explain. He was thus brought, even in the sphere of the understanding, face to face with the will of God. He was capable of asking questions which he could not answer. He could project his reason beyond the limits which circum- scribed his faculties. All this was admirably suited to him, as a being to be confirmed in perfect acquiescence with the will of God. If he should be content with his prescribed limits, and make the law of his life " not my will, but Thine be done," he had the gracious promise that what he knew not now, he should know hereafter. To complain, therefore.

132 LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. [Lect. IV.

of the limitations of his knowledge is to complain that he was put upon probation at all. Higher knowledge would have rendered all trial a mockery. To have been able to answer all questions Avould have been equivalent to the im- possibility of being deceived or seduced. Hence Adam's knowledge was exactly the kind of knowledge suited to his religion. Had he followed his nature — simply believed where it prompted him to believe without the ability to com- prehend ; had he been content to know only where science was possible to his faculties ; had he been willing to accept as facts what he could not explain as science, — had he, in other words, submitted with cheerfulness to the appointment of God, he might have maintained his integrity for ever. An absolute knowledge is as incompatible with probation as mathematical certainty with doubt. The understanding would have absolute control if it had absolute knowledge. But there is no medium between absolute and relative know- ledge. The latter may differ from itself in degrees, but all the decrees of it are in contradiction to absolute science. The objection we are considering is not to the degree in which man, as man, has it, but to the kind of knowledge itself. The objection would abolish all limitation, and have our theology the ectypal theology of God.

In the next place, contemplate man in his fallen condition as a sinner, and the knowledge which he

and to the second, , • i i n i •

has IS, as precisely, adapted to his state. It is enough to make manifest his guilt and depravity. It reveals the abnormal tendencies of his soul. It affords a conspicuous proof of the charge which God brings against the race, and at the same time prevents the race from sup- pressing its real dispositions under a constraining, external pressure. Man is lai'gely at liberty to express himself — to develop the very core of his moral condition. The diffi- culties and perplexities he encounters in solving the enigmas of his being only afford opportunity of exhibiting in brighter colours the real enmity of his heart against God. They enable him to prove that he is a sinner beyond the possi-

Lect. IV.] LIMITS OF OUR KlSfOWLEDGE OF GOD. 133

bility of doubt. At the same time they furnish the instru- ments bj which the Holy Spirit prepares him for the recep- tion of the gospeL They give rise to a conflict, a struggle ; the tendency of which, under the influence of grace, is to mould and subdue. To give an elect sinner absolute know- ledge would be to dispense with the whole j)rocess of con- viction of sin, and all those conflicts of pride, faith and un- belief by which, in humility, he is led to the Saviour. There Avould be no room for self-examination, for faith or for prayer. To give a non-elect sinner absolute knowledge would be to make him a devil and to drive him to despair. If we contemplate man in his state of partial recovery, relative knowledge is the knowledge which

and to the third aspect i • 1j.1j.1*1j_' tt i i

of our condition. alouc IS adapted to his duties. He has to

form a holy character ; he has to form it within comparatively a short period. His graces must be put to the test and tried and strengthened. He must be liable to the assaults of doubt, of fear, of unbelief. He must be exposed to imposture and deceit, that his candour, sin- cerity and love of truth may have scope for exercise, and in- crease in their intensity. He must walk, therefore, by faith, and not by sight. Now all this is incompatible with abso- lute knowledge ; it is incompatible with even much higher degrees of relative knowledge than we now enjoy. Hence, in every aspect our knowledge is enough for the ends of religion. All that is required is true humility — a spirit of perfect contentment with our lot. If we see through a glass darkly, it is because a brighter vision would be destructive of the ends of our present moral state.

Then, again, the finite symbols under which we know

It also converts our ^^^^ ^"11 a natural transitiou from our

daily life into an ar- natural to our rcligious life ; or rather are

gument for devotion. , , i-i i •^ ^• o •

the means by which our daily life is con- verted into an argument for devotion. If it is only in the creature that we see God, the creature should be obviously subordinated to the glory of God ; and if human affections are to be directed toward God, the relations under which

134 LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. [Lect. IV.

they are developed with reference to each other are the relations under which they must fasten on Him. " We are not called upon," says Mansel/ "to live two distinct lives in this world. It is not required of us that the house- hold of our nature should be divided against itself — that those feelings of love and reverence and gratitude which move us in a lower degree toward our human relatives and friends should be altogether thrown aside and exchanged for some abnormal state of ecstatic contemplation, when we bring our prayers and praises and thanks before the footstool of our Father in heaven. We are none of us able to grasp in speculation the nature of the Infinite and Eternal, but we all live and move among our fellow-men, at times need- ing their assistance, at times soliciting their favours, at times seeking to turn away their anger. We have all, as chil- dren, felt the need of the supporting care of parents and guardians ; we have all, in the gradual progress of educa- tion, required instruction from the wisdom of teachers ; we have all offended against our neighbours, and known the l)lessings of forgiveness or the penalty of unappeased an- ger. We can all, therefore, taught by the inmost conscious- ness of our human feelings, place ourselves in communion with God when He manifests Himself under human im- ages. ' He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen,' says the Apostle Saint John, ' how can he love God whom he hath not seen?' Our heavenly affections must in some measure take their source and their form from our earthly ones ; our love toward God, if it is to be love at all, must not be wholly unlike our love towards our neighbour ; the motives and influences which prompt us when we make known our wants and pour forth our supplications to an earthly parent are graciously permitted by our heavenly Father to be the type and symbol of those by which our intercourse with Him is to be regulated."

There is another aspect in which our partial knowledge, so far from weakening the grounds of religious worship, 1 Limits of Eel. Thought, Lect. iv.

Lect. IV.] LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 135

has a tendency to strengthen them. If there were an absolute ignorance of God, there could be no wor-

Our partial know- 1 1 • r> i i i i i

ledge strengthens all ship at all J II tlicrc wcrc au absolute know- the grounds of wor- j^j^^^ ^^.^ sliould bc the cquals of God, and consequently free from all obligation to wor- ship. It is our dependence, marking us out as finite beings, which renders us creatures of religion. It is this which gives rise to prayer, to gratitude, to obligation, to trust and to duty. Religion cannot be predicated of the infinite and self-suffi- cient. It is the characteristic of the rational and intelligent creature. Those finite symbols under which God is repre- sented to us, and thought by us, furnish just the intimations of His character which are suited to be the basis of reve- rence and love. He is our Creator, our Redeemer, our Benefactor, our Ruler and our Judge. He is wise and powerful and good. He is faithful, merciful and just. These are the attributes which inspire confidence, and these are the relations under which religious affections are elicited and fostered. But if we should stop at the finite symbols, our religion would degenerate into earthly forms. We should love God as we love a man, and reverence His cha- racter as we honour a superior. Hence, to complete the notion of religious worship we must introduce the other ele- ment of our knowledge, in which God is negatively pre- sented as transcending the capacity of thought. It is only as we believe that He is independent of all limitations and conditions — that He is self-sufficient, unchangeable and eter- nal, that the heart can freely go out to Him with the full- ness of its homage. There is no limit upon our affections when the object is known to be unlimited in its right and fitness to receive them. The very darkness which shrouds this infinitude reacts upon our worship, and expands our emotions into rapture and adoration. An awful sense of sublimity, grandeur and majesty is awakened in the soul. The ground on wdiicli we tread becomes holy ground ; we are constrained to take the shoes from our feet, and stand in wondering awe as we gaze upon the glory of the Lord.

136 LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. [Lect. IV.

Separate from God the finite iuiages in which we clothe His perfections, and there would be nothing to justify or regulate our worship. Restrict Him to these finite appear- ances, and there would be nothing to warrant the peculiar condition of mind which we call religion. Combine the two elements together, and you have the object upon which the soul can pour forth all its treasures, and feel itself exalted in the very act of paying homage. The positive element of our knowledge provides the basis for extending to God our human aifections ; the negative element transforms those affections into a sublimcr offering than any creature would be authorized to receive. A finite superior may be admired ; only an infinite God can be adored. " I love God," says Gregory Nazianzen, " because I know Him. I adore Him because I cannot comprehend Him." " What we deny of God," says the venerable John Owen, " we know in some measure, but what we affirm we know not ; only we declare what we believe and adore." We have light enough to see that the object is transcendently glorious, and when it passes beyond our vision into regions of illimitable excel- lence, where we have no faculties to pursue it, we are only the more profoundly impressed with the exceeding riches of its glory. It is the very light of eternity which darkens time. It is the brilliancy of the blaze which dazzles and confounds us. My ignorance of God, therefore, in the par- tial glimpses which I get of Him is only a stronger argu- ment for loving Him, If what I see is so inexpressibly sublime and worthy — and what I see is only a point com- pared with what I do not see — surely I should have no fears, no hesitation or reluctance in surrendering myself unreserv- edly and for ever to Him whose name is only a synonym for the plenitude of glory. How admirably is our know- ledge adapted to the ends of religion ! He who would quarrel with the present arrangement could never be con- tent unless God should seat him as an equal upon His throne, for as long as he remains finite he can have no

Lect. IV.] LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 137

other kind of knowledge, however it may differ in degree from that which he now enjoys.

The account which has been given of the nature and ex-

This view of our *^°* ^^ '^^^^' knowledge of God is in perfect

knowledge of God harmouy with the teaching of Scripture.

agreeable to Scripture. _ ,, i i ^^ • i

In no respect/ says Mansel, ' is the theology of the Bible, as contrasted with the mythologies of human invention, more remarkable than in the manner in which it recognizes and adapts itself to that complex and self-limiting constitution of the human mind which man's wisdom finds so difficult to acknowledge. To human reason the personal and the infinite stand out in apparently irrecon- cilable antagonism ; and the recognition of one in a religious system almost inevitably involves the sacrifice of the other. The Personality of God disappears in the Pantheism of India ; His infinity is lost sight of in the Polytheism of Greece. In the Hebrew Scriptures, on the contrary, throughout all their variety of books and authors, one method of Divine teaching is constantly manifested, appeal- ing alike to the intellect and to the feelings of man. From first to last we hear the echo of that first great command- ment : ' Hear, O Israel ! the Lord our God is one Lord ; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.' God is plainly and uncompromisingly proclaimed as the One and the Absolute : ' I am the first, and I am the last : and be- side me there is no God.' Yet this sublime conception is never for an instant so exhibited as to furnish food for that mystical contemplation to which the Oriental mind is natu- rally so prone. On the contrary, in all that relates to the feelings and duties by which religion is practically to be regulated, we cannot help observing how the Almighty, in communicating with His people, condescends to place Him- self on what may, humanly speaking, be called a lower level than that on which the natural reason of man would be in- clined to exhibit Him. While His personality is never suf- ' Limits of Kel. Thought, Lect. v.

138 LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. [Lect. IV.

ferecl to sink to a merely liuman representation — while it is clearly announced that His thoughts are not our thoughts, nor His ways our ways — yet His infinity is never for a mo- ment so manifested as to destroy or weaken the vivid reality of those liuman attributes under which He ajjpeals to the human sympathies of His creature. ' The Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.' He will listen to our supplications ; He will help those that cry unto Him ; He reserveth wrath for His enemies ; He is ap- peased by repentance ; He showeth mercy to them that love Him. As a King, He listens to the petitions of His sub- jects ; as a Father, He pitieth His own children. It is im- possible to contemplate this marvellous union of the human and Divine, so perfectly adapted to the wants of the human servant of a Divine Master, without feeling that it is indeed the work of Him who formed the spirit of man and fitted him for the service of his Maker. ' He showeth His AVord unto Jacob, His statutes and ordinances unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any nation ; neither have the heathen knowledge of His laws.' "

" But if this is the lesson taught us by that earlier mani- festation in which God is represented under the likeness of human attributes, what may we learn from that later and fuller revelation which tells us of One who is Himself both God and man ? The Father has revealed Himself to man- kind under human types and images, that He may appeal more earnestly and effectually to man's consciousness of the human spirit within him. The Son has done more than this : He became for our sakes very man, made in all things like unto His brethren ; the Mediator between God and man, being both God and man. Herein is our justification if we refuse to aspire beyond those limits of human thought in which he has placed us. Herein is our answer if any man M'ould spoil us through philosophy and vain deceit. Is it irrational to contemplate God under symbols drawn from the human consciousness? Christ is our pattern, for Mn Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.' Is it un-

J

Lect. IV.] LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 139

philosophical that our thoughts of God should be subject to the law of time ? It was when the fullness of time was come God sent forth His Son. Does the philosopher bid us strive to transcend the human, and to annihilate our own person- ality in the presence of the infinite ? The Apostle tells us to look forward to the time when we shall ' all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man ; unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.' Does human wisdom seek, by some transcendental form of intuition, to behold God as He is in His infinite nature ; repeating in its own manner the request of Philip, ' Lord, sliow us the Father, and it sufficeth us ? ' Christ Himself has given the rebuke and the reply : ' He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father ; and how sayest thou, then, Show us the Father ? ' "

The principle which we have endeavoured to illustrate,

Consequence, of the touchiug the limits of humau knowledge in

principle herein iiius- relation to Diviuc thlugs, is prcguaut with

trated :

important consequences. 1. In the first pkice, it conclusively shows that there can It shows that there ^6 uo such thing as a scicucc of God. We is no such thing as a can hardly use the terms without the sus-

science of God. . . n t ^ i -xtr i •

picion 01 blasphemy. Were such a science possible, it would lay bare the whole field of existence ; it would reveal the nature of creation ; the relation of the finite and the infinite in all the points of their contact ; and the in- most essence of things. It would be the very knowledge which God has Himself. But if we are restricted to ap- pearances, or to the relative manifestations of realities, our science, at best, can be but the result of multiplied com- parisons, and can hardly extend beyond the order and suc- cession of phenomena. Real being, as it exists in itself, or in relation to the Divine mind, must remain an impenetra- ble secret. AVe have to assume it as a fact, but we can neither explain nor conceive it. We cannot make it a term in logic, and reason from an analysis of its contents. Science can o'o no farther than observation can accumulate its facts.

140 LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. [Lect. IV.

The inexplicable must ahvays be of larger extent than the simple and comprehensible. As, then, the limits of human thought encounter mysteries in every department of nature — mysteries which we are obliged to accept, though they defy every effort to reduce or overcome them ; as matter is a mystery, mind is a mystery, substance is a mystery, power is a mystery — surely we must expect nothing less than mys- teries when we enter the sphere of the infinite. God is, in- deed, the great incomprehensible. As the principle of all things, if we could comprehend Him we should in Him comprehend everything besides. As the sum, therefore, of all incomprehensibility, whenever we touch His Being or venture to scrutinize His purposes and plans we must ex- pect clouds and darkness to be round about His throne. A theology which has no mysteries ; in which everything is level to human thought, and capable of being reduced to exact symmetry in a human system ; which has no facts that command assent while transcending the province of human speculation, and contains no features which stagger the wis- dom of human conceit ; — a system thus thoroughly human is a system which is self-condemned. It has no marks of God upon it. For His footsteps are on the sea, and His paths in the great waters, and His ways past finding out. There is no searching of His understanding. Such a system would be out of harmony with that finite world in which we have our place. For there mystery encompasses us be- hind and before — in the earth, the air, the sea and all deep places, and especially in the secrets of our own souls. INIan lives and breathes and walks amid mystery in this scene of phenomena and shadows, and yet he would expect no mystery in that grand and real Avorld of which this is only a dim reflection !

2. In the next place, this principle suggests the real -^ . , , ,, cause of most of the errors in theology, and

It iioiiits out the o. '

real cause of most thc rcal solutiou of its uiost pcrplcxing

heresies. , ,

problems. Most heresies have risen from believing the serpent's lie,

Lect. IV.] LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 141

that our faculties were a competent measure of universal truth. We reason about God as if we possessed an absohite knowledge. The consequence is, we are lost in confusion and error. We assume the infinite in our words and think the finite in our minds ; and the conclusion can only be a contradiction or a falsehood. The Unitarian professes to understand the Infinite Personality of God, and rejects the doctrine of the Holy Trinity with a smile of contempt. He forgets meanwhile that his argument has only proved that there cannot be three human persons in the same numerical essence. He has quietly eliminated the very element which, for aught he knows or can show, redeems the doctrine from all reasonable objection. Until he can tell us lohat the In- finite is, we need not listen to him while he undertakes to inform us lioni the Infinite is. It is so easy to slide into tlie habit of regarding the infinite and finite as only ditfcrent degrees of the same thing, and to reason froni one to the other with the same confidence with which, in other cases, we reason from the less to the greater, that the caution cannot be too much insisted on that God's thoughts are not our thoughts, nor God's ways our ways. To treat the power which creates and the human power which moves a foreign body as the same thing ; to apply to creation the laws and conditions which limit the mechanisms of man ; to represent the infinite as only a higher degree of human knowledge ; and to restrict each to the same essential conditions and modifications, is to make man God, or God man — a funda- mental falsehood, which must draw a fruitful progeny in its train.

3. Our ignorance of i\\e Infinite is the true solution of the

It solves the most ^^^^t pcrplcxiug problcms whicli cncouuter

perplexing problems us at evcry stcj) iu the study of Divine

of Theology. , -j^-, , . , / • ■ i

truth. NVe have gained a great ponit when we have found out that they are really insoluble — that they contain one element which we cannot understand, and with- out which the whole must remain an inexplicable mystery. The doctrines of the Trinity, of the Incarnation, of the Pre-

142 LIMITS OF OUU KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. [Lect. IV

science of God and the Liberty of Man, the Permission of the Fall, the Propagation of Original Sin, the Workings of Ef- ficacious Grace, all these are facts which are clearly taught ; as facts they can be readily accepted, but they defy all efforts to reduce them to science. Their feet rest upon the earth, but their head is lost in the clouds. Our wisdom is to be- lieve and adore. The limits of human knowledge are a sufficient proof that thought is not commensurate with exist- ence ; that there are things which the very laws of thought compel us to accept, when it is impossible to reduce them into the forms of thought ; that the conceivable is not the standard of the real ; that " there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy."

It is a great lesson when man has learned the enormity of his ignorance. True wisdom begins in humility, and the first dictate of humility is not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think.

Lecture V THE NAMES OF GOD

AMONG the methods whicli the Scriptures employ to answer the question concerning the nature and per- fections of God is the use of personal and attributive names. These names, unlike proper names among ..l°,\n!inl J7" men, not only serve to denote the object

names among men. j j J

and to make it a subject of predication in thought, but they also signify, or, in the language of the schools, connote, the qualities by which the object is distin- guished. They are not unmeaning marks, discriminating one individual from another, as if by an arbitrary sign, but, like general terms, they are expressive of concepts which are realized only in God. They are applied to Him be- cause they contain a meaning which suits Him. They were assumed in condescension to our weakness, that we might be assisted in coming to a knowledge of His being and His

character. They are a part of God's plan T t!l!.J„„ „°.,v ™L^° of teaching the race, as it is through the

of teaching our race. o " o

explanation of names in Avhich the sum of human attainment is recorded and preserved that the parent and teacher develop the opening faculties of the child, and stimulate and encourage its expanding curiosity. In relation to those which are not attributive, their very employment as proper names to designate a definite object of thought has obscured the connotation on account of which they were originally selected. They have ceased, in a great measure, to answer any other end than to single out the Deity as the subject of predication. They express Him

143

144 THE NAMES OP GOD. [Lect. V.

as a whole, and not under any particular aspect. We must trace them to their origin if we would understand the j^re- cise share they have contributed in the gradual progress of revelation to the Christian concept of God. Each has played a part in the j)roduction of the general result, and it is curious as well as instructive to trace the successive steps by which God has progressively unfolded

God has gracUially tt- ir • . j ^ ±- .

unfolded uimsuif. Mimseli lu ucw aspccts and relations to

the human mind, until it has reached its present relative maturity of knowledge. Many streams have discharged their contents into a common reservoir, and it is remarkable that as the reservoir has increased „, ..... in quantitv the number of tributaries has

The names diminish i /

in number as the rev- bcCU diminished. TllC HcbrCW, the ear- elation advances. t i p i •

liest language oi revelation, was quite co- pious in its names of God. The Greek, the next and only other language, with the exception of a very limited use of the Chaldee, employed by inspiration, has but two terms to designate the Divine Being as a total object of thought. And yet these two terms contain the fullness of the Hebrew vocabulary. When the idea was in process of being formed and matured there were many concurrent elements which were specially marked and distinguished. When the idea was fully completed, or as fully as the limits of human thought will allow, the elements were no longer distin- guished from each other, but the object was thought in its collective unity as a whole. One or two comprehensive names include everything.

Jerome,^ following the computation of the Jews, enume- rates no less than ten names of God in Hebrew : " El, Elohim, Eloe, Sabaoth, Elion, Eser-Ieje, Adonai, Jah, Jehovah and Saddai." But Eloah and Elohim are evi- dently the same name in different numbers, one being sin- gular and the other plural. Sabaoth is not a name itself, but only a descriptive epithet applied to other names of God, particularly Jehovah. It is usually translated hosts, ^ Epist. ad Marcell. de Decern Nom.

Lect. v.] THE NAMES OF GOD. 145

and seems to be a compendious expression for the universal do- minion of God. The Lord of Hosts is the Lord of all worlds and of all their inhabitants. Three others in the list are pro- bably variations of one and the same name — Jehovah, Ehyeh and Jah. The two most important desig-

Two of the Hebrew . p nt i l_ • i • ji tt i

names predominant. natious of God which occur m the Hebrew Scriptures are unquestionably Elohim and Jehovah. These are the most common and the most com- plete. They seem to contain within themselves every attri- bute which every other title connotes, and are consequently rendered, and rendered very properly, by dso^ and xupio^ in Greek. The use of them in the Pentateuch is very remark- able.^ There are (a) sections in which the name Elohim either exclusively or predominantly obtains ; (b) there are sections, again, in which the name Jehovah is tlie exclusive or ^predominant one ; (c) there are other sections in which the names are promiscuously used ; and then (d) there are others in which no name of God appears at all. From the seventh chapter of Exodus onward, with two or three ex- ceptions, the name Elohim almost entirely disappears, (a.) The sections in which the name Elohim prevails are — 1. From the beginning of the first chapter

Elohim sections. . ii.i

of Genesis to the third verse of the second — the account of the creation. 2. The fifth chapter of Gene- sis— the generations of Adam, Avith the exception of the twenty-ninth verse. 3. The sixth chapter, from the ninth to the twenty-second verse — the generations of Noah. 4. The seventh chapter, from the ninth to the twenty- fourth verse — the entrance into the ark, except that in the sixteenth verse the name Jehovah appears. 5. The eighth chapter, to the nineteenth verse — the end of the flood. 6. The ninth chapter, to the seventeenth verse — the cove- nant with Noah. 7. The seventeenth chaj)ter — the insti- tution of circumcision. Here also the name Jehovah ap- pears in the first verse. 8. The twentieth chapter —

1 Delitzsch, Com. Gen. Einleit, p. 30. Conf. note, p. 63, the substance of which is given in the text. Vol. I.— 10

146 THE NAMES OF GOD. [Lect. V.

Sarah's deliverance from Abimelech. Here again Jeho- vah is found in the eighteenth verse. 9. The tAventy-first chapter, to the twenty-first verse — the birth of Isaac and the sending away of Ishmaeh Jehovah here again appears in the first verse. 10. The twenty-first chapter, from the twenty -second to the twenty-fourth verse — Abraham's league with Abimelech. In the thirty-third verse we have Jehovah again. 11. The twenty-fifth chapter, to the eighteenth verse — the sons of Keturah, Abraham's death and the generations of Ishmael. The word, however, occurs but once in all this section. 12. From the forty- sixth verse of the twenty-seventh chapter to the ninth verse of the twenty-eighth chapter — Jacob's dismission to Haran, and Esau's marriage. We have Elohim once and El-Sliaddai once. 13. The thirty-first chapter — Jacob's departure from Laban, with the exception of the third and tlie forty-ninth verses, in whicli we have Jehovah. 14. Chapter thirty-third — Jacob's return home. 15. Chap- ter thirty-fifth — Jacob's journey to Bethel. 16. From chap- ter forty to chapter fifty — the history of Joseph in Egypt. In the eighteenth verse of chapter forty-nine we have Jeho- vah. 17. The first and second chapters of Exodus — Israel's oppression in Egypt and the first preparation for deliverance.

With Elohim is interchanged in these sections El-Shad- dai and El ; in connections, such as El-Elohe-Israel (chap, xxxiii. 20), or by itself alone (chap. xxxv. 1 , 3), and only once Adonai (chap. xx. 4).

(b.) The sections in which the name Jehovah prevails are — 1. From Genesis, second chapter,

Jehovah sections. /> i i • t i

fourth verse, to third chapter, twenty- fourth verse — the beginning of the history of man. 2. Chapter fourth — the history of the first seed of the woman. 3. Chapter sixth, from the first to the eighth verse — the increasing corruption before the flood. 4. Chapter sev- enth, from the first to the eighth verse — entrance into the ark. 5. Chapter eighth, from the twentieth to the twenty- second verse — Noah's altar and Jehovah's blessing. 6. Chap-

Lect. v.] the names of god. 147

ter ninth, from the eighteenth to the twenty-ninth verse — Noah's prophecy of the nations. 7. Chapter tenth — the table of original settlements. 8. Chapter eleventh, from the first to the ninth verse — ^the confusion of tongues. 9. Chapter twelfth, from the first to the ninth verse — Abram's journey to Canaan upon Jehovah's call. 10. Chapter twelfth, from the tenth to the twentieth verse — Abram in Egypt. 11. Chapter thirteenth — Abram's separation from Lot. 12. Chapter fifteenth — Abram's faith and covenant- offering. 13. Chapter sixteenth — Ishmael's birth, Hagar's flight and return. 14. Chapter eighteenth — Jehovah's visit to Abraham in his tent. 15. Chapter nineteenth — the de- struction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Lot's last history. 16. Chapter twenty-fourth — Isaac's marriage. 17. Chap- ter twenty-fifth, from the nineteenth to the twenty-sixth verse — the birth of the twins. 18. Chapter twenty-sixth — Isaac's sorrows and comforts. 19. Chapter twenty-seventh, first forty verses — transition of the birth-right to Jacob.

20. Chapter thirtieth, from the twenty-fifth to the forty- third verse — a new covenant between Jacob and Laban.

21. Chapter thirty-eighth — the birth of Pharez and Zarah.

22. Chapter thirty-ninth — Jehovah with Joseph in Poti- phar's house and in prison. 23. Exodus, chapter fourth, from the eighteenth to the thirty-first verse — the return of Moses to Egypt. 24. Exodus, chapter fifth — Pharaoh's rouffh treatment of the messengers of Jehovah.

In these sections, from Genesis, second chapter, fourth verse, to end of chapter third, the name Jehovah-Elohim is the prevailing usage, a combination which occurs only once more (Ex. ix. 30) in the whole Pentateuch. The name Elohim occurs in this section only in the mouth of the ser- pent and the woman. The exceptions to the universal use of Jehovah in the other sections are very few. The word Adonai most frequently interchanges with Jehovah, but it is always used in the form of a compellation or address. (Gen. xviii. 3, 27, 30, 31, 32 ; xix. 18.) The combination Adonai-Jehovah is characteristic of Deuteronomy. It is

148 THE NAMES OF GOD. [Lect. V.

found in Genesis, fifteenth chapter, verses second and eighth, and, with the exceptions of the passages in Deuteronomy, occurs nowhere else in the Pentateuch. As in the Elohini sections that title interchanges with El, so in the Jehovah sections that title interchanges with Adonai. The title Adonai, however, is used by Abimelech in one of the Elohim sections.

(c.) The sections in which Jehovah and Elohim are pro- miscuously used are Genesis, fourteenth

Sections, where used i , ii , ii,i -.i ,i i>

promiscuously. Chapter — A Dram s battle with the four

kings; twenty-second chapter, first nine- teen verses — the offering up of Isaac ; twenty-eighth chap- ter, from the tenth to the twenty-second verse — Jacob's dream at Bethel ; from chapter twenty-ninth, verse thirty- first, to chapter thirtieth, verse twenty-fom-th — the birth and naming of the sons of Jacob. Another section (Gen. xxxii.) in the beginning and end is Elohimish, and in the middle Jehovish. In Exodus, from the tlxird chapter, first verse, to the fourth chapter, seventeenth verse — ^tlie call of Moses — besides the name Jehovah, Elohim, with the article, occurs eight times.

[d.) The sections in which no name of God apjjears at all are Gen. xi. 10-32 ; xxii. 20-24 ; xxiii. ;

Sections, where not c-*— r> j •' a-i a tr- • -i m-\

used at all. ^xv. 27-34; xxvu. 41-45; xxix. 1-30;

xxxiv. ; xxxvi. ; xxxvii.

It would seem, from such an extent and variety of usage,

that it would be easy to discriminate the precise shades of

meaning by which these names are distinguished from

each other. But it must be confessed, after all the efforts

of elaborate ingenuity, that a steady and

The use is often in- •/■ t i* j^* • i i j.

discriminate uniiomi distuictiou IS by uo mcaus kept up.

There are numerous passages in which no reason can be given for the use of one in preference to the other. It is impossible to explain, for example, as Delitzsch has remarked,^ why in all the sections — Gen. vi. 9-22, ix. 1-17, XX. 1-17, XXXV. — the name Jehovah is nowhere used.

^ Comment. Gen. Einleit., p. 32.

Lect. v.] THE NAMES OF GOD. 149

If it were declined by design, we are unable to detect the because both names ^ature of tlic motive. The truth is, both are complete designa- naiucs werc rcvereuced and honoured as full

and complete designations of God. They denoted the same object, and denoted it in the integrity of its attributes. Hence it was often a matter of indiflPerence which was employed. The writer consulted his taste, and used sometimes one and sometimes the other, merely to give an agreeable variety to his style. Where there was no danger of ambiguity there was no need of special caution in the selection of his terms.

But still there are passages in which the use is the evident result of design ; and it is in these passages, assisted by the etymology of the words, that we are to seek for their true, original connotation.

I begin with Elohim, because that is the first name of

God which appears in the Hebrew Bible.

It is the title under which He is described as the Creator of the world. It was Elohim who called into being the heavens and the earth — who spake light into ex- istence, and separated the day from the night. It was He who stretched out the firmament ; collected the waters ; up- raised the dry land ; and who peopled the earth with all its variety of plants and animals. It was He who studded the sky with stars, and appointed the seasons of the earth. It was He who made man in His own Divine image. We can- not but think that the selection of this term in the account of creation was a matter of design. There must have been a peculiar fitness in it to express the relation of the Creator to His works. We pass through the work of the days until we come to the origin of man. There the Elohim appears as not only one, but as also plural. He seems to be in con- sultation with Himself: " Let us make man, in our image, after our likeness." The noun, too, is in the plural number; and while its concord with singular verbs indicates unity, its plural form indicates plurality. These are all facts which lie upon the surface.

150 THE NAMES OF GOD. [Lect. V.

The first inference which I draw is that this word by its very form is intended to express the trine T^Zlm. *''' *"" Personality of God. It is the name of the Trinity — the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. The consultation in Genesis i. 26 cannot be con- sistently explained upon any other hypothesis. That alone is enough to set aside the notion of a pluralis majestaticus, or a pluralis intensionis. Then, again, we find that the work of creation is promiscuously ascribed to each Person of the blessed Godhead. It was, in fact, the work of the Trinity. If this is a clear and indisputable truth, we should interpret the narrative in Genesis in conformity with its light. Thus far, I think, the ground is firm beneath us. "When the great God is first announced to us. He is announced to us by a name which proclaims Him as the Father, Son and Holy Ghost — the God whom we adore, in the new creation, through the Lord Jesus Christ.

But the question now arises. Why has this particular word been selected to reveal this mystery ? "What special significancy, apart from this personal allusion, does it con- tain ? Here I confess myself perplexed. Among the con- flicting etymologies which have been proposed, there are only two which seem to me worthy of serious consideration. The first is that which derives it from nSx, alah in the Arabic signification of the root, to reverence, to worship, to adore. According to this etymology, it is applied to the Trinity as the sole object of religious worship. The God who exists in these three Persons is the only being to whom we are at liberty to direct our prayers or our praises. We are His, for He made us, and we are bound to honour Him in His threefold subsist- ence ; for in this mysterious relation He is infinitely worthy. Delitzsch takes the Arabic root in the sense of fear, and of a fear which deprives us of our self-possession. He supposes that it is applied, by a natural association, to the object which excites this fear ; and pre-eminently to God, as the truly terrible one. But this exposition is liable to insur-

Lect. v.] the names of god. 151

mountable objections. Such fear is not the normal relation betwixt a rational creature and God — it is the product only of sin ; and such fear, so far from being acceptable worship, is utterly inconsistent with the genuine spirit of devotion. God presents Himself to us to be loved and trusted. He is only terrible to the workers of iniquity. The other etymology derives the word from nSx, alah, to swear, and represents the Trinity as engaged in an eternal covenant, which was ratified betwixt them by the solemnity of an oath. It is certain that the Son was constituted a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek by an oath. The council of peace was between them both, and reference is supposed to be had to this august transaction — a transaction which, in its historic accomplishment, unfolds, in full proportion, the glorious doctrine of the three in one — when God is introduced as erecting the stage upon which the historic fulfilment should take place. This, I think, is the real im-

The true import of j. i? xl j.1 rn • 'x • i

giyjji^j port 01 the name — the irinity in covenant

for man's redemption ; and if this be so, it is very suggestive that the first title by which God proclaims Himself to our race should be a title of blessedness and grace. He appears in the old creation only as preparing the way for the new. He is God the Creator, that He may be also God the Redeemer.

The analogical application of this title to kings and mag- istrates is compatible with either etymol-

This title applicaUo -r/* r^ -\ • nil tt •

tojjiugs ogy. it God IS so called because He is

the object of reverence and fear, then the intimation is that subjects are bound to treat their rulers with honour and respect. If the allusion is to the eternal covenant as ratified by an oath, then the implication is that magistrates arc ministers of God, bound by an awful sanc- tion to be a terror to evil-doers and a praise to them that do well. They are reminded that their authority is a sacred trust, and that their claim to the hoinage of their people depends upon the fidelity with which they discharge their duties. The people, too, are reminded of their duties, espe-

152 THE NAMES OF GOD. [Lect. V.

cially the duty of reverencing authority as an ordinance of God.

Cocceius adopts the derivation of Elohim from alah, to swear, but interprets the oath as the sign not of the Eternal Covenant betwixt the Persons of the Godhead, but of the covenant into which God enters with men in the dispensa- tion of His grace. The reference, according to him, is to the promises of the gospel, and the faithfulness with which they shall certainly be fulfilled to all who believe. The jjredominant idea in this case, as in the other, is that of a God in covenant, so that this, however explained, may be taken as the fundamental meaning of the word.

The next title of God which appears in the Pentateuch, and which is everywhere used with awful

Jehovah. . i ,>

reverence, is the tetragrammaton, the lour-

lettered word, Jehovah. The Jews since the exile have

ceased to pronounce it. The Talmud

Jewish superstition. i • i i

amrms that the angels in heaven dare not utter it, and denounces fearful vengeance upon the bold blasphemer who should attempt to profane it. But that

the name was familiar to the patriarchs,

The patriarchs used . i i -i j. i x xi r

the name. ^hat they wcrc accustomed to the use oi

it, and knew of no superstition which con- verted it into a charm, is manifest from many passages of the Pentateuch. Eve repeats it without hesitation and alarm when she gives thanks that she had gotten a man from the Lord [Jehovah] (Gen. iv. 1 ). In the days of Enos it is expressly said that then men began to call upon the name of the Lord [Jehovah]. Between Bethel and Hai, Abram is said to have pitched his tent, to have built an altar, and to have called upon the name of the Lord [Jeho- vah] (Gen. xii. 8, conf Gen. xiii. 4; xiv. 22; xxvii. 16). It is the angel of the Lord [Jehovah] who appears to Hagar, predicts the future fortunes of her son and sends her back to her mistress (Gen. xvi. 7-14). It would be tedious to quote the passages all through the patriarchal history which abundantly and conclusively show that the fathers

Lect, v.] the names of god. 153

were familiar with this august and glorious name. They used it in their solemn worship and in their religious trans- actions with one another.

The Jewish superstition seems to derive some counte- nance from the memorable passage, Ex. vi. tefpTeted/'' '' ' "" 2, 3: "And God spake unto Moses and said unto him, I am the Lord [Jehovah], and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them." The correct interpretation of this passage will give us the key to the precise aspects of His character in which God would be contemplated under the name Jehovah. The meaning is, not that the name was unknown to them, but that there was something in the name which they had not yet been in a condition to realize. It contained a virtue, the efficacy of which they had not pre- viously experienced, but which they were now about to be privileged to witness. To appreciate the force of this ob- servation, we must distinguish betwixt the absolute mean- ing of the word, and the relation of that meaning to the children of Israel. Absolutely, and in itself, it expresses the essential nature of God, as the One, the Infinite, the Eternal and the Unconditioned. It is a synonym for all those perfections which transcend the capacity of thought, and mark God out as the only true Existence in the uni- verse— the ovTCDQ ov. It is derived from the substantive verb to he; it is, indeed, the third person future of that verb, and literally signifies he is or will he. When God ap- plies it to Himself, without relation to the manner in which a third person would speak of Him, He uses the first person, and says, n^nx, Eliyeh, I am, or I will he ; or, '^IT}^ "^^^^ ^"D^y Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, I am ivhat I am, or I am what I will he. It is equivalent to the " Who was, who is, and who is to come," or " shall he," of the New Testament. It expresses the absolute plenitude of being, an esse in which, to use the language of Cocceius, there is no deesse. It includes eter- nity, self-existence, immutability, simplicity, omnipotence,

154 ■ THE NAMES OF GOD. [Lect. V.

omniscience, and, in short, the consummation of all possible perfections. It means, in brief, the entire essence of God as He is in Himself

All this the patriarchs knew. But this absolute being presents Himself, in this title, under a special relation to His people. It implies that what He is in Himself He will be to them, according to the measure of their capacity. From the fullness that is in Him they shall receive and receive abundantly, even grace for grace. His Jehovahshij) is the pledge of the absolute fulfilment of all His promises. He is all, and therefore can become all, to those who fear Him. Hence to call Himself Jehovah is to proclaim the stability of His covenant, and to pawn His very existence in proof that He will become, and that from Himself, the satisfying portion of His saints. It was this relation, most precious and interesting, of the Absolute to us, which the fathers had not yet fully apprehended. They knew God as the Author of blessings, but the relation of those blessings. to Himself — the fact that it was He in the blessing that constituted its value — this great idea had not taken posses- sion of their souls. They had not learned that God was in all that He freely gave, and that it was only as He was in it that the gift was really worth receiving. Hence this is precisely the name which suits God as a Saviour and Re- deemer. It exactly represents the relations of the Son when He became flesh, gave Himself a ransom for our sins, and becomes to us, by a mysterious but glorious union. Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification and Redemption. We are in Him and He in us. We are because He is, and because He lives we shall live also.

Hence, from the nature of the case this name cannot be analogically transferred to any creature,

This title not trans- . ^ ^

ferabie to any crea- liowevcr cmincut or cxalted. JNo crcature *'^'"^' can communicate as from Himself He

can only give what he receives. His sufficiency is from God. But the peculiarity of Jehovah is, that He gives what is His own. He is life, and therefore imparts it. He is

Lect. v.] THE NAMES OF GOD. 155

holiness, and therefore infuses it. He is blessedness, and therefore communicates it. He is salvation, and therefore bestows it. All that he promises He is, and therefore His promises are Yea and Amen in Christ Jesus. It is this relation of the Absolute to the creature that con- stitutes the peculiar signijficancy of the name of Jehovah. And, therefore, in a different sense, we may adopt the lan- guage of the Jew, and pronounce this to be a glorious and an ineffable name. It is a name at which devils may well tremble, for it reveals the unutterable depths of their pov- erty, while saints and angels tremble and adore. This God is our God for ever and ever. He will be our guide even unto death.

The application of this name to Jesus Christ, which the

writers of the New Testament do not scruple to make, is a

pregnant and unanswerable proof of His absolute divinity.

Indeed it is only in Jesus Christ that the

Full import of it p n • j_ i} iA • • ^ i

oniyinJesLcinist. ™11 import of this name IS or can be real- ized to us. Here and here alone is Jeho- vah, as Jehovah, known by the rich experience of the heart. If this exposition be correct, there was a peculiar propriety when God was about to appear as the Redeemer of Israel in His appearing under this name. It revealed Him as an object of assured and steadfast faith. There is also a pro- priety in the prominence which is given to it when the sacred writers leave the history of the world at large, and confine their narratives for the most part to the fortunes of God's redeemed people — His Church. There is also an ex- quisite beauty in God's appearing under the name Jehovah when He summons the guilty pair into His presence, and comforts them in their sorrow under the prospect of a great Deliverer. There is also a peculiar force and emphasis in the combination Jehovah-Elohim, as condensing the entire sum of the relations in which the creature can stand to God. The third name, Jah, is generally re- garded as an abbreviated form of Jehovah. Like it, it is exclusively appropriated to the Sujjreme God.

156 THE NAMES OF GOD. [Lect. V.

It is peculiar to poetry, and especially the poetry of praise. Its combination with Jehovah might seem incompatible with the notion that it is simply an abridgment of the same word. Cocceius derives it from the word hn;, yaah, in the sense of decency and Jitness; and in this sense it expresses the harmony, beauty and glory of the Divine perfections. It is the affirmation that God is, in all respects, like Him- self, and the absolute standard of all that is becoming and beautiful in the creature. According to this exposition, it represents God in that very asj)ect of His being which renders Him the object of our praise. It is, in other words, a compendious expression for His unutterable beauty, and is fitly joined with hallelu, as an exhortation to praise the Lord. Adonai, pointed with a quametz, is also a name exclusively applied to God. It implies sovereign do-

Adonai. ^j- , , \ ^ == _

mimon, and is equivalent to Lord and Master. It implies a dominion, however, which is founded in ownership, and is therefore peculiarly appropriate to God, whether we contemplate Him as Creator or Redeemer. We are His, for He made us, and we belong pre-eminently to Christ, for He has bought us with His own precious blood. This is the word which the Jews substitute for Jehovah wherever Jehovah occurs in the sacred text.

Shaddai, sometimes preceded by El, sometimes alone, is a

term by which God is represented as Al-

Shaddai. "^ .

mighty and Supreme. It is rendered by the Septuagint Tzavroxpdrtop. It is plural in its form, jjossibly to express the intensity and fullness of the Divine power. El, derived from S-ik, aul, or from Vn, ayl, properly sig- nifies the Strong One. Used absolutely and in the singular, it is restricted universally to the true God. It represents Him as irresistible in His purposes, vanquishing all obstacles, subduing all enemies, and bringing His own purposes to pass.

Elyon, from nS;?, ahdi, to ascend, is pro-

Elyon. •' ' . ' . 1 1 .

perly an adjective with a superlative sense, and describes God as the Most High ; or the High and Lofty

Lect. v.] the names of god. 157

One who inhabiteth eternity. It is equivalent to the iK/udTOi; of the Greeks. It simply reveals, by an easy and obvious figure, the absolute supremacy of God.

These are the names by which the nature and perfections of God are compendiously set forth in the Old Testament. There are many other titles which designate special relations, such as Judge and Lawgiver, but these can in no sense be regarded as proper names.

In Greek we have deo^ and xupio;;, which, whatever may

Two Greek titles ^^vc becu the Original ground of their use,

answering to Eiohim i;iow dcuotc tlic Suprcmc Jcliovah, and

and Jehovah. . • /, , . , ^ tt-*

signify at the same time the sum oi His perfections, and of the essential relations in which He stands to His creatures. The fundamental notion in xupcoz, Lord, is certainly that of power and of rightful dominion ; but, in the Sejjtuagint and New Testament it is made synonymous with Jehovah, and must consequently be taken in the full sense of that glorious name. The fundamental notion of deoQ, God, may be that of the Arranger — God as the author of the beauty and order in the Universe ; but the Septuagint has made it equivalent to Eiohim, and we are to employ it in no more restricted sense. Indeed, it was the only strictly proper name among the Greeks for the supreme and ever- lasting God.

These Divine names served a most important purpose among the patriarchs in recording, preserving and giving unity to their knowledge of God. They could hardly have been dispensed with. The concept of an earthly object re- quires a sign to hold its elements together ; much more does such a concept as that of God. We see the value of names in the instruction of children. It is through the explanation of words that they are slowly and progressively conducted to the knowledge of things. How graciously has God con- descended, in the revelation of Himself, to our weakness and our faculties !

Lecture VI THE NATURE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

WHEN we come to a closer determination of the nature and attributes of God, we encounter the question, Whether there is any sense in which He can be defined ? That no human language can represent Him as He is in Himself is perfectly obvious from the fact, that no human thought can conceive Him in His infinite and absolute essence. Here, in the words of the venerable Cyril of Jeru- salem,^ our highest knowledge is to confess our ignorance. The very notion, moreover, of defining the infinite, seems to involve a contradiction. To define is to limit, to determine, to restrict; but the infinite must cease to be infinite in coming under these conditions of human

God indefinable, , . ..irti

thought. As it exists in itself, therefore, it is manifestly indefinable. Add to this, that God transcends all the distinctions of Logic which definition presupposes. He is neither genus nor species. Intensely and exclusively singular, He stands alone in His being ; there are none on earth to be compared with Him, none in heaven to be ranked with Him. " To whom then will we liken God, or what likeness will ye compare unto Him ?" ^

But the case is different in relation to our own finite oon- butwecanexpressour ccptious. Tlicsc, though inadequate to rep- finite conceptions of rcscut God, may themselves be adequately

represented in language. If we cannot answer the question, what God is in Himself, we can certainly answer the question, what God is as He appears to us. We

1 Catechis., vi. 2. 2 Isa. xl. 18.

158

Lect. VI.] THE NATURE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 159

can combine our knowledge and our faith in the terms of a description which, though not conformable with the laws, may answer all the ends of a logical definition. Our ana- logical concepts we can refer to a genus, and this genus we can distinguish by the properties which we know and believe We must conceive of ^ be csscutial to God. Wc think the God as substance and Divinc, as wc do cvcry otlicr being, under

the relation of substance and attribute ; the substance being determined by the attributes, and the at- tributes conceived as manifestations of the substance. When asked. Quid sit f we answer in terms descriptive of the sub- stance ; when asked, Qualis sit f we answer in terms descrip- tive of the attributes. In conformity with this view various

definitions have been given of God. Some

A definition of God t n tt* xI i i j i c i ^ •

considered. defiuc Him as the absolutely perfect bemg

— heing the genus ; and absolutely perfect, the specific difiference. But the difficulty here is that no positive knowledge is conveyed. We begin with a series of negations, and can never translate ourselves beyond the sphere of darkness in which we have placed ourselves. We confound a faith in an unknown reality with a positive de- termination of human thought. To this and all such defi- nitions pretending to posit the essence of the absolute, the following remarks of Van Mastricht^ are applicable : " This is no more a legitimate definition of God than to say of man, He is the most perfect sublunary being, would be a legitimate definition of him. And yet who would accept such a defini- tion, or admit it as any real explication of the human essence? No more is that a genuine definition of God which simply represents Him as the absolutely perfect being. For neither the genus heing, to which He is assigned, nor the difference, absolutely perfect, contains any real explication of His essence. Not being, for that rather proj)Oses than explains it ; affirms that it is, rather than what it is. Not absolutely perfect, be- cause that seems to express a relation or comparison, by which the essence of God surpasses the essence of every other ^ Quoted in De Moor, cap. iv., § 11.

160 THE NATURE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. [Lect. VL

thing. Everything whatever, as long as it is, is a something perfect. Hence, by j^^rfection simjily, the essence of God cannot be accurately discriminated from the essence of any other thing. The addition of the qualifying epithet abso- lutely, only institutes a comparison, but determines nothing as to the nature of the things compared."

Perrone,^ the distinguished professor of theology in the

Jesuit College at Rome, makes the essence of God to consist

in His independence and self-existence. According to him,

an essence should always fulfil four condi-

A second definition ,• -iTii ill j1' •,••

considered. tious : 1. It sliould DC Something lutrmsic

to the thing; 2. It should distinguish it from every other thing ; 3. It should be first in the order of thought when we undertake to conceive the thing ; and, 4. It should be construed as the fons et origo of all its per- fections. These conditions in relation to God, he maintains, are realized in the notion of self-existence. This, then, is the Divine essence. But what do we know of self-existence apart from the denial of a cause ? What positive concept have we from which we can deduce any positive conclusion what- ever ? Just give to a man what he calls the notion of self- existence and nothing else — the mere negation of a cause — and what is he likely to achieve in the way of revealing the only true God of our worship ? The negative can give no- thing but the negative. Remove the manifestations which God has made of Himself in the works of creation and providence — remove the Scriptures, and leave us nothing but the naked concept of necessary being — and it seems to me intuitively obvious that it would be as barren of results as the baldest identical proi^osition. As regulative, in the sphere of positive thought, it is immensely important. But as a fons et origo of perfections, it is as sterile as the sands of Arabia.

"VYe dismiss, therefore, as frivolous all efforts to represent the essence of God, as thought, in terms of the absolute. If we ascribe to Him any attributes at all, we are constrained ^ Prselect. TheoL, Pt. I., c. iii., prop. iii.

Lect. VI.] THE NATURE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 161

by the constitution of our nature to think Him as a sub- stance or subject in which these attributes inhere. That substance must be determined by the nature of the attributes themselves. And as we know of but two substances, mind and matter, we are constrained to represent God under the analogy of one or the other, according as the manifestations in His works and the revelation of His vford shall decide. He is either material or spiritual. Between these, so far as

known to us, there is no middle ; and which to be asptru^'""^ ^^ ^^ thcsc most fitly represents the nature of

God is hardly susceptible of doubt. The best definition, in a brief compass, is that contained in the Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Assembly :

God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal and un-

The best definition. . tt- i • • 7

changeable m Uis being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth. Here the genus to which the substance of God is referred is spirit, in strict accordance with the Scriptures and the manifestations of His nature which are made by His works ; the difference, those qualities which belong to spirit in its full and normal development, heightened beyond all bounds of conception by terms which are borrowed from God as an object of faith. In this definition there is an admirable combination of what we know with what we are only able to believe, and God is represented in language precisely as He appears

in thought. There is but one defect. It

But it is defective.

seems to me that the peculiar personality of God should have been distinctly and prominently an- nounced. He is not only Spirit, but Personal Spirit, and not Personal barely, but Tri-persoual — the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. To describe Him as a Spirit subsist- ing in three Persons, and then as infinite, eternal and un- changeable in all the perfections which are proper to Spirit, is to make as near an approximation to an accurate defini- tion as it is possible for our faculties to compass,^ Spirit expresses the nature and answers the question, Quid sit?

1 Cf. De Moor, c. iv., § 12. Vol. L— 11

162 THE NATURE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. [Lkct. VI.

The properties express the perfections and answer the ques- tion, Quails sit f One can only be thought Answer to the two ^^ ^^^ correlative of the other.' We know

questions.

the nature, as a 2")ermanent, unchanging subject, only through the attributes by which it is revealed, and know it only as their ground and centre of unity.

The notion of attributes arises from the nature of the effects which we are constrained to ascribe to the agency of God. We know what He is by seeing what He does. We

remark the traces of order and design

How we get our no- o

tions of God's attri- whicli are everywhere conspicuous around us, and we immediately feel that the Au- thor of the universe must be possessed of knowledge and wisdom. We listen to the teachings of our own consciences, and cannot but collect that He who compels us to distinguish in our own souls betwixt the right and the wrong is Himself a being of rectitude. The products of His will, in the mighty works of His hands which are everywhere dis- played to view, are in the same way confessions of His power. Attributes, therefore, may be defined as the deter- minations of the Divine Being to human thought, suggested by the relations in which He stands to His works. They are the modes under which we conceive Him.

All the attributes of God are essential ; that is, they are

nothing separate and distinct from God,

They are not sepa- ^ (j ^ Himsclf manifested in such and

rable froni His essence. -^ >-' ^ ^ ^

such forms. The same may be said of the faculties of the human soul ; they are not something distinct from the soul, and added to it as a complement to its being, but are only the soul itself existing in such and such modes of consciousness. We can logically discriminate betwixt essence and properties ; and in every other being there are properties which may be conceived as detached from the essence, but in the case of God the essence and the proper- ties completely coincide. He has no separable accidents. All that He is. He is essentially. The importance of this principle has been illustrated in the controversy with the

Lect. VI.] THE NATURE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 163

Socinians, who were willing to acknowledge the Holy Ghost as an attribute of God, but were not willing to acknowledge Him as God.

It is commonly maintained by divines not only that the attributes are not distinct from the essence,

Their being all rad- ^^^ ^j^^^ ^j^ ^^,^ ^^^^ ^^^^jj distiuct from ically one, '' 'i

one another. They are all radically one. Wisdom, goodness, justice, power, anger, pity, love, — all these, as they exist in God, are really one and the same mode of consciousness. This conclusion is supposed to be necessitated by the doctrine of the simplicity of God. He is held to be absolved from every species of composition, physical, logical and metaphysical. He is not a whole made up of parts. He admits of no distinctions of genus and species, or of substance and quality. He is nakedly and absolutely one. There are and can be no differences or

distinctions in His nature. It is said, ac- Sioi^u'LT"'^' cordingly, that if weascribe to Him attri-

butes really distinct from each other, each would be a different thing, and the unity of God, instead of being one, simple and indivisible, would be an aggregate or sum of different qualities. I can understand how the simplicity and unity of God absolve Him from physical and loo:ical distinctions. I can understand that He is not com- posed of parts, like body, nor capable of being classed under genera and species, but I cannot understand why the meta- physical distinction of substance and quality is at all incon- „ , .,,.,, sistent with the most perfect simplicity.

Reply to this state- J- i ./

ment from the doc- If all distinctious of cvery kind are to be

trine of the Trinity, i i i /• .1 /^ Jl j r • -j.

excluded from the Godhead, how is it pos- sible to reconcile the doctrine of the Trinity with the abso- lute unity of the Divine nature? The very core of the doctrine is that there are distinctions, and distinctions in the essence of the Godhead without which there would and could be no God at all. The truth is, absolute simplicity is to us wholly unintelligible ; it is only the negation of every form of composition. But when every form of composition

164 THE NATURE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. [Lect. VI.

is removed, the positive thing that remains transcends our capacity of thought. We know not what it is, and it is idle to undertake to reason from it as if it were a positive element of knowledge.

To us the law of substance and quality is an intrinsic condition of existence, independently of which we are un- able to think any object whatever ; and as the law of human knowledge is that of plurality and diifer- our owu^iinds '^^ ° eucc, qualities must be presented as distinct manifestations of their substance, or they convey nothing to the mind. Absolute identity to beings constituted as we are would be as bootless as absolute non- entity. Tf the simplicity of the human soul is not disturbed or impaired by distinct modes of consciousness, if it con- tinues permanently one in the midst of the many, I see no heresy in supposing that something analogous may obtain in the infinite being of God, and that He reconciles variety with unity, distinctions with simplicity, in a manner which does not detract from His absolute perfection.

How the one in God appears as the many to us is ex- plained by the distinction betwixt virtual or eminent and „^ ^. ,. , . real difference. This distinction plays so

The distinction of r J

eminent and real dif- important a part in theological treatises ' that I shall take this opportunity to ex-

plain it. Distinction or difference is the negation of iden- tity. Things can differ either in themselves or in our modes of conceiving them. When they differ in themselves, the difference is said to be real. When the difference is only in our modes of conceiving, it is said to be virtual or eminent. The reason of the term is this : the thing, though one and simple in itself, in the manifold effects which it produces and the manifold relations in which it is thought, is con- strued as equivalent to them all, and as containing them in a higher form of perfection than that in which they are real- ized. A grain of Avheat, for example, is one and simple in itself, but it may be conceived in various aspects and rela- tions. It may be thought simply as a body, composed of

Lect, VI.] THE NATURE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 165

parts ; it may be thought as an article of food ; it may be thought merely as a seed. Here are three modes of con- ceiving the same thing, which yet abides in its unity. So God, absolutely simple in Himself, contains in Himself what is equivalent to all the effects He has produced. He is potentially all that He does. That is eminently in Him — that is, exists in the form of a higher perfection in Him — which is realized in the outward universe.^

It is maintained, accordingly, that while in the intrinsic

relation of existence there is no real differ- tfon^'Iud*" ^^^^ '^"''^ 6^1^^ among the attributes of God, all being

equally God Himself, in the extrinsic rela- tions of working and manifestation differences emerge, but the differences are in the effects and not in the cause. As we conceive the cause, however, in relation to the effects, we

1 [" Distinction or difference is the negation of identity. Things are dis- tinguished v/hich are not the same. A thing can be different from another, either in itself or in our conception. When diiferent in itself, the distinction is called real ; when only in our conception, it is called rational or mental.

" Things differ in themselves, either because they are separate, as Peter and Paul ; or separable, as soul or body ; or relatively opposed, as father and son. This species of distinction is called realis major. Things may differ solely as the mode differs from the thing modified, as figure and body, cogitation and mind. This distinction is called modal, or distinctio realis minor. To these John Duns Scotus added a third — namely, between two or more properties of the same thing, when they diflfer only in their formal reason, as in man, animality and rationality ; in God, essence and attributes ; and among the attributes themselves, as justice and mercy are formally distinguished. This was called formal difference or distinctio realis minima.

" Mental distinction is of two kinds — one purely arbitrary, as when we distinguish between Peter and Cephas, there being no foundation for the distinction in the thing itself, it is called distinctio rationis ratiocinanfis ; the other is when there is a foundation in the thing, which though one and absolutely simple in itself," is yet equivalent to many different things, and on account of the variety of its effects causes us to consider it in different aspects and relations, as a grain may be seed, food or body. So God, ab- solutely simple in Himself, produces different effects, and therefore con- tains in Himself what is equivalent to these effects, or rather superior to them — contains it eminently. The same thing in Him makes differences among the creatures. This is the distinctio rationis ratiocinatce, or virtual difference." — Perrone, Pt. II., c. i.]

166 THE NATURE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. [Lect. VI.

give it a different determination according to the nature of the effect. Knowledge and power, for examj)le, in God are one and the same, but knowledge and power terminate in different effects, and the difference of determination given by these effects involves a corresponding difference in human conception. This difference, depending upon the difference of effect, and upon a corresponding difference in our mode of conceiving, is called a virtual or eminent difference.

If the extrinsic relations under which we think do not coincide with the intrinsic relations under which the attri- butes of God exist, it would seem that our knowledge is deceitful and illusive. To this it is replied, that the know- ledge is real as far as it goes. It fails to tell us what God is in Himself; in that aspect he is wholly incomprehensible ; but it does unfold to us His relations to the creature. These relations are real ; and though they seem to reveal a mani- fold perfection in God, they are not delusive, so long as they reveal what is still higher and better than anything which can be conceived as many. Properly interpreted, the mani- ^ , , . , ^ fold in nature only teaches that there is

God shown to be One, ^ •'^

without any divers- that iu God wliicli is Competent to produce '*^' it. He is eminently, in the resources of

His being, all that the universe contains. As one, He gives rise to diversity, but the diversity is not in Him.

All this is ingenious, and to some extent intelligible, but

is very far from being a satisfactory account

Ingenious, but not ^ ^ distiuctiou which wc are coustraiued

satistactory.

to make in the attributes of God. No jug- gling with scholastic technicalities can ever confound or fuse into one modes of consciousness so really distinct as those of intelligence and will. It may be that in the absolute they are reduced to unity, but it is perfectly certain that we cannot see how they are virtually the same. It may be that pity and justice completely coincide as they exist in God, but it is impossible for us to comprehend how the one is eminently the other. The true view is, that this whole subject transcends the sphere of our faculties. We can only

Lect. VL] THE NATURE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 167

obey the law of our nature ; and the very determinations which lead us to ascribe any attributes to God lead us, at the same time, to distinguish them. The differences may be only apparent, but to us they must be construed as real until the delusion is detected. That, however, never can be done by abstract speculations on simplicity.

Seeing that we can know God only under the relation of distinct properties and attributes, it is im-

Classification of at- j. j. j. i j_ i • l

tributes necessary. portaut to adopt somc comprchensivc mode of classifying and arranging these mani- festations of the Divine Being. In some treatises the method is simply synthetic — adding attribute to attribute as each is unfolded in the process of the argument. For instance, they set out with Being; the temporal and the contingent give the eternal and the necessary. Here are two predicates to be applied to the first being. Eternity implies immutability and infinity. Here are two other predicates. Through the traces of order and design the predicates of intelligence and goodness are collected ; and so on through the whole list of the known attributes of God. Here there is no classification. There is simply a process of synthesis by means of a previous analysis. In this way the attributes are generally treated in works on Natural Theology. Among the schemes of distribution proposed by theolo- gians the following divisions may be signalized: 1. Into Absolute and Relative. The Absolute em-

Seven schemes of dis- i . i f ,• f r^ ^ , c

tribution signalized. "^races the pcrfcctions of God as out of relation to the creature ; the Relative, the same perfections as in relation to the creature. " Thus," to use the illustration of De Moor, appropriated by Dr. Breck- inridge,^ " goodness would be considered an absolute attri- bute, while mercy would be considered a relative one, as being founded in goodness, but having a special relation to the creature ; and in like manner immensity would be con- sidered an absolute, and omnipresence a relative, attribute ; holiness an absolute, and punitive justice a relative, attribute ; ' Object. Theol., Book iii., c. xvii. Cf. De Moor, c. iv. I 19.

168 THE NATURE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. [Lect. VI,

and so of the rest." 2. Into Positive and Negative. The Positive are those which can be affirmatively predicated of God — such as wisdom, goodness, justice ; the Negative are those which can only be expressed by negations — such as infinity, eternity, immensity. 3. Into Quiescent and Active or Operative. The Quiescent coincide with what have been called the immanent perfections of God; the Operative, Avith the transient. 4. Into Primitive and Derivative — those from which others are derived, and those so derived. 5. Into JNIetaphysical, Physical, or Natural — for all these terms have been used to express the same class — and INIoral, embracing those connected with intelligence and will. The first set of terms includes all the attributes of God consid- ered simply as the infinite and absolute ; the second, those which belong to Him as a Personal Spirit. The most com- mon distribution is — 6. Into Communicable and Incommu- nicable.^ The Communicable refers to those of which some analogy can be found in the perfections of the creature ; the Incommunicable, to those which admit of no such analogy. 7. Into Internal and External ; " which division," says De Moor,^ " is accommodated to the philosophy of Des Cartes, according to which the whole nature of God is resolved into mere cogitation, to the exclusion of everything else which, except thought, can be conceived. From this jorinciple are deduced only two internal attributes of God — Intellect and Will ; because there are only two general modes of thought — ^perception or the operation of intellect, and volition or the operation of will. Hence all the other attributes of God are considered merely as external denominations." These distinctions, though variously expressed, are nearly All these pervaded ^11 fundamentally the same. They are per- i>y a common vein of yadcd by a commott veiu of thought — a fact which cannot be explained without admitting that they have a real foundation in the nature of our knowledge of God. And yet the common idea which

^ Howe, Principles, etc., Part i., Lect. 17. Turrett. Loc. iii., Qu. 6, 2 Chap, iv., ^ 19.

Lect. VI.] THE NATURE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 169

pervades them has not been distinctly and consciously seized ; otherwise the attributes would have been determined by it, and not by the aspects in which they happen to be contemplated. There is evidently this fundamental distinc- tion between one of these classes and the other — that, in the one case, what are called attributes or properties are not specific determinations, but characteristics of every attri- bute and property manifested in the relation of God to His works. They are not a mode of consciousness or being, co-ordinate with other modes of consciousness or being. They are not related as memory and imagination in the human soul, but rather as consciousness — the universal con- dition of intelligence — to the whole soul. They are not ex- pressive of particular forms of Divine agency, but are rather pervading conditions — if we may indulge the solecism — of the Divine existence. God is not wise and infinite, but He is infinite in His wisdom as well as in His being. "What He is determinately to human thought, that He is infinitely, eternally and unchangeably. This is the dis- tinction w^liich all these divisions tacitly recognize. It is the absolute of faith transferred to the manifested and known. It is God as believed lying at the basis of all that is revealed, and never for a moment to be divorced from it. The one set of properties might therefore be callc«i modes of being — the other, properties of nature or determinative properties. The one set may be referred to the fundamental

notion of necessary existence, the other to disunctior"'"""*" the fundamental notion of a Personal Spirit.

Around these two central points we may collect and arrange all that we can know of God. The first notion gives Eternity, Immensity, Independence, Immuta- bility ; the second gives Intelligence and Will, and all those perfections which are included in the idea of a perfect Spirit. Unity and Simplicity are included in both.

Communicable and incommunicable are terms very badly chosen to express the ideas which they were intended to convey. They seem to imply that the perfection in man is

170 THE NATURE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. [Lect. VI.

an emanation from the corresponding perfection of God, or at least that the two are formally the same. But there is really nothing that is strictly common betwixt them but the word. They are analogous, but not alike. The relations are the same, but the things themselves differ as widely as the infinite and finite.

Dr. Hodge, in the " Outlines of Theology," ^ published by his son, has suggested a classification

Classifications of /• .i ta* • jj*ii ^ • ^ • ' ^

jjpj^g ol the JJivme attributes wdiich coincides

almost precisely with that which I have proposed. He makes four classes — "1. Those attributes which equally qualify all the rest: Infinitude, that which has no bounds ; Absoluteness, that which is determined either in its being or modes of being or action by nothing whatsoever without itself. This includes immutability.

2. Natural attributes ; God is an infinite Spirit, self -existent, eternal, immense, simple, free of will, inteUigent, pjoioerful.

3. Moral attributes. God is a Spirit infinitely riyhteous, good, true and faithful. 4. The consummate glory of all the Divine perfections in union — the beauty of holiness."

Dr. Breckinridge, in his " Objective Theology," proposes a classification much more complicated and

and of Breckinridge. . i • i

elaborate. It is developed in the seven- teenth chapter of the work. A general view of it is con- tained in the summary of the closing section : " According to this method we are enabled to contemplate God succes- sively— 1. As He is an infinite Being, and endowed Avitli the proper perfections thereof. 2. As He is an infinite Spirit, and endowed with the proper perfections thereof. 3. As being both, and endowed with all perfections that belong to both, considered with reference to the eternal and ineifaceable distinction between true and false, which is the fundamental distinction with which our own rational facul- ties are conversant. 4. As being endowed with all perfec- tions with reference to the eternal and ineffaceable distinc- tion between good and evil, which is the fundamental

1 Page 104.

Lect. YL] THE NATURE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 171

distinction with which our moral faculties are conversant. 5. As being endowed with all perfections which underlie, which embrace or which result from the union of all the preceding perfections. And so the classes of his perfections would necessarily be — 1 . Those called Primary Attributes — that is, such as belong to an infinite and self-existent Being, simply considered. 2. Essential Attributes — that is, those belonging to such a Being considered essentially as an infi- nite Spirit. 3. Natural Attributes — that is, such as apper- tain to an infinite Spirit, considered naturally, rather than morally or essentially. 4, Moral Attributes — that is, such as appertain to such a Being, considered morally, rather than naturally or essentially. 5. Consummate Attributes — that is, such as appertain to such a Being considered com- pletely and absolutely."

It is obvious, in the first place, that the terms in which this classification is expressed are unhappily chosen. "When we read of Primary Attributes, we expect to meet as a matter of course with others that are Secondary. But in this case the protasis has no apodosis. Fundamental would have been a better word than Primary. Then Essential and Natural are so nearly synonymous that it can only breed confusion to use them in contrast. Besides, all attributes of God are equally essential. There are none, therefore, entitled, by way of j)re-eminence, to usurp this distinction.

In the next place, the classification is confused. God as Spirit is distinguished from God as intelligent. The natural attributes are made pendants of the essential, as if there were a faculty of knowledge in God apart from His knowledge itself. Abating the perplexity and confusion both of thought and language, the classification is substantially the same as that of Dr. Hodge. The Primary attributes are those which I have described as Modal, or all-pervading, and Dr. Hodge has spoken of as qualifying all the rest. The Essential and Natural are those which Dr. Hodge has called simply Nat- ural— avoiding the implication that there is any distinction between faculty and acts in the Divine understanding. The

172 THE NATURE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. [Lect. VI.

JNIoral arc the same in both divisions. The Consummate

do not exactly coincide, but they differ only in extension.

The simplest division is that ^^•hich is

The Bimplost divisiou. i i • i i .

grounded in the obvious distinction between those perfections which j^ervade the whole being and every other perfection of God, and those which are special and de- terminative. Here the boundaries are clear and distinct. The determinative attributes of God may be subdivided into Intellectual and Moral — the two great outlines which include all the excellence of a personal Spirit. The Consummate attributes seem to me to be a needless distinction.

In the development of this subject the plan which I shall pursue will be first, to treat of the nature of God as Spiritual and Personal ; and then to unfold the attributes in the order in which they have here been classed.

Lecture VII SPIRITUALITY OF GOD

THE spirituality of God is the foundation of all religious worship. It is only as a spirit that He is possessed of those attributes of intelligence, goodness,

This truth, the foun- .,• it i,,i i-i

dation of the worship, justice, powcr, holuiess and truth which make Him the object of our prayers, our praises, our confidence and hopes. It is only as a spirit that He is a person, and, consequently, only as a spirit that He can enter into communion with us and communicate to us the tokens of His favour and His love. A blind force, a stern and irresistible necessity, might be an object of terror and of dread, but it would be absurd to pray to it, to trust in it, or to love it. Our Saviour, in His interview with the woman of Samaria, makes the spirituality of God determine the nature and the kind of worship which we are to render to the Father of our spirits. But the argument goes much farther — it determines the ground of the possibility of wor- ship. There could be no true worshippers at all, for there would be nothing to which worshij) could be consi.stently adapted, if God were not spirit.

More than this : the spirituality of God is not only the foundation of all religious worship — it is butes'^of God! '^''"" ^^^ foundation of all the Divine attributes. Without spirit there could be no life; without life, no activity ; without activity, no causal agency. Infinity, immensity, eternity, simplicity and immutability, as well as omniscience, holiness, goodness and truth, are grossly incompatible with the notion of matter as compound,

173

174 SPIRITUALITY OF GOD. [Lect. VIT.

divisible, disecrptible, clestriictible. Hence, to deny that God is spirit is tantamount to Atheism.

There is only one passage of Scripture in which it is ex- plicitly affirmed that God is a spirit, but

Scripture proofs of ,i i j • • • t •,^ , - i • n

tho doctrine. '^"^ doctriuc IS imphcitly contained in all

the representations which it makes of His nature and perfections. In John iv. 24 the direct testimony of Christ has been evaded by making Spirit the accusative case, and supplying the word seeks from the preceding verse. The sense would then be not that God is a spirit, but that God seeks the spirit, or demands the spirit from His wor- shippers. This is the interpretation of Vorstius. The reason which he assigns is, that the argument from the nature of God to the nature of the worship He exacts is not valid and consequential. It is not His nature, but His will that determines the character of worship. But to this it may be readily replied that the nature determines the will ; so that the nature of God is the foundation, while the will of God is the rule or measure of religious worship.^ If the reasoning, it is contended, from a spiritual nature to a spiritual worship is valid, then the inference would be sound from a bodily worship, such as that enjoined upon the Jews, to a bodily nature. But it is forgotten that the body is not the wor- shipper, but only an instrument of w^orship. It is the means of manifesting the inward condition — the outward expression of the invisible spirit. Apart from this relation, bodily ex- ercise profiteth nothing. There seems to be no good reason, therefore, for departing from the ordinary interpretation : God is a spirit. But even if we should adopt the exposition of Vorstius, the spirituality of God might still, as Limborch - suggests, be fairly collected from the text. Why should He demand a spiritual worship if He were not a spiritual being ? Why should He exact an homage that was wholly inconsist- ent with his essential perfections ? — an homage, in fact, by which the worshipper shows himself superior to the wor- shipped.

^ Charnock, vol. i., p. 245. * Theol. Christ., Lib. ii., c. iv.

Lect. VII.] SPIRITUALITY OF GOD. 175

Among the passages in which tlie spirituality of God is obviously implied are Numbers xvi. 22, in which lie is en- titled The God of tlie spirits of all flesh ; and Hebrews xii. 9, in which He is denominated The Father of spirits. He is evidently their Father, in the sense that they spring from Him and are like Him. The contrast betwixt God and the Egyptians in Isaiah xxxi. 3, " that the Egyptians are men and not God, and their horses flesh and not spirit," proceeds upon the assumption that God is pre-eminently spiritual. The Third Person of the Trinity is unquestionably spirit. Holy Spirit or Holi/ Ghost (for ghost and spirit are synony- mous) is His proper name, and as Pie is substantially the same with the Father and the Son, the Father and the Son must be spirit also. All those passages, moreover, which ascribe wisdom, knowledge, counsel, purjjose and decrees to God — which represent Him, in other words, as possessed of intellectual and moral perfections — are so many proofs of a spiritual nature. As the stream cannot rise higher than the fountain, the existence of finite and dependent spirits in the case of angels and of men involves the existence of the Su- preme and Absolute spirit as their principle and source. He that planted the ear, shall not He hear ? He that formed the eye, shall not He see ? He that chastiseth the heathen, shall not He correct ? He that teach eth man knowledge, shall not He know ? Abolish this doctrine of the Divine spirit- uality, and the Scripture testimonies to God become a tissue of contradictions and absurdities. It lies at the root of everything they teach.

The ancient heathen philosophers concur in the same fun- damental truth. The supreme God of The ancient phiios- pj^^^^ ^^^^^ Aristotlc figurcs as thc Supreme

ophers coucur. o l

intelligence or mind. Socrates sought Him as the explanation of the principle of order, and pursues the argument from final causes in the very spirit of modern teleologists. Plutarch^ calls Him a pure intelligence, simple and unmixed in His own nature, but mingling Himself with ' Quoted in Owen, vol. viii., p. 147.

176 SPIRITUALITY OF GOD. [Lkct. YII.

eveiytlilng besides. And whatever may be said of the Pan- theistic vein, the testimony to God as Mind is clear and de- cisive in the well-known lines of Virgil :

" Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem." ^

The spirituality of God is both a negative and a positive truth. As negative it denies of Him the loftTlrmateriar' propcrties and ^ affcctions of matter; it is equivalent to immaterial. Hence He is not a being who can be represented to sense, nor figured in the imagination. He is not divisible into parts, nor circum- scribed by space. He exists as an unit, simple and indis- cerptible, and therefore indestructible. It is clear that a material being cannot be infinite, or if he could be infinite it would destroy the possibility of all finite matter. Its nature is to be bounded by figure, and to exclude every other matter from the space which it occupies. As bounded, it cannot be infinite : as exclusive, if it were infinite, it would absolutely fill the immensity of space and preclude the co- existence of finite portions.

There have been those M'ho have interpreted literally the language of Scripture which predicates of God bodily mem- bers and organs, and have conseqaently sunk Him to the low condition of corporeal existence. This coarse anthro- pomorphism or anthropopathism, as it has

Ancient and n i -i i i t^i •

been called, was attributed to the Jibion- ites, to the monks of Egypt and to the sect of the Audians. It has certainly been maintained, in modern times, by more than one disciple of Socinus. It was the ThiteT "°*'^''°P°"°'- doctrine of Vorstius ; the doctrine of Bid- die in the Catechism, so conclusively re- futed by Owen in the Vindicice Evangeliccc; the doctrine of Hobbes ; and still more recently the doctrine of Priestly. It is now abandoned by the Socinians, who have approxi- mated more closely than their predecessors to the spiritual Deism of philosophy.

1 ^n. vi., 726, 727.

Lect. VII.] SPIRITUALITY OF GOD. 177

Tertullian has been accused of attributing a body to God, and so far as the letter of the accusation is

Tertullian defended. i i i • • i i • j.

concerned the charge is unquestionably just. But by body he evidently means nothing more than substan- tial existence — something permanent and abiding, and not like a breath of air or a transitory vapour. In the same sense he predicates a body of the human soul, but yet de- scribes it in a manner which precludes the notion of mate- rial composition.^ Indeed he tells us articulately^ what he means by hochj. " Nothing can exist," says he, " but as having something by which it exists. As the soul, however, exists, it must needs have something by which it exists. That something is its body. Everything is a body of its own kind. Nothing is incorporeal which has real exist- ence." Body is, therefore, nothing more nor less than the indispensable condition of existence. It is the permanent element amid the variable and changing, and it is material or spiritual according to the nature of the object. A passage quoted in Kitto's Cyclopcedia, under the title Anthropomor- phism, will show how far this celebrated father was from anything like a material conception of God. "Divine affections," says he, "are ascribed to the Deity by means of figures borrowed from the human form, not as if He were indued with corporeal qualities. When eyes are ascribed to Him, it denotes that He sees all things ; when ears, that He hears all things ; the speech denotes His will ; nostrils, the perception of prayer ; hands, creation ; arms, power ; feet, immensity ; for He has no members and per- forms no office for which they are required, but executes all things by the sole act of His will. How can He require eyes who is light itself ? or feet who is omnipresent ? How can He require hands who is the silent Creator of all things ? or a tongue to whom to think is to command ? Those mem- bers are necessary to men, but not to God, inasmuch as the counsels of men would be inefficacious unless their thoughts

^ See Burton's Bampton Lectures, note 59. 2 Ad Prax., c. 7. Vol. I.— 12

178 SPIRITUALITY OF GOD. [Lect. YII.

put their members in motion ; but not to God, whose ope- rations folloAV His will without effort."

Tlie Scriptures themselves sufficiently guard against the perverse application of their bold metaphors in attributing the organs of the human body to the supreme God, when they articulately remind us that His arm is not an arm of flesh, nor His eyes eyes of flesh, neither seeth He as man seeth.^ The same wonder which in one place is ascribed to the " finder of God " is attributed in another to the imme- diate agency of the Holy Ghost ; cf Luke xi. 20 ; Matt, xii. 28. To the candid reader there is no danger of being misled by such representations. They are obvious con- descensions to the infirmities of human of£;^:S::: thought, and are designed to signify that there are acts of God analogous to those for which we employ these members. When he is said to see or to hear, the meaning is that He knows with as abso- lute a certainty as we can obtain by the evidence of the eye or the ear. These organs are simply symbols of knowledge. His arm and hand the symbols of power, and His bowels the symbol of tender compassion.^ The exposition of Ter- tullian quoted above is clear and satisfactory.

It is remarkable, too, that no organs are ascribed to God similar to those by which we perform the mean and disrep- utable functions of the body, and no offices which savour of weakness or of imperfection. The intent of Scripture could not be more nicely discriminated. " To eat and sleep are never ascribed to Him, nor those parts that belong to the preparing or transmitting nourishment to the several parts of the body, as stomach, liver, veins nor bowels, under that consideration, but as they are significant of compas- sion. But only those parts are ascribed to Him whereby we acquire knowledge, as eyes and ears, the organs of learn- ing and wisdom ; or to communicate it to others, as the the month, lips, tongue, as they are instruments of speak-

1 2 Cliron. xxxii. 8 ; Job x. 4. Cf. Owen, vol. viii., p. 154.

2 See Charnock, i., pp. 262, 263.

Lect. VII.] SPIRITUALITY OF GOD. 179

ing, not of tasting ; or those parts which signify strength and power, or whereby we perform the actions of charity for the relief of others. Taste and touch, senses that ex- tend no farther than to corporeal things, and are the grossest of all the senses, are never ascribed to Him." ^

The immateriality of God is clearly implied in all those God immaterial, as ^xts which represent His glory as being not to be figured by incapablc of being -figured by images. The second commandment forbids the making of any graven image, or the likeness of anytliing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth. Moses reminds the Israelites that they saw no manner of similitude when the Lord spoke to them in Horeb out of the midst of the fire ; and enjoins upon them to take heed to themselves lest they should be seduced to make them a graven image, the similitude of any figure.^ The Apostle Paul reminds the Athenians that the Godhead is not like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device ; ^ and the Saviour Himself appeals to the Jcavs that they had never heard the voice at any time, nor seen the shape of God.*

In the twenty-fourth chapter of Exodus there occurs a passage which, at the first view, seems to be inconsistent with the general teaching of Scripture : " Then went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel ; and they saw the God of Israel ; and there was under His feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in its clearness." (Vv. 9, 10.) Onkelos renders it the glory of the God of Israel ; and when we remember that God is invisible in Himself, dwelling in light which no creature can venture to approach, there can be no doubt that the allusion is to some brilliant symbol of the Divine presence, in keeping with the majestic pediment upon which it stood. "The colour of sapphire," says Calvin,^ " was presented to them to elevate

^ Charnock i., p. 263. ^ j)eut. iv. 15, seq. » Acts xvii. 29.

* John V. 37. 5 Harm. Pent., vol. iii., p. 323.

180 SPIRITUALITY OF GOD. [Lect, VII.

their minds by its brightness above the workl, and therefore it is immedia:tely added that its appearance was as of the clear and serene sky. By this symbol they were reminded that the glory of God is above all heavens ; and since in His very footstool there is such exquisite and surpassing beauty, something still more sublime must be thought of Him- self, and such as would ravish all our senses with admi- ration."

The positive thing which is involved in the sjjirituality Positively, the doc- ^f God is that Hc is a self-conscious sub- trine ascribes to God jcct, a Pcrsou posscsscd of intelligence and will. We can conceive an immaterial sub- stance which is not a person — such as the vital principle in brutes, and the plastic nature which the ancients invented as the soul of the world. There may be a receptivity of im- pressions, of sensations, of presentations, and even of repre- sentations of the imagination in memory, without any dis- tinct consciousness of self. The phenomena appear and dis- appear like the images of a mirror, but there is no feeling which collects them into a common centre, and reduces them to unity as the varied experiences of a single, permanent, abiding subject. The brute knows not itself; it only knows its sensations. It can never say, 3Iy thought, my wish, my desire. What we call its soul is never realized to it as an unit ; it appears only as a series of phenomena. When Ave have learned to discriminate between our fleeting and tran- sitory modes of consciousness and that which successively subsists in these modes, when we learn to distinguish be- tween the thinker and his thoughts, then we come to the knowledge of ourselves. The broad and impassable dis- tinction between mind and matter, between a person and a thing, is, that the one knows and knows that it knows, while the other is only an object to be known. The one has a free activity, the other moves only as it is moved. The one acts, the other is acted upon. Perhaps the clearest realization of self-hood is in the phenomena of will. It was the doctrine

Lect. VII.] SPIRITUALITY OF GOD. 181

of Locke and the Scotch philosophers that our own exist- ence was not directly given in consciousness,

Locke. •^.*' '

but was a matter of inference and necessary belief. All that we can directly know are the phenomena of self — its thoughts, sensations, desires ; but not self, or the thinking principle itself. This principle has been success- fully combated by Sir William Hamilton

Hamilton and Mansel. i-»»- -»«- i n i i t

and Mr. Mansel, and the dualism of con- sciousness brought out in a strong and clear light. Mr. Mansel has pressed the phenomena of will as decisive of the question. " If," says he,^ " in the mental state which cor- responds to the judgment, I will, there is no consciousness of /, but only of will, it is impossible to place the essential feature of volition, as has been done above, in the conscious- ness of myself having power over my own determinations. Will, and not I, being the primary fact of consciousness, the causative power of volition must be sought in the relation between will and some subsequent phenomenon ; and so sought, it will assuredly never be found. It cannot be found where Locke sought it, in the relation between the deter- mination of the will and the consequent motion of the limb ; for the determination is not the immediate antecedent of the. motion, but only of the intervening nervous and muscular action. I cannot therefore be immediately conscious of my power to move a limb when I am not immediately conscious of my power to produce the antecedent phenomena. Nor yet can the causative power be found where Maine de Biran sought it, in the relation of the will to the action of the nerves and muscles ; for this relation may at any time be interrupted by purely physical causes, such as a stroke of paralysis ; and in that case no exertion of the will can pro- duce the desired effect. We can escape from this difficulty, the stronghold of skepticism and necessitarianism, by one path only, and that is by a more accurate analysis of the purely mental state, which will discover an immediate con- sciousness of power in myself, determining my own volitions.'^ ^ Metaphys., p. 175.

182 SPIRITUALITY OF GOD. [Lect. VII.

Here, then, is an immediate revelation of myself, and of my- self as a power — as a real, abiding, subsisting thing. So far is it from being true that our knowledge of matter is su- perior to our knowledge of mind, that it is precisely the re- verse which holds. The reality of matter I can never seize at all, but the reality of self is given in every act of con- sciousness. It is the only reality, apart from phenomena, that falls within the province of our faculties. It is the only thing that we are entitled to denominate being, as contra- distinguished from appearance. " Personality," says Man- sel,^ " like all other simple and immediate presentations, is indefinable ; but it is so because it is superior to definition. It can be analyzed into no simpler elements, for it is itself one element of a product which defies analysis. It can be made no clearer by description or comparison, for it is re- vealed to us in all the clearness of an original intuition, of which description and comparison can furnish only faint and partial resemblances." God is a Spirit. God is a Person. This is the highest conception which our finite faculties can frame of His nature ; it is the noblest tribute which we are capable of paying to His being.

• In paying this tribute, let it be mentioned, as distinctly implied in personality, that we separate God from every other being besides. He is not the universe. He is not law. He is not the result of material organization. He is in Himself, by Himself, and for Himself. His existence is pre-eminently and absolutely His own. Separateness of being is as essential to ijersonality as sim-

Separateness of . . . i i- r*

being in opposition to plicity or uuity. It distinguishes and dii- everyformofPanthe- fepences. Heiicc, cvcry form of Paiithcism is inconsistent with the noblest idea which we are able to frame of God. He affirms Himself in affirm- ing that He is not the finite ; as we affirm ourselves, as sub- jects, in affirming that Ave are not the objects of our know- ledge. Self and not-self divide existence, and each excludes the other.

1 Metaphys., p. 182.

Lect. VII.] SPIRITUALITY OF GOD. 183

Let us consider some of the elements that are contained in the proposition that God is a Spirit.

1. In the first place, it is equivalent to saying that God has life ; and as the infinite Spirit that He

As spiritual, God is i ^•^ ' tt* ij? tt • j_i i

necessary life, lias liie lu Hmiseli. He IS the source and

fountain of all life, and possesses in Him- self, in perfect fullness, what He has distributed in various portions to the creatures of His hands. Hence, He claims it as His prerogative to be the only living as well as true God. He only hath immortality in Himself; and the high- est and most solemn guarantee of truth which even a Divine oath can give is found in the immutability of the Divine life. " As I live, saith the Lord," is the most awful adju- ration which even God can make. We know not what life is, in any of its forms, in its own essential nature. It is so subtle that it escapes the knife of the anatomist, the tests of the chemist and the skill of the physiologist. It is every- where present in the animal frame, but nowhere to be seized and detected apart from its phenomenal effects. We know what it does, but we are wholly unable to explain what it is. It is the badge of honour among the works of God — as they increase in life, they rise in dignity and worth. It is the excellence of man's life, as a spiritual, thinking being, that constitutes man's glory in the domain of sublunary exist- ence. " On earth there is nothing great but man ; in man there is nothing great but mind." This

and activity. t p • t . .

life implies activity — a power of self-motion and of self-determination. The grounds of its action, in reference to God, are solely within Himself. He is not moved or impelled from without ; the springs of His energy are all within, in the fullness and depths of His own being. He never rests, never slumbers, never grows weary, never relaxes His activity. To live is His blessedness as well as His glory. Ceaseless action is the very essence of His nature. It is a badge of imperfection among us that our energies be- come fatigued by exertion, and that we require intervals of relaxation and repose. One half of our lives is lost in sleep ;

184 SPIRITUALITY OF GOD. [Lect. YII.

and even in our waking moments continued intensity of thought has a tendency to consume the frame which carries so active a tenant. The brighter the candle burns, the more rapidly it wastes away. We sigh for the period when we shall be clothed with our spiritual bodies, and introduced into a world in which there is neither sleep nor night ; in which exertion shall be uninterrupted and complete ; in which all the powers of the soul shall be eternally and intensely ex- ercised, but exercised in such just and beautiful proportions that the rapture shall become sobriety and the excitement a calm. Yet even in its purest and most exalted state our activity is limited and derived. It is and ever must be de- pendent on conditions. But the activity, the life of God is without restriction or defect. Self-originated and self- sustained, it is equal to itself from everlasting to everlasting. " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." Could God jjause in the ceaseless flow of His energies, the heavens must cease to roll and the earth to move ; rivers cease to flow and the ocean to receive them ; the general pulse of life would cease to beat, and the awful silence of death pervade the universe. It is as God lives that all else live besides. They live and move and have their being in Him. The pledge of universal safety is that He never slumbers nor sleeps. How different is such a God from the indolent idol of Epicurean philosophy ! How different the happiness which flows from the fullness and energy of unimpeded ex- ercise from the voluptuous repose which possesses attractions only for ignoble natures ! It is true that man's sin has added pain to labor and converted work into toil. But in itself, the highest and freest activity is the highest bliss; and God is infinitely blessed only as He is infinitely active. 2. But in the next place, the activity of God is not mere

motion or agitation. It is the highest and thought Ind^Si.''"^ noblest of all activity--the activity of

thought and will. He is to Himself an inexhaustible fountain of knowledge and action. He is not a blind principle operating by a stern necessity, uncon-

Lect. VIL] SPIRITUALITY OF GOD. 185

sclous of the laws which determine and regulate His move- ments. He is no remorseless fate, no soul of the world, no abstract substance without definite qualities and attributes. He knows what He does, and does it because He knows it to be right and wise. He is the master of Himself. His will is absolutely and unchangeably free, and in its free- dom is never divorced from wisdom and justice. He is no necessary cause, but He creates only because he chooses to create. He dispenses His gifts according to His own sove- reign pleasure. He rules in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth, and none can stay His hand or say unto Him, What doest Thou? He worketh all things according to the counsel of His own will. It is in this Being of knowledge and liberty, this Being of pure sjDiritual life, that we recognize the God who made the heavens and the earth, and in whom we live and move and have our being, and whom we are bound to worship with our whole souls. This is the God whose right it is to reign, for He is worthy. What energy can be compared with intelligence ? What Being so exalted as He who can say, "1 know and I will"? These simple monosyllables bridge a boundless chasm in the order of existence. And how glorious must He be who stands at the head of this order, and concentrates within Himself all the resources of wisdom and knowledge and goodness — who gathers into the burning focus of His own being every ray of intellectual and moral beauty that is anywhere reflected in the bound- less universe ! How glorious is God, who is all knowledge and all will, whose very life is to know and will, with whom to be and to know are synonymous ! One soul is greater than a whole universe of matter. AVhat, then, must God be who is an infinite Spirit !

3. In the third place, we may see the sense in which we are to understand the unity and simplicity

The nature of God's /»/^l t j_1'j.'' '^ i-i

unity and simplicity. ^^ ^od. I mcau the intmisic unity which pertains to His essence, and not the rela- tive unity which excludes more than one such being. The

186 SPIRITUALITY OF GOD. [Lect. VII.

unity and simplicity are certainly the unity and simplicity of spirit — an unity which is attested in every act of con- sciousness. The human soul is one ; it cannot be resolved into parts ; it cannot be divided, so that a portion shall be here and a portion there. It always exists and acts in its totality. The / is the very perfection of simplicity. But when theologians go farther, and from abstract speculations on the infinite preclude every species of distinction in the modes of its existence, they are warranted by no finite an- alogies, and transcend accordingly the limits of human thought. What they say may be true, but they have no means of verifying their assertion. The relative unity or onliness of God precludes genera and species. His intrinsic unity precludes separable accidents, but what warrant is there for precluding the distinction of substance and attri- bute, or precluding distinctions among the attributes them- selves? The thing may be just and proper, but we can never prove it to be so, and the only unity accordingly which we are authorized to attribute to God is an unity analogous to that of the human soul.

4. In the fourth place, because God is a Sjsirit, He can

Because spiritual, ^uter ^ iuto commuuiou with our spirits.

God can commune This is oue of the most mystcrious attri-

with our spirits. , r« • i i i i • i •

butes ot mnid — the power by which it can impart to others the knowledge of what passes within itself. It is this jieculiarity which lies at the foundation of the possibility of society. If each soul existed only as an in- dividual, and there was no medium by Avhich its thoughts and feelings and affections could be communicated to other souls, there might be contiguity in space, but there could be no such moral unions among men as those which are pre- sented in the Family, the Church and the State. Intense individualism would be the law of all human life. We are so familiar with the interchange of thoughts and feelings, that we have ceased to marvel at the mystery it involves. But it is a mystery notwithstanding, and a mystery Avhich, while all must accept it as a fact, no human philosophy

Lect. VII.] SPIRITUALITY OF GOD. 187

can explain. Mind does hold commerce with mind. The thoughts of one man can be transferred to another — the con- sciousness of one man can to some extent be laid bare to another. And so God can communicate with His intelli- gent creatures. He can make known to them His attitude in relation to them. He can enter into their souls, and warm and irradiate them with the tokens of His favour, or depress and alarm them with the sense of His displeasure. It is His spirituality which enables Him to be communica- tive, and which consequently enables Him to become the jiortion of their souls. Apart from this He could not be the supreme and satisfying good. Hence His spirituality lies at the foundation of all true religion. Take that away, and there is and can be no symjsathy betwixt the worshipper and the worshipped. There may be contiguity and impact, but there can be no union, no communion. Each would still be a stranger to the other.

5. This subject reveals to us the real folly and danger of

Because Bpirituai, idolatry. By idolatry I here mean any

God cannot be repre- attempt to represent God by images, whe-

sented by images. i i • inn

ther those images are regarded really as God, or only as symbols of His presence. The two things are substantially the same. To worship the image, and to worship God in and by the image, produce similar effects upon the mind of the worshipper. His thoughts in either case are regulated and determined by the object before Him.

Now every image is a falsehood in two

The idol, a twofold , t l^ n , ^ • ,

ijg respects. In the lirst place, it represents

the living by the dead. That which has life in itself, whose essence it is to live, is figured by that whose nature is essentially inert. There is no point of re- semblance betwixt mind and matter. They exist only as contrasts. Hence the image must be a doctrine of false- hood ; it must lead the mind into wrong trains of thought in reference to the nature of God ; it must degrade Him to some of the conditions of matter.

In the next place, the image is a falsehood, inasmuch as it

188 SPIRITUALITY OF GOD. [Lect. VII.

represents a free activity by that which is the victim of a stern necessity. God, as self-moved, cannot be symbolized by any object whose law is to move only as it is moved. Mechanical necessity can never figure freedom of will, and yet this is the very core of the Divine Personality. It is that which makes God the object of our worship.

These two fundamental errors must prove fatal in the moral education of the worshipper. It is impossible to think by the image and yet think in accordance with the truth. A mechanical religion is the only w^orship that can spring from idolatry. Hence it is that the Divine law guards so sacredly the purity of Divine worship. To admit images is to necessitate the moral degradation of God ; and to degrade God is, inevitably, in the final reaction, to de- grade ourselves. From the nature of the case, idolatry must wax worse and worse as its fundamental falsehoods acquire a stronger hold upon the mind. The only remedy is to pre- vent the beginnings of the evil, and that is done in the stern decree of the second commandment. A spiritual God can only be worshipped in spirit and in truth. A free Personal God can only be worshipped with a free personal will.

Lecture VIII THE INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

TTAVING discussed the spirituality, and in a general -■— '- way the personality, of God, the next thing in order would be the peculiar mode of the Divine Personality in the doctrine of the Trinity. But as that is an extensive topic, and its introduction here would break the continuity of the discourse in relation to the attributes, we propose to postpone it until the subject of the attributes has been completed. The topic, accordingly, which is now to engage our attention is that division of the attributes which is commonly called incommunicable, and which we have seen

Universal and all- . i in t i x

pervajing attributes, ^rc uuiversal and all-pervadmg, character- izing alike the whole being and every per- fection of God. They are special aspects of the absolute and infinite — or rather applications of the general notion of the infinite to special aspects in which God may be considered. Contemplated with reference to the grounds of His being, the infinite gives rise to the notion of independence or self- existence ; with reference to the duration of His being, to eternity ; with reference to the extent of His being, to im- mensity ; with reference to the contents of His being, to all- sufficiency ; with reference to the identity of His being, to immutability. Independence, eternity, immensity, all-suf- ficiency and immutability are therefore the forms under which we recognize the distinctions which separate God by an impassable chasm from every work of His hands. These are the badges of Divinity — that glory which He will not and cannot give to another. Without these, He would only

189

190 INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. [Lect. VIIL

be a man or an angel on a larger scale. These, too, consti- tute the veil which hangs over the mystery of His being — a veil which, according to the inscription upon the temple of Isis, no mortal will ever be able to remove. We can only stand afar oif and gaze at the ineffable glory. We can adore where we cannot understand. Let us treat of them in order ; and first of Independence.

I. Independence, self-existence, necessary existence, ab- solute being, are only so many different

Independence. .

modes of expressing one and the same thing, and that thing is the negation of a cause. God has never begun to be. His existence is dependent upon no species of cause, either that of a superior will, or that resulting from the union and combination of elements, which may again be separated and reduce Him to nothing. He is be- cause He is. " I am that I am." We can go no farther in explaining the grounds of His being. The understanding is paralyzed, but faith is not staggered. If there be caused The mystery of ^^iug, there uiust bc uucauscd being ; and caused and uncaused jf t^q are disposed to sliriuk from the mys- tery of uncaused being, let us reflect again and see whether caused being is any more easily comjire- hended. Can we solve the mystery of power ? Can we ex- plain how that which was nothing ever began to be ? Is not creation as dark and inscrutable as underived existence ? Do not the very limits of our faculties warn us of a world beyond which those faculties were never designed to pene- trate, save with the torch of faith ? The fact of creation, the fact of a creator, we can easily grasp ; but how the one came to be, and the other always was, is beyond our compass. We have enough to regulate our worship, but not enough to satisfy curiosity.

There are modes of expression in relation to tlie independ- ence of God which, however they may be

Some modes of ex- ' j^' n i ^ ±^ j. f l j.

pression criticise 1. Justified by the poverty of language, are yet

liable to gross perversion and abuse. He

is said to be the ground of His own existence in a way which

Lect. VIII.] INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 191

seems to imply that He is His own proper cause. Now self-existence should never be taken in a positive, but a negative sense. No being can originate itself. The very notion is self-contradictory — for it involves existence and non-existence at the same time. All that is meant is the denial to the being of any origin at all. It has no cause, nothing anterior or superior on which it depends. Necessity is also sometimes represented as a ground of the Divine existence, in such a way as to imply that it is a real, pro- ductive cause, or at least a something prior in the order of thouo-ht to the being; of God. Dr. Clarke is not free from censure in this respect. He certainly treats necessity as something closely akin to a cause, and deduces inferences from it as if it were a positive principle which we were able to apprehend. But necessity, like existence, is only negative in its application to God. It expresses the fact that, the finite being given, we cannot but think the existence of the infinite. To us, that existence is necessary as the ex- planation of what is caused and dependent. The necessity, however, only involves again the denial of a cause. It is simply the declaration that there must be an unoriginated cause.

The independence of God is contained in every argument

Independence in- ^^^ich prOVCS His being. To dcuy it is,

voived in the very be- therefore, to deny the existence of any °° ' God at all. If all is dependent, all is

finite, all is made, and yet there is nothing to depend upon and nothing to make. We shall have an universe of crea- tures and no creator — a chain of a limited number of links, with nothing to hang on at the top and nothing to lean on at the bottom ; or if the series be considered as infinite, we shall have the contradiction of a whole which has no begin- ning made up of parts each of which began. The first aspect under which God appears to us in the field of specu- lation is as the underived and independent. The mind seeks an extra-mundane cause. It wants something to sup- port the finite, and it never rests until the infinite is re-

192 INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. [Lect. VIII.

vealed to its faitli. The Scrij)tures, too,

and everywhere pre- i , i • i i

BuppoHcdiu Scripture, eveijwhere presuppose the independence of God. It is implied in His name Jeho- vah, in His being the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the first and last, the beginning and the end of all things. A point so plain it were superfluous to establish by the citation of jDassages.

It must not be forgotten that this independence pervades every determinate perfection of God as well

Pervades every de- tt* i • tt • • i i i • ^

terminate perfection. «« ^^^^ beuig. Hc IS mdcpcndent lu know- ledge ; He derives nothing from without ; He has no teachers ; and He has nothing to learn. If in any respect He were ignorant, in that respect He would be de- pendent for His knowledge. He has no partners in coun- sel ; His wisdom is as original as His nature ; and His power is free from all limitations and conditions. He does what He will among the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of earth, and none can stay His hand or say unto Him, What doest Thou? So, also. His righteousness, holiness, good- ness and truth are as absolute as His nature. On the same ground that He is at all, He is what He is.

II. Contemj)lated with reference to the duration of His beino;, God is said to be eternal. His

Eternity. ■ . -, n -i ^ -r, ^ • i i

eternity is denned by iJoethius to be the possession, at once total and perfect, of an interminable life. It is represented by the Schoolmen as a stationary point — a permanent and unchanging now, so as to exclude the notions of succession and change. These are abor- definru." '''°'*' '° tive efforts to realize in thought what trans- cends the conditions of our consciousness. We are subject to the law of time, and can think nothing apart from the relation of time. A duration which is not time is as completely beyond our conceptions as a place which is not space. Even in regard to time we can think it only " as an indefinite past, present or future." We can- not represent it as absolutely beginning, for that would sup- pose a consciousness within and out of time at the same

Lect. VIII]. INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 193

moment ; and for tlie same reason we cannot suppose it as absolutely ending. We cannot think the indivisible mo- ment, the point which separates the past from the future ; it is always gone before we can seize it. Eternity has been divided into eternity a 'parte ante and a 2:)arte post, but the division evidently involves a contradiction — the contradic- tion of an eternity begun and an eternity concluded. We are therefore obliged to maintain that time is not the same as eternity ; and, inconceivable as the thing is, we are obliged to affirm that eternity admits of no succession of parts. It has no past, present or future. We are obliged to come to the conclusion of Boethius and the Schoolmen, and yet when we have reached that conclusion what is it that we positively know ? Nothing but the fact that God in the mode of His existence transcends time. We only deny to His conscious- ness and to His being the limitations of

Our conceptions all T> j. l j. j. '^ • • -j^ li^

negative, ^^^ O'wn. But what ctcrmty is in itself

we are as ignorant of as we were before. We deny to God beginning of life or end of days ; we deny to Him succession of thought or change of state ; we deny to Him the possibility of age or decay ; He is neither young nor old. Beyond these negations we cannot go, but these negations impress us with the conviction

yet Imply transcend- r» . i , n mr ,

ent excellence. ^i transcendciit exccllence. ihey assert

an absolute immortality which surpasses all power of imagination or of thought. Time with its remorseless tooth destroys everything around us ; kingdoms rise and fall ; generation succeeds generation to the regions of the dead ; trees wither and fade and perish -, the moun- tain falling Cometh to naught ; Nature herself waxes old and is ready to vanish away, but the Eternal God remains fixed in His being, the same yesterday, to-day and for ever. His years fail not. He is always the great " I Am." Eternity is a mystery, but it is a mystery which shrouds and covers unspeakable glory. How delightful to think in the midst of universal change and desolation, that there is one Being who liveth and abideth for ever — one Being who, when the

Vol. I.— 13

194 INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. [Lect. VIII.

heavens shall be rolled up as a vesture, the sun blotted out, and the moon and stars bereft of their brightness, can lift His awful hand and swear by Himself, " Behold, I live for ever !" Before the earth was, or the stars of the morning sang together, or the sons of God shouted for joy, Jehovah was. Were all the creatures annihilated by a single blow, and the void of nothing to take the place which is now filled by a teeming and a joyous universe, Jehovah would still be. Above and beyond time and all its phenomena, He is untouched by its changes and disasters. Eternity is His dwelling-place, and " I Am" is His name.

III. Contemplated in reference to the extent of His be- ing, God is said to be immense. This ex-

Immeiisity, t • i •

presses His relation to space, as eternity expresses His relation to time. It implies that God in the fullness of His essence is present to every point of space

in every point of time. Omnipresence is

flistineuished from tt- • •, • ^ t • ij* i-

omnipresence. ^^^ immensity coiisidcrcd m reiation to

His creatures. It is His presence to them ; but as the created universe is limited. His presence, if He be infinite, must extend infinitely beyond it. He is where the creatures are, but He is also where creatures never are, never have, been and never Avill be. But the immensity of a simple essence is as incomprehensible as eternity. We cannot conceive of infinite space, much less can we conceive of an inextended substance, pervading every portion of this boundless field in the entire plenitude of His being.

How spirits are related to space at all it is impossible to say. They are not circumscribed by it

Relation of spirits ti i i ,i i , r-n •.

to space. hke body; they do not occupy or fall it;

and yet they are so restricted to it in their energies and operations that we can properly say they are here and not there. They have a presence of some kind, as the soul is present in the body and the angels present in prescribed spheres, necessitating locomotion in enlarging the area of their working.

As God's immensity precludes all extension, so it pre-

Lect. VIII.] INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OP GOD. 195

eludes all mixture with other objects that exist in sj)ace.

Mixture with other ^^^ ^^^^^ being excludes another from the

objects in space, pre- same place. Two souls never exist in the

same body, and two angels have not the same presence to any given locality. But God pervades every other being without mixture or confusion. He is as intimately present to our own souls as our own con- sciousness. He knows every thought, He perceives every desire ; there is not a word in our tongue, but lo ! He know- eth it altogether. The whole universe stands naked and bare to His inspection. And yet He is as perfectly distinct from the universe and from every object in it as if He dwelt in distant and inaccessible regions. One finite being is not so completely diverse from another as God from every creature that He has made. He is separated from the finite by a chasm as boundless as His immensity.

Some have resolved the universal presence of God into

Not the mere vir- ^^^ virtual prcscncc of His power — mean-

tuai presence of His ing nothing morc than that He is capable

of producing effeists beyond His own im- mediate locality, and that the symbols and means of His authority are everywhere diffused, as a king may be said in a modified sense to be present in every part of his domin- ions. But such a presence is constructive, and to attri- bute only such a presence to God is to deny His infinity. If His essence sustains not the same relation to all space — if there is a region, no matter how large, to which it is re- stricted in its actual being — then God becomes finite and de- pendent. The region beyond is aloof from Him, and He can only act on it through instruments and means.

The Scriptures are abundant in their references to this

amazing perfection of God. " Whither," ^^^OTpture testimony ^^^^^ ^j^^ Psalmist,^ " sliall I go from Thy

Spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence ? If I ascend up into heaven, Thqu art there ; if I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there ! If I take 1 Ps. cxxxix. 7-10.

196 INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. [Lect. YIII.

the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me." " Behold, the heaven of heavens," says Solomon,^ " cannot contain Thee." " Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him ? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth ? saith the Lord." ^ It were useless to multiply passages. This is one of the points in which the Sacred Scriptures show their immense superiority to all the devices of human wisdom and policy. The gods of the heathen were all local deities. They were circumscribed in space, and subject to the conditions of time and matter. It was reserved for a rude people, just escaping from bondage and degradation, to reveal a sublimer theology than the Porch, Academy or Lyceum ever dreamed of. A spiritual, eternal, omnipresent, infinite God is the pervading doctrine of a race, unskilled in letters and

and provea the Bible , , i , i • , j •

to be not of man. coustautly prouc to rclapsc mto supersti-

tion. How clear the proof that the Bible is no contrivance of man !

It may be well to remark that, besides the essential pres- „ . , . ence, the Scriptures sometimes speak of a

Special sense in ' 1 i

which God is said to prcscuce wliicli cousists in peculiar mani- festations of the Divine favour or anger. In the first sense God was present in the Jewish temple. He there manifested His mercy and grace to the j^eople. It was there He showed Himself pleased with their worship, and answered the prayers and intercessions they made to Him. In this sense, too, He is present in heaven. He there communicates to saints and angels the richest tokens of His love. They have free and undisturbed communion with Him as the Father of their spirits. In the second sense He is present in hell. He there reveals the tokens of His justice. The impenitent and devils are made to feel the Avcight of His displeasure against sin. And so God is said to withdraw Himself and to hide His face ; not that 1 1 Kings viii. 27. ^ Jer. xxiii. 23, 24.

Lect. VIII.] INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 197

His essential presence is diminished, but the marks of His

favour are withheld. He ceases to show Himself proj)itious.

The immensity, like the eternity of God, transcends all

finite conception, but as a regulative fact it

Practical uses of the ' i* ,i , , • . mii -j

doctrine. IS of the utuiost nnportancc. io the samt

it is full of comfort. He can never be re- moved beyond the reach of his Redeemer and his Friend. Go where he may, he is still surrounded with God, who compasses him before and behind, and lays His hand upon him. He knows our hearts infinitely better than we know them ourselves. Those desires which we cannot utter, and those penitent distresses which can only reveal themselves in tears and groans, He thoroughly comprehends. Our whole hearts are before Him in the nakedness of a perfect, infallible intuition. He understands our wants, appreciates our weak- ness and can accommodate His grace precisely to our case. Men may misconstrue us ; they may impugn our motives, traduce our characters and assail us with unjust reproaches; how delightful the truth that there is One who knows us, and who will bring forth our righteousness as the light, and our judgment as the noonday ! What a rebuke, too, is this truth to every species of hypocrisy ! How idle to think of concealment from Him to whom the night is even as the day, darkness as transparent as light ! And what a check should it be to wickedness that we are ever with God — that there is no darkness or shadow of death whither we can escape from His presence. He pursues us more closely than our own shadows in the sun. He is with us in the very depths of our soul, in the most secret recesses of our con- sciousness. Awake or asleep, at home or abroad, in sickness or in health, by land or sea, we are still with God. Such knowledge is too wonderful for us ; it is high, we cannot at- tain unto it. Hence, too, under the Gospel, prayer can be made everywhere, for everywhere the ears of the Eternal are open. It is no longer at Jerusalem, nor yet at Gerizim ; but in every spot of earth trodden by the foot of man true worship may be offered, if offered in the name of Christ.

198 INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. [Lect. VIII.

The whole earth has become a temjDle, and every place a place for prayer.

IV. We come next to the all-sufficiency of God, which is the infinite and absolute considered with ref-

AU-sufficiency. /. i -i-v* • -r» •

erence to the contents oi the Uivine ±>eing. It means that God contains within Himself the fullness of perfection and blessedness — that nothing can be taken from Him and nothing added to Him. He is His own satisfying portion, and the end and portion of all His tuSortreLnlyelr" intelligent creatures. He can never want ; he can never be subject to unsatisfied de- sire ; he can never be disturbed by care or solicitude. He is the jDcrfect good. All the perfections of all the creatures are in Him, formally, eminently or virtually. Let me ex- plain these terms. Perfections, according

Scholastic terms ex- ■.icill T'lJ'xx

pij^ijjgjj to the bchoohnen, were divided into two

classes, those that were absolutely simple — shnplidter simpUces — and those that were only relative per- fections, or perfections secundum quid, called also mixed. An absolute jjerfection had no imperfection in it, and is bet- ter than its opposite, or than any other thing with which it is incompatible in the same subject. These perfections in their own formal and essential nature, abstracted from the conditions under which they manifest themselves in us, are predicated of God, and are therefore said to be formcdiy in Him. Mixed perfections have an element of imperfection in them ; they are only relative to certain kinds of things, and are called perfections because these things admit nothing higher and better. They would cease to be what they are if adorned with higher and better. Human reason, human will, human intelligence are relative perfections, but they are mixed with limitation and defect. The properties of gold with reference to that metal are perfections, but they are not simply better than other qualities with which in gold they cannot co-exist. Now those perfections which are im- perfect by limitation and defect are predicated of God in the way of eminence — that is, they exist in Him in a higher

Lect. yill.J INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 199

degree and more eminent degree. Perfections which are purely relative, purely secundum quid, neither formally nor eminently exist in God ; they are only in Him as in His 230wer to produce them, and are therefore said to be vir- tually in Him.^ In this way God is made to contain the 23lenitude of the universe. His being is absolutely ex- haustless in its contents, sufficient for Himself and sufficient for all the creatures.

Here, too, is a truth too mighty for the grasp of our in- tellects, and yet of the utmost consequence

Value of this truth. ' . . , „ „ , , t- •

as a regulative principle of faith. It is this infinite fullness of God that makes Him the end and felicity of the creature. Poor in ourselves, Avithout strength, without resources, feeble as a reed, and easily crushed before the moth, we are yet rich and valiant and mighty in God. We have treasures which can never be consumed, resources which can never be exhausted, and strength which can never fail. With the everlasting God as our refuge we can bid defiance to the universe besides. Though the earth be re- moved and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof, yet we need not fear. Nothing can be lost so long as God re- mains our friend. He is all in all.

V. We come now to consider the infinite and absolute

Avith reference to the permanent identity

Immutability. p /-* -ii y • ni-

or God s being, and this gives rise to the notion of immutability. Immutability is indeed pnly an- other form of asserting the simplicity and oneness of the infinite. That which never began and can never end, to which nothing can be added and from which nothing can be taken, which knows na succession and is dependent upon nothing without, is evidently incapable of change. Change implies succession, and is possible only to a being conditioned by time ; change implies causation, and is possible only to a being limited and dependent ; change implies addition or ^ Cf. Perrone, also De Moor, c. iv., § 18.

200 INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. [Lect. YIII.

subtraction, and is possible only to the defective or super- fluous. The complete, the perfect, is beyond its reach. Change is either from better to worse or from worse to bet- ter, and is grossly incompatible with the notion of the infi- nite, which contains the absolute fullness of perfection. This truth, self-evident in itself, if the notion

Self-evident, yet also i» j.1. • £ -x l_ xi x* t i

Bet forth in Scriptme. «! ^^le mfinitc has cveu the negative valid- ity which must certainly be assigned to it, is abundantly proclaimed in Scripture : " For I am the Lord ; I change not ; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed."^ "Of old hast Thou laid the foundation of tlie earth, and the heavens are the work of Thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure ; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment, as a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed ; but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall have no end."^ "God is not a man that He should lie, neither the son of man that He should repent ; hath He said, and shall He not do it, or hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good"?^ "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." * " Jesus Christ, the same yes- terday, and to-day, and for ever." * " The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever ; the thoughts of His heart to all generations." ^

The absolute immutability of God seems to be contradicted by the fict of creation. A new relation was .£:il^:T certainly superinduced._ The answer com- monly given is : Relations ad extra imply no change in the essence related ; God acquires a new de- nomination, but no new accession to His being ; the title Creator imports no addition to His nature ; the only real change in the case takes place in the creatures which pass from nonentity to being. But the question is, whether there is not a modification of the Divine will in passing from non-

1 Mai. iii. 6. « Ps. cii. 25, 26. ^ Num. xxiii. 19.

* James i. 17. * Heb. xiii. 8. ^ Ps. xxxiii. 11.

LECT..VIII.] INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 201

creation to creation. The universe began, and wlien it began by the fiat of the Almighty, was not His will diiferently determined from what it was before ? This difficulty we conceive it impossible to answer. To say that He willed from eternity to create just when He did — that the purpose included the time and mode of its execution — does not solve the problem. A will to create and a will creating do not seem to be the same. It is true that the universe adds no- thing to God and takes nothing from Him ; but does not This question not to ^^c crcatiou of the universe imply a new de- be solved, by reason of termination of His will ? This is one of

our ignorance. , . i • i • i

the questions which remind us of our igno- rance whenever we undertake to speculate on the absolute. "VVe shall meet it again when we come to the doctrine of creation. In the mean time, let us be content to acknowledge that our j^owers are not commensurate with the domain of truth.

It has also been contended that the Divine essence was

The Divine essence modified by the incarnation of the Son.

not modified by the But tlic iucamation was only a new mani-

Incarnation, . n r^ -i -r itti.

testation ot (jrocl. It added nothing to the essence of the Logos, into Personal union with whom the humanity was apprehended.

The changes which take place in the universe are no

proof of the mutability of God, for to will thlunivers^ ''°^*'^'° cliaiiges, and to change the will, are, as

Turrettin^ very justly remarks, very dif- ferent things.

Those passages of Scripture which represent God as

changing His mind or purpose, as repenting

Scriptures wliich as- -i ... -■ . . , , ,

cribe change to God. aucl regretting and grieving, are all to be interpreted as other anthropomorphisms. They express no change in God, but a change in the events of His providence — a change analogous to tliat which would be produced in us under the influence of these feelings. They are condescensions of the Divine Teacher to our narrow 1 Loc. iii., Qu. 11, § 7.

202 . INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. [Lect. VIII.

capacities ; and as they are so thoroughly guarded from abuse, they are admirably adapted to give vivacity and em- phasis to the real idea they are intended to convey. It is indeed one of the marks of the divinity of Scripture that it can thus venture to clothe God in the forms of earth without depressing His majesty or marring His glory. No human author could have ventured on such a style without incurring the certain risk of degrading the Almighty.

I need not add that the immutability of God is the foun- dation of all our hopes. It is here that the ourTrpt^s'""" °' "^^ heirs of the promise have strong consola- tion. He can never deceive us in the ex- pectations which He excites. He never falls short of, but often goes immeasurably beyond, what He had led us to ex- pect. Here is the pledge of His faithfulness, — He can never change ; His counsel shall stand, and He will do all His pleasure. The impenitent, too, may be assured that, with- out a change in them, the threatenings of His M^ord will be infallibly executed. He will by no means clear the guilty. He can never be induced to countenance or to tolerate sin. All efforts to secure His favour Avhile we cling to our lusts are only insults to His character, which represent Him as capable of being soothed by flattery or bribed by rewards. It is the misery of sin that it makes God altogether such an one as we ourselves. It forgets His glory, and changes it into a lie.

It is delightful, too, to think that the immutability of God is the immutability of wisdom and goodness ."dneilandTr^ and truth. It is no blind fate utterly re- gardless of all moral distinctions. It is rectitude itself ever abiding one and the same, and rendering to all according to their dues. Injustice can never enter the government of such a God. All will at length prove well. I have now briefly and rapidly surveyed those attributes which characterize God as the Infinite and Absolute. I have contemplated Him in relation to the grounds, the du- ration, the extent, the contents and the identity of His being.

Lect. YIII.] INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 203

and have reached results which we are constrained to accept as facts, but which we are wholly incompetent to explain. These are the attributes which distinguish God ; it is these which render every other perfection Divine. To deny any one of them is to deny all, and to reduce existence to the limited and contingent.

I cannot close without pointing out the immeasurable dis- parity which this subject reveals between Go^Td the creaTum ^lic uiost cxaltcd crcaturc in the universe and its infinite creator. The tallest angel has only a derived existence — it is absolutely dependent upon the will of God. It sprang from a cause, and subsists only in its cause. There was a time when it was not ; it could again cease to be if God should so decree. Whatever in- crease it has made in knowledge, power or excellence, it is no nearer to independence to-day than when the light of con- sciousness was first kindled within it. But how different with God ! He leans u2)on nothing. He lives no borroAved life. He asks no leave to be. He is because He is. His throne is stable as eternity. His being immovable as des- tiny. Strike out all the creatures, and He still is — glorious, holy, majestic and blessed as when the morning stars sang together and the sons of God shouted for joy. The universe has added nothing to His bliss and can subtract nothing from His fullness. Think, too, of an underived knowledge — a knowledge which was never acquired ; which came from no impressions from without ; which admits of no reasoning, of no memory, of no succession of ideas ! Whence came this knowledge? Thought reels and staggers at the problem, and can only answer that it is like His being, independent and original ; He knows because He knows. Think, again, of its extent — all beings, all possible things, all the vicissi- tudes of all the histories of all worlds — the whole universe, with all its events from the first dawn of creation through the endless cycle of ages, — all this present to His infinite consciousness with an intuition easier and simpler than the simplest perception of sight. The ages are but an instant.

204 INCOMMUNICABLE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. [Lect. VIII.

and creation but a point. How little are we compared with such a God ! Think, too, of an underived power — a power to which there is nothing difficult ; to which it is as easy to create a world as to move a feather, to uphold all things as to speak a word. The universe lies in His hands as nothing ; the nations are the small dust of the balance. He taketh up the isles as a very little thing. He speaks and it is done. He commands and it stands fast. What is man, what is an angel, what is a seraph, compared to a being like this ?

In the next place, let us consider the disparity in the du- ration of His existence. We are of yesterday, and know nothing ; our age is but a span, our days but a hand-breadth. We come forth in the morning, disappear in the evening, and straight are seen no more. But from everlastino; to everlasting the God that made us abides the same. Before time began He was ; and when time shall cease He will still be. Nothing can touch His being, for Eternity is His dwelling-place. The earth has existed for ages which defy all calculation ; it has witnessed stupendous changes ; it is destined to witness more ; yet there was a time when there was no earth, no sun, no moon, no stars, no angel, no man. But there never was a time when there was no God. We pass from infancy to age ; we add month to month and year to year. But God has no age. He is no older now than millions and billions of years before time began to roll. In undecaying vigour He ever and ever abides. What a being is God !

Think, besides, of His immensity. Here we are confined to a spot of earth. Our being is limited to a narrow sphere. We cannot stretch ourselves to the regions beyond. We are fixed to our places. But where is the place of God "? Where are the limits that circumscribe His being ? Where is the point of space that eludes the scrutiny of His eye ? Go to the eternal snows of the north, the burning deserts of the tropics ; climb from world to world and from sun to sun ; or sink even to the deep vault of hell — everywhere you shall meet God. It is His hand that sustains the mountains. His

Lect. yiii.] incommunicable attributes of god. 205

breath that scorches the desert, and His arm that upholds the worlds. Surely we may ask with the Psalmist, What is man that Thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that Thou visitest him ? We are indeed as vanity and less than nothing in His sight.

Think, too, of His all-sufficiency. His infinite fullness, the boundless wealth of His being. He needs nothing. He has no occasion to go beyond Himself for absolute bless- edness. In the person of the Trinity is a glorious society ; in the infinite perfections of His essence is perfect good. He can receive nothing from the creature, for it is only a faint reflection of Himself. How diiferent is man — poor, feeble, dependent man ! We have nothing that we can call our own. The breath we breathe is borrowed ; we live only as we are kept. The treasures we have to-day may be gone to-morrow; we are the sport of accident and chance. A straw can wound us, a fly can kill us. If you add to all this the immutability of God, and then consider our chang- ing and fitful history, the contrast is complete betwixt us and the Author of our being.

With such an immense disparity how al^surd in us to Rebuke of airo- tkiuk of Comprehending the plans of the gance, cavilling and Almighty ! How arrogaut to arraign His wisdom at our bar ! We presume to sit in judgment upon His schemes, we question the arrangements of His providence, we cavil at the unequal distribution of His favours, we complain that the world might have been made better, and we murmur and repine when our own lit- tle plans are crossed or disappointed. But who are we that presume to rise against God ? What wisdom is that which ventures to condemn the counsel of the Holy One ? Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge ? Let us learn the lesson of our ignorance, and where we can- not understand, let us not be tempted to censure or repine. It is enough that God does it. That word God is a guar- antee that all is right.

Lecture IX CREATION

THE fact of creation is vital in Theology, as upon it de- pends the question of the relation betwixt the world and God, and even of the absoluteness and independence of the

Divine Being. There are but five conceiv- po^Tser'"''"'''" ^ible hypotheses upon which the relations

of the finite and infinite can be adjusted. The first is that of the Atheists, which denies the existence of the infinite, and acknowledges the reality only of the world ; the second is that of the Eleatics, which denies the existence of the world, and admits only the reality of the infinite ; the third is that of the Pantheists, who admit both, but resolve them into unity by making them phenomenal modifications of the same substsinae ; the fourth is that of the Dualists, who recognize two eternal substances, mind and matter, of which the one is essentially passive, the other active ; and the fifth and last is that of a genuine Theism, which makes God the creator of the world, and makes the world a real thing, separate and distinct from God. We

may here discount the first two hypotheses The first two dis- ^^ havius^ in our times no advocates who are

counted ; o

entitled to much consideration. But it is clear that Dualism is inconsistent with the infinity and absoluteness of the Supreme Being. If matter exist inde- pendently of Him, His knowledge of its laws and proper- ties has been acquired. He has had to learn them. His power, too, like that of man, is conditioned by the nature of the material upon which He has to work. Like ours it 206

Lect. IX.] CREATIOX. 207

is the handmaid of knowledge, and consists in obedience to laws that He has discovered. The eternity of matter evi- dently, then, reduces God to the category of the finite, the limited, the conditioned. He ceases to be self-sufficient. He ceases, in other words, to be God. He may be a skil- ful workman, an admirable contriver, a wonderful mechanic, but all in consequence of acquired knowledge. He is a man on a large scale. Dualism, therefore, is disguised Atheism. Hence creation is invested with so much importance in the Scriptures. God is everywdiere presented in them as the Creator of the w^orld, and not as the skilful architect of nature. This hypothesis of Dualism may,

also the fourth. it t .it

consequently, be discounted as essentially Atheistic. The only scheme inconsistent with creation which remains is that of Pantheism. This is the prevail- ing tendency of modern philosophy. If PanthcTstic!' ' °^°^ ^^ wc admit both the finite and the infinite, it is clear that they must either be the same or different. There is no medium. The Pantheist affirms that they are the same ; the Theist that they are different. The Pantheist resolves the finite into a phenomenon of the infinite ; it is its mode of appearing or of manifestation. The Theist affirms that it is a different thing— a real sub- stance, separate and distinct from the eternal and infinite substance. The natural impressions of the mind are in favour of Theism. It is only the difficulties which are en- countered in the problem of Creation that have driven ■ modern speculation into Pantheism, as it drove the ancient philosophers into Dualism.

The fundamental postulate of Pantheism is that creation is impossible — that it is self-contradictory

Fundamental postu- i i i -r» on' •^ -t/

late of Pantheism. aud absui'd. Bccauseof the impossibility of creation, and only because of it, has the hypothesis been invented wdiich seems most naturally to account for the facts of consciousness in default of creation. If now this postulate of the Pantheist is rashly assumed, if it can be shown that creation involves no contradiction

208 CREATION. [Lect. IX.

and terminates in no absurdity, then it must be conceived as established. If speculation cannot refute it, as the most natural and consistent scheme it must be admitted. The question, therefore, which vre have to resolve is simply whether creation is possible. Let us examine the process by which the Pantheist reaches a negative answer.

1. Creation, it is said, involves the notion of making „ ,,. „ „ ,, somethino; out of nothino;. It makes that

Outline of Panthe- & o

istic objections to ere- to be wliicli had uo being before. Nothing is therefore a material upon which one works — a subject about which an agency is employed. Now this is self-contradictory. To be a material or subject of operation is already to be something. The maxim is self- evident that out of nothing nothing can be made. But if we look to our notion of poioer, Ave shall see that it excludes the notion of creation. We know power from its effects, and all effects with which we are acquainted are mere changes in existing objects. To produce without a pre-existing mate- rial, to work without something to work upon, is an anomaly which no experience either of what passes within or without us justifies us in asserting. In fact, we can attach no mean- ing to the words.

2. The second objection is drawn from the nature of God as implying plenitude of being. He is the sum-total of reality. As the fullness of being He must be one — He must exclude all other realities. If you admit the existence of another real being, separate and distinct from God, you might conceive that being added to God, and then God is not the all. As far forth as the other being has reality, God is wanting in omnitude of being. The all must be one, per- fect and complete. Nothing can be added to it, nothing taken from it. Hence real existence admits no distinction of plurality and difference.

3. A third objection is drawn from the will of God. If creation be supposed, God created either necessarily or freely. If necessarily, then the world would seem to be part of Him- self. There was no foreign impulse to determine His will,

Lect. IX.] CREATION. 209

and a necessity ab intra would seem to terminate upon His own being. Again, if the world be admitted as separate and distinct from God, a necessitating influence ad extra would be a determination of the Divine being inconsistent with Plis all-sufficiency and His unconditional absoluteness. It is the same as to condition Him from without.

But if tliis difficulty were obviated, we are perplexed to understand how the will of God can be determined to the contingent, the finite, the imperfect. If the world be a free product, its being limited and conditioned would make the limited and conditioned both objects of the Divine knowledge and of the Divine will, either of which would seem to imply an imperfection. We cannot understand how God can will anything but the infinite and eternal.

Further, if the will of God be eternal, the world must be eternal, or an interval has elapsed betwixt the will and the execution. That interval implies succession, consequently change, and consequently a denial of- God's eternity. The will and its execution must co-exist. If the will existed only when creation began, then there was something new in God. Hence the world must be eternal. Besides, all duration is the same. There is no reason why creation should have taken place when it did, rather than earlier or later. No reason for preference can be found in the duration. There- fore, to select one point of time rather than another, when the claims of all time were exactly equal, is to attribute to God an arbitrary proceeding, a will without wisdom. Hence creation must be eternal. On the same ground it must be infinite in space. All the parts of space are equal. No motive can be conceived for selecting one part rather than another, and to avoid an empty choice we must project cre- ation in the whole void.

Again, if God has freely created the world. He desired it. Will without motive is inconceivable. Upon this supposition we have two difficulties : (1.) That an infinitely perfect and blessed being should desire the imperfect and limited. This seems to us to be a degradation — a letting Himself down

Vol. I.— 14

210 CREATION. [Lect. IX.

from the heights of His felicity. (2.) If the world be not eternal, and yet has been an object of Divine desire, that de- sire, having been eternal, is a confession in God of eternal want. Hence, He is not all-sufficient.

Further still, the world has been created either perfect or imperfect. If perfect, it has fullness of being in itself, and there is no need for God. If imperfect, all the difficulties connected with a world beginning in time, limited in space, conditioned in being, emerge.

4. To these difficulties must be added those which spring from the existence of evil, of positive disorder, crime and misery in the world. These evils seem to be utterly incon- sistent either with the benevolence or the omnipotence of God. He could either have prevented them or He could not. If He could have done it and refused. He is not abso- lutely good ; if He would have done it but could not. He is not all-powerful. In either case He ceases to be God.

This is the brief outline of the arguments against the possibility of creation, as they are very clearly and felici- tously stated by Jules Simon in his spirited little book on natural religion.^

Of these four classes of arguments this general criticism may be made, that they labour under the

Capital vice of all 'j. ^ ' r ±± ±' ^ i • 'xi •

these arguments. Capital vicc of attcmptuig to bmig withm

the forms of the understanding what tran- scends the capacity of thought. They assume the infinite, the unconditioned, the absolutely perfect, as a thing about which we are as competent to speculate as the facts of expe- rience. • They bring it into the relations and under the conditions of our faculties of knowledge without being con- scious that the very circumstance of subjecting it to these limitations destroys its nature. It is the infinite no longer if it is comprehended within the narrow sj^here of human cogitation. What is apprehended as the infinite and rea- soned upon as the infinite is a tissue of negations ; which, the human mind accepting as positive elements of consciousness, 1 Chapter iii.

Lect. IX.] CREATION. 211

becomes involved in an endless series of contradictions.

Hence such absurdities are not arguments. They are only

puzzles or logical riddles. They prove

They are liut puz- j.1 • i j. j.i • j. p ^

zies or logical riddles, nothing but the niipoteucy of reason, and the incompetency of philosophy to trans- cend with its logical forms the sphere of experience. It cannot be too strenuously insisted on that the infinite is believed, not known — that as existing it is a necessary affirmation of intelligence, a thing which we cannot but accept. But when we undertake to represent the object of this faith, we can only do it by recurring to the conditions under which it is awakened, and by divesting what is posi- tively given of all limitations. This negation of limitations puts the object beyond the grasp of the understanding, and we are guilty of a gross paralogism when we reduce it to the forms and categories of our human thought. We may reason about it, but we cannot reason from it. Now in the question of creation the great difficulty is the coexistence of finite and infinite, the one and the many, the perfect and the imperfect. In attempting to adjust the relations be- twixt them, we imperceptibly take for granted that we know the positive properties and attributes of the infinite, as we know the positive properties and attributes of the finite, whereas we know the infinite only as the negation of the finite. These negations wx preposterously make positive. We confound, in other words, a non-positing of the infinite with a real positing, and setting out with a fundamental blunder, it is no wonder that every step should plunge us in deeper darkness. He that reasons upon no as if it were yes, must not be sm^prised at the perplexity of his conclusions. A detailed consideration of the difficulties alleged against the notion of creation will show that even in this point of view it will not suffer in comparison with Pantheism, or any other hypothesis touch- ing; the nature and oria!;in of the world.

1. The objection that the idea of creation is self-contra- dictory and absurd, proceeds upon a double misconception.

212 CREATION. [Lect. IX.

It first assumes that nothing is a positive subject of operation — a real pre-existing material upon which

First objection based ± o i.

on a double miscon- powcr is exertcd. It takcs for granted "^^ '°°' that the preposition ex in the philosophic

axiom ex nihilo nihil fit, represents the material cause. This is a gross mistake. Nothing is simj)ly the term from which existence begins. The meaning is, that something now is where there was nothing before ; that something, in other words, has begun to be. Creation is an energy of God, an effect of the Divine omnipotence, produced without the con- currence of any other principle. His power as infinite is without limits. It is, therefore, not restricted, like that of the creature, to the modification of a pre-existing material ; it not only changes, but makes its objects. There is no more contradiction in the notion of power as giving being than there is in the notion of power as changing being. Both may be incomprehensible, but neither is absurd. The second error is, that the notion of power is determined to only one class of effects. It is true, experience presents us with no instances of power but those produced through the medium of motion. But the concept may be separated in thought from any specific form in w hich it is realized ; it is simply that Avhich produces effects without reference to their nature or the conditions under which it is exerted. Hence, creation as an effect is as clearly an instance of power as motion. It is, indeed, the highest exemplification of it. To say that God wills and a world follows, requires no other simple idea to understand it than is involved in the asser- tion, I will and my arm moves. The mode in which the power operates is different, but the idea of power is the same. In neither case do we understand the mode of ope- ration. Because one is a matter of daily experience we confound familiarity with knowledge, and think we under- stand it when we do not. What power is in itself we are unable to conceive. It is a mystery in every form of its exhibition, and as we cannot grasp it in itself, it is perfectly preposterous to limit it to one class of effects. There is con-

Lect. IX.] CREATION. 213

sequently mystery, but no absurdity, no self-contradiction, in saying that the worlds were made by the power of God.

2. To the second objection, which makes creation contra- dict the plenitude of the Divine Being, it may be replied that the creature has no reality which it does not derive from God. Though separate and distinct from Him, it is not independent of Him. His will is the basis of all the reality it contains. Lot that will be withdrawn, and it be- comes nothing. Hence the whole sum of its being was in Him virtually and potentially before it existed, and creation, therefore, has neither added anything to Him nor to the amount of positive reality in the universe. God alone is equal in the sum of being to God plus the universe. But if this answer should not solve the diffi-

The second objec- 1j.*j. i j_j.1j.1j. j.1'

tion retorted. culty, it may bc retorted that pantheism en-

counters it in another and still more objec- tionable form. The world is a phenomenon of God, a mod- ification of His being. The phenomenon has some reality, it has some kind of existence ; otherwise nothing could be predicated of it. Now the appearance of the phenomenon either adds its own being to that of God, and then He was not absolutely perfect before ; or it does not, and then there is some reality which cannot be affirmed of Him. The dif- ficulty presses the Pantheist as sorely as the Theist, unless the Pantheist is prepared to maintain that His phenomenal modifications are pure nothings. The difficulty, in truth, is one which lies against every hypothesis which recognizes the All-perfect as one and simple and complete. To deduce the manifold and plural from the one and simple, to exjilain their coexistence without destroying unity, is a problem which the understanding cannot solve, whether the manifold and plural be that of thought, of phenomenon, or of finite substance. "We have not the data for even apprehending the real nature of the problem — it embraces terms which transcend the limits of human speculation. The fundamental error is in taking for granted that we know the absolute in itself. The very fact that the difficulty attaches to all systems, shows

214 CREATION. [Lect. IX.

that it is grounded in the impotency of human reason, and not in the nature of the things themselves, if we had the faculties to seize them in their essential reality.

3. In relation to the difficulty arising from the knowledge and Avill of God, it must first be remarked

DifiBcuIties from i ■ t i i t • i •

knowledge and will of that tliis, like tlic preceding, IS not obvi- Sntheil'.""'*''' "'' ated by adopting the scheme of the Pan- theists. On the contrary, it assumes in that scheme the appearance of a series of positive contradic- tions. The limited, contingent, imperfect is made a part of God ; it pertains to the very essence of the Divine nature. God does not realize the fullness of His own being without those phenomenal modifications of weakness and imperfection which it is supposed to be incredible that He should create. He can possess them in Himself, and yet be infinite ; but He cannot make them, as substances separate from Himself, without ceasing to be God. Betwixt the two propositions, God creates the finite and God is the finite, there is no com- parison as to the difficulties that they respectively involve. One is encumbered with perplexities, the other with absurd- ities. The real difference, in this matter, between the Theist and the Pantheist is, that one refers all weakness and im- perfection to a creature that is not God ; the other places them in God himself. But, in the next place, we must remember that we are incapable of conceiv-

It transcends our , r> tn- • i i i i

powers to comprehend ing the iiaturc 01 JDivinc knowlcdgc or the ^=;:r::r operation of the Divine wm. What God's consciousness is, how subject and object in Him are related, how He knows, we are unable even to con- jecture. We can think of His knowledge only in the terms of human consciousness. We distinguish the subject and object. Now if the object of Divine knowledge be Himself, it is certainly infinite, and there is no difficulty ; — if Him- self, the infinite, virtually and potentially contains the finite — that, as included in Himself, must fall within the sphere of His consciousness, considered as infinite. There is no more difficulty in God's knowing the finite than there is in the

Lect, IX.] CEEATION. 215

existence of the finite, whatever form it take, whether of substance or phenomenon. The knowledge of the infinite inckides all that the infinite can produce, whether as modifi- cation or real being. The difficulty, therefore, subsides into that of the possibility of the finite, as fact.

In regard to the will of God, it is evident that He Him- self must be the beginning and the end of all His determi- nations. He must act from Himself and for Himself. We cannot conceive that the finite has been chosen for its own sake — that the will of God terminates upon it as the last end. Such a procedure would indeed be a degradation. Grounds upun which ^u* it is possiblc that there may be in the we can conceive God finite, as au objcct of the Diviuc will, rela-

might choose to create. . ,.„. i-i- •/••

tions to the infinite which justify its crea- tion as a transcendent proof of wisdom and goodness. It may be that these very perfections have determined the pro- duction of the universe of creatures, and therefore that the finite is willed only on account of the infinite. It may be, too, that a goodness which delights to communicate itself, and creates worlds that it might floAV out upon them in holi- ness and joy, as it exists in an infinite being may be com- patible with the most perfect self-sufficiency and self-beati- tude and blessedness. God is not rendered more holy and more blessed in making creatures to behold His glory and taste His love, but it may be that a nature perfectly blessed may freely choose to impart bounties. It may be that infi- nite goodness has nothing approximating to selfishness. We cannot reason from mere metaphysical grounds in relation to a moral being. The question turns here upon higher principles than the mere balancing of the amounts of entity or substance. The true end of the creation, and therefore the true motive of the Divine will, must be sought in a higher and nobler sphere than that of mere being. The difficulties which emerge to speculation in one sphere dis- appear before morality in another.

The will of God as eternal does not by any means involve an eternal creation. It implies an eternal decree to create —

216 CREATION. - [Lect. IX.

„, , , , thatis, an eternal decree to beo;in time. The

■ The decree to create ' &

and its execution not execution of a decrec may not be co-exist-

co-existeut. . ■, . f, . -, ■, .

ent with its lormation, and yet the inter- val imply no change. Otherwise there could be no succes- sion of events at all. The argument goes the whole length of affirming that all things must be simultaneous, or they are not the objects of the Divine will. As to the notion that all the parts of duration and space are equal, that there is no motive for choosing between tliem, and that consequently creation must be unlimited in both respects, — it proceeds upon the assumption that time and space are real things, and not the logical conditions of existence. To those who deny them any reality, there is no difficulty ; to those who regard them as real, the difficulty arises, but it may be resolved into the incomprehensibility which attaches to the nature of the Divine will.

4. The fourth class of objections drawn from the exist-

Objections to crea- ^ucc of cvil is Icss formidable upon the

tion from the exist- scheiiie of Theisiii than that of Pantheism.

enoeof evil not dimiu- ^-^ -, t. ■• . /.

ished, but aggravated, God, accordiiig to the partisaiis of creation, by Pantheism. -^ ^^^ ^^^ subject of cvil ; it cxists Separate

and apart from Him. The Pantheist lodges it in His own nature. He is, if not evil, yet far from being the absolutely good. The truth is. Pantheism is obliged to repudiate all moral distinctions. Right and wrong are reduced to the contrasts of nature out of which is evolved universal har- mony. The bad is as necessary as the good. The propor- tions of the universe equally demand both. If evil appears as disorder, it is only from our partial view of it. If we could take in the whole scene of things, we should perceive that the perfection of the wdiole would suffer without it. In this broad contradiction to the dictates of our moral nature we see that Pantheism not only removes no difficul- ties in the notion of creation, but that it introduces absurd- ities and paradoxes which defy the possibility of unsophis- ticated assent. It annihilates man's highest distinction, prostrates his noblest hopes and chills his warmest aspira-

Lect. IX.] CREATION. 217

tions. He has no real being — he is only a shadow projected for a moment upon the surface of the infinite, soon to vanish and disappear for ever. He is to be absorbed in the all-com- prehending substance. His individual, personal conscious- ness must perish ; immortality is a more stupendous con- tradiction than creation. Shadows we are, shadows we pursue ; as shadows we are cheated, and as shadows we must finally be dissolved. These are the propositions which are so plain, so simple, so comprehensible that we are in- vited to exchange for them the doctrine of a real existence, a real destiny, a real immortality, a real heaven or hell ; — so obvious that to find these we must be willing; to lose our- selves.

The Pantheistic hypothesis rests upon the assumption that the world has no substantive reality, or that it is not a sep- arate and distinct thing. The metaphysical subtleties by which this paradoxical scheme has been supported have all originated from inattention to the limits of human know- ledge, and from a desire to know what thrown by the deiiv- trausccuds tlic rcacli of our facultics. The eranees of conscious- ^j.^^ proccdurc of pliilosopliy is to iuquirc what are the delivcances of consciousness, to accept these as ultimate principl 'S, and to regulate our conclusions by these data. If we take this method, the con- troversy can soon be brought to a close.

1. Consciousness unequivocally avers that the world has The first is that the ^ real, scparatc, substautive being. It is world has a real, sep- the uuivcrsal faith of thc racc. Panthe- ism, the highest form of idealism, is a speculation of the schools, and can never be carried out into practical life. It is a species of skepticism w'hich we may persuade ourselves to adopt as a conclusion of philosophy, but which we can never realize as a fact of experience. In every case of external perception we are conscious of two things — of ourselves as percipient subjects, of the external world as a perceived object. We know them both, and we know them both as real existences. They stand in contrast

218 CREATION. [Lect. IX.

to each other, and their distinction in the act of perception is but the reflection of their distinction in reality of being. They are both cognized under that intrinsic law of exist- ence by which alone we recognize a substance. Conscious- ness, therefore, reveals matter as substance, mind as sub- stance, and each as distinct from and contrasted with the other. To repudiate the testimony of consciousness is to repudiate the possibility of knowledge ; it is to annihilate all intelligence. The universality of this conviction proves it to be natural ; the impossibility of divesting ourselves of it as a practical conviction confirms the inference. Either, then, consciousness is false, and all knowledge impossible, or mind and matter are real, distinct, separate, substan- tive beings.

2. Subject and object, mind and matter, as revealed in consciousness, though real substances, are limited, condi- tioned, dependent. They recipi'ocally condition each other. They are bounded by time and space. The world presents an

aspect of mutability, a successive influence

The second is, that n i ff j i i • i i

the world is finite. ^* causc aud eticct, a coustaut interchange of action and reaction. Its history is a his- tory of vicissitudes. The world is finite. This is as clearly the testimony of consciousness as that the world exists. It has no principle in it that resists succession and change. On the contrary, it is bound to time, which necessarily implies both.

3. These two facts, that the world exists and that the

world is finite, imply another, that the world

From these two pro- , ■, , . . • , i i

ceeda the third, that UlUSt liaVC bCgUU. A SUCCCSSIOU WltUOUt

the world had a begin- beffiuuiug is a coutradictiou in terms. It

ning. . .

is equivalent to eternal time. A being of whose existence time is the law cannot be eternal. But time is the law of all finite existence ; therefore, none can be eternal. Or, to put the argument in another form : an infinite series of finite things is a contradiction. According to the hypothesis, everything in the series had a beginning, but the series itself had none — that is, what is true of all the parts is not true of the whole. A chain without a first

Leot. IX.] CREATION. 219

link is impossible, but a first link annihilates the notion of eternal being. The world therefore had a beginning.

4. Having reached this point, we are led to an inevitable disjunction. If it had a beginning, it began spontaneously — that is, had an absolute commencement, or it sprang from a cause. An absolute commencement is not only inconceiv- able, but contradictory to that great law

The fourth is, it had c • i if i*it ij^

g^^^^^gg 01 intelligence which demands tor every

new appearance a cause. The world, there- fore, must have been caused, but a cause which begins exist- ence, creates. The world, therefore, must have been created.

In this argument we have done nothing but reprockice the facts of consciousness, and unfold explicitly what they im- plicitly contain. They give us a real world, subject to the law of time, which must have begun, and must therefore have had a creator.

This deduction is so simple and natural that it may seem

strange that the reality of creation has ever been called in

question. The wonder will disappear when we call to mind

what the history of philosophy so abund-

Speculation has ever .i -n ^ x ^1 x j_t j. l I*

tended to contradict autly illustrates, that the tendency of the facts of conscious- spcculatiou lias cver been to explain the

uess.

incomprehensible, and thus to lose itself in contradictions to the most palpable deliverances of conscious- ness. Instead of looking into consciousness, and accepting its primitive utterances as ultimate and supreme, tliey have been turned into propositions to be proved; and as, from the nature of the case, no proof could be given, and as their denial would involve intelligence in a war upon itself, the result has been the doubt in relation to matters which would have been perfectly obvious if speculation had not obscured them. Hence the denial of an external world ; of personal identity ; of the immortality of the soul ; of moral distinc- tions ; of the being of God. These are all fundamental ele- ments of reason — a part of the natural faith of mankind ; and, practically, nature has always asserted them in defiance of the sophistries of a perverse philosophy.

220 CREATION. [Lect. IX.

For ages, philosophers, instead of interpreting aright the fact of consciousness in external perception, laid it down as a first principle that the object known was diiferent from the object perceived. This crotchet, accepted without examina- tion and transmitted in different forms, was never questioned until it brought forth the fruit of universal skepticism. In the same way, the principle that out of nothing nothing can be made — true only in relation to nothing as efficient cause — has been universally applied to nothing as material cause, or terminus a quo, and has not only excluded the possibility of creations, but contains in its bosom the seeds of absolute atheism. As, in the one case, the testimony of nature was silenced by a dogma, so in the other ; and as, in the one case, nature made reprisals by plunging the understanding in hopeless darkness, so in the other it inflicts the yet greater curse of leaving us without a God.

5. There is still another step which we are authorized to mv. «fti • ti f fi . take. As the finite is limited to time, and

The nitn is, that the '

Creator is eternal and aS timC bcgiuS witll the finite, tllC bciug

who creates must be independent of time. That the first creature should have been made by a finite being, is equivalent to saying that time was before it began. It is, therefore, a contradiction in terms to attribute all be- ginning to the begun. The Creator there- God only can create, ,1,11 rri

lore must be eternal antl necessary. Ine first act of creation is the sole prerogative of such a being. But are we authorized to say that no creature can, under any circumstances, create ? Are we authorized to say that no new beings can now begin from the agency of others who have also begun ? There is evidently a difference between the first beginning and any subsequent commencements. It does not follow that because creation in the first instance is limited to God, that therefore it must always be restricted to Him. But there is another aspect in which this conclusion

presents itself as little less than self-evident.

or annihilate. -i m ,

To create and to annihilate are expres- sions of the same kind of power — they are both equally ex-

Lect. IX.] CREATION. 221

pressions of omnipotence ; that is, they are expressions of power unlimited and unconditioned. To annihilate, so far from implying subjection to any conditions of actions, de- stroys them all. It removes time, empties space, abolishes substance, and leaves nothing to be conditioned. This, surely, is inconsistent with the notion of the finite. The power to abolish all conditions is the power to be infinite. But creation is just the reversed view of annihilation. Cre- ation makes the transition from nothing to something ; an- nihilation makes the transition from something to nothing. They are correlated as altitude and depth. Now if the power to annihilate be contradictory to the notion of a creature, the same must be true of the power to create. Divines have illustrated the infinitude of power involved in creation by representing the distance betwixt something and nothing as infinite. They are contradictory opposites, and no being can bridge the abyss which separates them but the infinite God.

All finite power is limited to obedience to the laws of nature. It is conditioned by the properties and attributes of the substances upon which it operates. These substances must be given as a pre-existing material, and the creature can then work within the limits of the capabilities of the subject. This limitation to the properties and laws of exist- ing substances seems to be the characteristic distinction of finite agency. Hence, all that it achieves is to arrange, com- bine, change, modify. It produces new effects only by ad- justments, which bring into i^lay, in new forms, the forces of nature. Beyond these conditions it can never pass. Hence, creation as an unconditioned exercise of power ; as requiring neither material, instrument, nor laws; as transcending change, modifications, or adjustments of existing things, is the sole prerogative of God. It is His to create as it is His to destroy. The principle is vital in the-

This principle is i ti' i. i l j. xi

vital iu theology, ^^^SJ- I^ crcaturcs could create, the uni-

verse would not be, or might not be, a revelation of God, These heavens and this earth, our own

222 CREATION. [Lect. IX.

bodies and souls, might have been the products of being as dependent as ourselves. The great decisive proof of revela- and fundamental in ^lon, involvcd in the idea of miraculous the evidences of Chris- powcr as the exclusivc prerogative of God, would be swept away. A miracle would cease to be the infallible credential of a Divine Messenger. Revealed and Natural Religion would be put in equal jeop- ardy. But the truth is so obvious that creative j50wer be- longs only to God that it has commanded the testimony of the race, with a few partial exceptions, and that in forms of the strongest assurance. The very fact that philosophers have denied the possibility of creation is a pregnant proof that they regarded it as involving a power even transcending that of God. The few who have ventured to suggest that a creature might create have affirmed, at the same time, that he could create only as the instrument of God ; and even in that case very few have been willing to say that the power could be habitual and resident in it. It may, therefore, be taken as the universal faith of mankind that creation cannot be the work of a creature. It is the prerogative of God, and of God alone.

Lecture X IIAN

/CALVIN has very properly remarked that true wisdom ^ essentially consists in the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves. Each is indispensable to the other. All the positive notions which we frame of the attributes of God are derived from the properties of our own souls, and without some just apprehension of our own nature, capaci- ties and destiny the conception of religion becomes unintel- ligible. We must know ourselves in order to know aught else aright.

That man is the centre in which, so far as this lower world

is concerned, all the lines of creation con- Man a microcosm. i i • i

verge and meet, that he is the crowning glory of God's sublunary workmanship, is evident alike from the peculiarities of his being and from the inspired history of his production. He unites in himself the two great divisions of the creature — persons and things ; he is at once subject and object, mind and matter, nature and spirit. He has elements which work under the blind and necessitating influence of law — which enter into the chain of causes and effects extending through all the impersonal uni- verse ; he has other elements which mark the intelligent and responsible agent, which separate him from the whole sphere of mechanical agencies, and stamp him with the dignity and the high prerogative of intelligence and free- dom. All the forms of life which are distributed among other creatures are concentrated in him. He has the growth and assimilating properties of the jilant, the motion and

223

224 MAN. [Lect. X.

spontaneous properties of the animal, and to these he adds the sublimer endowments of personality and reason. He is, therefore, a representation, a miniature embodiment of all other creatures. He is the kosmos upon a small scale; tlie whole creation finds its counterpart in him ; he contains the fullness of created being. The history of his creation completely accords with this account of his position. He was the last of God's works, and the Almighty proceeded to his formation with a solemnity of counsel that indicated the place he was destined to occupy in the 'scale of being. " Let us make man," is a formula of consultation employed in the production of no other creature. Then, earth and heaven are laid under tribute to furnish the materials. His body is curiously and Avondrously "wrought from the clay, and life is infused into him from the breath of the Almighty. He became a living soul. We are not to suppose that the process of forming the body was completed, and that then the endowment of reason was imparted. There was no in- terval between the organization of the one and the infusion of the other. They w^ere simultaneous operations. Man became a living soul in the very process of receiving the body so wonderfully and beautifully ]jade.

As thus deliberately made, thus strangely mingling heaven and earth, he is fitted to occupy a place in which he shall represent God to the creatures and the creatures to God. He is fitted to collect all those traces of Divine wisdom and goodness ^vhich are so conspicuous in the works of the Divine Hand, and to render to the Supreme Architect, as the high priest of nature, the tribute of praise which the creatures can reflect, but cannot express. Hence he is des- tined to exercise dominion over them. He becomes their lord. Through him and for him they accomplish the end of their being — they are for him as he is for God.^

But it is necessary to take a more detailed view of those excellencies wdiich give to man his dignity and pre-eminence. "VVe shall consider, first, those peculiarities which distinguish 1 Kurtz, Bib. and Ast., p. 152.

Lect. X.] MAN. 225

him as man, and without which lie could

Threefold division .-i iiii 'xxi

of the subject. ^^* "^ regarded as belongmg to the species.

We shall then consider his condition when he came from the hands of his Maker ; and, thirdly, the destiny which he was required to achieve.

I. His distinguishing characteristics as man may be

summed up in the attributes of reason and person ^^^''"*'"^ ^ * of will, or intelligence and freedom. Or

the whole may be expressed in the single term person. All other terrestrial creatures are things. They live in the sphere of blind impulses and successive impressions. Their spontaneity is a mere force, and their consciousness is only a continued series of perceptions or sensations, without any distinct affirmation of a self or re- flective contrast of subject and object. Brutes do not know ; they only feel. They are conscious of this or that impres- sion, but they are not conscious of themselves. They can never say I or Thou. Now in order that sense and the phenomena of sense may yield knowledge, there must be a principle which reduces all these perceptions and sensations to a conscious unity. We must recognize them as ours, as belonging to us, and we must recognize them as proceeding from objects which are not ourselves. But in addition to this, there must be conceptions which constitute the forms into which all individual experiences are cast and under which they are arranged. These forms or categories or con- cepts generalize the singular, unite the manifold, and make experience the parent of a fixed and abiding knowledge. These concepts or categories or regulative principles of rea- son are the indispensable conditions of intelligence ; there can be no thought without them. Judgment can only real- ize itself in and through them. Take away such notions as those of unity, of plurality, of difference, identity, equality, cause, uniformity, and it would be impossible to compare our individual impressions or to attain to the conceijtion of general laws. All knowledge is just the application of the primitive concepts of the understanding to the materials of

Vol. I.— 15

226 MAN. [Lect. X.

sense or consciousness. When we pass beyond the sphere of exj)erience, and demonstrate the existence of the super- sensible, it is by the aid of primitive beliefs which consti- tute the very substratum of intelligence. Now these primi- tive concepts, whether they exist as faith or as mere regula- tive forms of thought, are the essence of reason. They make knowledge and experience to be possible. By these man knows, and by these he extends his knowledge beyond the sphere of sense. He draws the distinction betwixt truth and falsehood. This is the first office of reason. The word truth, the word error or fuheliood, would be altogether unmeanino; to the brute. But reason also draws the line between right and wrong, between a duty and a crime. Reason, in the form of a conscience, gives us the concepts of rectitude, of obligation, of merit and demerit. It prescribes a law to the will, to the impulses, the appetites and all our springs of action, and constitutes man a moral and responsi- ble creature. He has a will which is capable of being influ- enced by the declarations of reason, and which, as it acts in obedience to reason, elevates our impulses into a higher sphere, and gives them a dignity to which the appetites of an animal can lay no claim. By virtue of the joint possession of reason and will man is able to love and hate. The brute can do neither. Love is not mere desire ; it is not blind attachment or headstrong passion ; it is founded in the perception and the embrace of the good. It is will deter- mined by intelligence. It is, therefore, a rational principle. Brutes cannot hate ; they may have ferocity and violence, but they have no malice. That is a will perverted from reason, divorced from intelligence and enslaved to selfish- ness. So all the passions — pride, envy, charity, compassion as a principle — are conditioned upon the possession of reason and will. These attributes, therefore, are

Reason and will ilis- x* i ^ i • ±_ rr^i i

ti..gui8h humanity, csseutial to humanity. They make man a person. Through them he has rights, is susceptible of society, recognizes truth and duty, and is an intelligent, moral, responsible being, and not a thing.

Lect. X.] MAN. 227

These attributes involve the existence of a principle in

man which cannot be resolved into any modifications of

matter. They involve the substantive ex-

and involve a soul in . . /. ■• r^\^ t , • , • i , • ,

man. isteucc 01 a soul. llie distinction betwixt

soul and body turns upon the conscious difference of their respective attributes. We know sub- stance only in and through its properties, and where the properties are contradictory ojjposites we are compelled to infer that the substances cannot be the same. Thought and extension have no points in common. Matter is essentially divisible, consciousness essentially indivisible. The same reasoning will prove this soul to be naturally immortal — that is, incapable of destruction by any natural causes. The simplicity of its being precludes dissolution, and that is the only form of destruction with which we are acquainted. God, it is true, may annihilate the soul ; it has no life in itself. But we have no reason to believe that anything which has ever been called into being will ever cease to be, and whatever God has rendered incapable of discerption, we are to infer that He designs shall always exist in the same form.

It has been debated in the schools whether the three-fold life of man, sensitive, animal and rational, is the result of the same spiritual substance in its union with the body, or whether each is the manifestation of a different immaterial principle. We are certainly not to multiply causes beyond necessity. The higher forms of creation seem to take up into themselves the principles of the lower. The life of the vegetable is taken up into the life of the animal, as a fuller expansion of the principle of life ; and so reason in union with the body contains the life of the animal. The same soul may manifest itself under different conditions in different forms ; it may have a higher and a lower sphere. The ques- tion, however, belongs to physiology rather than religion. Whatever answer we give to it, the essential proj^erties of man remain still the same.

228 MAN. [Lect. X.

i„>mortaiity yindi- The immortaliiy of the soul, apart from catea apart from the positlve teaching of Scripture, may be vindicated upon the following grounds :

1. It is the natural and spontaneous sentiment of man- kind. It has never been denied except by philosophers, and that on speculative grounds. It is the universal sentiment of the race.

2. It follows from the simplicity of the soul — the indi- visible unity of consciousness.

3. It flows from the sense of responsibility, which is alwaysva prospective feeling.

4. It flows from the nature of knowledge and from the nature of virtue. (The Socratic argument.)

5. From the insufficiency of the speculative grounds on which the contrary hyj)othesis is maintained — That death will destroy us ; that our identity is lost when a portion of our being is gone.

6. The 071US probandi is on the other side.

II. Having considered the essential properties of man, we come now to inquire into the condition in

Was man created an t_*i.t_ r j.ii i ^i,-/^

infant or in maturity? ^^ich hc camc from the hauds of his Cre- ator. Was he introduced into the w^orld in the maturity of his jDOwers, with habits of knowledge and virtue and language, or w^as he framed in an infantile state, simply with capacities of acquiring knowledge, virtue and language, but destitute of any actual possession of any of them ?

This question becomes important in consequence of the

efforts of Pelagians to escape from the doc-

thewLT^"^" "^'^ trine of original sin, and the distinctions

of the Papists in consequence of which

some loop-hole is left for the doctrine of free-will. The

theory is, that man was created in puris

In puris naluralihus. i • i i • i

naturahbus — that is, he Avas created in the possession of all those attributes and properties which dis- tinguish him as a species, and without which he could not be man, but destitute of all the habits and accomplishments

Lect. X.] MAN. 229

which perfect and adorn his nature. He had sense, reason and freedom of will, but these existed in the form of capa- cities, and not of developed energies. It is particularly maintained that he had no holy habits ; the Pelagians affirm- ing that all holiness had to be the acquirement of his own free-will, and that he was framed indifferent to rectitude or sin ; the Papists maintaining that holiness was superadded to him as a supernatural endowment. It belongs" not to the sphere of nature, but to the higher sphere of grace. In either case, original sin is reduced to very small proportions. Upon the Pelagian scheme it is totally denied ; we are all born as blank in relation to character as Adam was made. Upon the Popish hypothesis, it is rather a loss of something above nature than a corruption of nature itself. Holiness was a garment in which Adam was clothed after his creation, but was no part of the furniture that belonged to him as a creature. Original sin is the removal of the garment and tlie reduction of the race to its primitive nudity. The differ- ence, according to Bellarmin, betwixt Adam in Eden and his descendants is the difference betwixt a clothed man and a stripped man. Now, in opposition to this theory, reason and the Scriptures concur in teaching that the first man must have been created in comparative maturity, with his faculties expanded by knowledge, his will charged with rec- titude, and his whole nature in unison with his moral and personal relations. He was not an infant, but a man. His mind was not a blank, but a sheet well inscribed with Di- vine instructions. He was created in a state that harmonized at once with all his duties, and enabled him to fulfil his high vocation as the representative of God to the creatures and of the creatures to God. He was in actual possession of knowledge, righteousness and true holiness.

1. The hypothesis that man was created an infant in mind

Adam not created an ^anuot be Carried out without the most

infant, either in mind yiolcnt and incredible suppositions. It

or in body. , . p . , ,

postulates a series ot miracles, protracted through years of his existence, out of keeping with the whole

230 MAN. [Lect. X.

analogy of Divine Providence. Man's body was either fully developed, or that also was the body of an infant. If it were fully developed, then it had the strength and comjjact- ness of maturity and growth. Now an infant mind in a matured body can consist with the preservation of life only hy a constant miracle. The infant knows nothing of the properties of matter ; has not yet learned to judge of distance by the eye, or to determine the magnitude, hardness and solidity of bodies by the eye. It cannot calculate the di- rection of sounds by the ear, and it knows nothing of their significancy. It is a stranger to its own strength. It has no discernment of the qualities of food and poison. It would have to learn the use of its senses — to acquire by slow expe- rience all those cognitions which we now acquire in our early years, and which have become so habitual that we mistake them for immediate and original perceptions. In this con- dition of helj)less ignorance it Avould run against the hardest obstacles ; be liable to pitch down the steepest precipices ; mistake poison for food ; and expose itself without appre- hension to the greatest dangers. The life of such a being could not be preserved for a single day without a perjoetual miracle. Its matured body would be a curse to it. The in- congruity of such a constitution is sufficient to stamp it with incredibility. But if we suppose that the body of the first man was that of an infant, then we have to j)Ostulate a mi- raculous guardianship through the whole period of its being, from the first moment of creation until it has reached maturity of knowledge. God would have to be to it a nursing mother and a protecting father. It would have to be miraculously fed, miraculously nursed, miraculously guarded, until it ac- quired the habits and exj)erience necessary to enable it to take care of itself. In the present order of providence, in- fant minds are put in infant bodies ; and the body is not allowed to reach the power of self-motion until the mind has acquired the skill to direct it. We are prevented from walking until we have sense enough to walk with some safety. We are put under the guardianship of parents and

Lect. X.] MAN. 231

friendS; and their experience supplies our deficiencies until we have laid in a stock of our OM^n. The matured body always implies the matured mind. It is clear therefore, from the nature of the case and from the analogy of providence, that if Adam were created in maturity of body, he must also have been created in maturity of mind. But maturity of mind consists in habits of knowledge. It is knowledge which makes mind grow and expand. There is no difficulty in supposing that the first man was created with the know- ledge resident in him that we acquire by slow exjjcrience. When he first looked upon the world he had the use of senses, as we learn it, and he thus derived, at once, all those impressions which we deduce by long habits of association. To this extent he must have had knowledge, or he could hardly have lived an hour.

2. Incredible as the supposition is of a pure nature with-

A,]a,n not created ^^^^ ^^^^itS of kuOwlcdgC, it is UOt SO absUrd

injiifiient to holiness as tlic suppositlou of a purc moral nature without habits of righteousness. There is. no middle betwixt sin and holiness. Every moral being must be either holy or sinful ; there is no such state as that of indifference. The will is, from the very nature of the case, under formal obligation to coincide with the moral law. There is no moment of time when this obligation does not hold. It must, therefore, in order that the man may not be guilty, incline to that law, so that, in all concrete cases, it shall choose the right. Hence, to say that man had simply the capacity to become holy or sinful, but that at his creation he was neither, is to say that there was a time, an interval of his being, when he was under no moral obligation, and therefore an interval of his existence when he had neither reason nor will ; that is, it is a plain self-contradiction. To be indifferent to rectitude is itself sin. Hence, it is clear that man must have had determinate moral habits of some sort, and could not be produced in purls naturalibus. An infant now has a determinate moral character. It may not actually have sinned in specific voluntary acts, but its will is im-

232 MAN. [Lect. X.

bued with the law of sin, and as soon as it wills it wills wrong.

3. The Scripture testimonies upon this subject may be reduced to two heads, direct and indirect — of'scHpTure.'"*""'' ^hosc which explicitly state what the con- dition of man really was, and those which obviously imply it. Let us consider the indirect first : (1.) Man is represented as in possession of language. Now language without thought is impossi- inttTerJ^ctiof "' blc. It bccomcs ncccssary in the higher spheres of thought, so that all inference beyond particulars is conditioned upon its existence. Adam had language in its most difl&cult and complicated relations. His words were not merely proper names, or expressive of single, individual phenomena. They were generic terms, and implied the distribution of the objects of creation into corresponding classes. " And Adam gave names to all cat- tle, and to the fowl of the air and to every beast of the field." To suppose that he appropriated a name to each individual as its own distinctive title is simply preposterous. His vocabulary would have to be boundless and his memory equally marvellous. The plain meaning is, that he knew them and named them as genera and species. The notion of an infant conducting such a process is fit only for those who have not yet ceased to be infants themselves.

(2.) In the next place. Eve was evidently framed in full maturity as a woman. She was recognized

Eve created a ma- rAl ± Hj. l ±\

ture woman. "^7 Adam at ouce as a nt and worthy com-

panion. Now the argument from this cir- cumstance is twofold : If Eve were created in such matu- rity as to be a suitable helj) for man, why not Adam have been created in corresponding perfection? But Eve was created on the same day with Adam. He must, therefore, have marvellously developed in a few hours if he could so soon acquire language, learn the distribution of animals and come to a sense of his own need of society. If Eve had been created in the infancy of either mind or body, and he

Lect. X.] MAN. 233

had been mature, she would have been a burden and not a companion. If he had been still in the ignorance and im- becility of infancy, he would not have known that he wanted an associate. Hence, on either supposition the narrative becomes contradictory and absurd. But admit the maturity of Adam as to mind and body, and the whole story becomes simple and consistent. No one, in fact, can read the account of the creation of the first pair without being struck with the impression that they are treated from the very first as beings who have the use of their reason, and who are fully at home in their new circumstances and relations. They understand the scene in which they are placed. They are not children, but adults — endowed not with capacities only, but with the knowledge that enlarges and exercises them. (3.) The command to the first pair, " to be fruitful and „, . , multiply, and replenish the earth and sub-

They received a r J ? i

commission involving duc it, and liavc domiuiou over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth," be- comes absolutely ludicrous if conceived as addressed to in- fants or children. It implies a complicated and extensive knowledge — a knowledge of the creatures and a knowledge of God, and a knowledge of themselves — as the indispensable condition of understanding, much more of fulfilling, the Divine mandate. All finite power is exerted through knoAV- ledge, and as the dominion of man was to be the dominion of intelligence and reason, it implied an apprehension of the nature and relations of the objects to which it extended. These three circumstances — that man is represented as in possession of language and the knowledge which language necessarily symbolizes ; that he felt his need of companion- ship on the very day of his creation and received a help suited to his wants ; and that he received a commission in- volving a very high degree of intelligence in order to con- vey any meaning to his mind — are grounds from which we may confidently conclude that man was not created in a state of pure nature ; that he was something more than a

Adam savage.

234 MAN. [Lect. X.

realization of the logical essence of the sjoecies. He must have had the accidents which though logically separable can never be separated in every degree from his nature. (4.) The general tenor of the narrative contradicts, too, the notion that in his primitive condition he was a savage, rude and uncivilized, de- voted to sensual indulgences and ignorant of a higher end. The knowledge of the creatures which he possessed, enabling him to classify and distinguish them, far transcends in its extent and accuracy the rough and pal- pable discriminations of the savage. His relish of compan- ionship shows a development of social ties which is of the very essence of refined life. And his commission to multi- ply and replenish the earth, and to make nature the obedient minister of his will, implies a state of mind exactly the reverse of that which delights in war and destruction, and in which the only monuments of jDOwer that are prized are monuments of ruin. The command implies a spirit of love to the species and of regard to the other creatures of God totally incompatible with the fierce and vindictive passions that characterize savage life. Adam, in the picture of Moses, was no barbarian. He is the loving father of the posterity contained in his loins, the tender and aifcctionate husband, and the considerate master of this lower world. His mission is to bless and not to blast, to promote and not destroy the happiness of his subjects. Tliese are the impressions which the narrative makes apart from any express and positive declarations as to the state and condition of man. This is their general and pervading import.

4. But evidently as these considerations refute the notion of an infantile or savage commencement

These testimonies /> , i ,^ , /v> • x j_

not definite as to of the racc, thcy are not sufficient to give Adam's knowledge or ^^g precise aud definite information in rela-

holiness. ^

tion to the condition of the first man. They show him to have been intelligent, refined and civil- ized, but they do not reveal to us the extent of his know-

Lect. X.] MAN. 235

ledge, nor the degree of perfection which as a moral being he enjoyed.

(1.) Upon the first point the Scriptures are nowhere ex- upon the first point pli^'^*' Thcj Icavc US in the dark as to the Scriptures are uot tJic amouut of natural kuowledgc — that is, the amount of knowledge in relation to the objects and laws of the universe — which he possessed. It was substantially what every man who reaches maturity must acquire from experience. The naming of the whole animal creation would seem to intimate that it was much more. It is useless to speculate without data, and M'here we have only hints we should not push our conclusions beyond them. AYe should avoid the extreme of considering Adam as endowed with faculties which intuitively penetrated into the whole scheme of the universe, and laid the treasures of all human science at his feet, while we insist upon the ma- turity of reason which must have pertained to him. The Scholastics erred in attributing to him too much ; the Socin- ians and many modern divines have equally erred in attrib- uting to him too little.

(2.) But in reference to his moral condition the Scriptures are very explicit. They have left no room

but upon the second n i i , xx- • -i' < ,

very explicit. ^^r douot. His primitive state is repre-

sented as a state of integrity, in which every part of his constitution was adapted to the end for which he was created. This is what is meant when it is said that he was made upright. As the end of his creation was moral, he must have possessed the knowledge and the dispositions which were necessary to the attainment of it. As the moral law bound him from the first pulsation of his life, that law must have been impressed upon his nature, and his first acts of consciousness must have been in conformity with its spirit. It must have been written upon his heart ; it must have formed an original element of his being. That this was the case is articulately taught in all those passages which repre- sent him as bearing in his primitive condition " the image of God." The proper explication of this phrase will explain

236 MAN. [Lect. X.

the perfection of his moral state. A slight hastwo'sTnfrs° " examination will show that it is used in a

looser or stricter sense. In a looser sense it indicates those spiritual proj^erties which belong to man as a person — the faculties of intelligence, conscience and will. But a close inspection will show that even in the passages in which the phrase is thus loosely taken there lies at the foundation a tacit reference to the other and stricter meaning. For example, in Gen. ix. 6 : " Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed ; for in the image of God made He man ;" the argument manifestly turns upon the moral nature of man, the rights which con- sequently accrue to him, and the perfection which he is pre- cluded from attaining by prcmatui'e death. So James ex- poses the wickedness of cursing our fellow-men because they are made after the similitude of God — that is, moral perfec- tion is their destiny, that to which they should aspire, and of which they are capable. The reason that the phrase is transferred to our spiritual and personal nature apart from any direct implication of positive holiness, is that this nature is the indispensable condition of holiness ; it is the subject in which that must inhere. Hence it has been called the natural or fundamental image of God ; it is the condition on which alone man can realize that image. But the strict The strict and prop- ^ud propcr acccptatiou of the phrase is er sense is holiness, holiucss — holiucss of uaturc, or habitual

manifested in know- it t • • i i f

ledge and rigiiteous- holincss, as contradistiuguished irom spe- ''®^^' cific exercises or acts. The decisive pas-

sages are Eph. iv. 23, 24 ; Col, iii. 10. From these pas- sages we learn that the image of God consists generally in true holiness, and that this holiness, as the universal spirit or temper of the man, manifests itself in knowledge and righteousness. It is that state of mind which })roduces these results. To define it more accurately we must ascer- tain the meaning of the terms knowledge and righteousness, as liere used by the apostle. Here we are at no loss. It is the knowledge of God which results in faith, love and true

Lect. X.] MAN. 237

religion. It is, in other words, a spiritual perception of His

beauty, excellence and glory. Adam, as en-

i .^? /n 1 "^ dowed with this knowledge, looked abroad

knowledge of Uou, o ?

upon the creation and saw what science with all its discoveries so often fails to discern — the traces of the Divine glory. He saw God in all above, beneath, around. Nature was a vast mirror, reflecting the Divine beauty, and as he saw he loved and adored. God to him was everywhere present ; the whole universe was full of his name. It was written upon the starry vault, the extended plain, the lofty mountain, the boundless sea ; upon every living thing, from the reptile that creeps upon the ground or the tiny in- sect that flutters in the breeze, to the huge leviathan or his own noble frame and nobler soul. The first light of day that beamed upon his eyes was accompanied with a richer light that radiated from his soul, and clothed all nature in the garb of Divine beauty and loveliness. He knew God with a spiritual discernment as a being to be loved, feared, trusted, worsliipped. This was holiness as it irradiates the understanding:. This knowledge of God in the creature is the perfection of know- ledge. Science, until it reaches this point, does but fumble. It misses the very life of true knowledge ; it is only a learned and pompous ignorance.

But this habit of spiritual discernment was accompanied

with righteousness or rectitude of disposition

and also this rectitude. . ^ i . ^ .

— that IS, a state of soul m conformity with the requisitions of the Divine law — a propensity to universal obedience. The law was the bent of his being. As soon as the concrete occasions should present themselves, he had that within him which would at once reveal and incline to the right. The intuitive perception and the prompt disposition manifested his holiness, and induced all forms of actual right- eousness which his circumstances and relations demanded.

This, then, was the primitive condition of^

The primitive con- » t tt i • j^i • p r^ -i

dition of the first man. Adam. He was made in the niiage of God

— as being an upright creature, with reason

enlightened in the spiritual knowledge of God as that know-

238 MAN. [Lect. X.

ledge was mediated through the creatures, with a will prone to obey the dictates of reason thus enlightened and therefore in accordance with the spirit of the Divine law. He knew his relations to God, his relations to his wife, his relations to his children and his relations to the world ; and knew them with that spiritual apprehension which converted his know- ledge into one continued act of religion.

That true holiness is the strict and proper sense of the image of God, appears from the contrast sonai^anrspii-itulfnT bctwlxt thc iuiagc of God aud that of the tnre, but not the image Pevil. If the posscssiou of a pcrsoual, spiritual nature were the image of God, the Devil and his angels would bear it. But their image is, in the Scriptures, made directly contradictory to the image of God. Hence, that image must consist in those moral per- fections which Satan has lost, and which man, since the fall, acquires only by a new creation.

The holiness which man possessed at his creation was

In what sense the natural— uot in the logical sense that it per-

hoiiness of Adam was taiucd to liis csseuce as man, or was a prop-

natural. . i i r- • i • i

erty inseparable irom it, but m the sense that it coexisted as a habit with that nature. Man was not first created and then holiness infused, but holiness was con- created with him. He was holy as soon as he began to be. Hence it is not scriptural, with the Papists, to make it a supernatural gift, something superadded to nature by grace. It was no more of grace than creation itself was of grace. It was the inheritance of his nature — the birth-right of his being. It was the state in which all his faculties received their form. 5. We have now considered the distinguishing character- istics of man, and the condition in which he was when he came from the hands of his Creator. "VVe have seen that he was neither an infant nor a savage, but a man — in the full maturity of his powers, endowed with knowledge, righteous- ness and holiness, and prepared to enter at once upon the career assigned him as a moral and responsible creature. As long as he retained his integrity, he enjoyed the blessedness

Lect. X.] MAN. 239

which springs from the harmony of a soul proportioned and

balanced in all its powers, and from the consciousness of the

favour of God and the exercise of communion with Him.

. J , , ,. , But it remains to be added, in order to com-

Aclam 8 holiness nat- '

uiai, but not in<\ofect- pletc tlic picturc of mau's primitive estate, that his holiness, though natural, was not indefectible. He was liable to fall. That man, as a creature, was necessarily mutable, in the sense that he was capable of indefinite improvement — of passing from one degree of ex- pansion to another — is easily understood ; but that a holy being should be capable of a change from the good to the bad — that he should be able to reverse the uprightness of his make, to disorder his whole inward constitution, to derange its proportions and the regulative principles of its actions — is one of the most difficult propositions that we encounter in the sphere of theology. Hoav could sin enter where all was right ? If the understanding rejoiced in truth, the will in rectitude, and the affections in the truly beautiful and good, how could error, impurity and deformity find a lodgment within the soul ? What was to suggest the thought of any- thing so monstrous and unnatural ? It is clear that there must have been some defect in the moral state of man at his creation, in consequence of which he was liable to fill — some defect in consequence of which he might be deceived, taking falsehood for truth, and confounding the colours of good and evil. When we speak of a defect, we do

What was the defect ? ,

not intend to convey the notion that any- thing Avas wanting to quali^^ man for his destiny ; but that whatever the difference is betwixt a state of confirmed holi- ness and a state of untried holiness, that difference was the secret of the possibility of sin ; and the absence of what is implied in confirmation is a defect. It was something which man had to supply by the exercise of his own will in a course of uniform obedience to God. It is certain that no creatures, either angels or men, have been created in immutable integ- rity. Sin has entered into both worlds, and it is equally clear that there is a great difference betwixt beings in whom

240 MAN. [Lect. X.

holiness has become, as it is with God, a necessity of nature, and beings who are yet caj^able of being blinded with error and seduced into transgression. But are we able to say pre- cisely what this difference is ? Are we able

A problem to be, -j^xi ii Ijt i

gjji^gjj to point out how the understanding can be

deceived and the will perverted in the case of any being that possesses a sound moral and intellectual constitution ? This problem, which may be called the psy- chological possibility of sin, is confessedly one of great diffi- culty. The solutions which have been attempted are un- satisfactory ; either as denying some of the

Unsatisfactory solu- x* l j^ j. i' j_i j^ i x*

tions of it. essential lacts oi the case ; or postulating

principles which are contradictory to con- sciousness; or reducing the first sin to an insignificance utterly incompatible with the Divine providence in relation to it.

(1.) The Pelagian has no difficulty, because man at his creation had no character. His will was indifferent to good or evil ; he could choose the one as readily as the other. Upon this scheme there is really no problem to be solved. But the scheme itself con- tradicts one of the essential facts in the case. It contradicts the fact that man was made in the image of God ; that holi- ness was a constitutional endowment ; that the same grace Avhich made him a creature made him upright.

(2.) The Papist — that is, one school of theology among the Papists — finds in the blindness of our im- pulses, which it calls concupiscence, a suffi- cient explanation of the difficulty. Our impulses in them- selves possess no moral character ; they have a natural tend- ency to excesses and irregularities ; the mere existence of these irregular desires is not sin, and therefore not inconsistent with integrity of make. And yet they may prove stronger than reason; they may bewitch the understanding by soph- istry, and cajole the will by false appearances of good, and thus seduce man into sin. Reason, indeed, is no security against them in a state of innocence without supernatural

Lect. X.] MAN. 241

grace. This theory labours under the fatal defect of denying that to be sin which the Scriptures affirm to be sin. Our impulses are not destitute of moral character when they be- come irregular or excessive. They are as much under law as any other part of our nature. The very terms irregular and excessive imply as much ; and a constitution, therefore, is not sound which generates passions and appetites incon- sistent with the supreme end of the individual. Paul makes concupiscence to be not only sin itself, but the fruitful mother of sin. Of course, if we give the mother, under whatever specious name, a residence in man's nature, we need not be surprised that she is soon surrounded with the children. To say that our impulses have no moral character is to contradict all human consciousness. Our desires, our appetites, our hopes, our fears, all have a determinate relation to the will, which brings them within the sphere of moral responsibility, and makes them the real exponent of a man's character. We measure our approbation of others more by these passive impressions than by the acts which are the immediate pro- ducts of will.

(3.) A theory akin to this, but modifying its most offensive feature, is that of Bishop Butler, so ably

Bishop Butler's theory. ,.. , ,, ,.

and ingeniously and modestly presented in the Analogy of Religion. It proceeds from the same prin- ciple of the blindness of impulse ; that is, that all our simple emotions are excited, independently of the will, by the pres- ence, real or ideal, of their proper objects. There are quali- ties in things which cannot be contemplated Avithout awa- kening these feelings. The eye affects the heart. The ap- prehension of danger has a natural tendency to generate dread ; the prospect of good elicits hope ; the sight of misery produces pity ; and the contemplation of meanness and filth produces disgust. The emotion is awakened without the in- tervention of the will, without the deliberation of the under- standing or the verdict of reason. The mere apprehension of the object does the work. Now, Butler does not postulate that in a sound state of the mind any impulses tending to

Vol. I.— 16

242 MAN. [Lect. X.

sin could exist ; lie does not lodge in us a concupiscence, in its natural promptings, contradictory to reason and to con- science, and here he avoids the Papal extravagance. In a sound state of the mind our j)assive impressions coincide with rectitude, but still they are not elicited by a conscious- ness of rectitude. ISTo act of intelligent thought precedes them, and as thus excited, without any previous estimate of the value of their objects, they are blind ; and here is a defect in our nature, which, though not sin itself, may open the door for sin. The security against this defect is the forming of a habit of never yielding to an impulse, or per- mitting it to influence the will without reflection. The danger of the impulse is that we may act without thought ; the security is a habit, formed by a course of vigilance, of never acting Avithout thought. But it may be asked. If the impulses coincide with rectitude, what danger is there for betraying us into sin? None, if man's determinations always centred only upon wdiat is essentially right. If nothing were ever presented to his choice but what was in- trinsically evil or intrinsically good, there is no danger of his passive impressions misleading him. But things indif- ferent, neither good nor evil in themselves, may be rendered subjects of positive command. They are suited in their own nature to excite our emotions. These emotions are not sinful in themselves, as their objects are not sinful in themselves. Under the influence of these emotions the will may be in- clined to the unlawful indulgence, the understanding may be tempted to plead for it, and thus sin and error be introduced from the impulses of man coming in collision with positive commands in relation to things inherently indifferent. This is a brief outline of the psychological explanation of that great master of thought, in a work which will live as long as sound philosophy has votaries.

There are some circumstances in the biblical narrative of the temptation of our first parents that seem to coincide with this account. The prohibition which constituted the test of man's obedience did not relate to a malum in se; the eating

Lect. X.] MAN. 243

or abstaining from a given fruit was in itself indifferent, and only brought into the moral sphere by the accidental cir- cumstance of a positive command. That fruit had the same tendency to provoke appetite as any other fruit in the gar- den, and accordingly Eve is represented as arrested by its promising appearance as food and its fitness to make one wise. " And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat."

But plausible as this hypothesis is, it is exposed to objec- tions which are not easily resolved.

In the first place, it accounts only for the sin of Eve. It might be said that Adam was seduced bv

Two objections to it. , , , *'

the passive impression of love to his wife, had not the apostle told us that the man was not deceived. It is remarkable that when the guilty pair were summoned before their Judge, the woman puts in the plea that she had been beguiled, she had been cheated and taken in, but the man ventures on no such allegation. He simply says : " The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat."

Again, this theory diminishes the malignity of the first sin. It becomes an act of inadvertence or inattention. It was an error incident to a suspension of vigilance, and spring- ing from principles which constituted a part of human nature. To suppose that man was merely taken in, and did not mean to transgress the law of God, that he sinned ignorantly and by involuntary mistake, is to make a representation which every moral understanding will instantly pronounce to fall far short of the intense rebellion which the Scriptures uni- formly ascribe to the first sin of the first man. It was a fiilling away from God; a deliberate renunciation of the claims of the Creator ; a revolt from God to the creature, which involved a complete inversion of the moral destiny of man. We cannot avoid the feeling that if Butler's ex-

244 MAN. [Lect. X,

planation is the whole of the matter, our first parents were deserving of pity rather than severe reprobation — their offence was weakness and not deliberate guilt.

The common explanation in all the orthodox creeds is, that the true ground of the solution is to

Orthodox aolution. i • i ^ i mi -nr

be sought m the nature oi the will. Man is represented as having fallen because he was left to the freedom of his own will. His transgression was voluntary, and as voluntary had to be deliberate. His sin was done on principle. It was not an accident, but a serious, solemn and deliberate rejection of the Most High as his God and portion. But this, it will be seen, is not a solution of the problem, but the statement in another form of the fact to be explained. The only approach which it makes to a genuine solution is in indicating the sphere in which the solution must be sought — the sphere of the will. There must be something in freedom before it has become necessity of nature out of which the possibility of sin can arise. We must, therefore, turn our attention to this point, and ascer- tain, if we can, what is the difference between freedom as necessity and freedom as the beginning of a moral career.

Freedom as necessity of nature is the highest perfection

of a creature. It is the end and aim of sif "^ornatiire "'^'^^^ ^^^ moral culturc. When a being has the

principles of rectitude so thoroughly in- wrought into the whole texture of the soul, when it is so thoroughly pervaded by their presence and power, as that they constitute the life of all thought and of all determina- tion, holiness stands in the most inseparable relation to it in which it can be conceived to stand to a creature. This is to be pre-eminently like God, who is perfect truth and perfect righteousness. This entire subjection to the law of God, in which it becomes so completely identified with ourselves that we cannot think or act in contradiction to it, is the ideal of freedom which the Scriptures propose to us as our inheritance in Christ. This is eternal life. Now, at the

Lect. X.] MAN. 245

commencement of a moral career, our upright constitution has not been completely identified with our

Freedom not yet de- Tj. i -j. i j. ' 'j. i.

liberateiy chosen. personality, bccausc It has not, m its ten-

dencies and disj)Ositions, been taken up by our wills and deliberately chosen and adopted. It is the determination of the will which fixes our natural disposi- tions as principles. When they are reviewed by the under- standing and deliberately chosen by the will, they then be- come ours in a nearer and closer sense ; they are reflectively approved, reflectively endorsed, and through that energy by which acts generate a habit they become fixed elements of our life. If such an exercise of reflection and such an act of will must supervene in order to impregnate our person- ality with holiness and to convert native dispositions into settled principles, it is evident that there must be in the primitive condition of a moral being occasions in which it stands face to face with its own nature and destiny, and on which it must determine whether the bent of that nature shall be followed and its true normal development promoted, or whether it shall choose against nature another course and reverse its proper destiny. If the will has to decide the case, the issue must be made. Good and evil must stand in actual contrast, and there must be postulated under these circumstances a power — wilful, heady, perverse, yet a real power — to resist truth and duty. God gives man a constitu- tion that points to Himself as the supreme good. He places before him the nature and consequences of evil as the con- trast of the good. If man chooses the good, he fixes it in his very person ; it becomes so grounded in the will that the will can never swerve from it. If he chooses the evil, he also grounds that in the will ; it becomes a part of his very person ; he becomes a slave, and can never more, by any power in himself, will the good or attain to it.

This I take to be the sense of the great body of the Re-

Tiiis the doctrine of formed thcologiaus, and of all the Reformed

Calvin, of our Confes- Confessious that havc expressly embraced

sion and of Turrettin, , t • , Ti • i r^ -i • ^

the subject, it is what (Jalvin means by

246 MAN. [Lect. X.

" an indifferent and mutable will," wliicli he attributes to man in his state of infancy. It is what the Westminster Confession means when it affirms that man had originally " freedom and power to will and to do that which is good and well pleasing to God, but yet mutably, so that he might fall from it." Turrettin^ resolves the first sin into the " mutability and liberty of man." " The j^roximate and proper cause of sin, therefore," says he, " is to be sought only in the free-will of man, who suffered himself to be deceived by the devil, and at the instigation of Satan freely revolted from God." Howe has articulately discussed these views.

This account of the matter is fundamentally different

and fundamentally dif- f^'O^ ^^^ PclagiaU hypothcsls of the Uat-

ferent from the Peia- ural indiffcrcuce of the will to the distinc- tions of right and wrong. On the other hand, it recognizes the law of God as the normal jjrinciple of the will ; it maintains, farther, that the spontaneous actions of man, all his impulses, desires and primitive volitions, were in conformity with that law. His spontaneity was all right. It was reflectively that the will renounced its law, changed its own tendencies, made out and out a new deter- mination. The reflective man, when the ground or root of action was to be himself, perverted the spontaneous man whose ground of action was in God. The will did not first make a character, but change a character ; did not first give man a moral disposition, but perverted the dispositions which God had given. By this theory we preserve the Scripture testimony concerning man's possession of the im- age of God, and harmonize the malignity which the sacred writers everywhere ascribe to the first sin of the first man. To unfold the psychological process which led to such a perversion of his nature is perhaps impossible ; we are not sufficiently acquainted with the mystery of the will. All that we can say is, that it possessed this power of arbitrary self-determination, in defiance of reason, conscience and ^ Locus ix., Quest. 7.

Lect. X.] MAN. 247

nature, as an essential element of its being. We have the traces of the same power in arbitrary resistance to our own reason and conscience in many events of our present fallen condition. We have lost all holiness, but there are often cases in the ordinary sphere of our activity where our de- terminations seem to be obstinately wilful and capricious. They seem made only to assert our own intense egoism.

But whatever explanation may be given of the possibility of sin, we know that it now exists, and that the seeds of it were not implanted in the nature of man as he came from the hands of God. It is no normal development of his facul- ties or life. He has introduced it, and therefore we are com- pelled to say that his primitive condition, though holy and happy, was mutable. He was not established in his integrity. His noble accomplishments were contingent.

III. Having now considered the essential elements of humanity, and the condition in which the

The end of ruau's /> , i i •< • i • •

gj.^a^tio„ nrst man was created, it remams to inquire

w^hat was the immediate end of his creation, and what the relation in which, as a moral creature, he stood to God. His chief end was evidently to give glory to God. He was to learn more and more of God from the Divine works, and the administration of that great scheme of pro- vidence which was beginning to unfold itself before him. He was to render to the Almighty in his own name, and in the name of all the creatures over whom he had been consti- tuted the head, the tribute of adoration and gratitude which the Divine goodness demanded. He was the high priest of nature ; and every mute tiling, every dumb beast, every lifeless plant, the majestic heavens, the verdant earth, the rolling sea, mountains, cataracts and plains — every province of being in which he saw the traces of the Divine hand — were to find their tongue in him and through him to pour into the ears of the Most High their ceaseless song of praise. They spoke to him, and he was to repeat their language to the Great Supreme. He stood as the head of an immense family of worshippers. Creation was a vast temple. Every

248 MAN. [Lect. X.

living and lifeless thing brought its offerings to the altar, and man was to present the grateful oblation to the Maker and Preserver of them all. It was a noble, a sublime posi- tion. To know was to love, and to love was to enjoy. The relation in which he stood to God may be more ac- Man's relation to curately defined as that of a servant, and God was that of a the law of liis life as obedieucc. Obedience,

servant. , „ ^ n • • i i

as expressive oi perfect coniormity with the will of God, comprehends the whole scope of his existence. This obedience involved the preservation of the image of God ; the culture of his moral faculties by reflection, con- templation and the reflective adoption, as principles of his will, of his natural holiness ; and a prompt performance of whatever duties pertained to his circumstances or were es- pecially enjoined by God. The will of a servant must co- incide with the will of his master ; in this his faithfulness consists. Man's will was to make the will of God its su- preme and only law. But it pertains to the condition of a servant that his continuance in favour depends on the con- tinuance of his obedience, and that his expectations from his master are measured by his faithfulness. This, then, was man's estate. He was a creature ; a servant under the moral law as the rule and guide of his obedience ; bound to glorify God in perfect conformity with its requisitions, and authorized to expect the continuance of his present happiness in the sense of God's approbation as long as he persevered in the way of faithfulness. He had no evil to apprehend, either to his body or his mind, from within or from with- out. As long as he was faithful to his Master, he had a right to expect that his Master would protect him and bless him. There could be no death while there was no sin. But the servant must obey from himself. As a servant, man could never look to any interposition of God that should destroy the contingency of his holiness. His probation, in that aspect, must be commensurate with his immortality. There could never come a period in which lie could have any claim upon God to render liis integrity indefectible, or

Lect. X.] MAN. 249

to draw him into any closer relations with himself. What- ever arrangements might be made with a reference to these ends must spring from the pure benevolence of the Creator ; they must be the offspring of grace and not of debt. Man must always stand or fall by his own obedience in the exer- cise of his own free-will. Through the law of habit a con- stant course of obedience would constantly diminish the dangers of transgression, but the possibility would always remain ; and whatever security man might compass through the energy of will in fixing the type of character, he must always stand in that relation to God which measures his ex- pectations by his service.

That the destiny of man, considered simply as a creature, was obedience in the relation of a servant is evident from the very nature of moral government as revealed in the structure of our own consciences.

FREEDOM OF THE WILL.

[This is one of the most difficult questions in the whole compass of Metai^hysical Philosophy or Christian Theology. Its inherent difficulties have been aggravated by the ambiguities of language. All the terms which are introduced into the discussion have been so abusively employed that it is hard to fix clearly and precisely the points at issue, or to deter- mine the exact ground which we or others actually maintain. We im- pose upon ourselves, as well as upon others, by the looseness of our term- inology. Liberty, necessity, contingency, possibility, are all used in various senses, are applied in different relations, and without the utmost caution we are likely to embarrass ourselves by a latent confusion of these differ- ent significations.

Necessity is used metaphysically to express that the opposite of which involves a contradiction ; naturally, to express the connection betwixt an effect and a cause, an antecedent and a consequent ; and morally, in the twofold sense of obligation or duty, and the connection betwixt motive and volition. Liberty is used in relation to the absence of liindrance and restraint in the execution of our plans and purposes, and refers exclusively to the power of acting ; or, to denote mere spontaneity — the mere activities and energies of our inner being according to their essential constitution ; or, to the exclusion of a cause apart from itself in determining the decisions of the will. Contingency is used in the sense of the undesigned or acci- dental ; and, in the sense that another reality was at the same time produ- cible by the same cause. The possible, again, is the metaphysical non- existence of contradiction, or the contingent in the sense last explained.

250 MAN. [Lect. X.

These instances of ambiguity of language are sufficient to illustrate the nature of the difficulties upon this point.

The will is indispensable to moral agency. A being without a will cannot be the subject of rewards and punishments. Where there is no will there is no responsibility. In investigating, therefore, the freedom of the will, the conditions which a just exposition must fulfil are these:

1. Freedom as a confirmed state of holiness — an inward necessity of holiness, in which the perfection of every moral being consists, must be grounded .and ex^jlained. Any account of the will which leaves the per- manent states of heart of holy beings without moral significance ; which deprives character and rooted habits of moral value ; which attaches importance only to individual acts, and acts considered apart from their expression of inward and controlling principles, is radically defective.

2. Any account of the will which does not ground our sense of guilt, our convictions of ill-desert, and which does not show that these convic- tions are no lie, but the truth, is also defective. I must show that my sin is mine — that it finds its root and principle in me.

3. Hence, a just account of the will must show that God is not the author of sin. To say that He is its author is to destroy its character — it ceases to be sin altogether.

4. A just account of the will must also solve the problem of the inabil- ity, and yet of the responsibility, of the sinner — that he cannot, and yet he ought, and justly dies for not doing what he confessedly cannot do.

The fulfilling of these conditions is indispensable to a broad-sided, ade- quate exposition of the will. To leave out any of them is to take partial and one-sided views.

1. Tried by this standard, the theory of Arminians and Pelagians is seen to be essentially defective. Two forms of the theory — indifierence and equilibrium. Miiller, ii., 17, 21.

(1.) These theories contradict an established holiness, and deny any moral character to the decisions of the will — they are mere caprice.

(2.) They do not account for character at all — they put morality in single acts.

(3.) They deny the sinner's helplessness and even sinfulness — the sin- ner is as free as the saint, the devil as the angel.

2. The theory of Edwards breaks down.

(1.) It does not explain guilt; it does not rid God of being the author of sin.

(2.) It does not explain the moral value attached to character.

(3.) This theory explains self-expression, but not self-determination. Now, a just view must show how we first determine and then habitually express ourselves. In these determinations is found the moral significance of these expressions. Otherwise my nature would be no more than the nature of a plant. Will supposes conscience and intelligence — these minister to it ; the moral law — this is its standard.

3. There are two states in which man is found — a servant and a son.

Lect. X.] MAN. 251

The peculiarity of the servant is that his holiness is not confirmed. It exists rather as impulse than habit, and the law speaks rather with author- ity— sense of duty. Now, the province of the will was to determine — that is, to root and ground these principles as a fixed nature. There was power to do so. When so determined, a holy necessity would have risen as the perfection of our being.

There was also the possibility of determining otherwise — a power of pervei'ting our nature, of determining it in another direction. The power, therefore, of determining itself in one or the other direction is the free- dom of a servant preparing to become a son, and the whole of moral cul- ture lies in the transition.

This theory explains all the phenomena, and has the additional advan- tage of setting in a clear light the grace of regeneration.

In the moral sphere, and especially in relation to single acts, this free- dom is now seen in man. It is neither necessity nor a contempt of the principle of law.]

Lecture XI MORAL GOVERNMENT

IN order to appreciate aright the dispensation under which man was placed, soon after his creation, in the garden of Eden, it is necessary to have a clear conception —

I. Of the essential principles of moral government;

II. Of what is implied in the relation of a servant.

I. Moral government is a government in which the moral •^ law is the rule of obedience. This is obvious

The first essential of n .i ..i .i i-i-i* t^- ' i i

a moral government. ^^^^^ ^hc Cpithct by whlch it IS distinguished.

But the moral law is the rule of obedience under every dispensation of religion. It expresses those eternal distinctions of right and wrong upon which all spiritual excellence depends ; and which God cannot disre- gard without renouncing the perfections of His own nature. Every believer under the Gospel aims at conformity Avith that law, and feels that his character is defective and his sal- vation incomplete until it has pervaded his Avhole soul, and moulded every power and faculty in harmony witli its spirit. The characteristic principle of a moral government, there- fore, is the principle upon which rewards

The second essential. ,. ., -, ,^.

and punishments are distributed. I hat principle is distributive justice. When men are rewarded and punished in precise proportion to their merits and de- '' merits, then the government is strictly and properly moral. The notions of justice, and of merit and demerit, are

]>rimitive cognitions of our moral nature, tiou indicated.*'''* "^ or of that practical understanding by which

we discriminate betwixt a duty and a crime.

252

Lect. XL] MORAL GOVERNMENT. 253

Conscience, in one single, indivisible operation, gives us cog- nitions which can be logically separated and distinguished. There is first the perception of right, which reo cognitions |^ represented in terms of intellio-ence

given by conscience ; 1 to

and defined as an act of the understanding. There is next the sense of duty, the feeling of obligation, which seems to partake of the nature of the emotions and to be properly defined by tei^ms of sensibility. Then there is the conviction of merit or demerit, according as the rule has been observed or neglected, which seems to be the practical conclusion of a judge in applying the law to a concrete in- stance. It is the sentence which the mind passes upon itself according to the nature of its works ; and yet in its simplest manifestation in consciousness it is a feeling — a sense that such and such acts or dispositions deserve well, such other acts and dispositions deserve ill. It is that phenomenon of conscience which connects happiness with right and misery with wrong. It is the root of the whole conception of justice. Without this primitive conviction there could be no notion of punishment and no notion of reward. Pain and pleasure receive their moral significance exclusively from that senti- ment of good and ill desert which connects them ,with con- duct as judicial consequences.

Though conscience is thus resolvable into three logical logically distinguish- coguitioiis wliich are casily distinguished in able, yet fundament- tcrius, tlicy are all fundamentally one and

ally the same. - ^p,, . f • -i i

the same. Ihe perception oi right, the sense of duty, and the conviction of good and ill desert are precisely the same cognition reflectively surveyed from dif- ferent points ; or, rather, they are different forms of express- ing one and the same original deliverance of conscience. There is not first an intellectual act, which, in the way of speculation, pronounces a thing to be right ; then an emo- tional sanction, which, in the way of feeling, instigates to obedience; and then a judicial sentence consequent uj^on the course actually pursued. There are not three separate and successive states of mind, which reciprocally condition and

254 MORAL GOVERNMENT. [Lect. XI.

depend upon each other. Tliere is but a single act of con- sciousness, and in that single act these logical discriminations are held in perfect unity. To say that a thing is right is to say that it involves obligation and merit ; to say that it is a matter of obligation is to say that it is right. Obligation has no meaning apart from rectitude, and rectitude has no meaning apart from obligation and merit. The perception of right is not a speculative apprehension ; it is not the affirmation that something is. It is the apprehension which, in its very nature, implies the peculiar feeling which we call a sense of duty — it is the apprehension that something ought to be. The cognition of the right and the feeling of duty are the same ; the feeling of duty is the very form, the very essence of the cognition. Hence, rectitude is an intuition of our moral understanding, which can be explained by nothing simpler than itself. You might as well undertake to define red or blue to a man born blind, or loud or loiv to a man born deaf, as to represent right to a man whose conscience ■ , PA had never given him the sense of duty or

The sense of good & .'

and ill desert a prim- the couviction of merit. It is a primitive

itive notion. . , , r- i • i i • ■

notion, capable ot being resolved into no- thing else. The events of experience furnish the occasions upon which the notion is developed ; it manifests itself through the sense of duty, and through the praises or censures which we bestow upon our own conduct or upon the actions of others. When reflection analyzes the grounds of these judgments and elicits the principles which, in every instance, determine and regulate them, we then compass the funda- mental principles of morals in the form of abstract proposi- tions. We then have the rules which we can subsequently apply reflectively and by design.

From this analysis it is clear that merit and right are in- separably united — that demerit and wrong

Merit and right, •Till j. l rp,

demerit and wrong, ai'c as ludissohibly connectccl. liie man bound indissoiuMy by ^^j^^ j^gg 'i^^ ^^ j^^ ^^ j^g rewarded, the

a moral tie. o o '

man who does wrong ought to be pun- ished; this is the form in which the radical notion of justice

LecT. XI.] MORAL GOVERNMENT. 255

first expresses itself in the human soul. Its language is, that happiness is due to virtue as a matter of right, and misery is due to sin as a matter of right. This connection by a moral tie defines the notions of reward and punish- _, . , ■ ■ , ment. Now, a government which distrib-

TIus moral principle ' o

constitutes a govern- ^tes plcasurc aud paiii cxclusivcly in the

nient moral. „ i i • i i •

way ol rewards and punishments, and in precise proportion to the good or ill desert of the agents, is a moral government. That was the government under which man from the moment of his creation necessarily came as a moral creature. In the image of God he had the law writ- ten uj^on his heart which constituted the rule and measure of his obedience ; and in the sense of duty he had the supreme authority of that law grounded as a first principle in the very structure of his conscience ; and in the conviction of good and ill desert he had engraved upon his soul that im- perishable notion of justice which, if not sufficient to pro- tect from the foul wrong of apostasy, would for ever justify God to his own conscience for the penal retributions which doomed him to misery and death. God interwove into the very elements of his being the essential articles of the dis- pensation under Avhich he was placed as a creature. He found himself, as soon as he began to be a subject to law, a servant to his master. This relation was stamped upon his conscience.

When we proceed more narrowly to examine the import of the conviction of good and ill desert, hopeTSlV """' ^ve find that it resolves itself into the expec- tation of favour from the Supreme Ruler, or the apprehension of His displeasure. It expresses itself in the language of hope or fear. There is a still more re- markable phenomenon ; the sense of guilt or the sense of demerit is found to obliterate all the claims of past right- eousness. One sin brings the soul into bnt condemns the ^^^^^.j-ncss and tciTor. If mau had obeyed

righteous for one sin. J

for years and then in an evil hour had been tempted into an act of disloyalty, that one act would have

256 MORAL GOVERNMENT. [Lect. XI.

changed his whole relations to the lawgiver and have effaced

the entire merits of his past life. There is no compromise

in merit. Obedience must be complete or

Imperfect obedience >, ^ n'j_ i j^i j_-j.

pyjj it loses all its value; the very moment it

fails all is over. There is no such thing in a strictly moral government as a balancing of the good and bad, as weighing them in scales together, and dealing with the agent according to the preponderance. Obedience is merit, disobedience is demerit, and obedience ceases Avhen- ever disobedience begins. Perfect moral government keeps a creature under probation until it has sinned. Then its relations are changed. It becomes bound to misery by the eternal law of justice, and can never be received into favour until the claims of that law are cancelled. The rea- son is very obvious why a single transgression cancels a whole career of virtue. The law can ex-

The creature's whole , ,■•• i, f i t t i

immortality, one life. ^^t llOtlling DUt pcrtcct ObCcllCnCe, aucl aS

the creature is one, its whole life is one, and a departure in any period of its life mars the perfection of its obedience, and makes it morally null. A line may be straight for a great distance, and yet if it has a single crook in it at any part of its course, it ceases to be a straight line. Perfect obedience is that alone which is obedience at all, and the very moment the perfection is lost everything entitled to reward is lost. All merit vanishes for ever. The reward which moral government postulates is the continuance of the Divine favour through the period of obedience — noth- ing more, nothing less. There must be no unhappiness, there must be no want, no pain while there is no transgres- sion. The very language of the law as written upon the heart is, Do and live, for while you do you shall live. The infliction of pain upon a perfectly holy being seems to con- tradict the deepest instincts of our moral nature, for such a being is necessarily contemplated as the fit subject of re- wards, and as having a claim for exemption from all that is evil. I have no hesitation in saying that it would be unjust that the righteous should die, and equally unjust that the

Lect. XI.] MOEAL GOVEENMENT. 257

wicked should live. It is no more consistent with God's character to exclude the upright from His favour than to receive the wicked into favour. He might just as easily bless the sinner as curse the saint. The law of distributive justice equally forbids both.

There is another feature of pure moral government that

deserves to be particularly noticed, and that is, that it may

deal with men exclusively as individuals,

Kepresentation not , ii • i • -r-< i

a uecessary principle aucl not collectively as a spccics. Jiiach of pure moral govern. ^-^^^^^ may bc rcquircd to stand or fall for

ment. _ •' '■

himself alone. There is no principle of justice which necessitates the complication of others in our guilt or obedience. On the other hand, there is no princi- ple of justice which precludes it. In our social constitution, and the unity of race which includes in one blood all the descendants of Adam, a foundation is laid for these arrange- ments of goodness which shall modify our individual inde- pendence and render possible the participation of others in our own personal merit or demerit. But this is not abso- lutely necessary. The principle of representation might have been ignored, and no one could comjjlain that any in- / justice had been done him. This principle, therefore, can- not be regarded as an essential element of moral government in itself considered. If Adam, in the light merely of a moral subject, had retained his integrity and had begotten children, their perpetuity in holiness might have been wholly independent of his. They would have run their own moral career ; their relations to their father and the rest of the species would only have been the occasions of complicated and interesting duties, in the discharge of which each was to give account solely for himself. Under these circumstances, none would have been benefited but by their own obedience, none injured except by their own transgression ; that is, none would have been directly rewarded or directly punished. Indirect aids in maintaining their uprightness all would have received from the good, and injury in the way of temp- tations to disobedience all would have received from the bad.

Vol. I.— 17

258 MORAL GOVERNMENT. [Lect. XI.

We have now briefly enumerated the essential elements of a proper moral governmeut. It is one

Recapitulation. . i • i i

in which the moral law is the rule of obe- dience, in which distributive justice is the principle of the disj)ensations of rewards and punishments. We have traced this principle to its root in human nature, have found it in the primitive sense of good and ill desert, have seen that it secures favour to the righteous only during the terra of his obedience, and that the very moment he transgresses it binds him over to the penal visitations of guilt; that it pronounces nothing to be obedience which is not perfect, and that as the life of the man is one, it must cover the whole of his im- mortality or fail entirely' and for ever.

Under a purely -^-i- , , ,

moral government the -tieuce hc caii iicvcr Under mcrc moral creature never safe p;overninent bc excmpt from the possi-

from falling. '^^ _ '^ ^

bility of falling. He can never be ren- dered absolutely and immutably safe.

II. Having thus defined the nature of a pure moral gov- ernment, let us next consider a little more distinctly what is involved in the relation of a servant.

It is contrasted in the Scriptures with the relation of a son, and when we have obtained a clear conception of the dis- tinguishing peculiarities of adoption into the fomily of God, we shall perceive in what respects the condition of a ser- „. , ,.„ , vant is huinl)ler and less glorious. Xow,

First difference be- o J

twixt a servant and a [n the CaSC of tllC SOU, the grOUud of llis

expectation from God is not his own merit, but tlie measureless fullness of the Divine benevolence. God deals Avith him not upon the principle of simple justice, but according to the riches of the glory of His grace. The ques- tion is, not what he deserves, but what God's goodness shall prompt Him to communicate.

From this peculiarity arises another : tlie access to God

is less full and free in the case of a serv-

Socond difference. i . i « mi • i

ant than m that of a son. I here is not the same richness of communion. There is not the same near- ness, the same unreserved confidence. How this distance

Lect. XI.] MORAL GOVERNMENT. 259

realized itself in the instance of an obedient subject, how God manifested His favour, and what was the real extent of man's privilege in his primitive condition in relation to his appearance before God — the precise peculiarities of his subjective state — we are unable to represent. But we know that there is this marked difference betwixt a servant and a son. The condition of the saints nnder the Law is com- pared to that of servants, and the reason assigned is that the way of access to God was not so fully and distinctly revealed as under the Gospel.

There is a further difference between the two states in re- lation to the Law. To a servant it addresses

A further tlifference. . , r, -,..■,.-, r,

itself more distnictly m the way of com- mand. Its requisitions are recognized as duties ; to the son it is rather a life than a law, and its injunctions are privileges rather than obligations. AVhatever may have been the spon- taneous pleasure of the first man in obedience to the Law, his exercises were acts of conscious obedience and performed in the spirit of duty. Love gave him alacrity in all his acts ; but it was a love Avhich consecrated duty, and which only sweetened, without absorbing, the authority of law. The same difference, as exhibited between the saints of the old and new dispensations, is characterized respectively as the spirit of bondage and the spirit of adoption. There was, of course, nothing like slavish fear in the bosom of unfallen Adam, and there was no irksome attention to his duties as a grievous and revolting burden, but there was the operation of conscience which adapted him to moral government, and which kept constantly before his mind the ideas of merit and demerit, the eternal rule of justice as the measure of his hopes, and the hypothetical uncertainty which hung upon his destiny. He could not have had that rich and glorious freedom which belongs to the sons of God.

That the account which has been given of the essential

These views of moral priuciplos of moral government and of the

government and the g^cral rclatiou of a scrvaut is not a flmciful

relation ol servant, ~

scriptural. representation, but a just statement of the

260 MORAL GOVERNMENT. [Lect. XI.

attitude in which God and Adam stood to each other at the commencement of man's existence, is easily collected from the whole tenor and from many explicit passages of Scripture. In the teachings of the Old and New Tes- taments in relation to the economy of grace in the different stages of its development, there is a constant allusion to those great facts of moral government which underlie the whole scheme. Whatever is presupposed as essential to Chris- tianity in the relations of man to God under the Law, be- longs to this subject ; and these presuppositions determine the Scripture doctrine of what moral government actually is and must be. Founded in immutable justice, its laws and sanctions can never be set aside. Now, in explaining man's condition as a sinner, and the truths which must be pre- supposed in any scheme of justification, the essential relations of man as a subject of law are clearly brought out. In the Epistle to the Romans, Paul begins by a distinct enunciation of the rule of distributive justice which we have seen is its regulative principle : " Who will render to every man ac- cording to his deeds ; to them who by jjatient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life ; but unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile ; for there is no respect of persons with God." ^ This passage is very conclusive — it endorses almost everything that we have endeavoured to set forth. First, the judgment of God is de- termined by the actual merit or demerit of men. They will be tried by their works. Those who have obeyed the law shall be entitled to the rewards of their virtue, and those who have transgressed must expect to receive the conse- quences of their guilt. In the next place, the judgment is personal and individual — it is to every man. There is a distinction made by grace betwixt the Jew and the Gentile — no such distinction is known to the law. Moral govern-

1 Eom. ii. 6-11.

Lect. XL] MORAL GOVERNMENT. 261

ment knows only the obedient and the disobedient. It is a grave error to imagine that in this passage Paul's design was to set forth the possibility to man, in his present circum- stances, of justification by the Law. He means to imply no such thing. On the contrary, his purpose was to evince, from the principle here laid down, the futility of all such hopes. To do this he signalizes the conditions of a legal justification — perfect obedience, the ground on which the reward is dispensed, and distributive justice; and from these conditions proves the utter hopelessness of standing before God in our own righteousness. It is by means of this prin- ciple that he shuts up all under sin, and leaves no way of escape but in the free mercy of God through Jesus Christ. He points out to them what they must do if they would se- cure favour by their works, and as the requirements are be- yond their strength, it is evidently vain to place any reliance upon the Law.

In EzekieP we have certain abstract propositions laid down, which, whatever may have been their immediate scope and significancy, as abstract propositions sustain all that we have said : " Therefore, thou son of man, say unto the children of thy people. The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression. As for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turneth from his wickedness ; neither shall the righteous be able to live for his righteousness in the day that he sinneth." Here the intrinsic merit of obe- dience and the intrinsic demerit of disobedience are broadly asserted. It is affirmed that the value of righteousness ceases with the first act of sin. In the day that the righteous man sins he forfeits the right to life. But there seems also to be maintained that the demerit of sin can be cancelled by sub- sequent obedience, and that the sinner by penitence may put himself again in the position of a righteous man. If this were the meaning, the second proposition would be contra- dictory to the first. The abstract proposition is, that a man ^ Cli. xxxiii. 12, seq.

262 MORAL GOVERNMENT. [Lect. XL

cau never perish considered as righteous, and that upon the supposition of a sinner becoming really and truly righteous, he would not be a fit subject for punishment. Such a change, however, is impossible except under a system of grace, which expiates guilt and renews and sanctifies the heart, and im- putes to our obedience the merit which purchased the grace wherein we stand. The general notion of the whole passage is, that righteousness — true and real righteousness — is, in itself, acceptable to God ; but that true righteousness is in- consistent with the least sin. The soul that sinneth must surely die. Hence, the prophet is far. from saying that a sinner can repent by virtue of any provisions of the Law. He only says what would be his condition and his j)rospects, provided he could be found again in a state of righteousness ; and the very necessity of repentance is a testimony that God cannot communicate the sense of His love while the love of evil continues to reign in the heart.

Moral government must be carefully distinguished from

Moral government, moral discipline. Thc ouly discipline which

how distinguished ^lic Law rccognizcs is the discij)line of growth.

from moral discipline. , . . - . -,

ihe servant may increase in knowledge and ability, and with every step of his progress the circle of his duties increases. But a process of education, by which habits of holiness are formed and propensities to evil eradicated, belongs to an economy under which sin can be pardoned, and imperfect and sincere eiforts to obey accepted as perfect obedience to the Law. Without provisions for expiation of guilt and the communication of God's grace, a state of moral discipline to a sinner is a palpable absurdity. The Law pun- „, . ,, T , ishes, but never seeks to reform the criminal.

v\ hat the Law knows, '

and what it does not Jt puts him to dcath, but nevcr seeks to

know. 17 • 1

restore him to life. And punishment, apart from grace, has no natural tendency to ameliorate — it only hardens the heart. Conscience makes us desperate, but never penitent. The Law knows nothing, therefore, of re- pentance. Once a sinner, according to it, always and hope- lessly a sinner. The line that has one crook can never be

Lect. XI.] MORAL GOVERNMENT. 263

made straight. The obedience that fails once fails in all. The relation, too, of holiness to the favour of God shows that no provision can be implied in the nature of the Law for restoration to good.

Moral Discipline and Moral Government are distinguished : 1. As to their principle; the principle of discipline is love — that of moral government is justice. 2. As to their end ; the end of moral discipline is the improvement of the sub- ject— the end of moral government is to maintain the authority of law. 3. In their penalties ; sins in moral dis- cipline are faults to be corrected — in moral government they are crimes to be punished. One is the administration of a father over his children — the other a dispensation of the magistrate to subjects. 4. Righteousness in the one is a qualification — in the other a right. The distinctions are so broad and j^alpable that nothing but confusion can result from treating them as essentially the same. Indeed, many of the most ingenious hypotheses .invented to explain the evil of the universe have plunged their authors into irre- Discipiine is of tricvablc perplexities by the capital mistake

grace ; government is Qf confouudiug what SO obvioUsly bclouo; tO of nature. ° ,,..,.

ditierent spheres. Moral discipline per- tains to the kingdom of grace — moral government is the essence of the kingdom of nature.

[In recasting this lecture, attend to the following suggestions :

I. Moral government distinguished — 1. By its rule. 2. By its principle, distributive justice. 3. Perpetual innocence, its requirement. 4. Repent- ance impossible. 5. Individual in its claims.

II. The relation of a servant. Bring out the idea that the law is looked on more as an expression of will — its authority prominent. In the case of a son, the prominent notion is that of imitation — imitators of God as dear children.]

LECTUEE XII.

THE COVENANT OF WORKS.

HAVING considered the essential principles of moral government, and what is involved in the relation of a servant, we are prepared to understand and appreciate the peculiar features of the dispensation under which man was placed immediately after his creation. Though God in jus- tice might have left man to the operation of a pure moral government, conducted by the rule of distributive justice, and might have for ever retained him in the attitude of a ser- vant, yet the Divine goodness seems to have contemplated from the very beginning a nearer and tenderer relationship, and a destiny of inconceivably greater dignity and glory than mere justice would or could have awarded. It was always God's purpose to turn the servant into a son. What sonship implies it is impossible for us adequately to conceive. The Apostle John declares in reference to the sonship of the saints, " It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." The ground of a son's right to the blessings he enjoys is the love of the father, and the principle on which he possesses it is that of inheritance and not of debt. To be a subject in whom God may express the infinite goodness of His own nature, to be an heir of Him who is fullness of joy and at whose right hand there are pleasures for ever- more, is certainly to be exalted to the highest excellence of which a creature can be possessed. Then, a son has un- limited access to his father's presence. His communion

264

The servant to be- come a son.

Lect. xil] the covenant of works. 265

with him is full and rich and free. The conception of such a purpose, so far transcending all the demands of jus- tice, is a conspicuous display of the grace and goodness which have characterized all the dispensations of God in relation to our race. It was a great thing to be a man, endowed with capacities of truth and knowledge and duty ; a great thing to have been made susceptible of all the refined and tender sensibilities which belong to our race — sensibilities which convert the contemplation of the scenes of nature into a feast, which drink beauty and joy and rapture from the grand and sublime spectacles which greet us in the starry canopy above us, the swelling mountains around us or the majestic sea before us — sensibilities which convert the ties of domestic life into charms, and make society in all its com- plicated relations the minister of good ; it was a great thing to have been created in the image of God, with a heart to love and adore His great name and exemplify the holiness of His character, to have been made immortal and capable of an everlasting sense of the Divine favour — to have been thus made a man, a holy man, an immortal man, with the prospect of endless good, surely this w^as grace ; it was grace upon grace ! Plato said that there were three things for which he blessed God: 1. That he had been made a man, and not a beast ; 2, that he had been born a Greek, and not a barbarian ; and 3, that he had been permitted to live in the age of Socrates. With how much more fervour should the first man have celebrated the Divine goodness as he walked forth upon the new creation in all its loveliness and beauty, and was regaled on every hand with the tokens of the Divine regard ! How must his heart have overflowed as he sounded the mysterious depths of his own being, and felt the grand and glorious capacities with which he was en- dowed ! His first utterance must have been praise, his first impulse to throw himself upon the ground and bless that God who made him what he was. It was amazing good- ness to have furnished him with all the blessings that crowned his lot, considered merely as a servant. But what

266 THE COVENANT OF WORKS, [Lect. XII.

shall we say of the goodness that could not stop here — that as it recognized in man the capacity of closer ties Avith itself, yearned to take him to its bosom and pour upon him a richer tide of glory and of joy than the cold relations of law and justice could demand? Surely, our God is love; creation shows it as well as the cross !

Grace in tUo first c< i /^ i • xi £ j_

covenant. ourcly, our (jrod IS gracc ; the nrst cove-

nant proves it as truly as the second ! In order that the change from the condition of a servant to that of a son might take place, it was necessary that the man should prove himself faithful in the first relation. Adoption was to be a rcAvard of grace, but

Adoption of grace, .-n-i ,i tTj^ x

and yet a reward. s^ill it was to bc a rcward. It was not a

favour to be conferred in defiance of the relations that naturally subsisted betwixt God and His creature. Man was not to be arbitrarily promoted. His dignity was to come as the fruit of his obedience. It was much more than he deserved, much more than he could de- serve. But in the plenitude of His own bounty, God pro- posed to add this boon of adoption over and above all that man was entitled to receive for his service if he should prove faithful to his trust. The purpose, therefore, to adopt the servant into the family and make him an heir, introduces an imiiortant modification of tlie oeneral prin-

Probation limited as ■'^ ox

to time, and thus jus- ciplcs of uioral government in the limita-

tification introduced. . />,i -ip ^ j • 1j1'

tion 01 the period ot probation, and tins limitation introduces a new feature in the Divine economy, even that of justification. Under the original relations of man to God, his probation was coextensive with his immor- tality, and perpetual innocence was his only righteousness, and was only a security of perpetual favour. No jxist obe- dience could exempt from the jiossibility of a future fall. Man's condition was necessarily precarious. To limit pro- bation is to make a temporary obedience cover the whole compass of immortality, to make it equivalent to what per- petual innocence would have been, and thus, from the nature of the case, render apostasy after the limitation had ex^^ired

Lect. XII.] THE COVENANT OF WORKS. 267

impossible. The veiy essence of justification is to produce as its eifect indefectibility of holiness. If God chooses to gather our whole being into a short probation, and to make the obedience of that period equivalent to an immortality spent as faithful servants, the supposition that after the period was passed we could sin involves the monstrous idea that there can be a perpetual right to God's favour on the part of those who are destitute of His love — that men can be at one and the same time the objects of the Divine com- placency and disgust. The essential notion of justification is, that obedience for a limited time shall place the subject beyond the possibility of guilt. If he is faithful during the stipulated period, he is safe for ever, he is confirmed immu- tably in life. That this must be the case results from another consideration. If God treats limited as perpetual obedience, he must make limited secure perpetual obedience. Other- wise His judgment will not be according to truth. Adop- tion is grounded in justification. The state of a son in which man is placed in such relations to God as to secure him from the possibility of defection is founded upon that limitation of obedience which gathers up the whole immor- tality in its probationary character into a brief compass, and then makes its real complexion depend upon the fidelity or infidelity displayed in the trial. Adoption, in other words, depends upon justification, and justification is unintelligible without the contraction of the period of trial. The very moment trial ceases the attitude of a servant ceases, a new relation must necessarily supervene ; and God has consti- tuted that new relation according to the riches of His grace. These modifications of moral government are the offspring of the Divine will. They do not flow from any necessary principles of His nature or His government. They are the Free acts of Gods ^cc acts of His bouuty. Heucc, the dis- bounty, and matters pcnsatiou of rcligiou wliich thcy superin-

of pui-e revelation. . - „ .

duce must be a matter of pure revelation. Adam could not have dreamed of it without special com- munication with God. He never was, unless for a very

268 THE COVENANT OF WORKS. [Lect. XII.

short time, under a mere system of natural religion. He M'as placed at the beginning of his career under an economy whicli looked far beyond the provisions of mere nature, and at the very outset of his career was made the subject of special Divine revelations.

This is a very important and a very striking thought.

Man's religion must ^au's rcligiou has always been conditioned

always be a revealed \,y revclatiou. That is uot a peculiarity

of the Christian system. It marks all God's dealings with the race. The reason is obvious : His goodness has always been greater than our deserts. Our moral nature is adjusted to a scheme of pure justice, and wdienever God's love prompts Him to outrun its demands, our expectations must be determined by special revelation of His purposes and plans. His free acts cannot be antici- pated by any measure of reason or conscience. If known at all, they have to be made known by Himself. To deny, therefore, that our religion must be revealed, is to say that God can never do more than our merits can exact ; it is to limit and contract His goodness. Let His love be infinite, and it is morally certain that He will entertain purposes which we could not conjecture, and which He must impart to us. The same love that transcends justice in the purj^ose will transcend nature in the knowledge. What prompts Him to do more than nature calls for, will prompt Him to teach more than nature can discover. Hence, the religion of Adam was really a revealed religion ; it was conditioned by a dispensation introducing important modifications into the general principles of moral government, the nature of which, as purposes of the Divine mind, could not be ascer- tained apart from His making of them known.

This dispensation is known as the Covenant of Works.

This covenant is a scheme for the justifica-

The Covenant of,. llj.' r l • ill

Works definid. ^^^^^ ^^^^'^ acloptiou ot uiau, aucl IS callccl a

coi'cnuni because tlie promise was suspended

upon a condition with which man was freely to comply. It

was not a covenant in the sense that man was at liberty to

Lect. XII.] THE COVENANT OF WORKS. ^ 2G9

decline its terms. He was under obligation to accept as a servant whatever God might choose to propose. He had no stipulations to make ; he was simply to receive what God enjoined. It is also implied in the use of the word covenant that the faith of God was pledged in case the condition were fulfilled. Nothing sets in a stronger light the kindness and condescension which have signalized all the dealings of the Most High with our race than that the very first dispensa- tion of religion under which man, still a servant, was placed — than that the very words by which it is described should seem to savour of a treaty u\ which parties met and stipulated. And some have pushed the words so far as really to repre- sent man as treating upon something of a footing of equality with God. All such inferences should be carefully avoided. The covenant was essentially a conditioned

The two essential • l • l • xl • /■ i •

tjjjy promise, winch man, ni the exercise oi his

own free-will, might secure or forfeit. The

essential things, therefore, in it are the condition and the

promise.

Before proceeding, however, to consider these, it is well to notice another modification of moral govern-

Limitationof prolia- ,i • -i .i i. •,,• />,i • -i n

tiou as to the persons, ^cut bcsidcs thc limitation of the period of probation introduced into this economy ; and that is, the limitation as to the persons put on trial. We have seen that simple justice deals with men as individ- uals. Each man stands or falls accordinp- to his own inteo--

o o

rity. But in the covenant of works one stood for all. Adam represented all that were to be descended from him by ordinary generation. They were tried in him. Had he stood, they would have been justified through his righteous- ness, and adopted into God's family as sons. As he sinned, they sinned in him and fell with him in his first transgression, and thus became outcasts and aliens. The provision by which Adam was made a public person, and

A provision of pure .. , -i •j.-T'Ii-

goodness. ^^^t treated as a private individual, is as

much a provision of pure goodness as any

other provision of the whole scheme. If he had maintained

270 THE COVENANT OF WORKS. [Lect. XII.

his integrity, and avc had inherited life and glory through his obedienee, none would ever have dreamed that there was aught of hardship or cruelty in the scheme by which our happiness had been to us so cheaply secured. The difference of result makes no difference in the nature of the principle. But those who object do not bear in mind that the hnv which made Adam our head and representative is the law by virtue of which alone, so far as we know, the happiness of any man can be secured. Without the principle of representation it is possible that the whole race might have perished and perished for ever. Each man, as the species successively came into existence, would have been placed under the law of distributive justice. His safety, therefore, would have been for ever contingent. It is possible that if the first man, with all his advantages, abused his liberty and fell, each of his descendants might imitate his example and fall also. It is possible, therefore, that the whole race might have been involved in guilt and ruin. Some might have stood longer than others, but what is any measure of time to immortality? Who shall say that, in the boundless progress of their immortal being, one by one, all may not have sinned ? It is certainly possible and probable that this would have been the ease. It is certain that nniltitudes would have abused their freedom and perished. But to sin under such circum- stances is to sin hopelessly. There can be no redeemer if each man is to be treated exclusively as an individual. If

we cannot sin in another, we cannot be re- No salvation witli- i i i .i ^r- .1 • • i /•

out representation. dccmcd by auothcr. U tlic principle of representation is to be excluded from God's government, salvation to the guilty must also be excluded. Under this princi])le multitudes are in fact saved, when with- out it all might have been lost. Hence, it is clearly a pro- vision of grace — it was introduced for our good ; for our safety, our happiness, and not as a snare or a eui'se. God seems to have had an eye to it when He constituted our species a race connected by unity of blood, and not a collec- tion of individuals belonging to the same class, simply be-

Lect. xii.] the covenant of works. 271

cause they possess the same logical properties. He made Adam the root, because He designed to make s^Zt:tT- hnn the head; the father, because He de- signed to make him the representative of all mankind. The generic constitution evidently looks to the federal relation. We are one by birth, because we were des- tined to be one by covenant. In all the instances in which God has appointed that one should federally represent others, there has been some natural tie — especially the tie of blood — between the head and the members. There is no case in which the appointment has been arbitrary. It is always the parent who stands for his children ; the king who stands for his subjects. There is, therefore, a significancy in this pecu- liarity of our species. The angels have no blood connection, and, so far as we know, the principle of representation has no place in the Divine economy with reference to them. We are not competent to say that a logical unity of species, even where there is no tie of race, may not be an adequate foun- dation for federal headship ; we cannot say that the govern- ment of God over angels must necessarily have contemplated them exclusively as individuals, because they are not de- scended one from another, and have not the unity of a com- mon stock. We do not know sufficiently the essential grounds and conditions of the representative relation to pro- nounce dogmatically that it can never be instituted, where the same circumstances do not obtain whicli are found in the case of man. It may be that a common blood is indis- pensable— that there is something in this natural unity which so identifies the moral interests of the race as to render it extremely proper that the branches should be determined by the root, the destiny of the children by the fortunes of the father. This may be so, but we have no positive data for saying that it must be so. All we know is, that natural de- scent determines representation in reference to man — that our being one blood is the ground of our being treated as one man, in the person of our first father. He represented all who descend from him by the ordinary law of the propa-

272 THE COVENANT OF WORKS. [Lect. XII.

gation of the species. He was the whole of his posterity inchulcd in his loins, who would have been introduced into the world in the ordinary way had not sin entered. An extraordinary descendant, introduced into the world apart from that law, and forming no part of the race according to its original destination, would not be represented. He was not in the root ; he was not i)roperly in the loins of Adam ; he was not one who would have been born if the species had followed its normal development. Hence, representation is confined to the descendants who spring from Adam according to the established law of propagation ; and these sustain to him the double relation of children to a parent, and of mem- bers to a covenant head. He stood for them in the first dis- pensation of religion. They were tried in his person. The whole species was considered as contained in him. He was not only a man, but Man, and the state in which they find themselves must be traced directly to his disastrous agency. The natural tie is the ground of the federal tie ; we were represented by our father because we were really and truly in the loins of our father. This modification of the principles of moral government, by which all were included in one and probation limited to a single individual, is no less remark- able than that which concentres an immortality of trial Into the space of a brief period. The ruling

Representation of j j^-^j^ induCcd thc modification WaS

grace.

grace ; and however the principle has been perverted by man, and made the instrument of Involving the race In ruin, it has been revealed in Its real significancy by God, who has made it the Instrument of peopling heaven with innumerable myriads of souls who might have been hopelessly lost had not His government over us admitted the possibility of laying help upon One who was mighty and able to save. In redemption, God illustrated It according to its true scope and in its genuine spirit. It was engrafted upon the economy of man's religion, that men might speedily achieve a destiny of incalculable glory, or, failing in the trial, might yet be rescued from complete and universal perdition.

Lect. xil] the covenant of works. 273

It must not be forgotten that although blood, or anity of race, is the ground of federal representation, yet federal rep- resentation is the ground of either benefit or injury from the success or failure of our head. Had Adam stood, we should all have been justified and confirmed in glory by the impu- tation of his obedience; that imputation

Imputation proceeds ill 11* Tj_i

from the federal tie, ^ould havc procccdcd immediately upon the federal and not upon the natural unity. Had not Adam been appointed to represent us, the mere cir- cumstance that he was our first parent would not have in- volved us in the legal consequences of his sin, nor would it have entitled us to the legal rewards of his righteousness. His fall is ours, because in the covenant we were included in him. Without this federal relation we should have been born in the same relations to God in which he was created. His character would have affected us only in the way of ex- ample, education and influence ; but not in the way of im- putation. It is not by the law of propagation, or the prin- ciple that like begets like, that we are born sinners. Sin does not belong to the essence of man — it is a separable acci- dent ; and as propagation determines the species and not its accidents, it could never shape our character. Our blood relation to Adam would only settle the fact that we must be men, and not beasts or plants ; it would not determine whether we should be holy or sinful men. That would de- pend upon the state in which it was fit that God should in- troduce us into a state of personal probation. That would be determined by the same law which determined the cha- racter of Adam when he came from the hands of his Maker — a law which renders it absolutely necessary that we should be endowed with all the habits and dispositions that qualify us for the destiny we are appointed to work out. The natural tie determines only who are represented ; the federal tie actually causes them to be represented. We sinned in Adam, and fell with him in his first transgression, because the covenant was made with him for us, and not because we have sprung from his loins. Still, our being sprung Vol. I.— 18

274 THE COVENANT OF WORKS. [Lkct. XII,

from his loins is the ground of our being represented by him.

If natural descent regulated the transmission of character, then no reason can be given why the chil-

and not from the nat- ^ i?'a.lll j.!,!^ ii

^j.^1 dren oi samts should not be born holy.

They are themselves new creatures, and why are not their descendants born after this type? To say that they generate as men, and not as saints, is to give up the question, for to generate simply as man is to generate with- out character. To say that they must generate according to their first type as sinners is to give up the question in an- other form, for the first type of Adam was holiness. Sin was a superinduced state, and if he had to generate accord- ing to his first type, all would have been born holy.

These two modifications of moral government — the limit- ation of probation as to time, and the limitation of proba- tion as to jjersons, have introduced two

Two all-pervading • • i i • i i t

principles. pmiciples wliich pcrvadc every dispensa-

tion of religion to our race — the princijile of justification and the principle of imputation. They are the very key-notes both of the legal and evangelical cove- nants. Strike them away from the economy of God toward man, and the whole Bible would be stripped of all its signi- ficancy. They are principles grounded in grace, sjiringing from the free and spontaneous goodness of God — purposes of kindness of which nature and reason gave no prophecy nor hint, and therefore necessitating that the religion pervaded and conditioned by them must be supernaturally revealed. They imply a covenant, and in the very natui*e of the case a covenant is not an inference of reason.

I. We have already seen that the dispensation of religion,

commonly called the Covenant of Works, as founded in a

goodness and contemplating a reward which nature could

not have anticipated, necessarily implies the

The condition of the • , ,• n -i ,• rn^ !•,•

covenaut positive. intervention of revelation. The condition

of the covenant brings out another pecu- liarity which is incidental to a revealed system, and which

Lect. XII.] THE COVENANT OP WORKS. 275

is equally removed from the suggestions of human reason. I allude to the distinction betwixt moral and positive duties. The prohibition which God gave to the first pair in the gar- den of Eden was not grounded in essential rectitude, but in sovereign command. In itself considered, the fruit of the forbidden tree was no more inconsistent with the image of God in man than the fruit of any other tree in the garden. It was a sin to eat of it, not because the thing was inhe- rently wrong, but because it was expressly forbidden.

The distinction betwixt the two classes of duties has

Butler on the differ- hardly becu rcsolvcd by Bishop Butler

ence betwixt moral -^vith liis usual prccisiou. Hc malvos the

aud i)ositive duties. -\'/>o t • i •

diiierence to Jie in the cn-cumstance that in the one case we see, and in the other we do not see, the reason of the command. " Moral precepts," he remarks, " are precepts the reason of which we see ; positive pre- cepts are precepts the reasons of which we do not see. Moral duties arise out of the nature of the case itself prior to external command. Positive duties do not arise out of the nature of the case, but from external . command, nor would they be duties at all were it not for such command received from Him whose creatures and subjects we are." And yet Bishop Butler admits that the positive duty, in so far as it is imposed by an authority which we are morally bound to obey, is in that respect to be considered as moral. But that is simply saying that considered as a duty at all it is moral. We see the only reason which makes it obligatory upon us, and consequently, according to the distinction in question, it takes its place among the moral and not among the positive j)recepts — that is, the distinction annihilates itself. It admits in one breath that there are duties which as duties may be regarded as positive, and in the very next affirms that as duties they are not positive.

The real difference is grounded in the relation of the thing commanded to the Divine nature.

The real difference. i i •

When the thing commanded springs from the holiness of God, or the essential rectitude of the Divine

276 THE COVENAXT OF WORKS. [Lect. XII.

Being, the precept is moral ; when the tiling commanded springs from the free decisions of the Divine will, or the free determinations of Divine wisdom, the precept is posi- tive. The moral could not have been otherwise than com- manded; the positive might not have been commanded. The moral is eternal and necessary right ; the positive in- stituted and mutable law. The moral is written upon the conscience of every responsible being ; the positive is made known by express revelation. The moral is the image of God's holiness ; the positive is the offspring of the Divine will. One is essential ; the other made right. The imme- diate ground of obligation in respect to both is the same — the supreme authority of God. The positive, in so far as the form of duty is concerned, is moral ; in so far as the matter is concerned it is arbitrary. The moral obligation in respect to one is as perfect and complete as in respect to the other. We are as much bound to obey God enjoining the indifferent, and thus making it cease to be indifferent, as when He enjoins the eternal rules of rectitude.

In case of a collision between the moral and positive. Bishop Butler gives the preference to the

Butler on the prefer- i ii-i itijI

ence of the moral. moral, ou a grouud wliich cau hardly stand examination, to wit : that we can perceive a "reason for the preference and none against it" — that is, because in the one case we see the reason of the command, and in the other we do not. But although we do not see the reason why the thing is commanded, we do see the rea- son why it is obligatory. We do not see why God has selected this rather than any other positive institution, but, being selected, we do see the reason why Ave are bound to respect it. The will of God is the highest formal ground of obligation, and when that will is known to us, nothing can be added to make the duty more perfect. The posi- tive, therefore, is as completely binding, creates as com- plete a moral obligation, as the moral, and hence no reason for preference can be found in the formal autliority of the precepts. The true reason is unquestionably the one which

Lect. xil] the covenant of works. 277

he next assigns, " that positive institutions are means to a moral end, and the end must be acknowledged more excel- lent than the means." This relation proceeds from the very nature of the case — the positive, as decrees of wisdom are subsidiary to the ends of holiness. They are the crea- tures of a will regulated necessarily by right, and subordi- nating every contingent determination to essential and eter- nal good. God's nature determines His will. What, there- fore, contradicts essential rectitude ceases to be the will of God. The command foils Avhenever the contradiction emerges. There is consequently no conflict of duties — the positive is ipso facto repealed. To assert otherwise is to assert that God can annihilate the moral; that He can make virtue to be vice and vice to be virtue, truth to be a crime and a lie to be duty ; that He can deny Himself. Under a dispensation which was to try the fidelity of man Peculiar fitness of ^f ^ scrvaut preparatory to his introduc- the positive as the tiou iuto a higher statc, there was a pecu- liar fitness in making the matter of the trial turn upon positive observances. This species of pre- cept brings the will of the master to bear distinctly, in its naked character as will, upon the will of the subject. The whole issue resolves itself into a question of authority. The case is simply. Which shall be the supreme, the will of man or the will of God ? The whole doctrine of sin and holi- ness in their last determinations is found precisely here. Sin is essentially selfishness, as we shall see hereafter ; holi- ness in a creature is the complete submergence of his will in the will of his Maker. " I have a right to be and do as I please," is the language of sin. " The will of God should alone be done," is the language of obedience. The very core of moral distinctions, the central principle upon which men are determined to be either sinful or holy, is brought out into trial under circumstances which make it certain that it shall be a trial purely without foreign and extra- neous influences, an unmixed trial of its supremacy in man, by making the question of his destiny turn immediately upon

278 THE COVENANT OF WORKS. [Lect. XII.

a positive command. The very depths of his moral nature were sounded and explored in that command. We can con- ceive of no mode of probation better suited to the end in view. We have seen already the relation in which the will must stand to our moral dispositions and habits in order to make them personal and reflective principles ; to translate the^n from the sphere of tendencies and instincts into that of intelligent, conscious, voluntary activity. The end to be at- tained is that the finite creature shall make God its supreme end ; the will of God its supreme law ; the glory of God its highest good. To attain this end the creature must renounce its own self as a law, and determine its will only by the will of God. The degree to which it renounces self-will and em- braces the Divine will determines the degree in which it is conformed, consciously and reflectively, to the moral law. If, therefore, the main question is that of the relation of the finite to the infinite will, it ought to be so stated as to rule out all secondary and collateral issues. God's will must come into contact with man's, nakedly and exclusively, as will. The command must seem to be arbitrary — no reason in the nature of the thing presented. The case will then test man's faith in God, and his readiness to follow Him with implicit confidence, simply and exclusively because He is God. There is, consequently, the profoundest wisdom in the Divine dispensation which made the trial of the first pair turn upon a positive command. It brought their wills face to face with the will of God ; it asked the question. Who should reign ? It made no side issues ; it put at once upon test the fundamental principle upon which alone their native purity could be made the ingredients — the fixed contents of their will.

Hence, the tree in relation to which the prohibition was

Why the tree of the givcu, aud which constitutes the expressed

knowledge of good and couditiou of thc covcuaut, is Called The

evil, so called. i' i i 77 r 7 t -i -xt i

tree of the knowledge oj good and evil. JNlan s conduct in regard to that tree was to determine whether he should choose the good or the evil ; whether the type of cha-

Lect. XII.] THE COVENANT OF WORKS. 279

racter which he should permanently acquire through the exercise of his will should be holy or sinful. The know- ledge spoken of is that practical knowledge which consists in determinations of the will, and not the speculative appre- hension or intelligent discernment of moral distinctions. Man already knew the right and the wrong ; the law of God was written upon his heart, and the whole constitution of his nature was in unison with the essential and immutable dis- tinctions of the true and the good. But as he was mutable, as that mutability lay in his will, and as his will had to decide whether he should preserve or lose the image of God in which he was created, that which was to determine what his choice should be might well be called his means of knowing, in the sense of cleaving to or einbracing, good or evil. The tree was simj)ly the instrument of trying the hu- man will ; and if, instead of the knowledge of good and evil, you call it the tree of the choice of good and evil, you will have what I take to be the precise import of the in- spired appellation. Knowledge is often put for the practical determinations of the Avill. Our moral nature is called a practical understanding, and its decisions may therefore be properly represented in terms of knowledge.

This explanation is so natural, so obviously in harmony with the whole design of the prohibition,

This view overturns t i i i i , • , i . i

sundry iiypotheses. ^ud SO Completely accordaut with the usus loquendi of the Sacred Scriptures, that one is at a loss to conjecture how commentators could have per- plexed themselves so grievously as some have done in rela- tion to tlie nature and functions of the tree. The difficulty has arisen, in most cases, from not perceiving the fitness of a positive precept as the immediate matter of man's trial. Hence, the Mosaic account has appeared unreasonable and absurd, and various hypotheses have been invented to bring it within the sphere of our notions of propriety. One finds in the whole description of the paradisaical state a figure to illustrate the operations of sense and reason. Another finds in the nature of the two prominent trees of the garden, and

280 THE COVENANT OF WORKS. [Lect. XII.

the effects of their fruit upon man's physical constitution, the ground of the prohibition in the one case

The effects of the 1j1 •• -ji ji TjI

fruit not physical. ^ncl the pcrmissiou in the other, and the origin of their peculiar names. We are gravely told that the tree of life bore healthful and nutritious fruit, and Avas specially calculated to immortalize the frame ; it was a tree of life, because it secured and perpetuated life. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, on the other hand, was " a hurtful, poisonous tree ;" ^ and the prohibition in regard to it was only a salutary premonition of danger proceeding from the apprehension of God that Adam, if left to himself, might poison his system. The import of the command was simply. Do not poison thyself. It was called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because it Avas a means of teaching man prudence : " If he ate of the fruit of the tree, it would be to his hurt ; and by the evil he would suffer, he would become wise and learn in future to be more circumspect." Others, again — and in this opinion the Dutch divines of the Federalist school generally

This tree uot a sa- i j_i • ^ j_ i

crament. concur — regard this tree as a sacramental

symbol. The notion which they mean to convey may be right enough, but the language is altogether inappropriate. A sacramental symbol is at once a sign and a seal. Of what was this tree a sign ? Not of the prohibi- tion. It was the very matter of the prohibition — the thing itself, and not a representative. Not of the moral law or the principle of universal obedience. That whole principle was involved in the issue of man's conduct in relation to the tree. It was not a putative, but a real guilt ; not a symbol- ical, but a real sin that he would commit in eating of the forbidden fruit. The entire law, in that which determines its formal character as law or an expression of the Divine will, was itself broken in the contempt of the Divine autho- rity, which the eating of the fruit involved. Hence, we can- not, without a violent catachresis, make that sacramental and symbolical which signified and scaled nothing but itself. ^ Knapp, i., p. 385.

Lect. XII.] THE COVENANT OF WORKS. 281

The prohibition did not represent, but was itself, the condi- tion of the first dispensation of religion. What those who adopt this view mean to condemn by making the tree sym- bolical is the preposterous notion, fit only for Socinians and Rationalists, that this tree was the sole condition of the cove- nant ; so that man might have violated the moral law, and yet if he abstained from this fruit he could not have been subject to death : death was an evil specifically annexed to this prohibition and to nothing else.

It is obvious, however, from what has already been said, that the positive can neither supersede nor

The positive, how- , , , , _,, ,

ever, cannot supersede repeal tlic moral law. lliat law was writ-

the moral, written up- ^^j-^ ™qj^ ^]-^g }^gj^^,f ^^-^^ Jj.g obligation COuld

on the heart. j- ^ o

no more be revoked than the nature of man destroyed or the holiness of God expunged. That law, in the conviction of good and ill desert with which it was attended in the conscience, contained moreover an ex- plicit promise to obedience and an explicit threat to disobe- dience. Hence, there needed no revelation to communicate in relation to it what man knew already, and knew from the constitution of his own mind. The only thing in regard to which supernatural teaching was required was the positive precept and the penalty under which it was enforced. That It was added to the ^as placed ou the same footing of author- morai,aiKi man placed jty with tlic moral law by thc express will

under a twofold law. n r^ -i mi «> r> i •

ot (jrod. ihe eiiect of this revelation was to make the ^vhole law under which man was placed two- fold, and to render it necessary that he should obey both in order that his obedience might be perfect. The positive was added to the moral, not substituted in the place of it, and enforced under the same sanction ; and to fail in either was to fail in both. The import of the positive command is, that over and above those eternal rules of right which spring from the necessary relations betwixt God and the creature, and which were already fully revealed in the very structure of the moral understanding, there was now im- posed upon man by external revelation a jjositive prccejit to

282 THE COVENANT OF WORKS. [Lect. XII.

which the same penalty was attached which conscience con- nected with the moral law. His obligations were enlarged, and not contracted. This resnlts from the very nature of the case. Had man sinned by falsehood, malice, cruelty, or any other breach of the law written upon his heart, the The question of couscquences would have been the same as

man's allegiance more ^\^qqq ^yhich followed thc Catlug of the for- speedily and fully de- _ _ . i • n

termiiied through the bidden fruit. But tlic qucstiou of his alle- ^°^'*'^®' giance to God could evidently be brought

more speedily to a crisis by the intervention of a positive command. The issue would be brought on by the natural apj)etite and desires of the flesh, and will be arrayed face to face with will by the collision which harmless lust superin- duced with command. In this way the question could be raised in the human soul whether the formal principle of obligation to the whole moral law should be supremely re- spected or not. Hence, the positive is all that appears in the narrative, not because it was all that was real in the covenant, but because it was all that needed revelation to teach it, and because it was the only point in relation to which the question of obedience was likely to come to an issue ; it was the only point in which a real trial of man's fidelity was likely to be made. Hence, the condition of the covenant must not be restricted to the positive command.

It was the whole law under which man undeTtheTwIoi^'itw.'' was placcd, uioral and positive— the whole

rule of duty, whether internally or exter- nally made known.

That the moral law was enjoined upon him under the same sanction as the positive precept we know, not only from the testimony of conscience, but from the express

teachings of Scripture in other parts of the t£Zr """""' sacred volume. Paul, in the Epistle to

the Romans, makes the merit of righteous- ness and the demerit of sin the fundamental doctrine of moral government. What those gain who perfectly obey is life ; what those incur Avho disobey is death ; and, what is

Lect. Xir.] THE COVENANT OF WORKS. 283

remarkable, he represents the heathen as knowing that those who flagrantly transgress the moral law are worthy of death. The wages of sin, he assures us — and sin is the transgression of any law of God — the wages of sin is death. The whole scheme of redemption proceeds upon this postulate. The law as law, and without reference to the distinction of posi- tive and moral, is and must be enforced by a penal sanction, or it degenerates into mere advice. There is another con- sideration which is decisive, and which I do not remember ever to have seen presented, and that is

the moral law tho that UulcSS the moral law, through the con- positive precept couW viction of good and ill desert, had con-

have had no forco. " _ ■'

nected favour with obedience, and death with disobedience, the sanction of the positive precept must have been wholly unintelligible. It could not have been a moral motive. It could only have addressed itself to our hopes and fears, and operated upon us as caresses and kicks operate uj)on a brute. But the feeling that he who dis- obeyed ought to die, that there was a ground in justice and in right for his being accursed, could not have arisen un- less there were previously in the soul the formal notion of justice. Moral obligation, as contradistinguished from mere inducement, could not have been conceived. But given the primitive cognition of justice, and of moral obligation as involving the notion of merit and demerit, and then the case is plain. The will of God creates the j^ositive duty ; that will lays a moral ground for obedience ; transgression, therefore, becomes morally a crime, and the conscience nat- urally connects it with death as its just and righteous retri- bution. Hence, the obligation and authority of the moral law are presupposed in order that the obligation and author- ity of the positive might be understood. Man cannot be dealt with as a moral being by positive precepts without taking for granted the presence and power of these primi- tive cognitions, upon which the very essence of the moral depends.

The importance of accurate notions in relation to what

284 THE COVENANT OF WORKS. [Lect. XII.

was the condition of the Covenant of Works depends upon this, that our opinions on this point materially

Importance of this t/i .• • ji • •

discussiuu. moclity our notions concerning tlie primi-

tive condition of man. If the positive pre- cept were the sole condition of the threatening, then either — (1) we must suppose that man was in a state of comparative infancy, and that God was leading him by a process of sen- sible discipline to the expansion and growth of his moral and intellectual nature — was training him, as a father trains a child, to just notions of truth and virtue, and with conde- scending kindness accommodated his instructions, in the selection of striking analogies from the sphere of sense, to his tender capacities ; which is to deny that man was under a moral government in its Srtrict and proper acceptation, because that supposes that he is fully competent to obey, that he has all the necessary furniture of knowledge, habits and strength which the law presupposes, and that he appre- hends thoroughly his true posture and relations — or, (2) we must assume with Warburton that death was not so much a penalty as a failure to attain a supernatural good, and that the only effect of disobedience was to remand him to his original condition. All such incongruities are completely obviated by the explanation which has been given. The tree was a test of man's obedience ; it concentrated his pro- bation upon a single point, and implicitly contained the whole moral law.

II. The next and most important point is the promise which was to crown the successful trial of covetr"'"°'"" the pair. Everything depends upon the nature of that promise. If it Avere nothing more, as some have maintained from the silence of the his- torian, than the general expectation of impunity, and of the continuance of his present state of favour during the period of his innocence, man certainly gained nothing by his transfer to the garden of Eden but the enlargement of his duties by the addition of a positive command. The dispensation was one of restraint rather than of liberty ; an abridgment of his

Lect. XII.] THE COVENANT OF WORKS. 285

privileges rather than the concession of new advantages. It is true that Moses says nothing directly of direcuyr^-cungif » promisc ; he givcs no intimation of the nature of the reward which was proposed to fidelity, nor does he even affirm that one was proposed ; but the whole tenor of the narrative bears upon its face that God was meditating the good of his creature; and that the restrictions which he imposed looked to blessings of which these restrictions were a very cheap condition. There was not only, in no proper sense, a covenant, but there was no modification of the period of trial involved in the notion of moral government — there was no limitation to the extent of man's probation — unless there was some special promise annexed to the peculiarities of his present circumstances. It does not follow, moreover, that because the promise is not recorded in the brief history of the transaction, therefore the promise did not exist. It may be implied from the nature of the case, or it may be articulately stated in other portions of the sacred volume. The omission here may be supplied by other texts, and by what we are taught concerning the import of the Divine dispensations toward man. Unless The scripturea must ^^^ Scripturcs directly or indirectly autlien- arbitiate, and they do ticatc a promisc, wc are not to presume

teach us ou this sub- ject, both iiKiirectiy that a promisc was made. What is not and positively. Contained in positive declarations, or de-

duced by necessary inference, we are not to receive as the word of God. Now I maintain that the Scriptures, indi- rectly, teach us that there must have been a promise, and positively declare what the promise was. I am willing to admit that nothing can be inferred from the threatening. We cannot deduce one contrary from another. The sole promise involved in a threat is impunity as long as the threatening is respected.

1. But it is morally certain that a peculiar promise of some sort must have been given, dependent upon a limited obedience, from the circumstance that Adam was made the representative of the race. He could not have been treated

286 THE COVENANT OF WORKS. [Lect. XII.

as a public person and yet placed under the law of perpetual , innocence. To supi)Ose this were to sup-

The promise argued i i i

from Adam's headship, posc the moustrous auomaly that his descendants might have successively come into being, and yet without being justified have been exempt from the possibility of sin, or in case of sin have been ex- empt from the penalty of transgression. If there were no limit to his probation, he could never be justified ; they, therefore, could never be justified through him. The moral condition of both would be contingent and precarious. But as they were on trial only in him, they must be either pre- served from sin by special grace, or in case of sin be pre- served from the imputation of guilt. That moral agents should exist in circumstances of this sort is utterly prepos- terous.^ Hence, the constitution which made Adam a rep- resentative, and which put the race on trial in him, contains on the face of it a limitation of probation. There was a period when the scene should be closed, and when his des- tiny and that of his descendants should be determined either for sin or holiness. Before they were born it was to be set- tled, and settled by him, under what law they should be born, whether that of righteousness or death. Every passage of Scripture which teaches that Adam was a fureT"* " "'' ''"'" P^^blic person, and that his posterity sinned in him and fell with him in his first trans- gression, teaches by necessary implication that the probation was designed to be definite, and that there was the same op- portunity of securing justification as of incurring condemna- tion. There is a beautiful harmony in the whole scheme of God, and, whether in nature or in grace, you cannot strike out a part without destroying the symmetry of the whole. I cannot forbear to notice, too, that those who account for the propagation of sin ui)on the law of generation alone cannot upon their theory infer any provision for justifica- tion in the Adamic economy from the universal prevalence of sin and death. If men are not condemned in Adam, 1 See Eldgely, vol. i., p. 317.

Lect. XII.] THE COVENANT OF WORKS. 287

but only inlierit liis nature by the law of descent, tliere is no reason to postulate a constitution in which they might have been justified through him, and there is no reason to infer that he or any of his race had in his state of innocence the prospect of ever being confirmed in holiness. But upon the hypothesis of representation the possibility of justifica- tion is an inevitable inference.

2. It is besides expressly declared that the law was

ordained unto life. Obedience is through- More Scripture teach- jji O'j • T iii

i„gg out the bcnptures as indissolubly associ-

ated with life as disobedience is associated with death. " If thou wilt enter into life, keep the com- mandments."^ "Who will render to every man according to his deeds ; to them who by patient continuance in well- doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life." ^ This passage is decisive, as its design is evidently to show the nature of the disj^ensation under which man was placed in innocency as preparatory to a just apprehension of the provisions of the Gospel. The promise of eternal life is no part of the law as such ; it is peculiar to it by virtue of the limited probation upon which man was placed. The law of creation was life during the j)eriod of obedience, and eternal life could only be the reward of eternal obedience. But the law as modified by grace was patient continuance in well-doing for a season, and then everlasting security and bliss. This was the law under which all men were placed in Adam ; this the promise explicitly announced to them as the incentive to fidelity. " And the commandment which was ordained to life I found to be unto death."' "For what the law could not do, in that it Avas weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the right- eousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."^ This passage teaches unequivocally that the law proposed a scheme of justifica-

1 Matt. xix. 17. 2 Eom. ii. 6, 7.

* Kom. vii. 10. * Kom. viii. 3, 4.

•288 THE COVENANT OF WORKS. [Lect. XII.

tion — a scheme by virtue of which men could be reputed not merely innocent, but righteous, and that the reason why eternal life has not been secured by it is not the inadequacy of its own promise, but the failure of man to comply with the condition. No candid mind can weigh these texts with- out being impressed with the conviction that Paul views man as having been placed in a state in which he might have secured everlasting life by a temporary obedience. The law contemplated man as under a promise, to which the preservation of his innocence for a given period would have entitled him ; and this j^romise necessarily implies the possi- bility of justification. Hence, we are fully warranted, not- withstanding the silence of Moses, in saying that the essen- tial principles of moral government were so modified by the goodness of God as to render it possible for man to pass from a servant to a son, from labour to an indefectible inheritance. 3. But the text last quoted gives us a third argument, which is even more conclusive still ; and tliat is, that the work of redemption has only achieved for us the same blessings — the same in kind, however they may differ in degree — which the law previously proposed as the reward of obedience. Christ has done for us what the law was ordained Thepromisetbrough ^0 do, but failed to do ouly through the Christ the same with fiiult of uiau. Whatcvcr, therefore, Christ

the promise to Adam. , i i a i • i i • i

has purchased, Aclam might have gamed. The life which Christ bestows was in the reach of Adam ; the glory which Christ imparts was accessible to our first head and representative. AVhatever Christ has procured for us, he has procured under the provisions of the law which conditioned human religion in Eden. The principles of the dispensation then and there enacted have not been changed; they have only been carried out and fulfilled. From the nature of the dispensation under which the second Adam was placed, we may learn that which pertained to the first; and the result of the comparison will be the confirmation of every doctrine we have stated in relation to our first father's posture. First, Christ was a public person ; so was Adam.

Lect. XII.] THE COVENANT OF WORKS. 289

Each represented his seed. Secondly, Christ's probation was limited ; it was confined to the period of his humiliation. Adam's, to preserve the analogy, must have been limited also. Thirdly, Christ had the promise of justification to life as the reward of his temporary obedience ; the same must have been the case with Adam. Hence, through the work of Christ, and the relations of that work to the law, we are explicitly taught that eternal life was, and must have been, the promise of the Covenant of Works.

4. As the promise through Christ is essentially the same

as the promise to Adam, we are prepared, in the next place,

to consider what the life is that was promised. The term in

Scripture not only indicates existence, but

The life promised i.i i. i} ^^ ^ ' 'j_ ' • j.

was eternal. ^Iso the property of well-bemg ; it is exist-

ence in a state of happiness. Eternal life is the same as eternal well-being or happiness. As long as man's happiness was contingent, he was not in a state of life, in that high and emphatic sense which redemption se- cures. Innocence is the condition of life, but it is not life itself. There are two things which belong to life. First, It implies a change of inward state or character. Secondly, A change of outward state or relation. In relation to Adam, the inward change would have consisted in removing the mutability of his will. If he had kept the law, he would have been rendered indefectible in holiness by an influence of Divine grace moulding his habits so completely into his will that he never could have departed from the good pleasure of God, He would have attained, by the blessing of God, in the way of reward to his obedience, that moral necessity which is the noblest freedom and which constitutes the highest perfection of a rational creature. His security would not have been the result of habit. No course of obe- dience, however protracted and however it might be con- stantly diminishing the danger of transgression, would ever have rendered man invulnerable to sin. The mortal point, like the heel of Achilles, would always be found in muta- bility of will. A probationary state necessarily implies the

Vol. I.— 19

290 THE COVENANT OF WORKS. [Lpxt. XIT,

possibility of defection anJ the relations of the will to the law in such a state are essentially different from its relations in a state of justification. This great benefit, therefore, a will immutably determined to the good, would have charac- terized the life of the first man if he had been faithful to his trust.

The second element is a change of relation. He would have been adopted as a son, and no longer under the law as a servant. Whatever of joy, privilege, blessedness and glory are implied in this relation was held out to Adam as a mo- tive to fidelity. Confirmed in holiness ; admitted into the closest communion with God ; treated as a child ; honoured as an heir ; what more could God have done for him ? This was life, eternal life ; and this life in both its elements would have accrued from his justification. Temporary obedience, being accepted as perpetual innocence, would have secured perpetual innocence ; and probation being closed by a full compliance with the conditions — which is justification — would have rendered man a fit subject for receiving, as he was able to bear it, from the infinite fullness of God. To sum up all in a single word, the promise to Adam was eternal life ; and eternal life includes the notions of indefectible holiness and of adoption, w'hicli are inseparably linked together.

From this exposition of the promise we need have no

difficulty as to what the Scriptures teach in relation to the

tree of life. It is very idle to suppose that it received its

title from any property that it had to perpetuate existence

or to prevent the incursion of disease. It

The tree of life -was a i i i • i r* ii

seal of ti.e promise. was merely a symbol or memorial of the promise — a token to man, constantly re- minding him through his senses of what great things God had prepared for him. It is perhaps because this tree was the exponent of the promise that Moses has not expressly recorded it. Some have inferred from the precautions taken to prevent man from eating of its fruit after his defection that it had some innate virtue to stay the tide of death. "We should rather infer that these precautions were solemn

Lect. XIL] the covenant of works. 291

signs that he had forfeited all right to the blessing it sym- bolized. He was not allowed to approach the tree because he had lost that from which the tree derived its significancy and importance. To have allowed him to touch the sign might have been construed into the assumption that he might yet compass the reality. In conformity with this ex- planation are all the subsequent allusions in the sacred vol- ume. " To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God."^ " Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have a right to the tree of life." ^ The tree of life is here evidently a figure of eternal glory.

I cannot close this consideration of the promise of the Covenant without calling your attention to the ingenious

and paradoxical theory which Warburton critidled"^ °" ^ ^"^^'^ ^^^^ P^^^ fortli in liis Divine Legation of

Moses. He admits the distinction which I have elsewhere drawn between man's natural state under moral government and the supernatural state in which he was placed in the garden. He lays down the essential prin- ciples of moral government with sufficient accuracy, except that he represents repentance as a natural atonement for our violations of the moral law. But he errs grievously in the low estimate which he puts upon the character and qualifi- cations of man in his primitive condition. He degrades the image of God to the mere possession of the attribute of rea- son, and contends that immortality is no part of our native inheritance. Man was when he came from the hands of God a subject of law, and rewardable and punishable for his actions ; but rewards and punishments were equally tempo- rary. Nature contained no hope of immortality. The design of the revealed dispensation was to give man the prospect of endless existence, to exempt him from the pos- sibility of death. As immortality was a free gift, it was fit that it should be suspended upon an arbitrary condition. Man's disobedience only remanded him to his original con- 1 Eev. ii. 7. ^ Kev. xxii. 14.

292 THE COVENANT OF WORKS. [Lect. XII.

dition of mortality. He had forfeited his being. He was put back where he was before, under a pure system of moral government. Christ restored to us what we lost in Adam, mere immortality. His sacrifice was an arbitrary appoint- ment by which God was pleased to communicate the gift a second time, and faith in Him is an arbitrary condition on which the possession is suspended to us. The peculiarity of this theory is, that the supernatural does not modify the natural, but is co-ordinate with it. Moral government goes on as it would go on without the supernatural ; the super- natural is only an expedient by which the subject of this government is rendered immortal. Of course, after wliat has already been said, it would be worse than idle to attempt an articulate refutation of a scheme which only excites your wonder that a man of genius and learning should have adopted it, elaborately expounded it and persuaded himself, and tried to persuade his readers, that he had found the key to unlock all the mysteries of Christianity. Paradox was the bane of Warburton's life. But he occasionally devel- ops principles which throw light upon the dispensations of God. Unfortunately, he develops them only to mis- apply them.

III. The last thing to be considered in relation to the

Covenant of Works is the penalty annexed obedieifco'!'^ ^ ° '^' 'to disobedieucc. That is contained in the

threatening, " in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." What was really the death that was denounced has been a question variously answered, according to the views entertained by different expositors of the artic- ulate doctrines of the Gospel with respect to sin and redemp- tion. The type of a man's theological opinions can be readily determined by the estimate which he puts upon the judicial consequences of the first sin. Warburton makes the death

of the covenant to be nothing more than

Warburton's theory. ■,...■,

the remanding of man to his original con- dition of mortality. He was created subject to the law of dissolution. His existence was destined under the appoint-

Lect. XII.] THE COVENANT OF WORKS. 293

ment of nature to a total extinction. The covenant proposed to exalt him to a state of immortality. Had he kept the injunction to abstain from the forbidden fruit, he would have been endowed with the prerogative of an endless exist- ence. His failure only placed him where he was before. There was properly neither fall nor apostasy; there was simply the missing of a proffered boon. Others, again, anxious to evade the proof of original sin derived from the sufferings and death of infants, exclude the dissolution of the body and temporal diseases from the death of the covenant. These they make the original appointments of nature, and not the penal visit- ations of transgression. They suppose that men would have suffered and died whether they had sinned or not. Others, again, anxious to mitigate the malio-nitv of

still anotber. . i ^ • i i n • n ^

Sin, and to do away with the doctrine of the endless punishment of the wicked, have resolved the whole punishment of man into the death of the body and the evils which precede and accompany it. In all these cases it is clear that theologio prejudice is the real father of the different theories advanced, and that none of them are drawn from a candid and disjiassionate comparison of the teachings of the word of God. Men have put their opinions into the Bible, and have not extracted their doctrines from it ; they have made rather than interpreted Scripture. The truth upon this subject cannot be reached by the dissection of words and phrases. Scripture must be compared with Scripture, and the whole tenor of revelation in relation to sin and redemp- tion must be caipfully studied, in order that any just concep- tion may be formed of the real significancy of that portentous word, death. The result of such an examination will be,

that it is a generic term expressing the idea

The true view of the n • -ji j_ ^ j^ -^ /•

p^.jjj^uy of misery, without respect to its form or

kind, judicially inflicted. Any and every pain, considered as a penal visitation, is death. As life is not simply existence, but well-being, so death, its opposite, is not the nesration of existence, but the negation of all the

294 THE COVENANT OF WORKS. [Lect. XII.

pleasure of existence. As to live, in Scripture phrase, is to be happy, so to die is to be miserable. But is all misery or all pain penal in its origin ? If so, the question as to the ex- tent of the penalty can be easily settled. Now, I maintain that under a just and righteous government there can be no suffering without guilt. The innocent are entitled to the Divine favour, and to the bliss which results from it, as long as they maintain their integrity. Those who most strenu- ously deny that the creature, in any strict and proper sense, can merit, yet as strenuously maintain that it is inconsistent with justice to visit the sinless with pain. If they have no right to a reward over and above the pleasure of existence in the state in which they were created, the equity of God forbids that a being given in goodness should be made a burden. The form in which the notion of justice is first manifested in the conscience is through the conviction of good and ill desert, connecting well-being with well-doing, and misery with guilt. A discipline of virtue through evil suj)poses a dispensation of grace in consequence of which sin has been pardoned, and offences come to be considered as faults to be corrected, and not as crimes to be punished ; it supposes at the same time the presence of evil as of a thing to be removed and abolished. Moral discipline, in this as- pect, is possible only to pardoned sinners. But a discipline through evil where no sin has entered, a discipline through suffering where there has been no crime to be corrected, is contradictory to every just notion of righteous retribution. Hence, we have no hesitation in saying that all misery, all pain, all suffering, all that interferes with the comfort and satisfaction of existence, all that is contradictory to well- being, is penal in its origin. Not a pang would ever have been felt, not a sigh would ever have been heaved, not a groan would ever have been uttered, not a tear would ever have been shed, if sin had not invaded the race. All phy- sical evil is penal ; all misery is penal ; all

It includes all pain. . . ^ . . . ,

pain IS death. Hence, to niquire into the extent of the penalty is simply to inquire into the extent of

Lect. XII.] THE COVENANT OF WORKS. 295

the miseiy to which man has rendered himself subject by his apostasy from God. As lie would have been free from all evil by the preservation of his integrity, so every calamity that he experiences must be referred, for its ultimate ground, to the guilt of the first sin. The condition in which he now finds himself is the condition to which his sin reduced him, and in this condition we read the true interjiretation of the threat, " In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." What man became that day, or the change which took place in his state and prospects, is the death that was denounced.

1. There was a change in the habits and dispositions of his soul. He lost the image of God. His

Death spiritual.

nature took the type of the evil that he chose. His character became permanently and hoj^elessly corrupt. The very point to be settled by his probation was the fixed impression of his moral character. To choose the good was to become immutably holy and happy ; to choose the evil was to become hopelessly corrupt and miserable. The bondage of sin was the necessary consequence of the choice of sin. He at once lost all power to will or to choose what was acceptable to God. This loss of the image of God, or of the principle of holiness, is commonly styled spiritual death, as being the death of the soul in respect to what truly constitutes its life. It has been made a question how Adam could all at once have been deprived of those spiritual perceptions and concreated propensities to good which he inherited as the birth-right of his being. It has been asked how a single sin could all at once have depraved the entire constitution and perverted the whole current of his nature. If we were left to conjecture and speculation, we might suppose that as a habit is not likely to be formed from a single act, the principle of rectitude would still re- main, though weakened in its power, and by vigorous and systematic efforts might recover from the shock which to some extent had disordered the moral constitution. Bishop Butler speaks with hesitation in relation to the degree of

296 THE COVENANT OP WORKS. [Lect. XII.

injury wlilcli might be expected to accrue from the first full overt act of irregularity, though he has no backwai'dness iu regard to the natural results of a confirmed habit. Each sin has not only a tendency to propagate itself, but to de- range the order of the moral constitution ; but as the propa- gation of itself in the formation of specific habits is ob- viously gradual, it would seem that the general derange- ment would also be progressive. The difficulty is created by overlooking the circumstance of a judicial condemnation, and not properly discriminating betwixt holiness and moral- ity. We are to bear in mind that as we are under a penal sanction as well as possessed of a moral constitution, sin has judicial consequences which must enter into the estimate of the extent of injury sustained by the inner man. We must further recollect that as holiness, which is the foundation of the virtuous principle, the life of all merely moral habits, the keystone of the arch which maintains an upright na- ture in its integrity, consists essentially in union with God, whatever offends Him must destroy it. This is precisely what every sin does ; it provokes His curse, breaks the har- mony of the soul with Him, and removes that which is the fundamental principle of all true excellence. His moral habits may remain as tendencies to so many specific forms of action materially right, but the respect to God has gone. Spiritual life breathes only in the smile of God ; the mo- ment that He frowns in anger death invades the soul. It is the judicial consequence of sin, and hence every sin, like a puncture of the heart, is fatal to spiritual life. Hence, the universal dominion of sin is a part of the curse — its reign is hopeless in so far as human strength is concerned. One sin entails the everlasting necessity of sin. The law, as we have seen, knows no repentance.

2. Besides spiritual death, the penalty of the law includes all those afflictions and sufferings of the

Dentil temporal. i • /. i . i . .

present life which terminate in the disso- lution of the body. The fatigue and pain connected wdth labour or the fulfilment of any of our natural functions ;

Lect. XII.] THE COVENANT OF WORKS. 297

the diseases to which we are constantly exposed ; the wear and tear of our physical frame ; the decrepitude of age ; the vexations and disappointments of life ; the final separation of the soul from the body, and the resolution of the body into its original dust, — all these constitute what divines are accustomed to denominate temporal death. To this must be added the disorder which has taken place in external nature ; the change in the temper and disposition of beasts; the sterility of the earth ; its poisons ; the deadly exhalations of the atmosphere, — all things which render the earth disagree- able and trying as the abode of man are obviously included in the curse.

3. Then there is a state of suffering, after the close of the present life, in which first the soul, and

Dentil eternal

afterward both soul and body united, are the subjects of visitations in which God expresses the in- tensity of His hatred against sin. This last stage of pun- ishment is called, pre-eminently-, the second death. The Scriptures represent it by figures which impress us with an aAvful idea of its horrors. It is a worm that never dies — a lake that burns with fire and brimstone. "What the suffer- ings of the lost actually are we are unable to conceive ; but we know them to be terrific, because they are designed to express the infinite opposition of God to sin, and because they produced the unspeakable tragedy of Calvary. To which must be added that they are as endless as the exist- ence of the soul. This death is called eternal death. "When, therefore, we speak of the penalty of the Covenant, we must be understood to include the bondage to sin, the subjection of man to all the evils of this life, and to the still greater evils of the life to come — the whole of the misery which the fall has brought upon the race. When it is said that these evils are the penalty of the Covenant, it is not meant that they all xesult directly from it, or that they were all visited upon the person of the first transgressor. Adam did not suffer every species of pain and calamity to which any of his descendants have been exposed. But the meaning is, that

298 THE COVENANT OF WORKS. [Lect. XII.

the first sin prepared the way for them all ; it introduced a state of sin from which has resulted a general state of death. All the ills that flesh is heir to are either the immediate or remote consequences of the first transgression. The threat- ening of death had reference to that whole fallen and miser- able condition into which the race would be plunged by dis- obedience.

IV. We have now seen the nature of the dispensation under which man was placed in the garden of Eden. We have considered the Condition, the Promise and the Penalty, and have been struck with the goodness of God in His gra- cious purpose to exalt the creature to a higher state, and to make him an inheritor of richer blessings, than his natural relations would authorize him to expect. He had an easy work and a great reward. It remains to

Mau's conduct. .-,-,. -• -■ i. iii

consider his conduct under this remarkable display of Divine benevolence. How long he stood we have no means of conjecturing — not long enough to be the father of a son. The circumstances connected with his fall are briefly narrated by the historian, and the account which we have may be called. The natural history of sin in relation to our race.

1. In the first place, it is evident that the record contains

a true history of facts as they occurred, and Jyl/fZ' '' ' "'" not an allegory setting forth the conflict of

the higher and lower principles of our na- ture— of reason and sense ; nor yet an apologue, illustrating the change from primitive simplicity to refinement, luxury and corruption. The tree of tlie knowledge of good and evil was adapted to the trial of man's integrity, and is pre- cisely the kind of test which the nature of the case demanded. The tree of life was a fit symbol of the promise by which man was encouraged to obedience, and the threatening must surely be taken in its literal sense. The narrative, more- over, contains decisive evidence that sin did not originate from any collision between appetite and reason ; it originated

Lect. xil] the covenant of works. 299

as inucli in the higher principles themselves as in the lower. Our first mother Avas prompted by the desire of knowledge; she saw that the tree was suited to make one Avise, as well as fair to the eyes and attractive to the taste.

2. In the next place, w^e must recognize, in the serpent,

the presence of an evil spirit who under-

An evil spirit present. , i , , ^o r ± i. o •

took the oince ot a tempter, oin was already in the universe. That he who is described by the Saviour as a Liar and a Murderer from the beginning was the real but disguised agent in the transaction, is obvious from repeated allusions to the subject by the writers of the New Testament.^ That this was the opinion of the Jews before the time of Christ is apparent from the Book of Wis- dom.^ The promise, too, that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, has evidently a much higher sig- nificaney than any literal application to the serpent-tribe could give it. An ingenious effort to explain the malice of the Devil has been given by Kurtz in his Bible and xlstro- nomy.

3. The sin of man was deliberate. He had the case be-

fore him. It was not an instance of sud-

The sin was deliber- -\ • n •. nr\\ ^ •

^jg den infirmity. ilie case was argued out,

and judgment rendered upon the argument.

4. It involved a deliberate rejection of God as the good

of the soul — a deliberate rejection of the

It was the rejection i o /~i i j i t f ' i

pfQQ(j glory ot (jrod as tlie end ot existence.

Hence, it was unbelief, apostasy, pride.

5. It was a most aggravated sin — aggravated by the re-

lations of the person to God : by the na-

Aggravations of it. n i i •

ture 01 the act ; by its consequences. V. The relations of man to the covenant since the fall. 1. He is condemned.

Fallen man's rela- rs tx i p /• -i n j1 •

tions to the covenant. 2. He has forfeited the promise.

3. Individually under the general princi- ples of moral government.

1 See John viii. 44 ; 1 John iii. 8 ; Rev. xii. 9.

2 Chap. i. 13, 14 ; ii. 23, 24.

300 THE COVENANT OF WORKS. [Lect. XIL

THE FIKST SIN.

[There are three points to be considered —

I. What was the formal nature of the sin ? II. How it was possible that a holy being could sin. III. The consequences of this sin.

I. "What was the formal nature of the sin ? — that is, what was the root of it? Was it pride? W\as it unbelief ?

1. It was a complicated sin ; it included in it the spirit of disobedience to the whole law.

2. It was aggravated — (1) by the person; (2) by his relations to God; (3) by the nature of the act ; (4) by its consequences.

3. The germ of it was estrangement from God, which is radically un- belief. It was an apostasy, which in falling away from God set up the creature as the good.

II. How could a holy being sin ?

1. W^e must not lower the account so as to remove difficulties. Many make it the growth of an infant to maturity, having its powers quick- ened by errors and mistakes.

2. Others make it allegorical, representing the conflict of sense and reason. This is contradicted by the narrative. Intellect is prominent in the cause of sin. Eve desired wisdom.

3. Others make it an apologue intended to illustrate the change from primitive simplicity.

4. Others, as Knapp, make the thing venial, but degrade the meaning to physical phenomena.

5. W^e must regard it as the natural history of sin — the manner in which it was introduced into our world.

6. It is not enough to say that man was mutable ; that explains the pos- sibility, but not the immediate cause of sin.

(1.) It was owing to temptation. Here explain the nature of temptation.

(2.) Desires might be excited, in themselves innocent, accidentally wrong.

(3.) The general principle of virtue — Watch. Here was the first slip. Desires produced inattention to the circumstances under which they might be indulged ; here was a renunciation of the supreme authority of God. Want of thought, want of reflection.

(4.) These desires, by dwelling upon the objects, engross the mind and become inflamed. They become the good of the soul. Here was the renunciation of God as the good. They prevail upon the will and the act is consummated.

III. Consequences — immediate and remote.

1. Shame and remorse.

2. Loss of the image of God. This a penal visitation. Not the mere force of habit.]

LECTUEE XIII.

ORIGINAL SIN.

IF, as we have previously seen, Adam in the Covenant of Works was the representative of all his natural pos- terity— that is, of all contemplated in the original idea of the race, and descended from him by the ordinary law of propagation — then the condemnation in which he was in- volved pertains equally to them, and the subjective condi- tion of depravity to which he was reduced by his transgres- The phrase ori^r«aj ^iou must also bc fouud in them. They Sin as used in its wide must bc at oucc guilty and corrupt. This state of guilt and corruption, as that in which they begin their individual personal existence, is by one class of divines called Original Sin. The phrase in- cludes both the imputation of the guilt of Adam's first sin, and the inherent depravity which is consequent ifpon it. In this wide sense it is probably used by the Westminster Assembly of divines. The guilt is the

Westminster Assem- iif> • ii'j_j^ij_

biy of divines; Doud ot uuiou Dctwixt the trausgrcssion

of Adam and the moral condition in which they are born. Others restrict the terms original sin exclu- sively to the corruption in which men are born, though in

calling it sin they presuppose that it has sMso '" '*^ ""'"^"'^ been created by guilt. They represent it

as a penal condition, but the j)rominent idea is the moral features of the condition itself, and not

the cause by which it has been produced.

by Calvin and others. . . ....

There is consequently some ambiguity m the phrase. The more common usage is unquestionably

301

302 ORIGINAL SIN. [Lect. XIII.

that of Calvin, Turrettin and nearly all the Reformed Confessions in which original sin and native depravity are

synonymous terms. The word was intro- tnftrtt^rr duced by Augustin in his controversy with

the Pelagians. He wanted a term by which he could at once represent the moral state, which is antecedent to all voluntary exercises of the individual, which conditions their character and determines the whole type of the spiritual life — that state of sin or pravity in which each descendant of Adam begins his personal history. He called this state of native sin, original sin ; first, because our per- sonal, individual existence begins in it. The species was created holy in Adam, but since Adam every individual of the species commences his temporal being in a state of cor- ruption. Our origin is in sin. In the next place, he called it original to indicate its close and intimate connection with the first sin of the first man. Adam's transgression, as the beginning and cause of all subsequent human aberrations, was pre-eminently original sin — the original sin — and to indicate its causal relation to all other sins it was called peccatum originale originans. The depravity of nature which resulted from it was called peccatum originale origina- tum, and when the phrase original sin, without a qualifying epithet) is used, it indicates the originated sin, and in the word original points back to the first sin. In the third place, he used the phrase to indicate that our inborn cor- ruption was the origin or source of all our actual sins ; it stood at the head of all the transgressions of our subse- quent life.

No doubt, the most prominent idea suggested by the

phrase is, that as Adam's transgression stands at the head

of all human sins, begins and conditions the series, so the

In this lecture em- native depravity of each individual stands

ployed in the nar- ^t, the licad of all liis aberrations and de- rower sense, but the . . , ,^ -i • i i

notion of guilt not ex- temiines the manilestations oi his whole '''"'''"^" moral life. Adam's sin is absolutely origi-

nal to the species; native depravity relatively original

Lect. XIII.] ORIGINAL SIN. 303

to each individual of the species. In the sense, then, of that inherent corruption in which the descendants of Adam begin their earthly career, I shall employ the term in the present lecture. Still, the notion must not be lost sight of that this inherent corruption could not be strictly and prop- erly sin, unless it were grounded in guilt. If the species had begun to be in the state in which each individual is now born, no blame could have been attached to its irregu- larities and deformity. If the idea of man as it lay in the Divine mind had included the nature which we now find cleaving to our being, that nature could not have been chargeable with aught that deserved censure. Hence, the notion of guilt underlies all the moral disapprobation which w^e attach to our present natural condition. It is a penal state — one into w^iich we have fallen, and not one in which we were made. The moral history of the individual does not begin with his own personal manifestation in time ; that manifestation has evidently been determined by moral rela- tions to God that have preceded it. Hence, the very term sin applied to our present state carries with it the idea of something anterior ; it announces it as an originated and not The question, how ^s au Original condition. How there can guilt can precede ex- bc guilt antecedently to the existence of

istence, must be met; i • i- • i i m i • i t

the individual — a guilt, too, which condi- tions and fixes the very type of that existence — is a question that must be answered, or it is impossible to vindicate origi- nal sin in any other sense than that of misfortune or calam- ity. If it is not grounded in the ill deserts of the creature, but in the sovereign will and purpose of God, it loses all moral significancy, and is reduced to the aesthetic category of beauty and deformity, or the category of mere jihysical contrasts. The question of guilt, therefore, must meet us in the discussion of original sin. But as we shall be better

able to encounter it when we shall have

but it is romitted for • t i • i j. i j •

the present. considercd our inherent and native corrup-

tion, we remit the investigation of it to the close of our present inquiry. It will come in as the

304 ORIGINAL SIN. [Lect. XIII.

exjilanation of the state in which we actually find our- selves to be.

I. Let us, then, take up the question of native depravity.

Original sin, as the What is the statc in which every man is

doctrine was taught boHi ? It is amaziug witli what perfect

by all the Reformers. , „ . ni a r^ o • ii

uniiormity all the early Coniessions, whether Lutheran or Reformed, represented the teachings of the word of God upon this subject. There is not a discordant voice.

1. In the first jjlace, they unanimously represented this

corruption as the very mould of the moral

Sin was the mould i. n 'T'lii^il

of man's moral being, ^euig of cvery mdividual of the species. It was prior to all voluntary agency; it was prior to any and every manifestation of consciousness. While Pelao;ians tauo;ht that the individual was created without any moral character at all, and that the habits which he exhibited were the results of his own voluntary acts, the Reformers, following in the footstej)S of Paul and Augustin, strenuously maintained that there was a generic and all- comprehensive disposition which lay behind the will in all the manifestations of individual life, and determined the di- rection which it would always take in the great contrasts of holiness and sin. There was a general habitude which lay at the root of the will and of our whole spiritual being, and which determined the general type which every act of choice must bear. This corruption they represented as a nature in the sense of an all-conditioning law — a sense which I have already explained in unfolding the scriptural idea of holi- ness. So strong was the language of Luther upon this point that he has trodden closely upon the verge of Manichsean forms of expression. He speaks of sin as pertaining to the very substance, the very being, of the soul. He speaks of it not merely as de natura, but as de essentia hominis, and calls it peccaium substantiate or essentiale. His design, in these strong expressions, is to point out the intimate connec- tion in which sin stands to the very being of the individual. It is not something Avhich he has acquired — something which

Lect. XIII.] ORIGINAL SIN. 305

has invaded him in the development of his earthly life. It is interwoven in the very texture of his soul — began with the beginning of his faculties, and inseparably cleaves to them in all their exercises. Sin is the law of his temporal exist- ence. It is his nature in the same sense in which ferocity is the nature of the tiger, cunning the nature of the serpent, and coarseness the nature of the swine. It was an original principle of motion within him, and not an accidental im- pulse. When man sins, he expresses his inmost moral being. He is so bound up in sin, the fibres of his soul are so inter- tAvined with it, the springs of all his energies are so poisoned by it, that he could as soon cease to be a man, by any power in him, as cease to be a sinner. He lives and moves and thinks and feels in sin. It was precisely in this sense of an all-conditioning law of the moral life that sin was represented as the natural state of fallen man, and this representation contained a protest against every form of error which sought to explain the irregularities of the individual by causes that have sprung up since the commencement of his individual existence. Sin and that existence were synchronous. Sin was the mould, so to speak, in which the faculties of the soul were run. The man and the sinner were twins from the womb, or rather were one.

2. In the next place, this natural depravity was repre- it was negative- rented in a twofold point of view, negative destitution of every ^ud positivc. lu a negative aspect, it im- plied the total destitution of all those habits and dis^^ositions which constituted the glory of the first man. and enabled him to reflect the image of God. Every prin- ciple of holiness was lost. As a nature, it is an all-pervading habit, and exists as an unit or does not exist at all. It must be wholly lost or wholly retained. As a life, it either is or is not. There is no intermediate condition ; a man is either in life or death. This total destitution of holiness or spirit- ual life was called a state of spiritual death ; and the Re- formers, without a single exception, in the first stages of the Reformation, exhibited the imbecility of man in his natural Vol. I.— 20

30G ORIGINAL SIN. [Lect. XIIT.

state in relation to anglit that was holy and divine, as abso- lute and complete. There is no doctrine which they have more strongly asserted or more vigorously maintained than the hopeless bondage of the will. However Melancthon afterwards modified his doctrine, no Reformer ever expressed the inability of man in more exclusive and uncompromising terms than himself, in the earlier editions of the symbols prepared by his hand.

In its positive aspect, natural depravity included a posi- and rositiv.-an ac- ^^^^c corruptiou ; tliat is, an active disposi- tive teiukncy to all tiou to what was evil and inconsistent with the perfections and holiness of God. It resulted from the nature of man as an active being that if he wei'c deprived of the principle of holiness, he must mani- fest the opposite. His actions could not be indifferent ; they must, as springing from a rational and accountable being, liave a moral character of some sort, and if holiness were precluded, nothing but sin remained. Hence, there was a foundation for every species of evil. Tlic determinate habits in different individuals might be very different ; some might manifest a proclivity to one form of sin, and others to another. One might give himself to low and degrading lusts, and another might practice a more refined licentious- ness. Some might become slaves to sense, and others slaves to the subtler sins of the spirit. Accident and education might determine the definite bias ; but all, without excep- tion, would plunge into sin, would contract specific habits of iniquity, and if left to themselves would steadily wax worse and worse. A foundation was laid in every human heart for every form of evil. The poison was there, though it might ha repressed by circumstances. All the currents of the human soul were in one general direction ; they were from God and toward sin. There was not only nothing good, but there was the germ of all evil ; the tendency was to universal and complete apostasy.

The negative and positive aspects of original sin are ob- viously only different sides of the same thing. The priva-

Lect. XIII.] ORIGINAL SIN. 307

tion of righteousness is, as Calvin lias properly remarked, a general aptitude for sin. The soul cannot

These but two sides • j_ • i j • i i 'j_ j.

of one thing. cxist lu a merely negative state ; it must

affirm something, and where it is precluded from affirming God, it must affirm something that is not God. Where its exercises are not determined by holy love, they Avill be determined by a love that is not holy.

3. In the next place, natural depravity was represented as universal and all-pervading. It extended

It was universal and -.i ii 4ni' i

all-pervading. ^^ ^'^^ whojc man. All his powers and

faculties of soul and body were brought under its influence. It was not confined to one department of his being — to the will, as contradistinguished from the understanding, or to the understanding, as contradistin- guished from the will ; it was not restricted to the lower ap- petites, as contradistinguished from our higher principles of action ; nor did it obtain in the heart alone, considered as the seat of the affi^ctions. On the contrary, it was a disease from which every organ suffered. As found in the under- standing, it was called blindness of man, spiritual ignorance, folly ; as found in the will, it was called rebellion, perverse- ness, the spirit of disobedience ; as found in the affections, it manifested itself as hardness of heart, or a total insensibility to spiritual and Divine attractions. It perverted the imagi- nation, and turned it into the instrument of lust and the pander to low" and selfish indulgences. It not only affected all the faculties, so as to produce a total disqualification for any holy or spiritual exercise in any form, whether of cog- nition or of choice, but it crippled and enervated these faculties in their exercise within the sphere of truth and morality. They were vitiated in relation to everything that wore the image of truth, goodness and beauty.

Here a distinction was made. The fall did not divest man of reason, conscience or taste. This

A distinction made. i i i i i •

would have been to convert him into another species of being. As reason remained, he still had the power of distinguishing betwixt truth and falsehood ;

308 ORIGIXAL SIN. [Lect. XIII.

conscience still enabled liini to distinffuisli betwixt rio-ht and wrong, betwixt a duty and a crime ; and taste enabled him to perceive the contrasts in the sphere of the beautiful. The extinction of his spiritual life destroyed the unity of action which pervaded these faculties, and rendered the exercise of them no longer expressions of holy dependence upon God. The mere possession of them has no moral value ; it i& the mode of using them — it is the principle in which their activity is grounded — that makes them truly good. Now, with the loss of the image of God, these faculties not only lost their unity, but lost their original power. They became diseased ; and hence the reason blunders in the sphere of truth, the conscience errs in the sphere of right, and taste stumbles in the sphere of beauty. This distinction Augustin expressed by saying that the fall had de-

Augustin's language • -t ^ n i i r> j •

criticised. prived us 01 all supernatural perfections

and vitiated those that were natural. The idea which he intended to convey is just, and has been very ably elucidated by Calvin, but the phraseology is certainly objectionable. The image of God in which man was created was in no proper sense supernatural. On the contrary, as we have already shown, it was the only condition jn which it is conceivable that man could have come from the hands of God. It was, therefore, his natural state. The form of expression which Augustin ought to have adopted was that of all holy endowments man was completely dispossessed, and 4iis natural endowments were grievously injured.

The whole notion of original sin as a subjective state is

conveyed by a phrase w^hich, from the controversy with the

_, , , , , , Remonstrants, has become the o-eneral forra-

The phrase total ae- ' o

praviiy. Three senses ula for tlic cxjircssion of the doctriuc ; that phrase is iotal depravity. The epithet total is employed in a double sense — (1.) to indicate the entire absence of spiritual life, the total destitution of holiness ; (2.) in the next place, to indicate the extent of depravity in relation to the constituent elements of the man ; it pervades his whole being or the totality of his constitution. There

Lect. xiii.] original sin. 309

is still a third sense in which its employment might be

legitimate, as conveying the notion of a positive habitude of

soul in which every form of evil might be grounded — a

tendency to the totality of sin. But the

What it does not mean.

word Mas never used to express the de- grees of positive wickedness attaching to human nature. It never was employed to convey the idea that men were as wicked as they could be, or that there were no differences of individual character among them. On the contrary, the most strenuous advocates of total depravity have acknow- ledged the difference between men and fiends, and betwixt one man and another in reference to moral conduct. While they contend that all are equally dead, they are far from affirming that all are in the same state of putrefaction. There ts every gradation, from the man of unblemished honour and integrity to the low and unprincipled knave or cut-throat. They undertook to explain these varieties in the moral features of humanity upon principles which would not conflict with their doctrine of total dej^ravity, show- ing conclusively that the two things were not, as they could not have been, with any show of decency, confounded. 4. In the last place, this depravity was represented as

hereditary, as bound up with the law by

It was liereditary. i . , , . . i tvt i

which tlie species is propagated. JNo hu- man being could escape it who came into the world in the ordinary way. It was an inheritance which every man brought with him into the world. The production of his nature as human and his nature as sinful was inseparable. There was no conception, in the ordinary way, which was not a conception in sin — no birth which was not the birth of a sinner. Hence, there could be no exception to the universality of sin which was not also an excej)tion to the usual mode of generation. Whatsoever was born of the flesh was flesh. Hence, hereditary corruption, native de- pravity and original sin Avere promiscuously used to convey one and the same idea.

I have thus briefly stated what is meant by the doctrine

CIO ORIGINAL SIN. [Lect. XIII.

of original sin, and if true it pi'esents a melancholy, an The doctrine as ti.us appalling picturB of the iiioral condition stated, If true-, appall- of the racB. It is beyond all controversy the thorniest question in the whole compass of theology, but its importance is fully commensurate with its difficulties. Here lies the disease which redemption was designed to remedy, and our concejDtions of the i^rovisions" of grace must be modified by our conceptions of the need they were arranged to meet. The natural state of man is the key for unlocking the peculiarities of the state into which he is introduced by grace. No man can ever know God in Jesus Christ until he knows himself. If tlie doc- trine is not true, it would seem to be the

if not true, it ought to • i, i • i J^ • • i ,

beWy to be refuted. Simplest aud casicst thing in nature to re- fute it. Man is before us ; our own con- sciousness is a volume whicli we can all to some extent read and understand ; and the question is concerning the inner- most ground of that consciousness as it pertains to God and to all spiritual good. The doctrine professes to give a tran- script of what is found in the soul of man ; it takes the jDhenomena of human life, analyzes them, explains them and reduces them to their principle. If there is an error, it must be in the facts or in the reasoning. The facts, as mat- ters of experience, speak for themselves, and the error, if it lies there, can surely be detected and exposed. The reason- ing is short and simple, not at all complicated ; there is but a step betwixt the premises and the conclusion, and the error, if it lies there, ought also to be easy of exposure. Under these circumstances, if the doctrine is false, if it is only a caricature and not a true and faithful portrait, is it not strange that the most earnest and self-scrutinizing minds, the most zealous and faithful and devoted saints, have been precisely the persons who have insisted most tenaciously that this is a just account of themselves apart from the grace of God, that this is just what they have found in their own souls, and what observation and Scripture alike teach them to look for in the souls of others ? How such a doctrine

Lect. XIII.] ORIGINAL SIX. 311

could have originated, obtained currency, been handed down from generation to generation among such men, and been defended with the zeal of a warfare for hearths and altars, is an inexplicable marvel if after all it is a mere libel upon poor human nature. Tlie presumption would seem to be in its favour. It could not have lived and spread and reigned as it has done in the

It must be true, /> /-i n • /> • i i t /> •

Church ot (jod, it it had no liie ni it. There must be something in it ; there must be a preponder- ance of truth in it. ]\Ien are too much interested not to believe it, to render it credible for a moment that it should have formed a part of the faith of Christendom, if it were

not radically true. Still, it may be exag-

but is it exaggerated ? i-i ii-i

gerated, it may be overwrought, and it be- comes us -with the utmost candour and solemnity to examine the grounds upon which it has been supposed to rest.

1. The first thing that claims our notice in investigat- ing the facts upon which the doctrine is

First fact of expe- i i • ji • i*j £> - tt

rience, siu universal. gi'oundcd, IS the universality of sin. Here the Scrij)tures and experience completely coincide. There is not a human being who has reached the period of moral agency of whom it cannot be confidently affirmed not only that he has sinned, but that he will still continue to sin. " There is no man," says Solomon, in his sublime prayer of dedication, " that sinneth not," ^ '' There is not a just man upon earth that doeth good and sinneth not."" "How should man be just with God? If he will contend with Him he cannot answer Him for one of a thou- sand."^ The doctrines of repentance, pardon, justification by faith, the promises of daily strength — in fact, all the dis- tinctive features of the Gospel — take for granted the absolute universality of human sin. The race is everywhere con- templated, both in the Old and New Testaments, as a race of sinners. When we encounter a human being, there is noth- incf in regard to him of which we are more certain than that he has often done what was wrong. And we should 1 1 Kings viii. 4G. ^ Eccles. vii. 20. ^ Jq}, [^ o, 3,

312 ORIGINAL SIN. [Lect. XIII.

look upon the man who dealt with his fellows upon the sup- position that any of them were free from sin and not liable to be seduced into it, as much more to be pitied for his weak- ness than commended for his charity. If now all have sinned, if every mouth must be stopped and the whole world become guilty before God, there must be some cause which is com^jetent to explain this universal efTect. The cause cannot be partial and accidental ; as sin is not the peculiarity of a few individuals nor the preposterous fash- ion of single tribes or peoples, it can be explained by no cause M'hich is not coextensive in its influence with the entire human race. An universal fact implies an univer- sal cause. Phenomena which always accompany humanity are in some way grounded in its nature. From the univer- sality of reason, conscience, intelligence and will we infer that they belong to the constitution of the species. Opera- tions which can only be ascribed to these faculties, as causes, justify the inference that they exist as universally as the effects, and are inseparable from the conception of a human being. On the same principle there must be something in man, something which is not local and accidental, but some- thing which cleaves to the very being of the species, that determines every individual to sin. It is only by an origi- nal tendency to evil, or an ajDtitude to sin lying at the root of the will, that we can solve the phenomenon. Let us sup- pose that every human being came into the world free from every irregular bias, that the will was exclusively deter- mined to good, or, as Pelagians hold, indifferent to either alternative ; and how does it happen among so many mil- lions who have lived upon the earth, through so many ages and generations, in so many nations and empires, and under so many different forms of social and political life, that not one has ever yet been found of whom Behold, he is clean ! could be said with justice ?

2. Sin is not only universal, but the tendency to it, accord- ing to the confession of the race, is stronger than the tendency to good. Men have to be carefully educated to virtue;

Lect. XIII.] ORIGINAL SIN. 313

vice requires no preparatory training. The solicitude of Second fact the P^rcnts for tlicir children, the precautions stronger tendency is of cvcry commuuity agaiust crime, the checks which every constitution has to frame against the abuse of power ; our bars, bolts and dun- geons, our racks, gibbets and all the paraphernalia of penal justice, are conclusive proofs that we look upon each other as beings not to be trusted, that the motives of virtue re- quire to be propped by external supports, and tliat even when thus propped they are counteracted by the superior energy of evil. Every government is framed upon the sup- position that men are disposed to crime, and even where the disposition has not been elicited, it is yet very likely to be acquired. Here, then, is a prevailing tendency to sin — a tend- ency which all laws acknowledge, and a tendency which, if it should be overlooked and not guarded against in any com- monwealth, would soon bring that commonwealth to ruin.

3. To this may be added the experience of the most earn- „, . , f . ., . est and devoted men in the culture of moral

Thira fact, its in- dwelling power in the excellence. They complain of the pres-

best men. p . . i • i it

ence ol sm ni tliem as an nidwelling power, manifesting its evil in sudden temptation or sly and surrep- titious suggestions, or in crippling and unnerving the prin- ciple of good. They cannot concentrate their energies upon the holy and divine. Their souls are rendered sluggish, their moral forces are dissipated and scattered, and languor seizes upon their spiritual life. This mode of operation clearly reveals the habitual character of sin ; it is evinced not to lie in single, isolated acts, but in a permanent, abid- ing disposition, a fixed habit of the soul.

4. This conclusion is further confirmed by the early age Fourth fact, it be- ^^ ^hich siu makcs its appcaraucc in chil-

gins to appear in ear- drcu. As soou as tlicy bcgiu to act, tlicy bcffin to show that self-will and self-affir- mation are as natural as thought and reflection — they begin to unfctld in their narrow sphere those same tempers and dispositions which, carried over to mature life and transferred

314 ORIGINAL SIX. [Lect. XIII.

to the relations of business and social intercourse, are branded as odious and disgusting vices. Particularly in children does the spirit of self-seeking very early develop itself in the form of self-justification, and make them impatient under rebukes, surly to their superiors, and prone to falsehood as an expedient for maintaining their reputation free from re- proach. Augustin has signalized these perversities of his childhood ; and those who can recall their own childish ex- perience, or who have watched the development of character in other children, can be at no loss for arguments to dispel the common illusion concerning the innocence of childhood. It is true that there is a class of sins, the offspring of expe- rience and of a larger knowledge of the world, from which it is free ; it is also free from the corresponding virtues. It has not yet learned distrust and caution — it is marked by simplicity of faith and freedom from suspicion ; but it is equally marked by the principle of self-affirmation, whether the character be gentle and mild or bold and impetuous. The type of sin, which the after-life will unfold, begins from the dawn of consciousness to unfold itself.

Xow these facts are certainly extraordinary if there is no such thing as a law of sin in human nature.

These facts to be ex- -y^ , i • i i p • t

piaiued only by tiie J^vcry hypotliesis Dut that ot uativc de- doctnne of original p^avity Utterly breaks down in attempting to explain them. Sin is universal as a fact. It is found, without exception, in every human being who reaches the period of awakened consciousness. It is found in those who are striving to obey the law of virtue ; it per- vades their faculties and enfeebles their energies and relaxes their efforts. It is stronger in the race than the tendency to virtue ; and society can only protect itself against it by the powerful support of penal laws. It begins to unfold its po- tency at the very dawn of consciousness, and is as truly present in the child as in the full-grown man. These are not hypotheses, but facts ; they are matters of daily observa- tion, and matters upon which the institutions of the world turn. Admit an original aptitude for sin, an original bias

Lect. XIIL] ORIGINAL SIN. 315

to evil, and the phenomena are at once explained. Deny it, and, as Hume says of the Gospel, all is mystery, enigma, inexplicable mystery. It is beyond controversy that every man looks upon his neighbour as having that within him which has to be watched. Whatever he may think of his own virtue, he is not willing to venture very far upon the mere integrity of other men, apart from securities extraneous to the innate love of right.

But a tendency to sin, as a fixed and abiding disposition.

Is there any nudd.e Hiay bc admitted tO Cxist without ascribiug

ground of truth be- ^q q^^y uaturc that complctc and hopeless ri'the't^lS moral desolation which the Reformers in- doctrine? cludcd in the notion of the privation of

original righteousness and the corruption of the whole nature. The Pelagian doctrine^ that sin is accidental to every individual, and that the uniformity of the effect does not involve the steady operation of a permanent cause, may be discarded without adopting the views concerning the de- gree and extent of depravity which characterize the Augus- tinian school. Sin may be recognized as a habit co-ordinate with other and opposite habits ; it may be represented as a diseased condition, which weakens without suppressing, hinders without extinguishing, spiritual life. Though it

' [Apart from the Pelagian scheme, which really denies any fall at all, there are four hypotheses as to the extent of the injury that human nature has received. The first is that of some Papists, who represent original sin as merely the deprivation of supernatural endowments, leaving man in full and entire possession of all his natural gifts. Original righteousness was a supernatural furniture for a supernatural end. It constituted no part of man's nature, considered simply as human, and considered as des- tined to an earthly existence. All that is necessary to his temporal being he still possesses, and possesses without injury. With reference to a higher and nobler end, transcending the pure idea of his nature, he is wholly unfurnished. The second is that of the Sensationalists, who con- fine the mischief of sin to the insubordination of the lower appetites— the undue preponderance of sense over reason and conscience, of flesh over spirit. The third is that of the Semi-Pelagians, who admit the pervading influence of sin as extending to the whole soul. The fourth is that of the Reformers, which we have already signalized as maintaining the total corruption of the whole nature.]

316 ORIGINAL SIN. [Lect. XIII.

cleaves to the nature, it only enfeebles, but does not disable it ; makes it languid and sluggish in its desires after good, but does not destroy the truth and reality of holy aspirations. Something good still clings to the soul. There are still traces of its pristine beauty, impressions of its original glory. The spiritual and divine have not been wholly lost by the fall. One party has represented sin as

The Sensationalists. i • i • i

seated m the sensational nature, and con- sisting in the undue strength of corporeal appetites and pas- sions. The higher principles of action, the principles of reason and conscience, exist in their integrity, but they are unable to subdue and regulate the inordinate motions of sense. The flesh is stronger than the spirit. It is in this want of proportion between the lower and the higher, the want of proper adjustment, that sin essentially consists.

Others admit that the disorder of sin ex-

The Semi-Pelagians.

tends to tlie whole soul, that the entire nature is brought under its influence ; but that there still re- mains in man a point of attachment for Divine grace — an ability by which he can concur with or decline the influences of the Holy Ghost. He has points of sympathy with the good by virtue of which he is differenced from devils and made capable of redemption. They admit his bondage, but contend that there is that still left in man which causes him to abhor it, to sigh for deliverance from it, and to accept cheerfully the friendly hand that proffers to him assistance.

This natural ability is a very different fereiicid "^^^ '^'^'^ " tiling froiii that Avliich Arminians attribute

to the race through grace. It belongs to man independently of the work of the Spirit, and is precisely that which conditions the result of that work. Tlic Armi-

niaii admits that man since the fall has no

from Arniiiiiaiis. i i -i

natural ability to good, and ascribes to re- deeming mercy that attitude of the will by virtue of which it is enabled to accept the offer of salvation. The ability is the same in kind, but different in its origin, from that main- tained by those who contend for something still good amid

Lect. XIIL] ORIGINAL SIN. 317

the ruins of the a2)ostasy. The question, therefore, which we have to discuss is, Whether the sinner,

Is there anv good • i i j.i /? 1

naturally i.. man? independently of grace, possesses any ele- ment that can be truly and properly called good ? Whether any seeds of holiness are still deposited in his nature ? Whether he is able in any sphere of cognition or of practice to compass the holy and divine? There are but two sources of proof: Scrijjture and experience — the word of God and the consciousness of those who have been renewed by the Holy Ghost.

If there be any spiritual good in man, it must manifest

If there be any good i^Sclf iu the doublc foHU of Spiritual pcr- in man, he must l)Oth CCptioU and of holy loVC, aS an act of cog- know and love God. . . , (1 Ml T • i1 1

nition and an act ol will, it is the charac- teristic of holiness that it holds in unity all the elements of our rational and moral being. We can separate logically betwixt thought and volition, betwixt the understanding and the heart, but in every holy exercise there is the indis- soluble union of both. The perception of beauty and ex- cellence cannot be disjoined from love. The peculiarity of the cognition is just the discernment of that element to which the soul immediately cleaves as the divine and good. Now if man independently of grace possesses any germ of holiness, he is able to some extent to perceive and appre- ciate the infinite excellence of God ; he must in some de- gree love Him as the perfect good, and desire conformity with Him as the true perfection of the soul. Wherever there is no element of love to God as the good there is no real holiness. Wherever there is no sense of the glory of God as the supreme end of life there is nothing divine. Tried by this test — and it is the only test which is at all applicable to the case — every mouth must surely be stopped and the whole world become guilty before God. The testi- mony of Scripture is explicit, both as to

Scripture denies ? • i -Tj, x • xl 1 i*

both respecting him. "lau s inability to pcrccivc the glory of

God, and the total absence from his heart

of anything answering to a genuine love. Every Scripture

318 ORIGINAL SIN. [Lect. XIII.

which teaches that liis understanding is blinded by sin, that his mind is darkness, that he needs a special illumination of the Spirit of God in order to be able to cognize Divine things, teaches most explicitly that in his natural condition he is destitute of the lowest germ of holiness. If he cannot see he surely cannot relish beauty. If he is incapable of apjire- hending the qualities which excite holy aftections, he is surely incapable of possessing the emotions themselves. There is nothing in the unrenewed sinner corresponding to that union of all the higher faculties in one operation which is implied in every exercise of holiness. He neither knows God nor loves Him. Hence, all who have been renewed

The experience of , ^^^^ COUScioUS that thcy liaVC bcCU iutrO-

aii renewed men con- duccd iuto a ucw type of life. There is

firms the Scripture. i i i n i • i

not the development oi something that was in them before, dormant or suppressed, but all things have become in a most important sense new. Their facul- ties are moved by a principle of which they had previously experienced no trace, and a harmony and unity are imparted to them which make them like really new powers. It is useless to recount the numerous passages of Scripture which teach the natural blindness of men, the hardness of their hearts, the perverseness of their wills and their obstinate aversion to the Author of their being — useless to cite the manifold texts which describe man in his natural state as an enemy to God and a slave to his lusts, to Satan and the world. Their plain and obvious meaning would be ad- mitted at once if there were not certain appearances of human nature which seem to be contradictory to the natural explanation, and which therefore demand a sense in harmony with themselves. If these appearances can be reconciled with the scheme of total depravity, then that scheme must be accepted as the one taught in Scripture.

Among these appearances, the one on which most stress „, f ,, is laid is the exhibition of a character dis-

The case of the un- renewed man of high tinguislicd by high probity and scrupulous

moral character. . . , _,,

inteffritv amono- unrenewed men. ihere

Lect. XIII]. ORIGINAL SIX. 319

are those who make conscience of duty, who recognize the supreme authority of right, and who endeavour to regu- late their lives by the principles of reason. These men are not to be put in the same category with abandoned knaves or heartless voluptuaries. They have something about them spiritual and divine ; they are good men. Such was the young man who presented himself to the Saviour as an inquirer after life, and whom even Jesus is said to have loved. Here the real question is as to the root of this morality. If it can exist apart from the love of God, and apart from any spiritual perception of the beauty and ex- cellence of holiness, it is no more a proof of Divine life than the loveliness of a corpse is a proof that the soul still lingers in it. It must be borne in mind that the fall has destroyed no one faculty of man. It has not touched the substance of the soul. That remains entire with all its en- dowments of intelligence, conscience and will. These facul- ties have all, too, their laws, which determine the mode and measure of their operation — principles which lie at their root and which condition the possibility of their exercise. Intelligence has its laws, which constitute the criteria of truth and falsehood, and without the silent influence of which no mental activity could be construed into knowledge. Conscience has its laws, which constitute the criteria of right and wrong, and without which the sense of duty or of good and ill desert would be wholly unintelligible. Taste has its laws, which constitute the criteria of beauty and deformity, without which aesthetic sentiments would be nothing but arbitrary and capricious emotions. These are all co-ordi- nate faculties, and each has a sphere that is peculiar to itself. Collectively, they constitute the rational, moral, accountable being. They point to three distinct spheres of thought and life — truth, virtue, beauty. Intelligence is the faculty of truth, conscience is the faculty of virtue, and taste is the fticulty of beauty. They all have an essential unity in the unity of the human person. They are grounded in one and the same spiritual substance. It is obvious that

320 ORIGINAL SIN. [Lect. XIII.

the mere possession of these faculties does not make a being holy, otherwise holiness could not be lost without the destruction of the characteristic elements of human- ity. They exist in the fiend as really as in the saint. Neither, again, does every mode of exercising them deter- mine anything as to the holiness of the agent. There may be a spontaneous exercise in which the ground of satisfac- tion is the congruity between the faculty and its object. Truth may be loved simply as that which is suited to evoke the peculiar activity which we term knowledge. Duty may be practiced, in obedience to the authority of con- science, to prevent schism and a sense of disharmony in the soul; each faculty may seek its object and delight in its object only from the natural correspondence betwixt them. When this is the spring of action and the ground of pleas- ure, there is nothing but a manifestation of the essential ele- ments of humanity. There may be in this way much truth acquired, and duty as a demand of the nature may be stead- ily and consistently practiced, and in all this the man never rise above himself. He is acting out his own constitution, and the law of his agency is that it is his constitution. His cognitions of duty are really in this aspect upon a level with his cognitions of truth, and he himself is the centre of both. Given his present constitution, he might act and think as he docs if there were no God to whom he is responsible. In order that the exercise of these faculties may be holy, there must be something more than the substantial unity of the person ; they must be grounded in a common princi- ple of love to God. As truth, beauty and goodness are one in Him, so they must be one in us by an unity of life. Truth must not only be apprehended as something suited to my faculties of cognition, but as something Avhich reflects the glory of God, and be loved as a ray of His excellence ; beauty must not only be admired as something suited to my taste, but as the radiance of Divine excellence, the harmony of the Divine perfections; and the good must not only be a2)prehended as a thing that ought to be, the

Lect. XIII.] ORIGINAL SIN. 321

right and obligatory, but as the secret of the Divine life, the soul of the Divine blessedness. Where the heart is per- vaded by holy love all these faculties move in unison and all derive their inspiration from God. Hence, in these various spheres, the cognitions of a holy and an unholy being are radically different ; they look at the same objects, but they see them in a different light. One perceives only the relations to himself; the other perceives the marks and traces of God. One sees only the things ; the other sees God in the things. To one the objective reality is all ; to the other, the objective reality is only the dress in which Deity makes Himself visible. In one, each faculty has its own separate life grounded in its own laws ; in the other, they all have a common life grounded in love to Him who is at once the true, the beautiful and the good. Hence, as there may be knowledge and taste without holiness, so „ . ^ . there may also be virtue. Eminent con-

Eminent conscien- J

tiousness with emi- scicntiousness may be joined with eminent

nent ungodliness. ,,. i • i c -\ , ii

ungodliness — a nigh sense ot duty as the re- quirement of our own nature with an utter absence of any real sense of dependence upon God. The most splendid achieve- ments, therefore, of unrenewed men are dead works — ob- jectively good, but subjectively deficient in that which alone can entitle them to be considered as the expressions of a Divine life. That this reduction is true may be inferred from the fact that there is a tendency in all integrity which exists apart from the grace of God to generate a spirit of pride. The motives to right-doing are apt to crystallize aronnd this principle as their central law. The great argu- ment for virtue is the dignity of human nature ; the life of virtue is self-respect, and the beauty and charm of virtue is the superiority which it impresses upon its votaries. This

tendency is strikingly illu.strated in the

The virtue of the i i l> xl. Oi. • rr\\. • i:> 1 i ^

gjj,jj.j, school ot the otoics. iheir fundamental

maxim was. Be true to yourselves; and the

difference betwixt the genius of their philosophy and the

philosophy of Christianity is, that in the one, man is com-

VoL. I.— 21

322 ORIGINAL SIN. [Lect. XIII.

pared to a palace in which the personal individual reigns as a king, and in the other, to a temple in which God mani- fests His presence and His glory. The virtue of one exalts the creature ; the virtue of the other glorifies the Creator. The one burns incense to his own drag and sacrifices to his own net ; the other lays all its tribute at the feet of Divine grace. The one, in short, is the virtue of pride, and the other is the virtue of humility. The difference betwixt holiness and morality is like the diiference between the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems of the universe. One puts the earth in the centre and makes the heavenly bodies revolve around it ; the other, the sun. One makes man supreme ; the other, God. Without denying the reality of human virtue, or reducing to the same level of moral worth- lessness all the gradations of human character, it is possible to maintain that independently of grace there is none that doeth good in a spiritual and divine sense, no not one. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seek- eth after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable ; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. There is no fear of God before their eyes. There is a passage in Miiller's profound work upon the Muiier on Sin, criti- Christian Doctrine of Sin, in which, through cised as concerning inattcntiou to tlic radical distinction betwixt

holiness and morality. i i. -i t i i • • i

holiness and morality, he has maintained a view of human nature apart from grace which cannot be reconciled with the teachings of Scripture or the fixcts of Christian experience. And as the whole strength of the ar- gument against total depravity is condensed in his remarks, it may be well to expose their error.

" We have already," he says,^ " directed our attention to the fact, that in general there are, even for the determined villain, still deeds of crime at which, if only for a passing moment, he shudderingly turns away when the temptation to the same presents itself to him. This is an unambiguous testimony that even such an one is still capable of aggrava-

' Vol. ii., p. 269, 271.

Lect. XIII.] ORIGINAL SIN.

323

tino; his state of moral villainousness. But where aggrava- tion is still possible, there must also exist a remnant of some power of good to be overcome, however deeply buried under the ashes of an unbridled life of crime the sparks of the same may be smouldering. Neither shall we be able altogether to deny the deeply debased man, in general, the ability of delaying or of hastening the progress of his debasedness. The will, as the governing middle point of the inner life, does not, even in abandoned, obdurate debasedness of life, become entirely lost in its own complicate entanglement with sin, but there ever remains, so far as we are acquainted with human conditions, and in so far as the human has not yet passed over into diabolical evil, down in the very deep of the soul an unvanquished remnant of moral, self-deter- mining power — an ability, if ever so limited, of self-decision between the moral requirement and the impulses of wicked lust. And if this must be admitted in the most degenerate phenomena of the natural condition, how much more shall we be required to do so with respect to its better forms ! Human nature has been created by God so noble that it is not easily possible, even in its aggravated and deeply fallen state, entirely to destroy the traces of its origin which exhibit themselves in the power of the good." Further on man's natural condition is represented, in the words of Neander, as consisting of " two mutually conflicting principles — the prin- ciple of the Divine offspring, the God-alliance in the endow- ment of the God, and the therein grounded moral self-con- sciousness, the reaction of the religio-moral original nature of man ; and the principle of sin, spirit and flesh — so, however, that the former principle is impeded in its devel- opment and efficiency, and therefore held captive. Man, in his natural condition, without the peace of reconciliation, is, just because this peace is the truth of his very life, not an essence which is compact, restful in itself, but one which is in itself disunited, disquiet and full of contradictions." " The highest activity, therefore, of the still existent power of the good in the human natural condition, is not to deter-

324 ORIGINAL SIN. [Lect. XIII.

mine to produce from itself an activity corresponding to the Divine requirement — for that it is by no means able to do — but to drive man to the humble and self-surrendering at- tachment to the salvation of Jesus ; and that which in itself is excellent becomes in the reality the very worst perversion when it self-sufficiently and perversely sets itself up over against the offered salvation."

This passage exhibits the whole of the philosophy in which the doctrine of the bondage of the will is sought to be recon- ciled with the active concurrence of man in the application of redemption. It endeavours to maintain, on the one hand, the hopeless ruin of the race apart from the grace of God, and to ground, on the other, the different reception of the Gospel on the part of men in the state of their own wills ; it is an effort to teach depravity without efficacious grace — inability without predestination. It wishes to make man the immediate arbiter of his own destiny. The passage, therefore, deserves to be carefully considered.

1. In the first place, because there are degrees of wicked- Four distinctions be- ness, it is a singular confusion of ideas to twixt hoiintss anil infer that any can be good. One state may be worse than another Avithout being less virtuous. One stage of degradation is certainly lower than another, but it does not follow that there is anything lofty in either. The development of wickedness is one thing, the presence of holiness is another ; and the mere absence of certain measures or forms of wickedness is not the affirma- tion of any positive element of goodness. Miiller has here evidently confounded that relative goodness %vhich is only a less degree of badness with the really good — the non -presence of types of sin with the actual presence of a principle — of a germ — of holiness. We might as well say that because the recent corpse was less loathsome, it was therefore less dead than that which is rapidly sinking in decay and putrefaction. 2. In the next place, to represent the resistance which a man makes to his own conscience in every successive stage of sin as a struggle against the good which still exerts itself

Lect. XIII.] ORIGINAL SIN. 825

within him, is to overlook the distinction betwixt the au- thority of conscience and the love of God. The conscience certainly remonstrates and enforces the right in the form of an absolute, unconditioned imperative — it threatens him with the destruction of his peace if he perseveres in his career ; but the right comes to him as restraint, as force — as some- thing against which the current of his soul is set. There is neither love to it, nor respect to the will of God as declared by it. There is no struggle of inclinations, of opposite loves, but there is a struggle of love and inclination against positive j)rohibition. To know duty and to be reluctant to perform it is no proof of goodness in the heart. On the con- trary, as we have already seen, there may be a real satisfac- tion of duty as the demand of our own moral nature, without the slightest tincture of complacency in God or the slightest reference to the supreme end of our existence.

3. In the third place, the conflicts which take place in the breast of the natural man are not conflicts between the love of God and the inordinate desires and passions of a fallen nature. They are conflicts between conscience and his lusts ; and the deepest mortification which he experiences under the sense of his degradation is the injury done to his pride. There is no penitence before God, and there is no shame for having brought reproach upon Him or fdr having come short of His glory.

4. In the last place, the disjointed, miserable condition to which the sinner finds himself reduced has no tendency to dispose his mind to a favourable reception of the Gospel. The rejiresentations, in which a class of writers is prone to indulge, of the heart of fallen man as conscious of its bondage and sighing for deliverance, looking out eagerly for some method of escape from the degradation and ruin of sin, are mere figures of the fancy unsustained by a solitary fact of experience. Man has struggles and conflicts, but they are struggles, not to escape from sin, but to escape from his own conscience and the law. His misery is that he cannot sin with impunity. His great eifort, in the development of sin,

326 ORIGINAL SIN. [Lect. XIII.

is to extinguish the sense of obligation ; and the peace which he seeks is a peace which shall reconcile God to him and not him to God. There is nothing in the subjective condition of the sinner which renders redemption welcome to him ; there is neither a longing for it before it comes, nor a joyful acceptance after it has been revealed. The Scriptures every- where attribute to the grace of God those spiritual percep- tions which present the Saviour to us as an object of faith and love, and enable us to appreciate the fullness and freeness of pardoning mercy. It is only the Divine Spirit who pro- duces the hatred of sin as sin, and the desire to be liberated from it on account of its inherent vileness. There is nothing; in man to which redemption attaches itself as sympathizing with its own distinctive provisions and predisposing the heart for its message ; and it is proverbial that the very last to submit to its overtures are precisely those who have the greatest degree of that moral good which consists in con- scientiousness and integrity. If mere morality is of a piece with holiness, it would seem that the more moral a man was, the readier he would be to accept the offers of salvation ; but the language of our Saviour in relation to the Pharisees of His own generation holds in relation to the same class in all ages. Publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of heaven before them.

But it may be asked. Is there not a capability of redemp- tion? Is there nothing upon which the

In what sense, man r^ -i 'xixiii i- i

capable of redemption. Gospcl cau scizc that shall cvokc au ccho of the unrenewed heart to its doctrines and promises ? The answer is, that there is no natural sympathy between them ; but there is a deep and profound sympathy produced by the Divine Spirit when He awakens the con- sciousness of need. The consciousness of need is awakened through the impulse which He gives to the operations of conscience. He employs our natural faculties ; through them He convinces of sin, of righteousness and of judgment, and by His secret touch they are brought into the attitude in which they are prepared to listen to the joyful tidings of

Lect. XIII.] ORIGINAL SIN. 327

salvation. We have the elements out of which a sympathy can be established, but that sympathy results entirely from the direction which the Holy Ghost impresses upon these elements. Left to themselves, they would everlastingly struggle in their blindness against God, holiness and heaven. The real tendencies of human nature left to itself are found „ „ . ^ in heathenism. If there is in man a sense

Heathenism snows

the real temiencies of of the lioly, of tlic Spiritual and divine,

liuman nature. . /. i . i i , ^ • i'

if there is a real and earnest longing lor emancipation from the bondage of sin, we should expect to see it embodied in some of the forms of religious worship in which man has given utterance to the deepest and profound- est instincts of his soul. Do we find any such yearning in the ritual of heathenism ? Is it the effort of a sinful crea- ture to restore itself to God in the fellowship of holy love ? Does it hold fast, while it confesses its own weakness and aberrations, to the infinite goodness and the adorable excel- lence of God? Is its language that He is glorious and deserves to be praised and loved, while we are vile and ungrateful in withholding the tribute that is due ? So far from it, that no explanation can be given of its absurdities and monstrosities, its contradictions to reason and con- science, its violent perversions even of taste and decency, but that it is the determined effort of a moral being, cut loose from its Maker, to extinguish all right apprehensions of His name. It has utterly exploded the notion of holi- ness as 'an attribute either of God or man ; it has outraged reason by creations that contradict the first principles of common sense; it has outraged conscience by putting the stamp of religion upon crimes and atrocities which one, it would seem, could never have dreamed of, if he had not been resolutely set on becoming as unnatural as it was pos- sible ; it has outraged taste by transferring to the sphere of worship all the forms of deformity, ugliness, hatefulness which it is possible for the human imagination to picture. If the problem had been to devise a scheme in which not a single element that belongs to the hio-lier nature of man

328 ORIGINAL SIN. [Lect, XIIL

slioukl enter, in which all truth, all goodness and all beauty should be entirely and completely banished — ^a scheme in which it was proposed to reach the climax of contradiction to the noblest features of humanity — nothing more conso- nant to such a purpose could have been excogitated than the system of heathenism. It shows us what the human soul longs for, and while it reveals man's need of redemption it reveals at the same time the malignant opposition which it must expect to encounter.

In every view of the case, therefore, whether we look at man in his wdckedness or in his virtues.

The case summed up. ii i i i ■

we are compelled to say that he is totally destitute of any holy love to his God. His is dead in tres- passes and sins. He has an understanding which is able to distinguioh betwixt truth and falsehood, which can explore the mysteries of nature and reduce the manifold in her com- plicated phenomena to the unity of law ; but in all the mul- titude of his discernments he cannot find the Father of his own soul, and the real source of all the truth that he appro- priates in fragments. His knowledge misses the very life and soul of truth, and his science is but a dead form. He has a conscience which reveals to him the eternal distinc- tions of right and wrong and unveils the awful majesty of virtue. He recognizes the deep significance of law and duty, but he fails to ascend to the primal fountain of all rectitude, and is destitute of that Divine life in which the right is realized as the good, and law divested of all" appear- ance of constraint in the sweet inspiration of loving obe- dience. He has a fancy which delights in forms of beauty, and he contemplates with intense rapture the starry heav- ens, the rolling earth, and all the types of loveliness and grandeur which are impressed upon the visible things of God ; but that beauty which is above all, from which all have sprung, and to which all point as to their centre, his heart has never caught and his soul has never adored. Nay, without the most strenuous efforts his life in all these spheres is prone to ceaseless degradation. Having lost the

Lect. XIII.] ORIGINAL SIN. 329

principle which gives them consistency, he is constantly prone to lose the things themselves. In everything that bears upon the true, the beautiful and the good, he evinces that there is a something within him which cripples and retards and perverts his efforts. Holiness is spiritual health and strength, and where that is gone the whole action of the soul is morbid. Hence, the liability to error, the influence of prejudice, the misapprehension of the true method and scope of philosophy, are confessions that man has fallen from his pristine purity. Depravity impedes all the nat- ural exercises of our faculties ; it is as much the secret of false philosophy as of false religion. It is the disease, the paralyzing touch of sin, that makes the memory treacherous, the imagination unchaste, the attention inconstant, the power of thought unsteady, reflection painful and arduous, association arbitrary, and the fancy the storehouse of fleet- ing and deceitful images of good. With a holy faith utterly gone — the true light of the spiritual firmament — man gropes his way in darkness, relieved by the glimmering of the few stars that stud his natural sky. Without God he cannot but be without health and peace. The creature mocks him ; he mocks himself; he walks in a vain show, mistakes dreams for realities, and embraces a cloud for a divinity.

II. Having considered original sin, both in its nature as

a habit and in its characteristics as the total destitution of

all holiness and as a tendency or disposition to universal

evil, I come now to treat of the mode of its transmission,

in consequence of which it is stvded heredi-

Hereditary guilt. _ *'

tary sin or hereditary guilt. It is handed down from j)arent to child in the line of ordinary gene- ration. Adam after his fall begat a son in his own moral likeness, and all his posterity have perpetuated to their descendants the character which began with him. That the notion of transmitted or hereditary sin is beset with difficulties which human speculation is unable to sur- mount, it were folly to deny. But these difficulties, it should be remembered, are not property of any j^eculiar

330 ORIGINAL SIN. [Lect. XIII.

theory. All schemes are beset with them, and there is no method of escaping them but by plunging into the greater difficulties of denying facts "which form a part and parcel of every human consciousness. We may deny that human nature is perverted from its normal development ; that man is failing to realize the idea of his nature; or that there exists any special hindrance to the formation of a perfect character ; but the conscience of every human being not totally dead to the truth and import of moral distinctions will remonstrate against such an abuse of speculation. Our Avisdom is to look at the flicts precisely as they are, to fol- low the explanations of the Scriptures as far as God has thought proper to resolve our perplexities, and what still lies unresolved to leave where we found it until we reach an elevation of greater light.

There are two questions with which we have to deal in treating of the hereditary character of origi- nal sin. The first question is how sin is propagated — how the child in the first moment of its ex- istence becomes a participant of natural corruption, with- out making God the author of its impurity. The second question is, how that which is inherited, which comes to us from without as a conditioning cause and not a conditioned effect, can be strictly and properly regarded as sin — how, as it exists in us independently of any agency of ours, it can be contemplated with moral disapprobation or render us personally ill-deserving. The detailed examination of these two questions will lead us to a view of all tlie theories which have ever been proposed on this vexed subject; and if it should not answer all objections to the doctrine of the Re- formed churches, it will at least show that this doctrine is less liable to exception than any other scheme.

1. In relation to the first question, one class of writers seem to regard it as a complete and satis-

Stapfer's tlioory. '^ . i i . •

factory solution to say that like begets like. " The state of the parents," says Stapfer,* " is morally im- 1 Vol. i., p. 234, chap, iii., U 851, 853.

Lect. XIII.] ORIGINAL SIN. 331

perfect ; of a state morally imperfect a perfect state Can by no means be the consequence, for it is absolutely impossible that more should be in the effect than in the cause. It fol- lows, therefore, that if the state of the parents is morally im- perfect, that of the children must be so also, otherwise infants would be possessed of a perfection of which there is no nat- ural cause." " As, therefore, the connection between the moral state of children ah.d their parents is that of cause and effect, moral imperfection is propagated in the way of natural effect." According to this theory, the child is really the product of the parent — the parent the efficient cause of its existence. The parent expresses himself in the child, because the child is potentially included in him as a part of his own being. But in what sense is the parent the cause, of the child ? Does he produce by a conscious exercise of power and with a predetermined reference to the nature of the effect to be achieved ? Can he fix the sex, bodily con- stitution or personal features of his offspring? Can he determine the bias or extent of the intellectual capacities ? Has his Will anything to do with the actual shaping and moulding of the peculiarities which attach to the foetus ? He is in no other sense a cause than as an act of his constitutes the occasion upon which processes of nature begin entirely independently of his will, and these forces or laws of na- ture are the immediate causes of the origin, growth and de- velopment of the child in the womb. He simply touches a spring which sets powers at work that he can neither con- trol nor modify. He is only a link in a chain of instru- ments through which God calls into being; and the efficient power which gives rise to the effect is not in him, but in that great Being who holds all the forces of nature in His hands. It is, therefore, idle to say that the father makes the child, and can make him no better than he is himself — that he puts forth all his causal power, but as that is limited the results must bear the marks of the limitation. The relation of parents to children is not that of cause and effect ; they are the instruments or conditions of the existence of

332 ORIGINAL SIN. [Lect. XIII.

the offspring, but God may use an instrument to achieve results that very far transcend its OAvn nature or capacities.

The other theories which we shall notice admit that the causal relation of the parent extends only to the body — that the soul is immediately created by God ; and contend that as created by Him it is uncontaminated, and account for its subsequent defilement in one or the other of the follow- ing ways :

Pictet^ supposes that the mind of the mother during her pregnancy operates upon the mind of the

Pictet's theory. , ., i i • i n^

child, and impresses the type oi lier own sinful thoughts ; as the imagination of the mother very fre- quently marks the body of her offspring with representations of the objects that had strongly affected herself. From this account women still have a grievous burden to bear — they are not only the authors of the first sin that was ever com- mitted, but they are the active instruments in the production of all the sin that still continues to afilict the world ! They make every other human being corrupt as they seduced Adam from his innocence ! But seriously, this theory is only a desperate resort. It was invented to save the consistency of speculative thought. And it cannot maintain itself with- out admitting that the soul is not created in its primitive condition ; it admits weakness independently of the mother, and a weakness which renders corruption absolutely certain. How God is vindicated in this aspect of the case it is hard to understand.

The other explanation is that of Turrettin and Edwards, who contend that the soul is created spot- Jtnl andEdwlIr" less, yet it is destitute of original righteous- ness as a punishment of Adam's first sin ; and accordingly they distinguish between a soul's being pure, so as the soul of Adam was when it was first created — that is to say, not only sinless, but having habits or inclina- tions in its nature which inclined it to what was good — and its being created with a propensity or inclination to evil . . . * Pictel, vol. i., p. 446, seq.

Lect. XIII.] ORIGINAL SIN. 333

and as a medium between both those extremes in which the truth lies, they observe that tlie soul is created by God des- titute of original righteousness, unable to do what is truly good, and yet having no positive inclination or propensity in nature to what is evil.^

Upon this theory the notion of original guilt is su]5posed to involve no difficulty, but only the notion of original cor- ruption. It is taken for granted that there is no contradic- tion to God's holiness in treating a being as a sinner who has never sinned, but there is a contradiction to His holiness in making him a sinner. But where is the difference ? Sup- pose the being as coming from the hands of God is in fact spotless, how can he be treated as a sinner ? If not treated as a sinner, then there is no guilt ; and if no guilt, then no need of withholding original righteousness.

In the next place, to be destitute of original righteousness is sin. That a moral, rational and accountable beina; should exist without a disposition to' love God and to reverence His holy law is itself to be in a positively unholy state. Want of conformity with the moral law is as truly sin as open and flagrant transgression. When these very men are arguing against i\\Q doctrine of the Papists, they insist upon the impossibility of an intermediate condition betwixt sin and holiness ; and yet when they wish to explain the mode of propagation of sin, they distinguish between simple nature and the moral qualities which perfect and adorn it, I do not see, therefore, that this theory obviates any difficulty at all.

Suppose we should say that the principle of representation conditions the creation of the child in sin, that God gives him a being according to the determinations which the Cove- nant of Works requires, does that make God any more the author of sin than His daily and hourly conservation of sin- ners ? If they are to be at all, they must be sinners, because they are guilty in their federal head — they exist in the Di-

1 See Edwards on Original Sin, p. 330, seq. ; also Turrettin, Loc. ix., Qu. 12, \ 8, 9, as quoted in Eidgley, vol. ii., p. 131, upon Question xxvi.

334 ORIGINAL SIN. [Lect. XIII.

vine mind as sinners. What contradiction, therefore, is there in realizing this decree of justice ? I confess that to me the

whole difficulty lies in what to these di- liefwir'niputauol!^ viucs prescuts no difficulty at all— in the

imputation of guilt. Grant that, and justice then demands, first, that men should exist, and secondly, that they should exist as sinners — that they should exist in an abnormal and perverted condition. Why should not God fulfil this requirement of justice? But it may be safest to treat the whole matter as an insoluble mystery. We know the fact that ^ye are born into the world in a state of sin and misery ; that we inherit from our parents a nature which is wholly destitute of original righteousness, and contains the ground of the most grievous departures from God — a nature which is absolutely unable to compass a single holy exercise. Whether our being is wholly derived from our parents, whether our souls are immediately created by God, whether defilement is consequent upon the union with the body, or the result of the generating act, or of the imagination of the mother, or of any other cause, it may be bootless to inquire. And on this subject the Reformed Church has settled nothing as the definite revelation of God.

2. The question which we have now to discuss is, how that moral condition in which we are born, and which has been propagated to us independently of our own wills, can be truly and properly regarded as sin ; how that can be im-

inited to us as guilt which we have inher-

The flifficulty stated. T , , . . „

ited as the constitution of our nature, and not determined by the free decision of our own personality. Guilt presupposes causation by the agent — that he is the author of the actions or of the dispositions for which he is held responsible. " In the notion of sin," as Miiller^ very justly observes, " lies only the objective, namely the exist- ence of a fact, whether it be an act or condition contradic- tory to the Divine M'ill ; with the idea of guilt arises the sub- jective side, an author to whom it can be imputed." Hence, ' Vol. i., p. 208.

Lect. XIII.] ORIGINAL SIN. 335

as he had previously stated, " the first element in the notion of guilt is this, that the given sin must be ascribed to the man in whom it is, as to its author." The notion of cau- sality as lying at the root of the notion of guilt he does not fail to notice as signalized by the Greek term for guilt, which has also the general signification of cause. It would seem, therefore, that where a given condition cannot be traced to him in Avhom it is found as its cause, where he receives it as a datum, and has neither directly nor indirectly procured it by his own agency, he cannot possibly be subject to the im- putation of guilt. Objectively considered, the state in ques- tion may have all the qualitative features of sin, it may be materially the stain and the blot, but, subjectively consid- ered, the man is rather a patient than an agent, rather suf- fers than does evil, and his condition accordingly is one of calamity and affliction, and not of sin. The difficulty is very pointedly put byMiiller:^ "Only a personal essence, and not a mere creature of nature, can render itself a sub- ject of guilt. This arises from the fact that only a personal essence is able to be the real author of its actions and states, so that they may be imputed to it. Where there is no per- sonality, consequently no freedom of the will whatever, there the power of an original self-determination is wanting ; that which here appears as a self-determining, if traced into its true causes, resolves itself into a being determined. Accord- ingly, actions and states can only in so far be considered as criminal as they have their ultimate, deciding ground in the self-determination of the subject. If, on the contrary, the subject is in them merely the transition point for deter- minations which it receives from another power, whether it be a power of nature or a personal one, then these his states and activities are not his fault, unless that by some preced- ing self-determination he had rendered himself open to the power of such determining influence upon him. Now, the dogma of original sin teaches that the iurooted sinfulness, which according to the canon. Semper cum raalo origlnall simul 1 Vol. ii., p. 340.

336 ORIGINAL SIN. [Lect. XIII.

sunt peceata actuaUa, necessarily produces all kinds of sin, is in us according to its universal, everywhere equal nature, solely as the consequence of the first sin of the parents of our race. But if this sinfulness is in us solely by the action of other individuals without our own aid, then it cannot be imputed to us as its authors, but only to those individuals ; it is then in us not as guilt, but solely as evil and calamity. Moreover, in all the actual sins which arise out of this sin- fulness, it is not strictly speaking w'e wdio act, but the first of mankind by us ; but how" then should our apparent action still be real sin on account of which we may become reprobated ?"

Such is the difficulty. Perhaps the most satisfactory method of aj)proaching the solution, will

Is hereditary de- i n j. j. ' • 'xi-l j.* I»

pravity really sin? ^C, first, tO lUqUirC DltO the qUCStlOU of

fact whether hereditary depravity is or is not really sin — that is, is or is not damnable in the sight of God. Does it make a man guilty of death ?

The Papists are reluctant to condemn it as- chargeable with guilt, especially as it manifests itself in the involuntary excitations of the regenerate. Its first motions in them they do not represent as sin, but only the encouragement which is given by the will to these irregular impulses. Bellarmin^

indeed admits that concupiscence is non-

Bellarmin's views. , .iii n.-i^i

conformity with the law, and sin, if these words be taken largely and improperly, as every vice and departure from rule and order, not only in manners, but also in nature and art, may be called sin. But in a strict and proper sense the determinations of sin cannot be applied to the yet unsanctified nature of those who have been renewed by baptism. " We assert," says he, " that corruption of na- ture or concupiscence, such as remains in the regenerate after baptism, is not original sin, not only because it is not im- puted, but because it cannot be imputed, since it is not in its own nature sin." And the Council of Trent declares that it

^ De Amiss. Grat., lib. v., cap. xiv. Controv., torn, iv., cap. vii. De Moor, cap. xv., § xxiii.

Lect. XIII.] ORIGINAL SIX. 337

is, in the Scripture, called sin, not because it is sin, but be- cause it springs from sin and leads to sin : Ex peccato est et ad peccatum indinat. The Remonstrants in their Apology articulately maintain " that original sin is

The Eenioiistrants. "^ _ °

not to be considered sin in the sense that it renders the race unworthy of the Divine favour, or exposes them to punishment in the strict and proper sense, as con- tradistinguished from calamity ; but it is to be viewed only as evil, infirmity, misfortune — it brings with it no guilt." ^ . ^ , Limborch,^ one of the most learned of the

Limborch.

Remonstant divines, repeatedly enounces the doctrine that what is natural cannot be sinful, and that the imbecility under which the posterity of Adam labours, and which, he thinks, has been grievously exaggerated by the Reformed theologians, cannot be properly associated with the notion of guilt. He admits that human nature has been injured by the fell; that we are born with appetites less pure than those of our first parents ; that there is a stronger inclination to evil, in consequence of which Ave are seduced into sin with less provocation ; but still he maintains that this concupiscence, in as far as it is natural, and not a habi- tude contracted by our own voluntary acts, cannot be pro- perly denominated sin. The fundamental position of the Arminian school, that ability is the measure of duty, neces- sitates this conclusion. Whatever has not freely originated from ourselves cannot be imputed to ourselves; it is not ours, but must be attributed to the cause which really deter- ^ . , mined it. The language of Zwino-le,^ too,

Zwingle. ^ o o & ? )

however it has been attempted to explain away its obvious import, conveys the same idea. He styles original sin as a disease, and not as strictly and properly sin. ™, „ , , ,. . On the other hand, the Reformed divines

Tlie Reformed divines. _ '

have uniformly maintained that the de- praved condition in which all the descendants of Adam are born is not only the fruitful parent of sin, but is in its own nature sin, and makes the man truly guilty before God. It

1 Limborch, lib. iii., c. 3, H- ^ De Moor, cap. sv., | xxiii.

Vol. I.— 22

338 ORIGINAL SIN. [Lect. XTIT.

is itself damnable iu its being, motions and ret^ults, and

without any actual transgression is a just ground of exclusion

from the favour of God. This conclusion

Testimony of the • n .•ni,i ,,• p

Scriptures. ^^ equally sustained by the testnnony oi

Scripture and the authority of conscience. It is admitted by Bellarmin and the Council of Trent that the word of God pronounces it to be sin. The whole argu- ment in the seventh chapter of Romans proceeds upon the supposition not only that it is evil, calamity, misfortune, but that it is guilt ; that it makes a man damnable — the subject of the righteous retribution of death. The declaration of Paul in his Epistle to the Ephesians, that we are by nature the children of wrath, can by no possibility be evaded. We are there expressly said to be under the condemnation of God, on account of the condition in which we are born. David, too, aggravates the guilt of his actual sin, in the fifty- first Psalm, by tracing it back to the sinful principles which he inherited from his mother's womb. The whole treatment of our natural condition in the New Testament is grounded in the notion that it is a state of guilt ; that our imbecility is blameworthy ; and that it has to be dealt with not as disease, but as moral perversion and disorder. All the pro- visions of grace imply this, or are utterly unintelligible.

Then, again, if the Scripture definitions of sin are to be Argument from maintained, they cannot but include our Scripture definitious native corruptiou. It surely is want of conformity with the law. It is the very defect which the law stigmatizes as the form of sin. Wher- ever there is not conformity, there is and must be sin in a subject capable of obedience. The man who is not what he ought to be, or who is what he ought not to be, the Bible uniformly treats as a sinner, and takes for granted that in some way or other the blame must be ultimately visited upon himself. It knows nothing of a non-conformity which is innocent. It assumes that the fact must always be grounded in guilt.

In the third place, if original corruption were not sin, it

Lect. XIII.] OEIGINAL SIN. 339

would be difficult to explain how the acts to which it excites, and which are only the outward expressions from Scripture^"'"''" ^'^ itself, could bc Considered sinful. If the original imjjulse is innocent, how can its gratification be sin ? How can its motions and excitations undergo a change in their own nature in consequence of their being humoured or encouraged ? There is surely no harm in yielding to the suggestions of innocent impulses. The Saviour teaches us to judge of the tree by its fruits. When the fruits are good, the tree is good. The Arminian tells us that all trees are in themselves good, but that some are un- fortunately afflicted Avith evil fruits ; yet that the evil is only in the fruit.

In the last place, original sin is certainly visited with death, and if death be the exponent of

A fourth argument 'ixj.! ••!• . i •, ^

from Scripture gui^*^ ^lien Original sm must make its sub-

ject guilty. Our own consciences are equally explicit with the Scrip- tures. They condemn the dis230sitions and habitudes which are grounded in our na- ture as the very core of the sinfulness which appears in our life. It is the malice, the hardness of heart, the insensibility, the unbelief, which cleave to us as the legacy of birth, which constitute the very life of our wickedness. The disposition or principle determines the moral significancy of the act ; the state of mind which lies at the root of the will conditions the degree of guilt which attaches to the act. The awakened sinner is particularly struck with the appalling wickedness involved in the fixed, abiding condition of his soul. His attention may first be arrested by his transient acts, but under the guidance of the Spirit he is soon led to inspect the moral attitude of his heart, and to pronounce the sentence of the prophet, " the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." Conscience condemns us, then, for what we are no less un- equivocally than for what we do. We cannot, therefore, evade the conclusion that native corruption is sin ; that it

Testimony of our own conscience.

340 ORIGINAL SIN. [Lect. XIII.

carries with it exposure to the Divine condemnation ; that it ends in death. Scripture and conscience cannot tolerate the palliatives of a deceitful philosophy ; they know noth- ing of a heart destitute of love to God as only unfortunate and not criminal, and they never deal with unbelief as in- firmity, but not guilt. Both, in directing us to look at our nature, stop our mouths and compel us to acknowledge that we deserve to die.

It is an important point to have clearly settled in the

These testimonies J^i"^^ ^^^^^ Original siu is accompauied with

prove that original il] dcscrt. It establishes beyond the possi-

sin involves guilt. m-i- /»iii • i

sibility ot doubt that m some way or other we must be the responsible authors of it. Conscience in condemning us as guilty on account of it, and the Word of God in ratifying that sentence, pronounce us at the same time to be the voluntary cause of its existence. Other- wise there would be a palpable contradiction. Even if it were granted that we are utterly unable to detect the causal relation, if it eludes our closest scrutiny, if the result of all philosophical inquiry gives only the appearance of our being absolutely conditioned by a foreign agency, — still, we should not be authorized to contradict a fundamental deliverance of conscience on account of our inability to apprehend the grounds of its truth. It must be assumed as unquestion- able, whether we can explain it or not. Its voice is final, whether we can understand the reason of its verdict or not. If conscience says that we are guilty on account of our native turpitude, that is a declaration that we stand in a personal relation to it which makes it justly imputable to us as our fault. We have in some way or other procured

it. Now the question arises, How and procured? ^^^ ^'^^ ' when ? It is perfectly clear that if it must

be ascribed to us, it must either be in con- sequence of some voluntary act of ours or in consequence of the voluntary act of another that can be justly construed as ours. A sinful state can only spring from a sinful act. It is always the penal visitation of transgression. Original

Lect. xiil] original sin. 341

sill, therefore, as a permanent, abiding condition mnst be penal, as Augustin and the Reformers persistently assert, or it cannot be sin at all. The sinful act which produced it must have been the personal decision of each human will — that is, each man must have fallen by his own personal transgression — or it must be the act of another so related to us as that we may be held accountable for

Only two supposi- •, npi • xi • i

tions possible. ^^- J-^^ere IS no third supposition possi-

ble— no medium betwixt our own act and the act of another.

Shall we say, then, that each man fell for himself? That

would necessitate the notion of a state of existence prior to

our birth in this world ; of an ante-mun-

Ante-mundane pro- i ij- • i-i n •■! -i -i

batiou. dane probation m which we failed, and

the consequence of w^hich is the disordered condition in which we find ourselves beginnino; our earthlv life. There have been intrepid logicians who have reso- lutely followed up the datum of conscience in relation to the guilt of original sin, and have found in it the unquali- fied assertion that we lived, moved and willed before we were born. The reasoning is short and apparently decisive. Our nature is sinful ; it could not have been made so with- out our act ; that act which corrupted the nature could not have taken place in time, for the corruption begins with our life in time ; there must, therefore, have been a transcendent existence in which this indispensable prerequisite of original sin was realized.

There are many phenomena connected with our present mundane life Avhicli the deepest thinkers have felt them- selves unable to comprehend without the supposition of a pre-existent state. Pythagoras, it is well

Pythagoras. | i i i ^ O 7

known, looked upon the present as a penal condition to which we were degraded for our abuse of a higher and nobler state. Plato felt him- self equally at a loss to explain the pheno- mena of knowledge or of sin Avithout the same presuppo-

342 ORIGINAL SIN. [Lect. XIII.

sition. Origen could find satisfaction in dealing with the delivei'ances of the human conscience, and

Origen. , ... . . r- o • i

the explicit testimonies oi fecripture, only by adopting the same hypothesis. " Kant, despairing of finding liberty anywhere in the iron chain of motive and action as stretching from the beginning to the end of our empirical existence, sought it in the higher world of the unconditioned ; and Schelling, as early as 1809, in his cele- brated essay on Freedom, in which he traced sin to a prin- ciple of darkness existing in God, and uniting itself with the free-will of man, expressly declared that original sin was committed by every man before his temporal being, and drew all the sins of life after it with rigorous necessity. Life was ]:)0und, but it was bound by an antecedent act of liberty, and thus the intuitions of conscience were defended by a bulwark too high for the reach of skepticism, and free- will stood invincible with its back to the wall of eternity,"^ Miiller, in his great work on Sin, finds himself driven by the exigencies of con- sistent speculation to a timeless state in which each man by his own free act conditioned his moral development in time. But there are insuperable objections to such a scheme. In the first place, the notion of a timeless ,:::J::^:^1 existence is Itself utterly unintelligible. Every finite being is conditioned, and con- ditioned both by time and space, and an intelligible world of real substantive existences without temporal relations is altogether contradictory.

In the next place, it is wholly unaccountable how such a state, signalized by so momentous an act as that which pro- duced original depravity, has so entirely passed from the memory as to leave no trace behind. Surely, if anything had impressed itself upon our minds, such a condition, so different from the present and so fruitful in its consequences, could not have failed to be remembered. If there had been 1 North British Kev., 1850.

Lect. XIII.] ORIGINAL SIN. 343

such a state, the Scriptures woukl not only have recognized it, but pressed it upon us as a full vindication of the justice of God in His dealings with the race. The recollection of this primitive act of freedom would have silenced all cavils, stopped every mouth, and explained to every human soul how and when it became the author of its own ruin.

But the doctrine is palpably inconsistent with the Scrip- ture account concerning the origin of the

Totally inconsistent i • i , i i t , . .

with Scripture. numau species, and the moral condition m

which the first of the race began his mun- dane being. We must look for that act which entails our depravity in the sphere of time and in the sphere of temporal conditions. We cannot carry human existence beyond Adam, nor Adam's existence beyond that creative fiat which gave him his being on the sixth day. Then and there the species began and began holy. The Scriptures further inform us when and where and how he lost his in- tegrity. From the time of his disobedience in the garden in eating the forbidden fruit he and all the race have borne the type of sin. There has been no holiness in the species from that hour to this unless as supernaturally produced by the grace of God. It would seem, therefore, that the all- conditioning act which has shaped the moral impress of the race was no other than the act which lost to Adam the image of his God. And such seems to be the explicit testimony of Scripture : " By one man's disobedience many were made sinners." Either we are guilty of that act, tlierefore, or original corruption in us is simply misfortune and not sin. In some way or other it is ours, justly imputable to us, or we are not and cannot be born the children of wrath. We must contradict every Scripture text and every Scripture doctrine which makes hereditary impurity hateful to God and punishable in His sight, or we must maintain that we sinned in Adam in his first transgression. There human sin historically began. Before that time the sijecies was holy ; since that time there has been none that doeth good, no, not one. That, therefore, is the decisive act — that was

344 ORIGINAL SIN. [Lect. XIII.

tlic point on which the destinies of the race turned. Btit the question arises, How could that act have been ours in such a sense as to justify the imputation of guilt? What causal agency could we possibly have had in bringing it about ? Was Adam ourselves, or were ourselves Adam, or Our relation to Adam could wc and hc bc personally ouc ? Let as a ground for impu- ^g look at our relation to him, and see if

we can find anything in which to ground the notion of our participating in the guilt of his trans- gression.

In the first place, he was the natural head of his posterity

— the father of all mankind. But the act

Adam our natural t} j. • j. l j.1 x l"

,jp,^j, 01 a parent is not by any means the act oi

the child. If the parental relation, such as it now obtains in the species, exhausted Adam's relations to the race, it would be impossible to explain how they could be guilty on account of his sin, or why they should be guilty on account of the first sin xather than any other. Even if it were granted that as a father he must propagate his own moral features, his children would receive them simply as a nature, without being blamable on account of them, as a child might innocently inherit a distorted body which the parent had brought upon himself by guilt. The natural re- lation is, therefore, wholly incompetent to bear the load of hereditary sin. There must be something more than parent and child in the case. It is vain to appeal to those analogies in which the offspring share in the sufferings incurred by the wickedness of their fathers. The offspring indeed suffer, but they do not charge themselves with blame — they have no sense of ill desert. They look upon their sufferings dis- tinctly as calamities, and not as punishments to them, though they may be punishments of their fathers through them. In the next place, Adam was the federal liead or repre- sentative of his race. He was on probation head'''" ""■" '''""'' for them, as well as for himself, in the Covenant of Works. He was not a private individual — he was the type of universal humanity. In

Lect. XIII.] ORIGINAL SIX. 345

him God was dealing witli all who should afterward spring from his loins. Now, that he sustained this relation is clear from the explicit testimony of the Scriptures ; and that it, if justly founded, is adequate to solve the problem of hered- itary guilt, is beyond dispute. If Adam were the agent of us all, his act was legally and morally ours. Qui factt per alium, fac'd jjer se.

The only question is. Whether this federal relation is founded in justice? We have already

Is this founded in j.i x j.1 • • ^ • i? 1

• jgjj^gj seen that the principle is one ot benevo-

lence, and furnishes the only hope for the absolute safety of any portion of mankind. Without this principle, the whole race might have perished without the possibility of redemption. But its benevolent tendencies are no proof of its essential justice. Can we vindicate it upon principles of reason? Is there any such union in the nature of things betwixt Adam and his descendants as to justify a constitution in which he and they are judicially treated as one ? An affirmative answer has

Two grounds. .

been given on two grounds: 1. I hat oi generic unity ; and 2. That of a Divine constitution.

If a fundamental unity subsisted betwixt Adam and his species, it is clear that he could be justly fuIdamel'tTunUy. "" ^Icalt with as the federal head or represent- ative of the race. He was the race, and therefore could fairly be treated as the race. What he did, it did ; his act was the act of Mankind, and his fall was the fall of ]Man. There was no fiction of law ; there was no ar- bitrary arrangement when he was made the representative of all who were to descend from him by ordinary generation. There was a real and an adequate foundation in nature for that covenant under which he was put upon trial, not only for himself, but for all his posterity.

Relation of the fed- HcrC, toO, WC SCC thc prCcisC rclatioU of

era! to the natural tlic federal aud natural union betwixt Adam

and the race. The federal presupposes the

natural. The federal is the public recognition of the fact

346 ORIGINAL SIX. [Lect. XIII.

implied in the natural, and is a scheme or dispensation of religion founded upon it. If there were not a real unity betwixt Adam and the race, the covenant of works could not, by an arbitrary constitution, treat them as one. In the no- tion of a generic identity of human nature, both ideas blend into one. Adam's sin becomes imj)utable, and as guilt in him becomes the parent of depravity in them. Hence, in the order of thought, his sin must always be conceived as imputed before they can be conceived as depraved. They must be regarded as guilty before they can reap the penal consequence of guilt.

By this doctrine of imputation the testimony of conscience is completely harmonized. It makes us

The testimony of con- . t ., ,i i^ i^

science harmonized. recogmze our dcpravity as the result of our own voluntary act; it was our voluntary act in the sense in which Adam and we were one. It makes us pronounce ourselves guilty on account of the corrujition of our nature, and to the extent of our participation in the generic character of the race we are blameworthy. We are responsible for this as we are responsible for every habit contracted by our own voluntary acts.

The only point in which this explanation fails to give satisfaction is in relation to the question whether the notion of generic unity is an adequate basis for grounding a per- sonal participation in the sin of Adam. In consequence of this difficulty, one class of theologians has diSfbuf hnn"edire^ rccoilcd from tlic doctriuc of the immediate imputation of Adam's first sin, and resolved the guilt of native depravity into our subsequent concurrence in it. That is, it becomes sin in us only by our free consent to its impulses — we make it sin by endorsing it. But if it be given to us as a part of our constitution without any fault justly chargeable upon us, it is hard to understand how a life s]3ontaneously manifesting itself in conformity Avith ex- isting conditions can be criminal in man any more than in the brute, unless the whole of his moral probation be sum- med up in the duty of resisting his nature. If sin only then

according to the Scrip- tures.

Lect. xiil] original sin. 347

begins wheu his will has adoptedlhe suggestions of corrupt lust, then it is implied that not only up to that point he is innocent, but that he is fully competent to mortify the flesh and extirpate his depravity. If he has not the power to re- sist and subdue, if his will is mastered by his nature, it is clear that the same reasoning which exempted native cor- ruption from the imputation of guilt, must also exempt all the acts necessitated by it. To maintain a will stronger than depravity is contrary to the whole teaching of Scripture concerning the extent and degree of that depravity, and is also inconsistent with the doctrine of the necessity of redemp- tion. Unless therefore we begin with guilt, we can never end with guilt. Either Adam's sin must be imputed, or all his race must be pronounced free from aught that is blame- worthy or deadly. Hence, the Scriptures teach exjjlicitly that we are first charged with the guilt of Adam's sin, and then, as the legal consequence, are born with natures totally corru])t. The matter may be put in another light. The disobedi- ence of Adam was, unquestionably, the be-

Another statement • • r • ' j.1 rri. j. T 1 T

of the case giuning 01 SHi u\ the race. Ihat disobedi-

ence determined the moral habitude or condition of his own soul, and determined it by a judicial sentence. He lost the image of God because he was guilty. The whole human race are born destitute of that image. Now, their destitution is beyond doubt the consequence of his sin. In what way or on what principle the consequence ? There are but two possible suppositions : a consequence either implying or not implying blameworthiness in them — a mere process of nature or a decree of justice. If a mere process of nature, then their existence absolutely begins with their birth, and the state in which they find themselves is an appointment of God analogous to that which determines the qualities of a tree or the propensities of a beast. They are just what God made them. But it can be no sin to re- ceive a nature which you cannot determine. If now the nature conditions the life, there can be no sin in that life in

348 ORIGINAL SIN. [Lect. XIIL

as far as it answers to the nature. If, on the other hand, our depravity is the judicial consequence of the first trans- gression, then it supposes not only that we existed, but that we acted, in Adam ; and then we have a point for all the subsequent determinations of guilt. The nature is wicked in me on the same principle that it was wicked in Adam — it was contracted by a wicked act.

Others are content with the general statement of Adam's

natural and federal relations to the race, ment!' """"'^'^ ^*^*''" witliout attempting to explain how the one

is grounded in and justified by the other. They are willing to admit that the existence of every indi- vidual begins at the moment of his personal manifestation in time. But they contend that the judicial sentence of the covenant conditions the type of that manifestation, and ne- cessitates the appearance of every descendant of Adam as a sinner. If asked, Whether representation can be arbitrary? they answer. No ; there must be a bond between the head and the members. If asked. What is the tie between Adam and his race ? they answer. That of blood. His natural headship fits and qualifies him for federal headship. This theory, in avoiding the metaphysics of personal unity, and resolving the whole connection into a moral and political community founded in blood, has some advantages. It is justified by many analogies — by the present constitution of families, commonwealths and states — and avoids the difficulty growing out of the limitation of Adam's influence upon us as to his first sin. But it has also serious drawbacks. It does not explain the sense of guilt as connected with depravity of nature — how the feeling of ill desert can arise in relation to a state of mind of which the subjects have been only passive recipients. The child does not reproach himself for the afflictions which his father's follies have brought upon him ; and the subject does not feel that he is punished in the ca- lamities which a wicked ruler brings upon a nation. He makes a marked distinction between those ills which he ex- periences in consequence of his social and political connec-

Lect. XIII.] ORIGINAL SIN. 349

tions with others, and those which he experiences in conse- quence of his own fault. Our inborn corruption we do feel to be our fault — it is our crime as well as our shame. Be- sides, this theory fails to explain the necessity of spiritual death. It does not show why God, in justice, must renounce the communion of those who are still personally innocent while putatively guilty. He might visit them with evil as a magistrate, and still treat them with sympathy and love in their personal characters. They might suffer without be- coming depraved. If they are not in themselves the proper objects of odium, why should they be hated ? These are difficulties connected with the account which recognizes no deeper unity than the natural and political. This theory, however, is the one commonly accepted in this country. Its simplicity recommends it. But I confess the leaning of my own mind to some theory which shall carry back our exist- ence to the period of Adam's probation.

On these grounds I am free to confess that I cannot escape from the doctrine, however mysterious, of

Generic unity the ... , ^ . n

true basis. ^ geucric uuity m man as the true basis of

the representative economy in the covenant of works. The human race is not an aggregate of separate and independent atoms, but constitutes an organic whole, with a common life springing from a common ground. There is an unity in the whole species ; there is a point in which all the individuals meet, and through which they are all modified and conditioned. Society exerts even a more powerful influence upon the individual than the individual upon society, and every community impresses its own pecu- liar type upon the individuals who are born into it. This is the secret of the peculiarities of national character. There was one type among the Greeks, another among the Asiatics, and still another among the Romans. The Eno-- lishman is easily distinguished from the Frenchman, the Chinese from the European, and the Negro from all. In the same way there is a type of life common to the entire race in which a deeper ground of uuity is recognized than

350 ORIGINAL SIN. [Lect. XIII.

that which attaches to national associations or the narrower ties of kindred and blood. There is in man what we may call a common nature. That common nature is not a mere generalization of logic, but a substantive reality. It is the ground of all individual existence, and conditions the type of its development. The parental relation expresses, but does not constitute it — propagates, but does not create it. In birth there is the manifestation of the individual from a na- ture-basis which existed before. Birth consequently does not absolutely begin, but only individualizes humanity. As, then, descent from Adam is the exponent of a potential exist- ence in him, as it is the revelation of a fact in relation to the nature which is individualized in a given case, it constitutes lawful and just ground for federal representation. God can deal with the natural as a covenant head, because the natural relation proceeds upon an union which justifies the moral.

The second explanation is that of Edwards, who endea- vours to reduce all identity to an arbitrary arbUraJconsutuUoT. coustitutiou of God, and finds the same ultimate ground of the personal unity of Adam and the race as for the personal identity of the same individual in diiFerent periods of his existence, or the con- tinued identity of the same substance in the successive changes of its being. This doctrine is unquestionably a paradox, and, however ingeniously put, sets at defiance the plainest intuitions of intelligence.

But it may be asked. Do you mean to say that each indi- vidual will actually expressed itself in the prevarication of Adam — that each man actually ate of the forbidden fruit ? As individuals certainly not ; as individuals none of us then existed. In our separate and distinct capacity his sin was no more ours than our sins are his. But as the race, which was then realized in him as it is now realized in all its in- dividuals, his act was ours. How the individual is related to the genus, how the genus contains it, and how the indi- vidual is evolved from it, are questions which I am utterly unable to solve. But their mystery is no prejudice to their

Lect. XIII.] ORIGINAL SIN. 351

truth. Our moral convictions demand that we should pre- dicate such an unity of mankind; and

Mystery, no preju- xU U •in.

dice to truth. tJiougli a great mystery itself, it serves to

clear up other mysteries which are pitch darkness without it.

If this account of the representative principle should be rejected, we can only fall back upon the testimony of Scrip- ture, and treat it as an ultimate fact in the moral govern- ment of God until a satisfactory explanation can be given. We must accept it as we accept other first principles, and patiently wait until the difficulties connected with it are dis- sipated by further light. It does explain hereditary sin and hereditary guilt ; it does unlock the mystery of God's deal- ing with the race ; it does meet all the requirements of con- science in reference to our own moral state and condition. ^^ ,^ , ^11 that it leaves unsolved is the ground

The theory of rep- ^ . . ° v^^ii^i

reseutation alone con- 01 its owii righteousucss. Every othcr InironSrcr t^^^^y ^^ obliged to deny native depravity, and to contradict at once the explicit teach- ings of Scripture and the articulate enunciations of con- science.

Lecture XIV THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN

WE liavc now traced the history of man, and of God's dealings with him, from Creation to the Fall. We have seen him in his primitive innocence when he walked in the light of his Creator's countenance, was regaled wuth the beauties of nature, received the homage of the creatures, and exulted in the prospect of a blessed immortality. He was at once a king and a priest — a king to whom the garden was a palace, and who exercised undisputed dominion over every lower rank of sublunary being — a priest in the great temple of nature, Avho gathered first from the fullness of his own heart, and then from the various perfections of the creatures, the manifold praises of God and poured them forth in doxology and adoration into the ears of the Eternal. He occujiied a noble elevation. He had a grand destiny before him. But how

" Little knows Any, but God alone, to value right The good before him, but perverts best things To worst abuse or to their meanest use !" ^

The scene becomes woefully changed, and instead of truth, justice, innocence and sanctitude severe, we are presented with the brood of ills that have sprung from the pregnant womb of sin. We must now survey the race amid the ruins of the fall, and we must never lose sight of the consideration that the condition in which we now find ourselves is one of condemnation and of guilt. The frowning aspect of Provi- 1 Par. Lost, iv., 1. 201-204. 352

Lect. XIV.] THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. 353

dence which so often darkens our world and appals our

minds, receives its only adequate solution in the fact that

the fall has fearfully changed the relations of God and the

creature. We are manifestly treated as

state of sin. ... , ,

criminals under guard. We are dealt with as guilty, faithless, suspected beings that cannot be trusted for a moment. Our earth has been turned into a jjrison, and sentinels are posted around us to awe, rebuke and check us. Still, there are traces of our ancient gran- deur ; there is so much consideration shown to us as to jus- tify the impression that these prisoners were once kings, and that this dungeon was once a palace. To one unac- quainted with the history of our race the dealings of Provi- dence in regard to us must appear inexplicably mysterious. The whole subject is covered with light when the doctrine Theological import- 0^ ^hc Fall is uudcrstood. The gravest auce of the doctrine of thcological crroi's witli rcspcct alike to the

character of God and the character of man have arisen from the monstrous hypothesis that our present is our primitive condition, that Ave are now what God origi- nally made us, and that the exactions of his law have always been addressed to the circumstances of disadvantage and im- becility which now unquestionably attach to us. This were surely to cast a grave imputation upon the Judge of all the earth ; and so strongly has the injustice of such an adminis- tration been felt that others have not scrupled to modify the principles of the Divine government so as to make them square with the imperfect condition of the species. It can- not be denied that if the present be assumed as our natural state, it is impossible to vindicate God's justice if he con- demn us for that which He Himself of His own sovereign will implanted in us, and equally impossible to vindicate His holiness in implanting sin within us, or in not punish- ing it when He finds it there. Most of the errors touchinsr human ability have arisen from inattention to the relations in which the fall has placed us to God. The whole doctrine of redemption is conditioned upon these relations, and we

Vol. I.— 23

354 THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. [LiXT. XIV.

can therefore neither know ourselves, nor God, nor the Re- deemer, without the knowledge of the moral features of our present state. It is represented in the Scriptures as a state of sin aud misery, and our own experience abundantly jus- tifies the melancholy record. But if we would compass in any just measure the magnitude of our ruin, we must in- quire into the nature of sin, and see whence it derives its malignity and bitterness ; we must then survey the extent to which we are involved in sin, and trace the steps by which we have sunk to this degree of degradation ; we must finally vindicate the justice and goodness of God in His dispensations toward us, and when we have taken this wide survey, we may return prepared to appreciate the bless- ings of the Gospel.

I. The first point to be considered is the nature of sin, or the answer to the question, What is sin?

What is sin? rr^^ r' i i • i • •

The first and most obvious determuiation of it, and that to which the mind instantly reverts, is its re- lation to the moral law. Where there is

First: Objective tie- i xi a j.i j.1 i

terminations. "^ ^^^^f ^lic Apostlc assurcs US there can be

no transgression. The moral law is the standard, or measure, by which the man must l^e tried. It prescribes alike what he is required to be and what he is re- quired to do. It extends to the whole sphere of his volun- tary being. It is the mould into which his w*hole life must be run. Whatever, therefore, in him is not in accordance with the law is sin. Hence, sin is described by John as being essentially dvojAa — a state of non-conformity wdth the law. It is a matter of no consequence how JnolT^uZluZ. the law is made known, whether through the operations of conscience or an express revelation from God ; its authority does not depend upon the mode of announcing it, but upon its inherent nature as the standard and measure of moral rectitude. No matter how proclaimed, the soul of man instantly resj)onds to it as holy and just and good. He feels that it speaks Avith au- thority, aud that perfection neither in being nor condition

Lect. XIV.] THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. 355

can be attained to apart from its requisitions. "Wlien the question is asked, What does the law demand ? some have sought to restrict it to external actions, others have con- fined it to chosen and deliberate purposes, but it is generally maintained that its domain is coextensive with the domain of the will. That it is not to be limited to external acts is evident from all those testimonies of Scripture which affirm it to be spiritual, and from the universal conscience of the race, which condemns the motive even more severely than the act, and conditions the morality of the agent more by his purposes than his actual doings. When, however, the obli- gation of the law is said to be measured bv the extent of the will, the statement is not to be accepted without an explana- tion. If by will is meant only the conscious volitions, or the conscious preferences of the man, the statement is quite too narrow. Those states or habitual dispositions from which these conscious preferences proceed, those permanent condi- tions of the mind which determine and shape every motive and every act of choice, are as truly within the jurisdiction of the law as the volitions themselves. There is a something which we ought to be as well as a something which we ought to do. The law is as much the rule of our being as of our life. If it should be asked how we can become re- sponsible for original habits and dispositions which exist prior to any exercise of will, and condition and determine all its choices, we must either resolve the thing into a primi- tive and inexplicable deliverance of our moral nature, or presuppose that, in our primitive state, these constitutional peculiarities are the result of an act of will. Man was made without any tendencies to evil ; these he has superinduced upon himself by voluntary transaction, and they are, there- fore, related to the will as its prosier product. This is evi- dently the case in relation to acquired habits ; they spring, in the first instance, from the will, and afterwards master it. So the whole inheritance of native depravity which we bring with us into the world, with all those tendencies to evil which hold the will in bondage, arc the fruits of a free act

356 THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. [Lect. XIV.

of choice. But whatever may be the exjjlanation, Scripture and experience concur in attributing a moral significancy to the dispositions which, in our present state, lie back of the will. The malice which prompts to murder is as hateful as the murderous deed ; the propensity which kindles at temp- tation is something more than a weakness — it is a positive evil.

If now the law regulates the being and the life of man, it is clear that our first determination of sin, taken from its relation to the law, extends its sphere to the inward condi- tion as well as the outward expression of the soul — to the state of the heart as Avell as to the actions of the life. What- ever is not in exact accordance with the spirit and temper of the law, whatever is out of harmony with it, either in the way of defect, omission or overt transgression, is of the formal nature of sin.

But sin is not distinguished from a crime, or an immoral- ity, or a vice, by this determination. We

It is disobedience to j.ii ±t i j_i/*

(Jq^ must add anotner element beiore non-con-

formity with the law is entitled to be called sin. That term indicates a special relation to God — nothing is sin which does not directly or indirectly terminate in Him. Hence, the law must be considered as the expression of His will, and then our determination by the external standard or measure is complete, and sin, as transgression of the law, becomes disobedience to God. It is the want of correspond- ence betwixt His will and ours. But when we have reached this point, do we feel that our inquiries are satisfied ? Is it enough to say that such is the will of God, or such is the law, to satisfy the demands of our moral nature ? Must we not go further, and inquire into the grounds of that will ? Is it arbitrary, capricious, and can moral distinctions be created by a simple act of the Divine will considered with- out reference to any ulterior ground or motive ? As moral character in man depends upon dispositions and principles back of his volitions, must there not be something analo- gous in God, something in the very nature and grounds of

Lect. XIV.] THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. 357

His being wliich determines His will to command and for- bid what it does ? Unquestionably there is ; it is the holi- ness of the Divine nature, that essential rectitude of His being, which constitutes His glory and without which we could not conceive Him to be an object of worship or reve- rential trust. Holiness is represented in the Scriptures as the very life of God. In all other beings it is an accident separable from the essence ; in God it is His very self It pervades all His other attributes and perfections, and makes them to be pre-eminently divine. His infinite knowledge, tempered by his holiness, becomes wisdom. His infinite power, wielded by this same holiness, becomes the guardian of justice, truth and innocence. His infinite will, impreg- nated with holiness, becomes the perfect standard of right- eousness and duty. This perfection is God's crown and glory, and hence sin appears as the contrast to God's holiness and the coming short of God's glory. It

It is the contradic- . j. ' ^ ' ± • t t -,.

tion of God's holiness. ^^ uot Simply trausgrcssion, disobedience;

it is the want of holiness. These are all Scripture determinations. They are derived from the com- parison of man's character and life with an external stand- ard ; they are objective representations of sin, and it is these alone through which the conscience is first awakened and man convinced of the evil that is in him.

But although these objective determinations are enough for duty, they are not enough for speculation. They do not satisfy the wants of science. We are impelled to go far- ther and inquire whether there is any specific quality which distinguishes sin, and by virtue of which all its forms and manifestations can be reduced to unity. Let us, therefore

now notice its subjective determinations. ive dTterJinationr ^^ fixiug thcsc, the first thing to be borne

in mind is the ethical ground of God's rio-ht to the service of man. This ethical ground is the complete dependence of man upon God. The creature lives only in the will of the Creator, Its life, faculties and powers are only continued expressions of the will that underlies them.

358 THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. [Lect. XIV.

The obvious relation implied in the term creature is that of absolute dependence on the will of the Creator. In him- self, man is nothing. He is something only in his relations to the will of God. This gives to God an absolute right of property in him. The true ethical ground, therefore, is

The true ethical i^^'^^^'s rcktion to God as the expression of ground of right and His will and the product of His power. Now, as the ground of man's life is the will of God, the law of his life must also be that will. De- pendence as being necessitates dependence as moral being'. The moment you lose sight of this dependence you have, in so far as I can see, no ethical ground of right whatever. You cannot ground it in power, for superior power gives no right. For the same reason, you cannot ground it in wis- dom. If the ground of man's existence be found in him- self, and of God's in Himself, then from these elements there will emerge as clearly the idea of personal independence as there would in the relation of two creatures to each other. Hence, it is impossible to take a right start in tracing the doctrine of sin without taking in the idea of creation.

We are now prepared to see the specific shape wliich obe- dience must take. There must a supreme devotion in the

T„„..i„.= „. c„ will of the creature to that of the Creator,

Involves our su- '

preme devotion to and tliis dcvotiou is suprcmc when there is not the slightest deviation of the former from the latter. This supreme devotion constitutes the moral condition of the soul indispensable to true holiness. Now, how is this condition to be expressed ? Unquestion- ably in Love. But although love is the expression of obe- dience to law, we are not to suppose, as Miiller has done in his work on Sin, that love exhausts the whole sphere of duty, and that everything commanded may be logically deduced from love. The duties of justice cannot by any possibility be construed into forms of benevolence. To speak the truth is not to love God, though love to God en- sures truth. Love is the expression of that state of the heart which will induce and ensure universal obedience.

Lect. XIV.] THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. 359

Thus, while it is the motive and ground of obedience, it does not constitute the whole object-matter of that obe- dience. It is the universal form, but not the universal matter. It is the ground-form, the motive-principle, but not the logical genus. We can now understand, also, the place which love to the creature occupies. Rule out the notion of creation, and where is the ethical ground of a sin- gle obligation of one creature to another ? The whole ques- tion of right and obligation would resolve itself into one of power, wisdom or utility. The ethical ground would be gone. But introduce the idea of creation, place all other creatures in the same relation to God with our ourselves, and my relations to the creature are at once determined by our common relations to the Creator. In order to deter- mine how I may love and use the creature aright, I must view it in its relations to the purpose of God. It was cre- ated for the manifestation of the Divine glory, and I love and use it aright when I do so with a view to the promotion of that glory in the purpose for which it was created. The subjective state of mind, therefore, which constitutes true holiness is that which corresponds to the sense of absolute dependence upon God as a creature, which expresses itself in supreme devotion to His will, and attaches itself to the creature only in its relations to God.

We are now prepared to find a clue to the nature of sin. (1.) It involves a negation of the feeling of

Sin is the denial of -i -i rr^^ • • i • . i •

dependence on God. dependence, ihis implies the impression

of independence. Here we find the root

of sin. This notion of independence, whether imperceptibly

influencing the mind or consciously present, lies at the basis

of all sin. (2.) Then comes another step —

It is estrangement .lip •,• , , a r^ i

from God. ^"'^^^ ot positivc estrangement from God.

This assumes the form. of direct opposition or open enmity to God. (3.) Then the subjective state into

which sin resolves itself is that of self-affir-

It is self-affirmation.

mation, or love to the creature from self- relations, not from its relations to God. Self-affirmation is

360 THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. [Lect. XIV.

a supreme law in relation to self-dependence, just as affirma- tion of God is a supreme law in relation to dependence upon God. Therefore, in the ultimate analysis, if you commence with self-dependence or independence as the ethical ground, you are obliged to end in self-affirmation. Most Calvinistic divines make the subjective state to be affirmation not simply of self, but of the creature. The creature, as well as self, is God. But in my opinion this view is defective. As love to the creature in a state of holiness is determined by its re- lations to the purpose of God, so, in a state of sin, that love is determined by relations to our own views and selfish pur- poses. Self is the central point from which everything, even God Himself, is contemplated.

If this analysis be correct, I resolve the whole subjective

determination of sin into self -affirmation. To this there is

one objection. It apparently conflicts with

Objection from cer- , i i n ^ • l • 1

tain natural affection., ^hosc phcnomcna of our iiaturc in which we seem to act from principles independent of self — phenomena which seem to imply an entire forget- fulness of self and a disinterested attachment to the good of others — phenomena such are seen in the love of a mother for her offspring, in gratitude, compassion, etc. Now how will you explain these phenomena? Here, New-England divines are involved in serious error. They laud divines. '^"^ "^ P^^ sclf-lovc for the subjective determina- tion of sin. They hold to a reflex opera- tion of the mind in all such cases as those above, the man first considering the effect which the particular act will have upon himself, and then acting in reference to that effect. But you cannot explain in this way those elementary prin- ciples of our nature, those constitutional tendencies which Bishop Butler has so conclusively shown to exist back of the will. They do not admit of this reflex operation of the mind. But take the view of sin which I have presented, and the thing is plain. These princijjles

The true explanation. ^ i r> • ^ o

are a part and parcel of our nature itself. Their exercise is but the evolution of what is within us.

Lect. XIV.] THE STATE AND NATURE OP SIN. 361

The actions to which they prompt are performed not in con- sequence of their relations to God and to holiness, but simply because the principles which lead to them are part of our- selves, and for no other reason. According to this limita- tion, we take in the whole of those principles embraced under the heads of virtue and prudence, bringing tliem all, from their relations to self, under the category of sin. I recom- mend to the class on this subject the work of Miiller on the Christian Doctrine of Sin. His first book

MUIler on Sin. . ..,,,,.

IS not SO clear as it might be, but his second contains many very striking thoughts. He makes the sub- jective determination of sin to be self-affirmation. I agree with him, therefore, as to his conclusion, though I differ as to the steps by which he reaches it.

We have considered the nature of sin with respect both to its objective and subjective determinations. In the first aspect, it presents itself as the transgression of the law, dis- obedience to God and contradiction to His holiness. In the second, it appears as contradiction to the principle of absolute dependence implied in the very notion of a creature, and as a vain effijrt to realize the taunting lie of the tempter : "Ye shall be as gods." The law of sin, as an operative element in the soul, is the virtual assertion of self-supremacy and self-sufficiency. It makes man a God to himself. " What else is sin," says the venerable Howe/ " in the most comprehensive notion, but an undue imitation of God — an exalting of the creature's will into a supremacy, and oppo- sing it, as such, to the Divine ? To sin is to take upon us as if we were supreme and that there were no Lord over us ; 'tis to assume to ourselves a deity as if we were under no law or rule, as He is not under any but what He is to Him- self. Herein to be like God is the very core and malignity of sin." According to this reduction, sin is essentially apostasy — a dissolution of the tie which binds the creature in willing subjection to the Author of its being. It is a vir- tual denial of its own creaturehood, and a consequent rejec- ^ Blessedness of the Eighteous, chap, iv., § 1.

362 THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. [Lect. XH^

tion of the rights of the Creator. Its language is : "I am, and I am my own, and, therefore, have a right to live to myself." Considered as the renunciation of dependence upon God, it may be called unbelief; as the exaltation of itself to the place of God, it may be called pride ; as the transferring to another object the homage due to the Supreme, it may be called idolatry ; but in all these aspects the central principle is one and the same. " Self is the centre and end," as Howe ^ expresses it, " in which all must meet and termi- nate."

It is interesting to notice how the objective and subjective determinations of sin completely coincide

e s ness is tie | hamiouize. Selfishness is not only a

root of sin. •i

motive principle which will infallibly en- gender all the forms of evil forbidden in the law, but it is itself a condensation of the very spirit of evil. It is itself a compendious violation of every precept of the laAv. In the first place, it begins in a lie ; its first utterance is a false- hood, and that falsehood is blasphemy. In the next place, it is a fraud — a foul breach of justice — as it robs God of His rights and gives His glory to another. And what greater contempt can there be of the spirit of benevolence than to treat men as instruments of our own pleasure, and make our- selves a centre around which they must revolve ? If the great fundamental requisites of the law can be reduced to truth, justice and benevolence, then the very essence of sin is contained, not only potentially but formally, in the prin- ciple of selfishness. It is falsehood, injustice and malice. When we have reached this principle, we have gone to the root of our disturbed moral life.

II. But while the objective determinations of sin indicate the things which are commanded or forbidden, and its sub- jective determinations fix the attitude in nauirforsi*n^ ^'"™'' wliicli tlic siuucr stauds, and detect the immediate ground of his transgressions, the question still remains, What constitutes the formal nature of ^ Blessedness of the Kighteous, chap, iv., I 8.

Lect. XIV.] THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. 363

sin ? Why are certain actions commanded by the law, and others forbidden ? On what ground is one posture of the soul pronounced to be right and another wrong ? These questions go to the bottom of the subject. To answer them will be to explain the reason of the law and the malignity of selfish- ness, and to reduce to unity both classes of determinations.

1. There are those who have reduced moral distinctions to the arbitrary decisions of the Divine will. They refuse ^ Moral distinctions ^o seck auy higher ground of the nature not giuuuded in God's of virtuc than that God commands it, or of the nature of vice than that God forbids it. They see no reason why the constitution of things might not have been so essentially different from what it is as that what we now commend as duty might have been condemned as a crime, and that what we now reprobate as sin might have been applauded as holiness. The only answer which they will allow to be given to the question concerning our moral judgments is that God has so willed. His will makes right and wrong as freely as it creates contingent beings. Virtue is right and vice is wrong for the same reason that some beings are rational and others dumb. This notion has been supposed to commend the supremacy of the Divine will. " But such authors," as Dugald Stewart justly re- marks, " do not recollect that what they add to the Divine jwwer and majesty they take away from His moral attri- butes, for if moral distinctions be not immutable and eter- nal, it is absurd to speak of the goodness or of the justice of God." ^ The history of this opinion, as it appeared among the scholastics, and subsequently rea]ipeared among the high Calvinists of the Supralapsarian school, it is unnecessary here to investigate. It is enough to say that it cuts up by the roots every effort to apjirehend the character of God from the works of His hands. If His will be arbitrary, groundless, what He wills cannot reveal what He is. He does not express Himself in His works. " By such a de- termination," Miiller acutely observes,^ "the contents of the 1 Works, vol. vi., p. 299. ^ Doctrine of Sin, vol. i., p. 98.

364 THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. [Lect. XFV.

moral law would become for God Himself, although the pro- duct of His will, a foreign, an external one, because it would have no relation whatever to His nature. To say that the will of God is determined by the fullness of His own being, is in no sense to limit or condition Him. It is simply to affirm that He is Himself, that He acts like Himself and can never deny Himself. To make an arbitrary separation betwixt His will and His intelligence, and to suppose that He is capable of acting from mere caprice, is to condition Him by imperfections which are disreputable to a creature. God's nature is the ground of God's will.

but in His nature, ,

It always has a reason, and that reason is found in His own necessary and immutable perfections. His will is Himself, the fullness of His wisdom and good- ness and holiness in action, as well as of His power. To Him the right is not law — it is His life ; it is not duty — it is His being, and it becomes law to the creature through the intervention of His wise and holy will. There is no eter- nal law of duty ; law begins with the creature, but there is in the Divine Being an eternal ground of law or measure of right.

One important step ^ve have gained. We have traced moral distinction to the nature of God. As He is the foun- tain of all being, He is the fountain of all righteousness. The sublime declaration, " I am," is without a predicate, because it has a fullness of contents which precludes any other predicate than itself. It is an important point we have gained. Moral distinctions are seen to be as eternal and immutable in their ground as the nature of God. They

are further revealed as making us either

and make us like or ti ti r^ i ml • x • xl j. i • i

unlike God. likcor unlikc God. ihc just IS that which

assimilates to Him ; the unjust that which contradicts His image. Likeness to God is holiness ; un- likeness, sin.

2. But the question still returns upon us. What is that quality or property the possession of which makes us like God — the absence of which, unlike? What is that specific

Lect. XIV.] THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. 365

thing called righteousness which the law declares, and which springs from the very being of the Almighty ? This ques- tion has been variously answered. Some make the common quality of rio:;ht to consist in the relation

They are not ground- I J o

ed in any finite r.la- of tlliugS tO OUr OWU happiuCSS ; aud OthcrS,

*'°"^' in the relation to the happiness of our fel-

low-men ; and others again have combined both tendencies in their theories of virtue. These theories, however, all give to virtue an origin in the creature ; they ground it in finite relations. If we are to make it relative and resolve it into tendencies of any kind, it would be far more consist- ent with its source in the nature of God to define it by its tendency to promote His glory. All such solutions are un- satisfactory, because they presuppose that we are already in possession of what we are seeking ? It is clear that we can know neither our own good, nor the good of others, nor the glory of God, until we know what good We must know what .^^^^^^ j^^ rp^ ^^^^^^ determined the good is

good itself IS. *^

to have settled the whole question. The only unity in right according to this method of procedure is an unity of relation ; there is no unity among the things themselves which we denominate from it. They agree in nothing but a common tendency. The question, therefore, still recurs upon us after all these solutions, What is right ?

AVe answer that it is, as Locke would ex- The right, an origi- ^^^^ •. ^ gimple idea, or, as more recent

nal intuition. 1 ' >■ ' '

philosophers might prefer to designate it, an original intuition, which we are no more capable of ex- plaining than we are of defining any other ultimate truth. It is the thing apprehended by reason in the operations of conscience, as the world or ourselves are apprehended in per- ception and consciousness. It is the fundamental datum of the moral understanding. In every operation of conscience there is involved a perception as well as a feeling. Though these are indissolubly united in the act, they are separable in thouoht. The feeling is the sense of duty and the sense of merit and demerit ; the perception is that the thing is right.

366 THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. [Lect. XIV.

Conscience does not make the right, it only declares it ; the right exists independently of it, as the world exists inde- pendently of onr senses. We could not know it without conscience, but a condition of knowledge must not be con- founded with a condition of existence.

A reality, but rr«i • i • tit

iJie right IS a reality whether we perceive it or not, and when perceived it is perceived as an absolute reality, a reality for all minds.

But conscience recognizes the right under manifold forms. Truth is right, iustice is right, benevolence is

under maiiifolil forms. o ^J ^ . i i i i •> i • i

right, temperance is right— the habits which j)rompt to the observance of these virtu.es are right ; but are all these one and the same right ? If one, in what does their unity consist ? The actions of truth are certainly different from those of temperance ; the actions of benevolence are as clearly different from those of justice ; the habits are obviously so many different subjective states. Where, then, is the unity, and why is the same term applied in common to them all ? It is obvious that no analysis of duties and no comparison of the things commanded by our moral nature can ever conduct us to any other unity than that of a common subjective affirma- tion. They are all right because they all sustain the same relation to conscience. Like truth, their coincidence is found in the possession of the same subjective necessity of affirmation. But is there not a higher unity in which all these laws are ultimately grounded ? Is there not a common ground of their common relation to the conscience ? Un- questionably there is. If righteousness springs from the Divine nature, if it is founded in the very being of God as wise, good and intelligent, then it has an objective unity All these have a which is determined by the mode of its sub- common relation to jectivc affirmation in God. Righteousness

the holiness of God. ., i-iit nn -r-»'i/

IS that which holiness affirms. Kighteous- ness applies to the matter of right objectively considered ; holiness applies to the Divine intelligence as loving, appro- ving and commanding it. Whatever a holy God enjoins, that is the thinfr which is rinht.

Lect. XIV.] THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. 367

We have now reached a second step. We have seen, jivst, that moral distinctions are eternal and necessary as grounded in the nature of God. We have seen, next, that the unity of rectitude, considered as an object and as predicable of actions and motives, consists in their relation to the holiness of God. Their repugnance to or congruity with that determines the point wliether they are right or wrong. What God's holy will embraces, that is right; wdiat it rejects and abhors, that is wrong.

3. Our next step must be to investigate the nature of holiness. It is evidently distinguished

The nature of holiness, . ^ i . .

from right as a faculty is distinguished from its object. It is properly expressive only of a subjec- tive condition. But is it a single attribute in God co-ordinate with those of truth, justice, goodness ; or a single habit in man co-ordinate with other single habits of S2)ecific virtues ? If so, there is no absolute unity in rectitude ; there would be different forms of right, answering to the different moral per- fections of God, and each as distinct from the others as in- telligence in God is distinct from wdll. There would be no unity among human virtues but their common relation to the laws of conscience. But holiness is not to be thus re- stricted. It is not co-ordinate with the other moral perfec- tions of God, but inclusive of them. It is that in which they are contained, from which they spring, and by which they are determined. They are all so many expressions of it. " It comprehends," as Howe justly re- marks, " His righteousness and veracity, and, indeed, whatever we can conceive in Him under the notion of a moral excellency. It may, therefore, be styled a transcendental attribute, that, as it were, runs through the rest and casts a glory upon every one ; it is an attribute of attributes. Those are fit predications, holy power, holy truth, holy love, etc. And so it is the very lustre and glory of His other perfections ; He is glorious in holiness. Hence, in matters of greatest moment He is sometimes brought in swearing by His holiness, which He is not wont to do by

368 THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. [Lect. XIV.

any one single attribute, as though it were a fuller expres- sion of Himself, an adcequatlor coneeptus, than any of the rest."^ The reason of such representations is that holiness implies the fullness and energy of God's delight in right- eousness. It is the very life of that love and blessedness which flows from His own infinite self-sufficiency. God is love. His being is love, and the expressions of that love are the different streams of right, which originally in Him, flow out upon rational creatures in the form of law and righteousness. In other words, God, as a holy being, con- templates Himself as His own infinite good ; and the bless- edness of the Divine nature is but the delight of the Divine holiness in His beino- what He is. Without this infinite delight in Himself as the good, moral distinctions could not possibly emerge. Without the presence of love, the good could not be thought of — it would be an unmeaning term. It is the fullness of love to His own perfections which de- termines Him to express them, and to stamp them in some degree upon every work of His hands. Hence, His holiness pervades His whole being ; underlies every divine activity ; prompts every divine energy. It actuates every perfection. God could not move without it ; — He would cease to be God. As thus taken uj), or rather contained, in the infinite love of God, infinite righteousness becomes something more than the right — it becomes the good ; and is the right precisely because it is the good. This is the highest point that we can reach. This is the highest unity which we can find in rectitude. It is the centre of the Divine love, the spring of the Divine life, and the perfection of the Divine blessedness. Remove this love in God, and you destroy the unity of His whole nature.

So holiness in man is not a detached habit co-ordinate with other habits and states, neither is it a

and in man. . /. ,

compendious expression tor a complement of habits. There may be specific virtues, such as truth, temperance, fortitude and courage, but these are not suffi- ^ Blessedness of the Eighteous, chap, v., p. 68.

Lect. XIV.] THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. 369

cipnt to entitle a man to the distinction of holiness. As a state in contradistinction from its exercises, holiness is a nature, and by a nature we understand not the collection of i^roperties which distinguish one being from another, but a generic disposition which determines, modifies and regulates all its activities and habits — the law of its mode of life. It is that out of which specific habits grow, from which every single action ultimately proceeds. It is not to be confounded with the substance of the soul, the actions of the soul, or definite conditions of the soul ; it lies back of them all, and conditions them in all their operations. There is a nature in the lion, the tiger and the dog which determines their manner of life — a nature in all beings which makes them what they are. Without it there could be no character, no habits, no consistent action; it is the invisible thread of unity which runs through the whole life and gives it its coherence. As lying out of consciousness, we cannot define it, but its eifects are so obvious and palpable that we are compelled to accept it as a necessary faith. Those who reject it on the ground that the consciousness reveals nothing but faculties and acts, will find themselves involved in inextricable difficulty in their attempts to solve some of the simplest problems of life. They must deny all habits as states of mind, whether original or acquired, and especially must they deny that there are any such things as moods of feeling which modify and colour the succession of our thoughts. They must deny a cheerful temperament, a morose temperament or an equable temperament, or that any such generic peculiarities exert an influence upon the flow of our thoughts.

But as there are within the sphere of our daily experience various generic dispositions, each of which serves as the basis of very difterent habits, there is nothing incredible in supposing — nay, unless we propose to dismember human life, it is absolutely necessary to suppose — that there must be one great central disposition in which all others are rooted. The general temper of sadness has numberless manifesta-

VoL. I.— 24

370 THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN, [Lect. XIV.

tions ; the same is true of joy ; and why should there not

be a tone of mind in which all virtuous activities are united ?

To illustrate the all-pervading influence of holiness as a

nature, the Scriptures employ the striking

Illustrated in the i j? Tj? "Vin l xl

Scriptures by life. aualogy of lifc. Wheu we ask the ques-

tion, What is life ? we soon become sensi- ble that we are dealing with a subject which eludes the capa- city of thought. We cannot seize it in itself. AVc see its effects, we witness its operations, we mark the symptoms which distinguish its presence. But the thing itself escapes our nicest analysis. We can only speak of it as the myste- rious, unknown cause of numberless phenomena which ex- perience forces on our notice. Where is life? Is it here and not there? Is it there and not here? Is it in the heart, the head, the hands, the feet ? It evidently pervades the man ; it is the condition, the indispensable condition, of the organic action of every part of the frame. The body may be perfect in its structure, it may have every limb and nerve and muscle, and foreign influences may be made to mimic the operations of life, bat if life be not there these actions or rather motions are essentially distinct from those of the living man. In like manner holiness pervades the soul. Though not a habit, nor a collection of habits, it is the indispensable condition of them all. It is not here nor there, but is diffused through the whole man — the understanding, the will, the conscience, the affections ; it underlies all dis- positions and habitudes, and is felt in all the thoughts and desires. xVll moral qualities inhere in it as their fundamen- tal form. It is the point of unity to the whole spiritual life. In its exercises and manifestations in consciousness it is the delight and rest of the soul in God as the perfect good, because the perfectly just. It sees in righteousness not only the authority which makes it duty or the rectitude which makes it merit, but it sees a beauty and glory which makes it blessedness. Its longings are after God distinctly as the holy God, and its deepest utterances are those of pro- found adoration and praise on account of His immaculate

Lect. XIV.] THE STATE AXD NATURE OF SIN. 371

purity. It is ravished with the glory of the Lord because „ ,. that fflory is only the splendour of His holi-

Holiiiess IS supreme O J J r

love to God as the su- ncss. It is fundamentally the principle piemegoo . ^^ suprcmc lovc to Him as the supreme

good. His holiness is the central point of attraction, and all His other perfections — His independence, omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience — all that belong to the eter- nity and immutability of His being, are awful and vener- able as they are pervaded and inspired by His infinite right- eousness. He might be an object of dread and terror, and might extract the homage of slaves and vassals, if He were possessed only of infinite power and infinite knowledge, but He could never be loved, trusted and adored. He could awaken no feeling which deserves to be called religious if He were not the Holy One who inhabiteth the praises of eternity. Now in this supreme love to God as the good there are included in inseparable unity a perception of the understanding and a sentiment of the heart. Both are given and both are contained in one single, indivisible oj^eration of consciousness. The perception is of the beauty of holi- ness, the ultimate standard of every other form of beauty. It is seen to be intrinsically glorious ; it appeals directly to our lovc ; it presents that which is fitted to awaken it. The sentiment of the heart is the response of love which it freely sends forth ; it looks with delight upon the glorious object. The soul burns with the ardour of desire, and sees in the possession of the lovely object a perfect and a satisfying good. The Avill is necessitated to choose what is presented under these aspects of beauty and attraction, and its spontaneous lano-uao;e is, " Whom have I in heaven but Thee ? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee. I shall be satisfied when I awake in Thy likeness." Hence, holiness in man pervades the soul in all the forms of its existence as a nature or as in exercise. It is light in the understanding, beauty to the heart, and good to the will. It appeals to every faculty and addresses itself to every energy, and it is in man as in God, his life and his glory. It is that in which

372 THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. [Lect. XIV.

action and speculation are fused into one ; thought be- comes sentiment and sentiment becomes thouglit, and the essence of botli is love.

From this investigation of the nature of the ideas of right

and holiness, it is an obvious inference that there can be no

holiness in any creature in which the notion of the right is

not carried up to the notion of the good.

It is the right car- -^ . , . , .

ried up into the good it IS uot cuough to rccognizc a thing as and heart must re- dixty, as that which ouglit to bc douc, and

spond to couscience. . .

which entitles the agent to commendation for obedience. This is the sphere of a cold and cheerless morality. There must be the love of the thing as beautiful and becoming, as assimilating the soul to God and bringing it into a condition to enjoy His favour. The heart must respond to the conscience, and the intrinsic blessedness of rectitude must be its highest and sweetest commendation. The man who can ask the question why he should choose the right, or what is the ground of the authority of the duty, shows that he has never risen to the sphere of spiritual life, and has yet to have awakened within him the Divine cogni- tion of the good. His eyes have never yet gazed upon real beauty, nor his heart been warmed with real love.

The right and the good are, of course, objectively the „.., . ,. same, and in all holy beings they are sub-

With sinners, the " ./ o ./

right and the good do jectivcly tlic sauic, or ratlicr the right is apprehended intuitively as right because it is the good. But in sinners the case is quite different. The notion of the right precedes the notion of the good, and in multitudes the notion of the good is never realized at all. It is a notion which the law must presuppose, but which it cannot give. Where it has been lost it can be restored only by the supernatural illumination of the Spirit. Conscience always remains, but all that it can do is to proclaim the right as duty, to awaken the sense of obligation, to appeal to our hopes and fears. This right is clothed with awful majesty, and sometimes speaks in tones of thunder, but it knows no avenue to the heart. Its asj^ect for the most part

Lect. XIV.] THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. 373

is cold and passionless ; it exists as a rigid rule with as lit- tle sweetness and flexibility. It attracts no love, it inspires no warm and glowing emotion, it never captivates nor rav- ishes. We have to throw around it external associations of pleasure and delight; we have to dwell upon its prom- ises of good or its threats of evil ; we have to descend from its own lofty sphere and clothe it in the dress of the lower objects around us which fascinate and please before we can make it enlist our sympathies or elicit our affections. We endeavour to bribe our children into the love of it by the charms of its dowry and the utter poverty which must waste those that are destitute of its rewards. These expedients of daily experience, the general tendency to confound the right with the useful, or to resolve it into some modification of pain and pleasure, are melancholy confessions that man in his blindness has lost the true perception

for man has lost the ^ , ^ -, /-, i i i i . i

perception of the good. 01 tlic goocl. Oould hc scc the right as it is in its own nature, could he behold its beauty, its glory, its transcendent loveliness, the heart would turn with disgust from any lower motives for embracing it than those which are drawn from itself. As the good it is its own perfect argument ; it needs no other advocate and no other plea than its own intrinsic excel-

An error of Kant. ^ ^^^^^

lence. Kant deifies duty, apostrophizes it in glowing terms as an idol, and maintains that the more thoroughly an action is determined by tlie sole consideration of duty the more deserving it is. On the contrary, if the whole foregoing speculation is not a delusion, it is indisput- ably clear that he who is influenced solely by a sense in con- tradistinction from the love of duty — he, in other words, who acts because he must on pain of penalties, and not because he delights in the act as just— is as truly pervaded by the principle of sin as he who chooses a lower good at the risk of a greater ill. The naked sense of duty can make an obe- dient slave, but never make a holy man. Duty is grand and glorious when the object of duty is first apprehended as the good, and it is a sublime principle of action when the

374 THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. [Lect. XIV.

sense of duty coincides with the percej)tion and love of the holy, just and true.

4. Having thus analyzed the nature of the qualities which we denominate right into primitive cognitions, and having seen under what condition alone the apprehension of the right dignifies a being with the distinction of holiness, we Sin considered from procced to noticc wliat coustitutcs the uaturc this qualitative point of siu Considered from the same qualitative point of view. The question here is at- tended with little difficulty, from the manifest relation of contrast and opposition in which sin and holiness stand to each other.

As holiness, materially considered, is the right, it is ob- vious that sin must, first of all, be cleter-

Sin is the not-riglit. . . . p ,

mined as the absence or privation ot the right. It is the non-right. Whenever right is not found where it should be found, the absence is sin. The distinc- tion betwixt privation and simple negation is of vital import- ance in appreciating this determination. Each denotes, as

the Schoolmen and all Calvinistic divines

Privation and simple i i j_ij. 1j.ii

negation havB bccu accustomcd to remark, the ab-

sence of something positive in the subject ; but they differ in this, that mere negation obtains when the subject is not naturally cajiable of the wanting reality — lyri- vation when it is capable. Simple negation denies to a sub- ject qualities which do not belong to its nature ; privation, qualities which ought to be found in it. We can say of a stone that it cannot see — this is simple negation. We cannot say of it that it is blind — that would be privation, and would imply the notion that vision was a perfection of which a stone was competent. On the other hand, we can predicate blindness of man, because the power of vision naturally be- longs to him. Privation has been further distinguished into p)hysical and logical; it is physical when it denotes the ab- sence of a perfection that might be present, but whose ab- sence implies no censure and involves no positive detriment ; logical, when it denotes the absence of a perfection which

Lect. XIV.] THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. 37o

ouo-ht to be present, and whose loss implies censure or in- volves serious evil. Physical privation removes pertections, but does not mutilate the conformity of a being with its idea ; logical privation mutilates the very idea of the being. This is the kind of privation to which the determination of sin must be referred. It is the want of a perfection which be- longs to the idea of a subject. The heart into which it enters wants the positive perfection of rectitude ; the state of mind to which it is applied is a state of mind discriminated as evil by the circumstance that it is not right. In all omissions of duty the privation is found in the absence of the acts themselves, which, in the given circumstances, were right. From the days of Augustin down this determination of sin as privation — as simply the not-right —

The Augustuiian i .-.. \ . /> /^ l •

doctrine of sin as pri- j^qs bceu the prevailing doctrine ot Caivin- '"'''°°' istic divines. It has been resolutely main-

tained that sin has no positive being of its own— it has no real entity, but apart from the notion of defect in a given act, state or habit, is a mere nothing. The act, state or habit wants something. The something which it wants is a posi- tive perfection — it is the quality of rectitude. But the want itself represents a pure vacuum ; it is equivalent to saying that there, where the perfection ought to be, there is empti- i^ess — a blank moral space which is nothing. The acts, states or habits, considered in themselves — that is, as far forth as they have a real positive being and express the exercise of positive faculties, or the positive condition of the faculties — are good. An act is never sinful in itself, but only per ac- cidens; as far forth as you can say of it that it is, so far forth it is good ; it is only when you say of it that it is not, and only in relation to what it is not, that it can be called sinful. The whole substance of this theory is pregnantly condensed into a few words by the Master of the Sentences : " Quidam aufem diUgenter attendentes verba

Peter Lombard quoted. . ... ./ . • 7" rr • ^

Aur/usfim, qmbus supra et in alus 6erij)turce locis iditur, non indode tradunt voluntatcm malam et actus malos, in quantum sunt, vet in quantum actus sunt, bona esse ;

376 THE STATE AXD NATURE OF SIN. [Lect. XIV.

in quantum vero mala sunt, peccata esse; qui voluntatem et actum quemcunque bonam Dei naturam esse dicunt, in quan- tum actus est vel voluntas, et ex Deo auctore esse ; in quantum vero inor'dinate et contra legem Dei Jit, et fine debito caret, jjeccatum est; et ita. in quantum peccatum est, nihil est. Nulla enim substantia est, nulla natura estJ' ^

The motive, as seen in this extract, which prompted Aii- gnstin and those who have followed in his

Motive of t)ie doctrine. ~; . .

footsteps to insist so strenuously upon the purely privative character of sin, was the laudable desire to vindicate God from the imputation of being, in any proper sense, the author of evil. Recognizing His will as the first and supreme cause of all real existences, they could not at- tribute to sin a nature and a being ; they could not predicate of it anything that was positive without bringing it into the category of creatures, and thus making it the product of the Almighty. The dilemma was. It is either a creature or it is not. If it is a creature, God made it. The blasphemy here being too shocking to be believed, they took the other horn and affirmed that it was no creature, and that therefore in itself considered it was nothing. " It presupposes," says Van Mastricht, "something positive in

Van Mastricht quoted. ,.■,,.■, . ■, . ■, . -, ,,

which it inheres as in a subject, but itsell

is nothing positive or real. If it were, it would require the

First Cause as its author, inasmuch as nothing positive or real

can exist which is not necessarily dependent upon him. In

the mean time, it is not to be regarded as purely negative,

since then it would neither be evil nor punishable by God.

Nothing, therefore, remains but to regard it as privative, or

as the absence of a moral good which ought to be present." ^

De Moor, the able and learned, but very little known

commentator on the Compendium of jSIarck,

says, substantially : " Everything physical,

everything real and positive, is from God ; therefore, every

act, considered as act, or as a certain quantum of reality.

Hence, sin cannot be anything real or positive. Should it

1 Lib. ii., dist. 35, g 4. s Theol., lib. iv., cap. secund,, ^ xxi.

Lect. XIV.] THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIX. 377

be asserted that sin has a positive existence, then it must follow that there are motions and acts, as, for example, in theft and whoring, which according to their real being can- not be referred to God as their first cause. We must go even farther, and posit the existence of substances produced by these independent acts or motions, as in the case of for- nication and adultery, which are independent of God, and of which He is not the autlior or creator. In a word, we must either, with the Manichees, postulate another and an independent principle as the cause of evil, or with the Pela- gians reduce the providence of God in relation to our actions to a naked conservation of our own energies and powers, or to a general influence subject to be determined by the will of the creature."^ I cannot forbear to add here a passage which De Moor quotes' with unequivocal approbation from Burmaun : " I am of opinion," says he, BmmAunquotcc. u ^^^^^^ .^]^ ^jj^ jg privativc, and that the dis- tinction betwixt the act itself and the sinfulness of the act is of universal validity, not only in relation to acts which are materially good, but become accidentally evil — as when one gives alms from the desire of applause — but also in relation to acts which are regarded as intrinsically bad, such as the blaspheming of God. Xo sinful act can be conceived wdiich is not founded in some natural and positive act, for sin always dwells in another's soil. In the case of homicide, there is first a natural and positive act ; to this is added a privation. Remove the privation, and the act becomes morally good, as in the execution of a criminal by the command of the magis- trate. So blasphemy is nothing without the natural motion of the mind or tongue, to which the want of conformity with the law is added. Unless now you distinguish betwixt these, you fall into inextricable difficulty. For if that natural ac- tion, which is something positive and real, is to be with- drawn from God, then He will not be the author of all that is positive or real ; which is the same as to say that He is not God, as the very notion of God includes the dependence 1 Gap. XV., I 4, p. 0, 6. ^ Ibid.

378 THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIX. [Lect. XIV.

of all tilings upon Him. If, on the other hand, you refer all that is positive to God, and yet maintain that sin is some- thing positive, you then, by inevitable necessity, make God its cause and author. How you can escape from this dilemma I see not. Paul preached to the Athenians that in Him we live and move and have our being. Think you that he meant only the pious and good motions of the Gentiles, of which there wei'e manifestly none, or they were very rare ? Were not their inordinate motions, whether natural or moral, in so far as they were real and positive, moved in God in whom they lived and Avere ? Therefore the homicide, the thief, the blasphemer, exercising the hand and tongue in wickedness, will either move themselves independently of God in these motions, as far forth as they are natural and positive, or, if they are moved in God, He becomes the author of their crimes. Upon the hypothesis that the sin and the act are not to be discriminated, there is no alternative between withdrawing from God the princi])al part of His providence, or making Him the author of sin." The same argument is much more pithily expressed by the Master of the Sentences : " To those who maintain that all acts, as far forth as they have a being, are good, it is objected — If all things that are, as far forth as they are, are good and are natures, then adul- tery, murder and the like are good and are natures, and con- sequently from God. Those accordingly Avho commit such crimes do good, which is palpably absurd. The reply is, that adultery, homicide and the like do not simply denote acts, but the defects of acts ; that the acts themselves, as far forth as they contain reality, are from God, and are good natures ; but not in as far as they are adultery and murder"^ — that is, not in as far as they want a reality which they have not.

Later theologians^ have resolved the diiHculty by distin- guishing betwixt sin in the concrete and sin in the abstract. Sin in the concrete is improperly and loosely taken ; sin in 1 Lib. ii., dist. 35, ? 8. ^ yjae De Moor, eh. 15, | 4, p. 8.

Lect. xiy.] the state and nature of sin. 379

the abstract is that alone which is strictly and properly sin. Sin in the concrete includes the notion of andTn'the abZct.'*' ^^^^ act or subjcct, whicli is hcncc called sin- ful ; sin in the abstract expresses nothing but the privation which obtains, which, considered in relation to itself, is a mere nothing, and cannot be conceived, but in rela- tion to the being in whom the defect is found, it can be con- ceived through the negation of the perfection which is re- moved.

The theory of privation consistently can'ied out denies to sin the metaphysical distinctions of matter and form. In its concrete sense the act itself may be considered as mat- ter, and the nonconformity with law the form. But in the abstract, which is the only true sense, the terms matter and form have no legitimate application. Every physical act as such has its own matter and form, and both, considered as belonging to the sphere of real being, are good. But privatioA obviously has no matter, for it is nothing, and as obviously no form, for form is perfective of matter, and privation renders it imperfect.^

From this view of the privative theory of sin the import of an expression of Augustin, which has AugLtIn expZed?^ bccu gricvously misuuderstood, or, if not misunderstood, most perversely applied, can be readily collected. "There is no sin," says he, "which does not attach itself to the good." The meaning simply is, that sin presupposes a real subject, and every real subject to the extent of its reality is good. If found in an action, the action as a physical entity is good ; if found in a habit, the habit as implying facility of action is good ; if attri- buted to an agent, the agent in so far as he has being at all is good. All that is is good, and is the creature of good. What is not is not good, and is not the creature of God. Hence, his famous comment on the passage, "All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made."

1 De Moor, ch. 15, I i, p. 8.

380 THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. [Lect. XIV.

Those who Avish to see an able refutation on the one hand ^, ,,., . „ , and defence on the other of the theory of

The \ itnngas lefutt', J

and wessoiius ditoiicis privatioH as the sole theory of sin, will find ample satisfaction in the Anitings of Yitringa, father and son, and in a learned dissertation of Wesselius, to which De Moor constantly refers. In its exclusive features we find it impossible to adopt it. While we are prepared to say — and our previous analysis requires us to say — that all privation of the right where it should be found is sin, and that all sin also includes privation, we can- not reconcile it with the facts of consciousness or the teach- ings of Scripture to say that all sin is mere negation. This is to make of it a shadowy ghost which the next breath of speculation may dissolve into thin air.

(1.) In the first place, the theory is founded upon a double ^, . . ., . confusion, that of positive and real with

OlijectLoiis: it is ' ^

founded upon a dou- substantial bciug, and that of being with the good. Its favourite postulate is, what- ever has real being is a good nature, and is from God. Here, real being means a separate and independent being, or a being which has a definite quantative measure. A being that is a nature is a being that has the law of its operation in itself; it is a thing of itself, and liencc cannot be regarded as the state or quality of another existence. When these divines speak of moral perfection as a reality, they evidently impose upon themselves the illusion that they have found something which has a higher quantum of existence than a mere ens raiionis, and they evidently take for granted that the virtuous man has more being in him than the wicked. But it must be remembered that the words beinc/, existence, reality, are the widest predicates that any language admits — that they refer to all that is cogitable, and are determined in their import by the subjects of M'hich they are affirmed. There is subjective existence as a matter of thought, as when a centaur is represented in the imagina- tion ; there is objective existence as a substance or attribute ; there is logical existence as a quality, or condition, or rela-

Lect. XIV.] THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. 881

tioii. Ill all these cases being is affirmed ; in fact, every proposition is the predication of existence : even when sin is said to be privation, existence is attributed to the nothing. Hence, it does not follow that existence involves necessarily any substantive j^roperties which require the subject of it to be regarded as a creature of God. There may be qualities and states of being which depend upon ourselves; there may be postures of our wills ; there may be positive deter- minations of our wills which have a reality, but a reality which w^e ourselves put into them. There may be loves and hates which God never made, but which are as posi- tively thinkable and as positively felt as the holiest affec- tions which spring from Him. The devil, considered in relation to the mere quantum of existence, may have as large a mass of entity as an angel or a seraph.

The other confusion is that of metaphysical and moral good. When mere being is called a good, we are moving in a very different sphere of thought from that in which we affirm that virtue is a good. When non-being is affirmed to be evil, it is in a very different sense from that in which evil is predicated of sin. To make the quantum of existence or the amount of reality that any subject contains the measure of good, is to make every finite creature to the extent of its finiteness evil. All limitations of existence are deprivations of good. If now moral and metaphysical evil are to be confounded, it is evident that virtue must be placed in being and sin in non-being. This consummation was actually reached both by Edwards and Augustin. The former makes the very essence of virtue consist in the love of being as such, and the latter does not hesitate to assert that the cha- racteristic of sin is its tendency to non-being. It is an eternal gravitation toward nothing. These are the errors whicli disfigure the great work of Leibnitz. He refers sin for its possibility to the necessary limitations of the crea- ture ; he makes it spring from defects of being, and goes very near towards confounding it with the simple notion of the finite. Such speculations, which, after all, are a mere

382 THE STATE AXD NATURE OF SIN. [Lect. XIV.

juggle with words, have a strong tendency to dissipate the consciousness of sin ; they reduce it from the proportions of strong and positive contrast — may I not say of strong and kisty reality ? — in which it is presented in the Scripture to an empty shade, a phantom that haunts the imagination, but has no real existence in nature.

(2.) In the next place, the theory does not advance us -. , ., „ ,, one step in solving the riddle for wdiich it

It fails of the pm- 1 >^

pose for which in- has bccu SO elaborately worked out. It leaves the question of God's relation to the origin of evil precisely where it found it. Evil, it is said, is no real being, no creature, therefore God did not make it. It would seem to be as legitimate a conclusion, therefore, man did not make it ; and another step seems to be inevitable, therefore it does not exist. But a perfection is not where it ought to be. Now the perfection either never was in the creature or it has been removed. If it never was in the creature, then God certainly, as the author of the creature, is the author of the defect. If it was once there, but has been removed, either God removed it or the creature. If God removed it. He is still the author of the evil. If the crea- ture removed it, the act of removing it was either sinful or it was not. If the act were sinful, the whole theory is aban- doned, and we have sin as something real, positive and work- ing ; if the act were not sinful, how can sin proceed from a good volition ? The truth is, the theory utterly breaks down when it approaches this great question, and the result of its boasted solution is that moral evil is reduced to zero.

(3.) In the third place, the theory is utterly inconsistent with our own consciousness, which affirms

It contradicts con- j j .^^ j^^^^^j^^ .^^^ .| dispOsitioUS

sciousncss. i

and acts as strongly positive as those which are holy. There is a power of evil as intensely real as the energy of holiness. Malice is as intensely real as love ; revenge as intensely real as gratitude ; avarice as intensely real as liberality. Whatever meaning you apply to the terms being, real, positive, in the one case, we feel that it

Lect. XIV.] THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. 383

holds equally in the other. Tlie quantum is as strongly marked on the side of the bad as of the good. I do not know that I can place this point in a clearer light than by extracting from Wesselius a passage in which he undertakes to explain how a malignant disposition can be good con- sidered as a creature, and evil considered as malignant. He is replying to the objection of Vitringa, that the sinfulness of an act cannot be separated from the act, except in thought. " The greatest difficulty," says he, " is found in the pre- cepts touching the love of God, which is absolutely indis- pensable, and in relation to the prohibition of idolatry, blasphemy and profaneness, in which the hatred of God becomes consjiicuous. Can these ever physically exist apart from their viciousness ? Can there ever be the worship of the sun and stars and the blasphemy of God without sin ? Can the act as a physical entity be distinguished from its moral wickedness ?" Wesselius admits that these acts are in their nature evil, but he does not grant that they could not physically exist without crime. He affirms that they are " immutably and unchangeably bad in man, as contra- dictory to an immutable and eternal law. Their sinfulness, however, does not arise from the nature of the acts as phy- sical entities, but from the nature of the Divine law, and from the condition of man as a moral agent under that law. These same acts could exist as physical entities in other be- ings without blame ; as, for example, in a brute or an idiot. If he should call upon the sun or an idol, he might exhibit the same external act, he might even have the internal im- pulse to bend the knee ; and if a parrot should mimic words of blasphemy against God, would not in these cases the acts exist as physical entities without sin ? For sin is non-con- formity with law, and law is competent only to a free agent endowed with reason. Hence, an act cannot be morally sinful from the nature of the act itself, but from the condi- tion of the agent, who is under law ; and therefore the nature of moral evil can neither lie in the act nor its mode, physi- cally considered, for they can be posited without sin, but in

384 THE STATE AND NATURE OP SIN. [Lect. XIV.

its non-conformity with law, which being posited sin is posited, and whicii being removed sin is removed."^ Did it not occur to these divines that they had as completely annihilated virtue as vice? — that this process of reasoning reduces all moral distinctions to sheer abstractions ?

To admit that sin is inseparable from these things as per- formed by a rational being, is to give up

Action must be moral. iii • ii

the whole question ; and the reason pre- cisely is, that it is only as performed by rational beings that they become, in any proper sense, actions at all. It is not enough to constitute an act that there should be animal life or physical force ; it is not the amount of exertion that it involves nor the tension of muscle that it exacts. Mere motion is not action ; it wants what belongs to the very essence of action — a relation to thought and purpose. None but an intelligent being can act ; others can live and move^ but it is the prerogative of reason alone to give birth to actions. An action is properly the language of the will, and its real significancy is the motive or end which the will puts into it. The motion, without this rational consent, would be as far removed from the nature of an act as the senseless cries of a brute from the articulate speech of a man. As it is its relation to the will which constitutes the very essence of an action, it is clear that the question as to the possibility of separating in thought betwixt an action and its moral character is really the question whether the determinations of the will, whether the thoughts and purposes of the heart, can be abstracted in thought from the moral qualities which attach to them. If there are cases in which this separation cannot be made — in which the very being of a given volition or of a given purpose is sin, as in the instances specified of blasphemy and idolatry; if in the only sense in which these things can be considered as actions in contradistinction to mere motions instinctively or mechanically produced, they cannot be detached from their moral significancy — it is clear that the whole hypothesis which makes the action entirely 1 De Moor, cli. 15, § 4, p. 8.

Lect. XIV.] THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. 385

independent in its origin of any evil import falls to the ground. We are compelled to say that some actions at least, considered as actions, are sinful.

There is one class of writers who, seeing how utterly vain

The theory requires ^^ Is tO attempt aU CSCapC froUl this COUclu-

an extravagant and sion, and yet determined to maintain the

shameful distiuction. , i • i r^ -t • i i p

hypothesis that (jrod is the author oi every- thing that has a real and positive existence, have sought to save the character of God in exciting within men wicked thoughts and purposes by a distinction which, of itself, is enough to cover the whole theory with shame and confusion. Sin, say they, is determined by the law, and always supposes that he who commits it is a subject of law. God is under no law ; on the contrary. He is above all law, and therefore incapable of sin. He excites within men thoughts, purposes and volitions, and moves them to acts which in them are sinful, because forbidden by the law under which they are placed, but in Him they are not so. He, therefore, as being above law, is guiltless in stirring those to rebellion who are under law. To place the matter in another light : Every act of man is also the act of God — He is the first cause, and He determines the human will in every motion of it by an irresistible influence. As far as the act is the work of God, it is without sin, because as His it is contradictory to no law ; as far as it is the act of man it is sin, because contra- dictory to the law of his being. " God," says Wesselius,^ " does not sin in producing, as the first cause, the act which the sinning creature produces as a second cause, because no such defect can be attributed to Him as attaches to a creature in consequence of its relation to law. God would sin in moving the sinning creature if He were subject to the same laws which bind the creature. Adam sinned in eating of the forbidden fruit, because in him it was contradictory to law ; God did not sin in moving him to the act, because there was no law to prevent the Divine motions. Fallen and corrupted man continually sins inwardly and outwardly 1 De Moor, cli. 15, § 4, p. 8. Vol. I.— 25

386 THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. [Lect. XIV.

by violating the eternal law of love to God and liis neigh- bour ; God commits no sin in moving man according to his corrupt nature, because the royal law is for man alone, and does not extend to God, otherwise God would be bound to invoke worship and adore His own name." And again : " The same act is put forth by God and the creature, yet so as that the creature sins and not God, because God is beyond or above law. The prince sins who should slay a son in the place of his father, because the prince is bound l)y the law which prohibits such conduct. God does not sin in punish- ing the sins of parents in the persons of their children, be- cause, in this res])ect. He is beyond the law — to whom be- longs supreme jurisdiction as the sovereign Lord."

These are specimens of the extravagant lengths to Avhich consistency in maintaining a crotchet has

Zeal of Augnstin -, . • i i mi

and of his successors drivcu cvcu wisc and good men. Ihe re- for this theory ac- ^.q^j q^ Auo;ustin from tlic monstrous hy-

counted for. ^ ~ _

pothesis of the Manichees accounts for the prominence and shape which he gave to the scheme of pri- vation ; and the zeal of his successors to vindicate the Divine purity, while asserting at the same time the Divine su- premacy, accounts for the nice distinctions by which sin has been really deprived of its revolting features, and all moral distinctions almost buried in a remorseless fate. Theology may well exclaim as she surveys the apologies and pleas which ingenuity has reared in her defence : " Save me from my friends ! Non tall auxilio, etc."

(4.) The last and most fatal objection to this scheme is, -, , , „ , that it maintains a doctrine of providence

It destroys all real i

sigDificance in the which is totally inconsistcut with any real significance in the creature. It makes God all in all in a sense so absolute that if it 'be not strictly chargeable with Pantheism, it comes to the same practical result. It does not confound God with His works, nor re- duce the finite and infinite to the unity of a common sub- stance ; but it does so completely annihilate the creature as to any real being and real efficiency that nothing is seen or

Lect. XIV.] THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. 387

recognized but God Himself. The creature, practically, is nothing and does nothing. It is merely the medium through which God operates and acts. He is the only real cause that exists. He produces every positive effect that takes place. All power is lodged exclusively in Him, and the motions and determinations of other beings are only the re- sults of His moving and controlling energy. The creature has no power of originating any beginnings in itself. There is no sphere in which it can act by virtue of its own consti- tution maintained and upheld by the Divine support. That there is a concursus of God, without which beings could neither exist nor act, is implied in the very notion of de- pendence ; that this concursus strips them of every property and reduces them, especially personal agents, to mere instru- ments or organs of the Divine energy, is equally destructive of any real being at all. The Scriptures teach explicitly that we live and move and have our being in God ; they just as explicitly teach that we do live and move and have a being. We are not a sham — we are a something ; and, as being a something, can do something.

Of course, this scheme which deserves the reproach of

Crypto-pantheism, implied in the argument of Schweizer,

abolishes the distinction, so vital to any consistent main-

, , ,, „ tenance of the doctrines of grace, between

and confounds tlie em- o :'

cient and the permis- the cfficicnt and pcrmissivc decrees of God. The moderate Calvinists — who have seen the prominence which the Scriptures everywhere give to human agency, especially in the matter of sin ; who have felt in their own souls that there were thoughts, words and deeds, states and affections of soul, which were truly theirs, which began in the will as the immediate cause — have been compelled to admit that there is a sphere in which God leaves personal agents to themselves, and in which they are per- mitted to act as real efficient causes. So in innocence Adam was left to the freedom of his will. Tliis field is not be- yond His providence ; there are limits to the permission, and every act that takes place in it is made to play its

388 THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. [Lect. XIV,

part ill the whole economy of the Divine dispensations, and is ordered and overruled for the accomplishment of His ends. The Divine ordination in this sphere of liberty does not impinge upon the creature's efficiency ; he is the author of the deeds. How this can be — that is, how we can rec- oncile an universal and absolute decree with this causative power in the creature — is a question perhaps of insuperable difficulty, but what question is there touching the relations of the infinite and finite which does not transcend our capa- cities ? Both doctrines are revealed, and both are evident to reason and consciousness, and we should accordingly accept both, and wait for a higher form of knowledge for the solution of the mystery. We should give to God the glory of His supremacy ; we should not deny to the crea- ture the properties that God has bestowed. We should not be afraid to say, My act, or My thought, or My feeling, be- cause whatever is positive or real in these functions should be ascribed only to God. They are ours by a power which God imparted to us, and every abuse of these faculties is an act which must be ascribed in all its relations to the will of the creature, and the creature alone. AVhen Adam ate of the forbidden fruit, or Avhen a sinner now blasphemes God and sheds the innocent blood of his neighbour, God does not move him to these acts. They are, in no proper sense, from God ; they are his own, and if he is moved to them, he is moved to them only by himself or the Devil.

On these grounds we are constrained to dissent from the theory which resolves sin into privation and all sinfulness into an empty abstraction. While there is privation in every sin, there is something more ; there is a real and posi- tive potency to mischief. It is a pow^r, raS,!' °°* '"'" ""' as holiness 'is a power, but a power work- ing to disorder, confusion and death. It is not simply the absence of beauty ; it is the presence of deformity ; not simply the unlovely, but the positively hate- ful ; not simply the want of order, but real disorder. As we have seen that righteousness expresses objectively the

Lect. XIV.] THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. 389

qualities which constitute the good, and holiness the sul:)- jective state which apprehends them in all their manifesta- tions as good, so sin must be taken in a corresponding sense as denoting the qualities opposed to righteousness — the bad, the unjust, and the state which embraces and inclines to these qualities. In the first sense, it is applicable to actions or failures to act, and indicates that they want the property of rectitude or are positivel}^ contradictory to law ; they are wrong or cruel or unjust. In the second sense, it indicates habits and dispositions of the soul which either fail to ap- prehend and delight in the right as also the good, or which positively take pleasure in and exalt to the place of the good other objects which in that relation are not good at all. Man must have a good; he must love something, and as holiness loves God, so sin loves the personal creature itself. We must guard against the error of making moral dis- Morai distinctions tinctious cxclusively subjcctivc. We have not exclusively sub- geeu thatGod,as object to Himself, is the standard of perfect righteousness, and that consequently whatever is in harmony with the Divine nature is, on that account, righteous ; that God, as subject, contem- plates His own perfections with infinite complacency and delight ; and that this infinite love to His own infinite right- eousness constitutes the Divine holiness. In the same way, holiness in man is that subjective state which takes de- light in the good as an objective quality, which loves God supremely for His righteousness, and loves whatever is accordant with the character of God. Unless this distinc- tion is maintained we annihilate the moral differences of actions. Everything will depend upon the motive ; if that is good the deed, no matter how disastrous or revolting, is to be accepted as right. There must, therefore, be admitted an objective rectitude which distinguishes the love that we denominate holiness from every other love. On the same ground there must be maintained an objective quality in sin, either privative or positive, and in the subjective state which can choose the things defiled by this quality without

390 THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIX. [Lect. XIV.

being revolted or disgusted. The sin may be in the act as and sin may be in the ^ell as in the motive. True holiness loves act as well as the mo- only the really good — that is, the really

right. The love of anything else under the disguise of right is the counterfeit of holiness, and not the Divine reality. »The love to a thing that is not right, whether its unrighteousness be the ground of the love or not, is sin, because a holy being would instantly recoil from what was contradictory to the good. To constitute sin it is not required that a man should actually mean to do wrong. The probability is that the deliberate choice of evil as evil, or the making of it, because it is evil, the good of the soul, is a degree of wickedness very seldom reached by men in this world. That is the characteristic of lost spirits in the world of woe. It is enough that a thing is embraced as a good notwithstanding it is evil .; that the heart can cleave to it while it is abominable to God and destructive of the come- liness and beauty of our own natures.

As a nature which manifests itself in supreme love to the

supreme good is the bond of unity in a holy

Is there any princi- i-r. ,1 ,• • -tTri , • j.1

pie of unity in the bis, tlic qucstiou aoscs, VVnat IS the prin- ciple of unity in the life of sin ? Is there any common ground in which all the cor- rupt habits and dispositions of the sinner meet and from which they proceed ? Or are they to be considered as so many broken and detached fragments, which have no cohe- rence but their common subjective relation to one and the same person ? Is the sinner, in the absence of the uniting principle of holiness, to be considered as the victim of im- pulses, successively excited by the objects which present themselves in the course of his experience ? Or is there some- thing within him which answers to the stability and fixed- ness of character ? Is there a sinful as there is a holy nature, in the sense in which nature has already been defined ? It is not a satisfactory answer to this question to say that a state of sin, subjectively considered, is illustrated by the analogy of death. Nothing more can be extracted from this

life of sin ? And what is it?

Lect. XIV.] THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. 391

term, taken alone, than the absence of life. It implies the removal of all those forces and energies which belonged to the living being — but nothing more, ex vi termini. But there are other expressions which teach, very distinctly, that there is such a unity in sin. The carnal mind is said to be enmity against God ; sinners are represented as the enemies of God ; and the notion of redemption as implying recon- ciliation presupposes an attitude of hostility in which the parties stand to each other. Now, enmity is not simply the absence of love — a condition of mere indifference ; it is a principle of repugnance, of active opposition, of open and decided resistance. It implies that there is in man and in every sinner a generic disposition which determines all his volitions and habits, and determines them in positive con- tradiction to the Divine will. The moral

It is opposition to fn r, . . -i . ■,

God; hte ol sm turns ujion the single pomt of

opposition to God. Here, all forms of sin,

however various and inconsistent in other respects, centre

and harmonize. "Its proper formal object," says Owen,^

"is God; it is enmity against God It hath, as it

were, that command from Satan which the Assyrians had from their king : ' Fight neither with small nor great, save only with the king of Israel.' It is neither great nor small, but God Himself, the King of Israel, that sin sets itself against. There lies the secret, formal reason of all its op- position to good, even because it relates unto God. May a road, a trade, a way of duties be set up, where communion with God is not aimed at, but only the duty itself, as is the manner of men in most of their superstitious worship ; the opposition that will lie against it from the law of sin will be very weak, easy and gentle. Or, as the Assyrians, be- cause of his show of a king, assaulted Jehosliaphat, but when they found it was not Ahab, turned back from pursuino- him ; because there is a show and appearance of the worship of God, sin may make head against it at first, but when the duty cries out in the heart, that, indeed, God is not there, ^ Indwell. Sin, chap. iv.

392 THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. [Lect. XIV.

sin turns away to seek out its proper enemy, even God Him- self, elsewhere. The law of sin makes not opposition to any duty, but to God in every duty." If now the formal nature of sin is enmity against God — and such it must be if sin is not only the negation but the positive contrast of holiness — this enmity must, first of all, manifest itself in the denial or rei^udiation of that fundamental relation of absolute depend- ence which essentially characterizes the

it repudiates His au- , rni ^ • • • n j i •

t2jo,.ity. creature. 1 he subject manitests his enmity

to his prince by striking at the root of his authority and committing treason against his sovereignty. The sinner, in like manner, strikes at the very root of the Divine jurisdiction over him, and sets up for himself. He will not have God to reign over him, but is resolved to be his own master. He denies God to affirm himself. The claims of God are always those of a rival, and always pro- voke his opposition and rebellion. Hence, self, as the rival , .. ., . and the enemy of God, becomes the rulino;

and it commits trea- J ' to

son against His sov- principle of siii, and collects together all the threads of the complicated and various life of the sinner into the single web of treason against the ab- solute sovereignty of God.

From this qualitative consideration of good and evil we are conducted to the same results in relation

The same results ■ .1 ± i* • t • l 1,

reached as before, ^O tllC naturC of SlU whlch WC haVC prCVl-

ously reached from an estimate of its ob- jective and subjective aspects in relation to the law. It was there shown that it is disobedience to God, as the law is only an authoritative expression of the will of God ; it has been here shown that the law is also a revelation of the nature of God as infinitely righteous and just, and consequently sin must stand not only in opposition to His Avill, but in equal opposition to His being and His glory. It was there shown that the inward principle which prompts a man to violate or come short of the glory of God is the virtual denial of his real position as a creature, and the practical assumption of an attitude of independence and self-sufficiency which re-

Lect. XIV.] THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. 393

nounces all the rights of the Creator — self-seeking in the place of God-seeking. It has here been

and sin is seen to be i j_i x j^i j* ^ • • i i* ' •

enmity against God. ^hown that the formal principle of sm is enmity against God — an attitude of hos- tility to His nature, His being and His law ; and enmity can only be conceived as manifested in throwing oif its alle- giance and claiming to be its own master. From every point of view, therefore, we are conducted to substantially the same conclusion ; and that conclusion presents sin in an aspect which should make every reflecting being shudder. The notion of a creature, whose being is a gift, setting itself up against the great God, and assuming a position of open and undisguised enmity, is surely enough to fill our minds with horror and dismay. Sin stands revealed in awful ma- lignity as a profane attempt to dethrone the Most High and to exalt ourselves to His glory and sovereignty. Whilst it strikes at God, it recoils upon ourselves, and in separating us from the source of all real and solid good, it robs our souls of their native beauty and excellence, pollutes them in every f\iculty with foul deformity, and makes them a hideous and ghastly spectacle — a loathsome and putrid mass to all intelligent beings that have retained their integrity. In our present condition we can form no adequate conception of how utterly despicable sin is ; much less can we conceive its fearful tendencies to mischief and anarchy and ruin. To strike the sun from the heavens, and to break the stars loose from the influence of the forces which now retain them in their orbits, to set every planet rushing wildly and darkly through space and bring ten thousand worlds in furious col- lision, are but slight matters compared witli that havoc which sin seeks to make in the moral universe in seeking to expel God from the supremacy ; to break the forces which now hold angels and men in harmony, peace and order from their common subjection to Him ; and to make every creature that has a will the mortal enemy or the remorseless tyrant of every other rational being. In this world the tendencies of sin are constantly repressed and checked. It is never

394 THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. [Lect. XIV.

permitted to exist in full and complete development. It is ever mingled with the good in the form of the right, where it does not recognize the right as being the divinely good. It is never found as completed enmity to God, wdien every fragment of the law is effaced from the conscience and the soul stands as the embodiment of selfishness and hate. Were this consummation realized, the earth would vomit out its inhabitants as being unable to endure their abomina- tions. Such a condition of things will be found in hell. There sin w^ill have its perfect work. There will be anarchy. There will be a state utterly and for ever intolerable. The single statement that the native tendency of sin is to destroy God, and instead of a will infinitely wise and just and holy, to enthrone millions of wills in selfish isolation and in deadly hostility, gives us a clue to the chapter of horroi-s which sin would inevitably Avork out in the universe if it were per- mitted to realize its own inborn instincts. Well may it be called the abominable thing which God hates. It is a marvel of patience that He can bear with the transgressor a single instant — a marvel of love, an incomprehensible mys- tery of grace, that He should ever forgive it, and much more that He should raise traitors to the dignity and glory of sons. How wonderful are His judgments, and His ways past finding out !

III. In the foregoing discussion concerning the nature of sin, while it has all along been tacitly assumed that a ra- tional, intelligent being is the only subject that is capable of it, the precise conditions of responsibility have not been articulately stated. From the analysis of holiness it evi- dently demands all the higher faculties of our nature ; it is the consummation in living unity of intelligence, reason, conscience and taste. Sin, on the other hand, is the perver- ^, , ,. ,, ,. sion of all. But in what relation do holi-

The relation of holi- ness and sin to tiie ^^egg and siu staud to the will ? And how

far does the question of power condition the

reality of guilt or righteousness ? Are wc prepared to say

that no action is ffood w^hich has not been done with the

Lect. XIV.] THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. 395

free consent of the agent, and that no action is bad which it was not in his power to have avoided ? As to the first ques- tion, little need be added to what has already been said. The lov^e of righteousness is indispensable to works of right' eousness, and any acts, however just and proper in them- selves, which have not been performed under the influence of this love, are destitute of moral worth. But are the acts and habits which a sinner finds to be beyond the con- trol of his will stripped of their sinfulness by the circum- stance of his inability ? Here a distinction must be made. We must distinguish between inability as original and in- ability as penal. Moral power is nothing and'iMbimyp''L'uai"^^ morc uor less than holy habitudes and dis- positions ; it is the perception of the beauty and the response of the heart to the excellence and glory of God, and the consequent subjection of the will to the law of holy love. Spiritual perception, spiritual delight, spiritual choice, these and these alone constitute ability to good. Now, if we could conceive that God had made a creature destitute of these habits, if we could conceive that he came from the hands of the Creator in the same moral condition in which our race is now born, it is impossible to vindicate the obligation of such a creature to holiness upon any prin- ciple of justice. It is idle to say that his inability is but the intensity of his sin, and the more helpless the more wicked. His inability is the result of his constitution ; it belongs to his very nature as a creature, and he is no more respoiisible for such defects than a lame man is responsible for his hob- bling gait or a blind man for his incompetency to distin- guish colours. He is what God made him ; he answers to the idea of his being, and is no more blameworthy for the deformed condition of his soul than a camel for the de- formity of its back. The principle is intuitively evident that no creature can be required to transcend its powers. Ability conditions responsibility. An original inability, natural in the sense that it enters into the notion of the creature as such, completely obliterates all moral distinc-

396 THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. [Lect. XIV.

tions with reference to the acts and habits embraced within

its sphere. And if this had been what the advocates of

„.^ .. „ , natural ability meant, their position would

W hat IS really meant •' ' ^

by t)ie advocatfis of havc bccu impregnable. But this is not what they mean ; they do not represent the natural as that which pertains to the idea and original state of the creature. In this sense, moral and natural ability are not distinguished as separate species, but the moral is the natural ability ; the moral habits are the very things by which a moral creature possesses any ability to do good at all. They contend, on the other hand, that there inay be the entire absence of all holy principles, of all spiritual dis- cernment and love, and yet that the creature thus destitute of these may be possessed of a power of another kind to do good, upon which his responsibility is conditioned. Upon their hypothesis it is conceivable that a man may be origi- nally corrupt as a creature, and yet under obligation to keep the perfect law of God. Their ability when narrowly ex- amined turns out to be a mere play with the ambiguity of language, or the denial in one form of what they have affirmed in another. Sometimes it is represented as the mere possession of the faculties and attributes of reason, intelligence and will, abstracted from any determinate states in relation to holiness or sin. A being thus existing in jmris naturalibiis we have already seen to involve an absurd- ity ; its very attitude of indeterminateness to good would be sin. It is precisely in the character of its determinations, and of them alone, that its good and evil consist. At other times it is represented as an inherent power of the will to choose either good or evil. But to choose good without loving it is not holiness, and unless the will can directly produce the spiritual perception of the beauty, and the spiritual delight in the excellence of the good, its choice is utterly worthless. It is the blind fumbling in the dark; tiiough he may chance to be walking among jewels, they are nothing more to him than charcoal or dung. The most offensive form in which this doctrine of natural ability has

Lect. XIV.] THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. 397

been stated is that in which it is said that every act of will is determined by the personal relations of the good to our- selves, and that although we may not choose God because we love Him and delight in Him, we may choose Him be- cause His favour is our highest interest; that this act of choice, on account of the nature of its object, is holy, and Avill ultimately lead to spiritual habits and perceptions. This is really to make sin the minister of holiness, and that selfishness which is the very essence of rebellion the produc- tive cause of righteousness.

These distinctions and evasions show conclusively that the natural ability which I make essential to responsibility is a very different thing from that which many divines have invented as the condition on which man is responsible since the fall.

But there is another, a penal inability. It is that which man has superinduced by his own volun-

Man's inability the , , . . tt , n

result of choice. ^ary transgressiou. He was naturally

able — that is, created with all the habi- tudes and dispositions which were involved in the loving choice of the good. Rectitude was infused into his nature ; it entered into the idea of his being ; he was fully compe- tent for every exaction of the law. He chooses sin, and by that very act of choice impregnates his nature with con- trary hal^its and dispositions. His moral agency continues unimpaired through all his subsequent existence. He be- comes a slave to sin, but his impotence, hopeless and ruin- ous as it is, results from his own free choice. In the loss of habits he loses all real power for good ; he becomes com- petent for nothing but sin ; but he is held responsible for the nature which God gave him, and the law which consti- tutes its eternal norm according to the Divine idea and the spontaneous dictates of his own reason can never cease to be the standard of his being and life. All his descendants were in him when he sinned and fell. His act was legally theirs, and that depravity which he infused into his own nature in the place of original righteousness, has become

398 THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIX. [Lect. XIV.

their inheritance. They stand, therefore, from the first moment of their being, in the same relation to the law which he occupied at his fall. Their impotence is prop- erly their own. Here is not the place to show how this can be. I am only showing that there is a marked distinc- tion between the inability which begins with the nature of a being and the inability which it brings upon itself by sin ; that in the one case responsibility is measured by the extent of the actual power possessed, in the other by the extent of the power originally imparted. No subject by becoming a traitor can forfeit the obligation to allegiance ; no man can escape from the law by voluntary opposition to law. The more helpless a creature becomes in this aspect of the case, the more wicked ; the more he recedes from the Divine idea, from the true norm of his being, the more guilty and the more miserable. To creatures in a state of apostasy actual ability is not, therefore, the measure of obligation. They cannot excuse themselves under the plea of impotency when that very impotence is the thing charged upon them. For what is their impotence but the presence of vicious and corrupt habits ? That was the very thing forbidden to them, and their having disregarded the prohibition when they w^ere fully able to comply with it is the gravamen of their offence.

The consciousness of every sinful being contains two facts,

which, however difficult to reconcile with Bi^Zl^lTonJLTnZ each other, beautifully harmonize with the

teaching of the Scriptures. The^^rs^ is the conviction that I might have been different — that my nature has been perverted and abused. This consciousness of hav- ing had the power to be otherwise is the groundswell of man's original condition. It is not implied in it that there is a present possession of power, but only that this power belongs to the idea of our natures as rational and intelligent and as creatures of God. Philosoj^hers, finding this con- sciousness in every guilty soul, have construed it into a de- claration of present ability, but it is the consciousness of

Lect. XIV.] THE STATE AND NATURE OF SIN. 399

Adam passing over into the bondage of the fall. It is an echo which God awakes and keeps alive in the soul to its pristine condition. The second is that my present state of sin is my own, it is the result of my own folly. These facts of consciousness the understanding sometimes attempts to suppress and smother by sophistical distinctions ; by attempts to make our being as a nature begin at our indi- vidual birth ; by charging upOn God our corrupt and crazy constitution ; or endeavouring to evade responsibility under the pretext of our present confessed inability. All these subterfuges prove mere refuges of lies. Our consciousness answers from its lowest depths, "You might have been otherwise, and you have made yourselves what you are. God gave you a sound constitution, and you have poisoned it with disease and death. God made you upright, but you have sought out many inventions." Apart from these con- victions we cannot conceive of the possibility of a conscious- ness of sin.

Hence, to us in our present state the question of present ability does not condition the reality of sin. Whatever is contrary to the Divine ideal of man, according to the origi- nal constitution of the species, is sin. Our blindness, our hardness of heart, our ignorance of spiritual things so far as the knowledge of them pertained to our primitive con- dition, all must be imputed as sin. The whole law must be fulfilled ; to violate it on any point, no matter on what plea or pretext, is to become a transgressor before God.

Lecture XV THE POLLUTION AND GUILT OF SIN

THE nature of sin in general having been discussed, the next thing that remains to be considered is those in- separable properties or effects which divines

Inseparable, proper- i i j ^ ±^ j_

tiesoreflectsofsiu. ^^e accustomcd to cxprcss by the terms pollution and guilt — macula and reatus. Both are personal relations of sin, and though neither con- stitutes its formality or essence, neither can be detached from its being. Wherever there is sin, there is a stain ; Connection of the ^ud whcrcver thcrc is a stain, there is guilt. good and the beauti- The uotion of a stain shows the close con- nection between the conceptions of the beautiful and the good. This connection is founded in na- ture ; it is recognized in Scripture, and lies at the basis of the etliical value of art. In all languages, as Miiller has justly remarked, the same terms are employed " to denote perversion in both the spheres ;" and we instinctively feel that there is something of violence and disorder wlien the loveliness of external beauty is disjoined from the loveliness of internal harmony. The Scriptures constantly speak of the beauty of holiness, the beauty of the Lord our God, and especially of His glory, which is just the sj^lcndour or efful- gence of His beauty. It is through the sympathy of the beautiful and good that Art is made the minister of moral culture. It awakens the sense of propriety, refines the con- ception of decency and fitness, and trains us to those im- pressions of harmony in character which can only be realized through the culture of our moral nature. No representations

400

Lect. XV.] THE POLLUTION AND GUILT OF SIN. 401

of sin are more common than those which are derived from

this connection. It is the ugly, the mon- ths sinful and tlic (ie- , j.1 1 i" 1 "x 1 'j. l • j.

fy^jjjgj strous, the cletormed, it renders its subjects

odious and disgusting ; they are foul, filthy, unclean ; and the analogy reaches its climax when the Sa- viour compares them to a cage of unclean birds. It was through the notion of uncleanness particularly that the Le- vitical ritual educated the people to a just appreciation of its malignity. It was figured in leprosy, the most loathsome disease to which the human frame was subject; it was graphically pictured in a dead body, which, at first shocking, becomes gradually, as the process of putrefaction goes on, intolerably offensive. Wounds, bruises and putrefying sores are familiar similes. The connection, indeed, of the two notions of the beautiful and the good, the deformed and the sinful, pervades the moral teaching of both Testaments. It is important to observe, however, that the ground of this connection is ethical and not sesthetic.

Ethical, nut aesthetic. . „ , . ,

The first beautiful is the good, and to re- verse the order is to pervert our moral culture from the education of principles to the indulgence of mere sensibility. To reduce righteousness to a matter of taste, and to make its regulative authority depend upon its appeal to our aesthetic sentiments, is to inflict a fatal blow upon the proper con- sciousness of right, and to make holiness amount to nothing but a refined imagination. The pesthetic sentiment should be regarded as a reflection from the moral sphere ; a transfer to the sensational world of those perceptions which are found in their purity only in the region of the spiritual and divine. It is as nature and art imitate the harmony, loveliness and glory of the truly good, that they become the truly beautiful. The charms of sense are but feeble echoes of the bliss of spirit; the melody of sounds a faint echo of the higher music of the soul. There is a first perfect and first fair ; and these coincide with the first good, and from it must take their measures and significancy. This supremacy of the moral sentiments must be maintained in order to give

Vol. T.— 26

402 THE POLLUTION AXD GUILT OF SIN, [Lect. XV.

health and consistency to the pleasures of taste ; they are apt to evaporate into a sickly and morbid sentinientalism unless braced and invigorated by clear, moral perceptions.

In conformity, therefore, with this mode of representation, sin is the really and originally ugly, and

Pin is the real and ji • • i j. • i?

original «i/j^. nothmg IS Ugly except in consequence of

its analogies to sin. But deformity, un- cleanness, filth, and such like expressions, indicate not only a property of sin objectively considered, but they imply rather the effect which it produces upon its subjects. It leaves the impress of its odious features behind it. Where- ever it touches it leaves its slime ; wherever it is permitted to lodge it leaves its likeness. It makes the soul the reflec- tion of its own deformity. The man becomes filthy, odious, abominable. This power of sin to mutilate the soul, to deprive it of the harmony of its proportions, to spoil it of all moral beauty and to make it hateful and disgusting, is what is meant by its polluting power. What IS meant ly rpj uo;liness wliicli it crcates is its blot

its polluting power. o

or stain. It is a great mistake to suppose that even transient acts of sin pass from the soul and leave it as they found it. They always impress it with a tendency to reproduce themselves. They give it a determinate bias to the repetition of the same kind of acts. They leave their image in the very mould of the moral nature. Be- sides the tendency to generate themselves, which by repeti- tion grows into a fixed habit, they derange the whole struc- ture of the soul and put it out of joint for all that is good. They pervade the entire man like a disease, which, however it may at first affect a single organ, soon spreads through all the parts of the body. Habits of sin arc all so many blots or stains, and when there is a general habitude to sin it is like an universal ulcer. Such is the condition to which the sinner is brought. He is morally ulcerated from head to foot ; he is one universal mass of gangrenous mat- ter. No holy being can look at him without disgust. He is covered with filth, and repels all approach of the pure

Lfxt. XY.] the pollution AND GUILT OF SIX. 403

and good by his shocking outrages upon all that is decent and comely.

The sentiment which is proper to sin, considered as the vile, the ugly, the dirty or the mean, is

Sin as the vile and ■! j. p i tj^ • ±^ /» t it i

mean makes ashanned. ^^at of shame. It IS the fcelmg that We

arc justly exposed to contempt — that we are fit for nothing but to be despised. The man who is con- scious of sin in this relation feels that he is degraded — de- graded in his own eyes and in the eyes of all who are com- petent to judge. His pride fails to sustain him, for its very food is gone ; his self-respect vanishes before the withering revelation of his baseness. As the emotions of both honour and shame depend upon the opinion of others, it is neces- Expianation of our ^ary, in ordcr to a full elucidation of the sensibility to the opin- filthincss of sin, to cxplaiu the nature of

ions of others. , , m •!•

that nice sensibility to character or the estimation in which we are held by others which gives to their opinions the power to strengthen or annoy. No part of our constitution has attracted more general attention, or been investigated with less accuracy and philosophical dis- crimination, and no part of our constitution contains a clearer revelation of the moral character of God, or a clearer instance of a moral administration carried on in the present life. Bishop Butler was aware of the significance of the topic, and the brief hints which he has thrown out are pregnant with meaning. The fact is indisputable : God has made our hearts almost as responsive to the sentiments of others as we are to our own. Their censures distress us, their praises elate us, their approbation is a spring of serenity and peace. We enjoy their smiles, we dread their frowns. Hence arises the proverbial power of public opinion, and the power of concentrated opinion in any club or societv, however small. The individual quails before the mass, or derives new courage and zeal from the cheers and conffratu- lations of those around him and with whom he is united. But opinion, though it may mortify and distress, never really degrades a man until it accords with his own innate

404 THE POLLUTION AND GUILT OF SIN. [Lect. XY.

sense of unworthiness and meanness. It is only when it is the echo of the secret judgment of his own soul that he cowers before it, and is unable to hold up his head for shame and confusion of face. On the other hand, he is rather rebuked by his own inward nature when he yields to it in contradiction to the dictates of his oy\ni conscience. He feels it to be noble, and the world acknowledges it to be heroic, to stand out against the multitude when he is per- suaded that the multitude is wrong. The sublimest in- stances of virtue are those in which good men have braved popular prejudice and popular fury, and dared to be right amid storms of calumny and denunciation. It is clear, then, that opinion was designed to have force only as it represents the judgment of truth and righteousness. It is the consciences of others that must condemn us before their censures can really harm us. It has obviously been the aim of God to fortify our own moral sentiments by those of our fellow-men — to make each man's conscience operate through opinion upon the conscience of every other. In this way society strengthens virtue, the approbation of society being a sanction of the same kind, and as powerful, in vindication of integrity as the approliation of our own hearts. The sentiments of honour and shame lend new support to the sentiment of right, and impart a new sting to the horrors of remorse. Now, it is a singular circum- stance that our own moral natures never become fully alive to the baseness of sin as long as we can fancy it concealed. We may recognize ourselves as shameworthy, but we turn away from the spectacle of our own meanness until it has been exposed to the gaze of others. Detection removes all masks and evasions, and as it. brings public sentiment upon the offender in concurrence M'ith his own inward condemna- tion of himself, the sense of shame becomes insupportable if the transgression has been flagrantly disgraceful. So in- tense is the agony under these circumstances that the strong- est passions of human nature are not unfrequently subdued by it, and the most powerful impulses held in absolute abey-

Lect. XV.] THE POLLUTION AND GUILT OF SIN. 405

ance. The virgin who has lost her chastity will overcome the mightiest instinct of a mother's heart, love for her own offspring, and make way with the child of her infamy and guilt that she may screen her crime from exposure and escape the withering scowl of shame. She maintains the struggle against herself as long as it is confined to her own bosom, but she knows that she must yield and forfeit the last remnant of self-respect the very moment her wicked- ness is brought out into light. The scowl of society, the finger of scorn, the contempt of the virtuous and pure, — these are tortures which our sensibility to the opinion of others, when we know that opinion to be just, connects with the baseness of crime, and tortures against which no forti- tude can effectually steel the heart. It is the reaction of the pollution of sin upon the sinner's own soul. The light of opinion reveals the enormity of the case, as the sun shines upon sinks of filth, and lays bare their loathsome- ness. This pollution, as it constantly increases with the increasing power of evil, will be a perpetual source of tor- ture throughout the endless duration of tempt a perpetual the soul. The wickcd, wc are told, shall source of torture to a^yakc to sliamc and everlasting contempt.

the wicked. ^ .

In the morning of the resurrection they will be presented before the bar of God in dreadful con- trast with the pure, the holy and the good. They will feel that they are degraded ; that they have disgraced their na- ture ; that they are utterly mean and vile, and unable to hold up their heads for shame and confusion of face ; they will be ready to slink away like a dog detected in what he knows will provoke the scorn of his master. Men prate of their honour now, and swell with conceit of their dignity and beauty, but every sinner then will be deeply conscious that his honour is lost, that infamy is his lot, and that ever- lasting scorn and contempt must be poured upon him from the throne of God and the general assembly of the just. Sin is vile, it is disgraceful and degrading, but sinners in this world shun exposure and keep one another in counte-

4J6 THE POLLUTION AND GUILT OF SIN. [Lect. XV.

nance by lowering the standard of public reprobation. Hereafter, the shame of their nakedness will be made to appear, and under the withering agony of mortification and disgrace they would account it a privilege to die.

When we compare the sense of shame which accompanies moi'al degradation with that which acconi-

The shame of sin • , i . ^ , -,

like no other shame. pames cvcry othcr spccics of indecency, we see at once that there is a marked difference. Deformity of any kind is apt to be mortifying ; but the mor- tification which we experience in consequence of a disfigured limb, a distorted countenance or a hobbling gait is not to be confounded with that shame which we experience when detected in a mean and dirty act. Physical ugliness may be offensive, but it inspires no such emotions as those which are excited by moral obliquity. In this case, shame borrows a shade from another element — it easily

Glides into remorse. . t • n

glides into remorse, ihe peculiarity oi moral excellence is, that it is felt to be intriiisically worthy of reward ; of moral evil, that it is felt to be intrinsically worthy of punishment. The elements of good and ill desert condition every moral cognition, and impart the peculiarities which belong to moral beauty and deformity. The stain of sin is a stain sui generis — it cannot be washed out by tears or removed by penances ; it has that about it which demands the interposition of a judge and the hand of the executioner. It has put the transgressor in a relation to law and justice which, as his own conscience assures him, makes him the righteous victim of death. This property of sin, which is inseparable from its nature, and which makes its stain so peculiar and so fatal, is one which particularly demands our investigation. It is called guilt, and is the connecting link between the crime and its punishment. It is commonly divided into potential and actual} Potential guilt is only

1 [Guilt is commonly represented as the obligation to punishment arising from the ill desert of sin ; and as this oliligation may be either moral, springing from the inherent righteousness of the case, or judicial, springing from the sentence of the law, divines are accustomed to re-

Lect. XV.] THE POLLUTION AND GUILT OF SIN. 407

another name for the intrinsic ill desert of sin ; it expresses its punisliableness, or, what is the same

Guilt, potential and , i • , i '111 r ±1

g^pj^ij^, thing, the punishableness oi the sinner

on account of it. Wherever the stain of sin adheres to any being, it carries along with it this expo- sure to righteous condemnation. He who has the blot de- serves to die. Actual guilt is the same as condemnation — it is the sentence of a judge dooming the man to death. Of course, it presupposes guilt in the former sense ; a man must be punishable before he can be condemned. In ordinary language, guilt is probably taken, for the most part, in the first sense. It is used to denote the notion that an individual

solve guilt into two determinations — potential and actual. Potential guilt is only another name for the intrinsic ill desert of sin. Actual guilt is actual condemnation, or the positive ordination to punishpient in con- formity with the sanction of the law. Potenti;iJ guilt is the moral neces- sity of punishment — cligniias 'pance ; actual guilt is the judicial necessity of j^unishment — obligatio ad pcenam. It seems to me, however, that the potential is the only real guilt ; and that the actual is not so much guilt as the consequence of guilt. The sentence makes no man guilty — it only l^resupposes that he is so. Guilt is the ground and not the essence of con- demnation. I should therefore restrict the proper notion of guilt to the moral necessity of punishment arising from the ill desert of sin. It is that which justly exposes a man to punishment — the righteous and formal ground of it. ■ He is guilty who deserves to be condemned, whether he is actually condemned or not This is the sense in which the word is uni- versally employed in human tribunals. Every criminal prosecution aims first to ascertain the guilt of the accused — that is, his dignitas pee) ice ; and then the sentence is pronounced according to the facts of the case. At the Divine tribunal it must be admitted that the two things always coincide. With God dignitas pcBntB and obligatio ad poenam are but the same thing, as Owen observes, in divers words. To be worthy of deatli and to be doomed to death are always inseparable ; and though the logical distinc- tion betwixt them still holds as a matter of thought, yet as a matter of fact they can never be sundered. In the manifestation of guilt through tlie conscience, both are given in one and the same operation, so that the feeling of ill desert and the feeling of condemnation blend into perfect unity. In consequence of this necessary connection, the two determina- tions of divines may be retained without injury, though the language is unfortunate in wliich they are expressed. It is certainly incongruous to represent that as only potential, only in the way of becoming guilt, which is the very essence of the thing, and without which the actual is mere tyranny.]

408 THE POLLUTION AND GUILT OF SIN. [Lect. XV.

has really perpetrated an offence, and is justly obnoxious to punishment on account of it. It is only in theological lan- guage that the actual subjection to the sentence of condem- nation is expressed in terms of guilt : " He is guilty of death."

The mode in which the sense of guilt manifests itself is through the feeling of remorse — the most painful and ex- cruciating (especially when mingled, as it always is, "^vith the sense of shame) that the human bosom is capable of enduring. Remorse, or the ^^ ^s always occasioucd by reflection upon

sense of guilt, Ims two the wickcdnCSS of COuduct. It is the sen- ingredients : first, tlie . i • i

conviction tiiat sin tcucc 01 Condemnation which we pass upon ought to be punished ; ou^-geives for havliig acted or being in a state contradictory to rectitude. There are obviously two ingredients which enter into this cup of bitterness. There is first tlie conviction — the prime element of guilt — of ill desert. We feel, not only that we have done wrong, that we have departed from a rule, and that w^e are what we ought not to be, but that our transgressions deserve punish- ment. It is the conviction of this intrinsic ill desert of sin that lies at the foundation of all penal statutes and civil ex- ecutions. This makes us contemplate crime as a punishable thing. We make a distinction betwixt the excesses of the maniac and the excesses of those wdio are in full possession of their faculties. The lunatic takes away life by an act of violence — his act does not reflect itself upon his own soul either as a stain or as guilt. It leaves no trace of itself. We never think of stigmatizing it as murder, or the agent as a criminal. We may confine him on principles of pru- dence and precaution, and deprive him of all instruments and opportunities of mischief; but his restraint is no more a punishment than the caging of a wild beast to prevent him from doing mischief. The reason is, we associate no feelings of demerit or ill desert with his actions, however violent or hurtful. He is neither felt to be nor treated as responsible. That the sense of ill desert is painful and distressing, those need not be reminded wdio have ever experienced in their

Lect. XV.] THE POLLUTION AND GUILT OF SIX. 409

own souls what it is to be conscious that they are worthless. It is the convict's feeling, whose heart tells him that he has forfeited his position in society, and is no longer entitled to enjoy the rights and privileges which pertain to other men. No man under its influence can raise his head or walk at ease among his fellows, or enjoy the goods of life. He feels — he cannot but feel — that sin brands him as an outcast, and that he has lost his title to the ordinary lot of humanity. Like the ancient leper, he must stand aloof from the contact of other men, and with the symbols of his degradation about him constantly exclaim, " Unclean ! unclean ! "

In the next place, remorse involves a fearful looking-for

of judgment arising from the condemning sentence which

we arc constrained to pass upon ourselves. The sense of

. „ . . demerit, or the conviction that sin ought to

second, the conviction ' o

that sin will be pnn- \)q puuislicd, ucccssarily givcs rise to the still more painful conviction that sin will be punished. " For wickedness condemned by her own wit- ness is very timorous, and being pressed with conscience always forecasteth grievous things." Bishop Butler has conclusively shown that the operations of our moral nature involve a promise not only implied, but express, on the part of God of reward to the obedient and a corresponding threat of punishment to the guilty. There is in the bosom of every transgressor a trembling apprehension of future judgment, and so clear and definite is the reference of con- science to the awards of a higher tribunal, that the best and wisest philosophers have not scrupled to assert the absolute impossibility of atheism as long as this faculty continues to exert its power in the breast. It is a witness for God and a witness for retributive justice which sophistry and philoso- phy, falsely so called, find it impossible to bribe or silence. It deserves to be remarked, however, that the dread of pun- ishment is one thing and the punishment itself another. There is in remorse, as in all fear, torment, but it is not the torment of the actual infliction of the penalty of the law ; it is the agony which, in a nature like ours, anticipated evils

410 THE POLLUTION AND GUILT OF SIN. [Lect. XV.

are fitted to produce. Conscience condemns us in God's name, and it is the awful shadows of God's wrath projected beforehand upon the soul which fill it with consternation and terror. That wrath is yet to be revealed. Conscience is not the curse, but its sure forerunner. It is the expecta- tion of death, and the expectation of death distinctly be- cause it is felt to be deserved.

This expectation obviously involves in it the other ele-

The other element Hicnt of guilt, actual Condemnation, or ob-

of guilt involved here; noxiousuess to punlshmcnt. The revela-

and guilt in the cou- , n i • i

science is God's pres- tiou 01 the punishmcnt as a thing that ent sentence of death, gj^^jj certainly take place is a present sen- tence of death. The sinner fears because he feels that he is already condemned. He is already under the judicial dis- pleasure of God. The decree has gone forth against him. Conscience manifests its terrible reality in the depths of his soul, and because he knows from the intrinsic demerit which sin has reflected upon him that it will and must be executed, he is filled with consternation and dread.

The connection betwixt the manifestation of guilt in the conscience and the punitive justice of God has already been pointed out in the illustration of the nature of moral gov- ernment. It can only be evaded by misrepresenting the phenomena of remorse. To apprehend clearly the funda- mental notion of demerit is to recognize not only the cer- tainty but the necessity^ of punishment in contradistinction

^ [The truth is, tlie inexorable necessity of the penal imperative is just as remarkable as the absolute authority of the precept. It is admitted on all hands that the obligation to obedience is unconditional and supreme ; nothing can dispense with it, nothing can absolve from it. The law addresses itself to the will in a categorical imperative which receives no excuses, accepts no apologies, and listens to no pleas or eva- sions in behalf of disobedience. The claims of duty are paramount and supreme. No man, under any circumstances or under any pretext, is at liberty to do wrong. But the law is not more unconditional in its com- mands than in its threatenings. The moral necessity of the precept is sustained by the moral necessity of the sanction. The obligation to obey is not more absolute than the obligation to suffer in case of disobedience. They are the counterparts of each other, and it is through their inviola-

Lect. XV.] THE POLLUTION AND GUILT OF SIN. 411

from all forms of disciplinary suffering. Penal justice does not aim at the reformation of the offender, but it asserts the awful inviolability of the moral law by the terrible wretch- edness with which it reacts upon the soul of the offender. It is the recoil of that law upon the person of him who had the audacity to resist it, and no surer sign

Scruples about ciuii- n i i i /» T

teipuuishineutahvays of moral dcgcneracy can be tound among asiguofmuraidegen- ^ people than a slckly fastidiousness in

eiacy. -^ ■■■ "^ _

relation to the demands of justice. The

following remarks of Miiller in his great work on sin ^ have

as much significancy for us as for his own countrymen :

" According to the moral necessity of punishment here

recognized, we must regard it as one of the

Miiller quoted. i • i i (» i ii t

most decided symptoms oi a deadly disease

ble relation that the equilibrium of the Divine government is maintained. The necessity of punishment, therefore, is as inexorable as the necessity of obedience. An unconditional dispensation with the penalty is no less a flagrant breach of justice than a dispensation with the precept. It is as wicked to say to the sinner, " Thou shalt not die," as to say to him, " Thou art at liberty to sin." Hence, punishment, in the ground of it, is not a matter of choice. It is not a thing which God may institute or abolish at will without reflecting on his glory. It is a tiling that He must do, or cease to be the holy and just God. Many lose the formal notion of justice by confounding it with discipline. They look upon it as designed to ameliorate and reform the offender, a species of education in which he is led away from sin to the love and practice of holiness. This is a great error. The end of punishment is to uphold tlie majesty of law. It seeks not to remove the offence, nor to change the personal character of the offender, but to express the intrinsic ill desert of the sin by the terrible rebound with which it recoils on the sinner in the form of suffering. It is a satisfaction to law, and can no more be separated from the notion of ill desert than duty can be separated from the notion of right. It is this sense of the inexorable necessity of the penal imper- ative that makes the sinner tremble. He sees that he must die, that the idea of an unconditional pardon is self-contradictory, that there is no hope without an adequate satisfaction, and of that nature gives no clear intimation.

One of the worst signs of the times is the slender hold which the idea of punitive justice has upon the public mind. Moral order cannot be preserved without it, and it is a fatal symptom that a nation is tending to anarchy when it becomes indifferent to the first principle of prosperity.]

1 Vol. i., p. 267.

412 THE POLLUTIOX AND GUILT OF SIN. [Lect. XV.

which gnaws at the heart of our national life, that our peo- ple, at least in so far as it is represented by the prevalent opinions of our educated classes, no longer earnestly believe the character of sin and crime to be that which deserves pmmhment. Whoever gives his attention to the discussions of our representative assemblies concerning capital punish- ment, political crime, civil offence, and the like, will every- where find this dissipation of the moral consciousness to be the fundamental feature. No one is more sure of the ap- plause of the majority than he who discovers some new means (under the protest of humanity, and of the partici- pation of the legislature and even of the judge in human weakness and the like) of disarming justice and of making the scoundrel and villain unpunishable before the law, and, where possible, before public opinion too. The first form which this moral rottenness theoretically assumes is com- monly that of a coarse or more cultivated doctrine of deter- minism. The actor is not the author of his act, but the circumstances, or the bad education, or the deficiency in social arrangements, which should make it easy for him to procure without resorting to crime the necessary means of subsistence. Crime is misfortune, not guilt, and then, of course, naturally enough, it appears very unjust to visit him who has been so unfortunate as to assassinate some one, with ' the greater evil of his death.' Amongst those who think more deeply we then meet with the real consequences of this opinion in a decided moral skepticism, to which the moral law is only matter of arbitrary invention and social agreement. Here, too, the old rule holds good that he who has separated himself from God becomes a traitor to his own conscience. From the stagnant pool of moral corruption which the recent revolution discovered to us, there is no outlet for our nation until it has learned penitentially again to bow down to the earnest majesty of the Divine law. It is rather genuine humanity to recognize in the moral judg- ment of one who, deeply sunk in crime (for example, the murderer), places himself in the hands of justice with the

Lect. XV.] THE POLLUTION AND GUILT OF SIN. 413

consciousness of having forfeited his life with respect to both natural and legal rights, that he stands incomparably higher than the legislator or judge who will not pass the sentence of death upon him, because he is only to be pitied, not to be punished. The former has assaulted the law, but he is readily willing to make for the greatest violation the greatest satisfaction which he as a member of human society is able to make ; this latter destroys altogether, so far as he is able, the authority of the law."

From the account which has been given of the sense of guilt, it seems to imply two propositions, which are some- times represented as peculiar to the Christian revelation, but which a more careful examination shows to be natural to the human mind. The first is, tliat from the

One sin entails hope- , r" -ij. • j. '1 1

less bondage to sin. ^cry uaturc of guilt ouc SHI eutails a hope- less bondage to sin. As the law makes no provision for pardon, and as all self-devised satisfactions are felt, in proportion to the degree of moral illumination, to bo delusive and worthless, the natural effect of guilt is to widen the breach betwixt the sinner and God. Sensible of the Di- vine displeasure, he is prone to withdraw farther and farther from the Divine presence. Like Adam, when he hears the voice of the Lord God walking in the' garden, he seeks to hide himself from the Divine eye. Every augmentation of guilt is an augmentation of his estrangement ; the more the sinner sins, the broader is the gulf betwixt him and God. Hence, all experience shows that the native tendency of punishment is to harden. It provokes the malignity of the heart against the law, against the judge, against all holy order. It exasperates the spirit of rebellion to unwonted fierceness, and makes the sinner desperate in sin. The apostle speaks of the la^v as provoking his secret lusts, in- stigating the opposition of the heart to God and working in him all manner of concupiscence. The picture which Thu- cydidcs draws of the moral effects of the plague at Athens (which the Greek theology taught them to regard as a pun- ishment from heaven, and which their own consciences could

414 THE POLLUTION AXD GUILT OF SIX. [Lect. XV,

not have failed to accept in that light) is a pregnant illustra- tion of the native tendency of guilt when separated from the hope of pardon. " The historian tells us ' that, seeing death so near them, they resolved to make the most of life while it lasted by setting at naught all laws, divine and human, and eagerly plunging into every species of profligacy.' Nor was this conduct by any means confined to the most vile and worthless of the community ; for he complains of a general and permanent depravation of morals, which dated its origin from this calamity." ^ If this be so, the first sin must always be the commencement of a career to which there is no limit but the extinction of our being or a mar- vellous intervention of redeeming grace. He who begins to fall must continue to fall for ever, unless relief be found elsewhere than in himself To sin once is to be doomed to sin for ever, unless a ransom be found. The inexorable im- perative of penal justice puts a gulf betwixt the sinner and God which bars all hope of return. A froAvn rests upon the face of the judge which repels the transgressor and seals him up in despair. How little do men reflect what an awful thing sin is ! How little do they know of its inborn malig- nity ! How feebly conscious of the tremendous fact that it carries death in its very womb !

The other truth is, that as the state into which one sin introduces us is hopeless, the punishment

One sin involves ^ ^ eudlcSS. If WC mUSt COUtiuUe tO

endless punishment,

sin, we must continue to die. The deeper we plunge in guilt, the deeper we sink in death. This truth seems to be shadowed forth in the very nature of the fear which enters into the constitution of remorse. A guilty con- science dreads the future ; it is always looking for a wrath to come. Even in our endless state, when we shall have entered upon the experience of penal fires, there Avill always be, in the prospective apprehension of guilt, a revelation of still deeper woe. The future will always be blacker than the present — the night ahead more appalling than aught 1 Tlmcyd., ii., c. 35. Whately, Prel. Diss., p. 4G1.

Lect. XV.] THE POLLUTION AND GUILT OF SIN. 415

behind. Hell will be thick darkness, waxing blacker and blacker and blacker, for ever !

What a thing must sin be, when the mere sense of guilt, imperfectly revealed as it is in the conscience, is capable of producing such agony ! And what a thing must the second death be, when its mere shadows, projected upon our path, are so intolerable ! It is true that in the present life the consciousness of guilt is never co-extensive with the reality. JSIany are thoughtless ; many dissipate their moral convic- tions by sophistical evasions ; many are stupid. The moral nature has not been fairly developed. The amount of human guilt collectively, the amount of each man's own personal, individual guilt, is beyond anything that has ever entered into the consciousness of the race. The revelation that is to be made is appalling beyond the power of language to ex- press ; and when the roll is unfolded and the reality bursts upon each man's vision, the agony which it will produce, apart from any direct penal inflictions, will be unutterable. How conscience can torment us even here in this land of lies and deceit ! Are there not moments in which it rises in majesty, scatters the sophistries of a wicked heart and a duped understanding, and speaks in a language loud as thunder and clear as light in defence of truth, of righteous- ness and of God ? There are times when intoiIrabiTLw. ^"' ^^ makes the sinner tremble in the deepest recesses of his soul ; when it peojiles his solitude with ministers of vengeance ; disturbs his dreams with visions of wrath ; — when the fall of a leaf can strike him with horror ; when in every shadow he sees a ghost, in every tread he hears an avenger of blood, and in every sound the trump of doom. There is no anguish to be compared with that of remorse. The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can bear? Two circumstances There arc two circumstanccs which will

in the future will add t •• • i ji i- a • .

inconceivably to its distmguish thc Operations of conscience in "''■'■°'''- the future state, and which must add incon-

ceivably to the horrors it now excites. In the first place,

416 THE POLLUTION AND GUILT OF SIN. [Lect. XV.

it will act with greater intensity than it does or can

act here. The mind will be wound up to the highest

pitch of excitement — its chords will be

First, it will operate j^ • i ± _ii • i_ j_ _l • rm

more intensely ; strauied to thcir utmost tcusion. ilie

energy of the passions and emotions will consequently task the deepest capabilities of the soul. There will be as much intensity of eifort, as much condensation of spiritual power in a single exercise, as under ordinary cir- cumstances at present is embodied in a multitude of acts. Conscience, accordingly, will put forth all its vigour ; it will bury its whole sting in the heart of its victim. Every pang second, it will for ever ^ill be like a dcath-knell. In the next reprochice the past at placc, it will havc Constantly before it, in

every moment. n ^^ ii . • iii • n

full and luminous view, all the crimes of the whole life. Here, many are forgotten -, many are pro- nounced to be trivial ; many are excused, and the attention is diverted from more ; and it is only here and there, upon a few singular, bold and prominent transgressions, that con- science puts forth anything of its fury. But, hereafter, the whole life will be spread out like a map ; memory will be quickened to amazing rapidity and accuracy ; and the dis- tinctness of recollection will be like a stream of brimstone to feed the flames of remorse. Vice, it should never be for- gotten, through the principle of guilt is destined to immor- tality. Those deeds of darkness which we have forgotten, and which we have vainly hoped are consigned to oblivion, will rise before us in the future world like the ghosts of the murdered, and demand from eternal justice vengeance on our heads. There is nothing secret that shall not be made manifest, nothing buried that shall not be dug up and re- vived. The whole past must be reproduced ; we must con- front it face to face and abide the consequences. That rapidity of thought by which the history of years can be compressed into moments — by which, in a single second, months and years may be lived over in their full duration — by which the soul seems to escape from the limits of time, is one of the most mysterious properties of our being. In a

Lect. XV.] THE POLLUTION AND GUILT OF SIN. 417

dream, as we are all conscious, we can cross oceans, traverse

continents, encounter numberless perils, and

j)^ss through varied scenes of prosperity

and suffering ; we can seem to experience all the diversified

incidents of a long life, and it shall appear long to us at the

time, and when we awake the hand may not sensibly have

moved upon the face of the dial. There is in man a power

to conquer time — it is dimly shadowed in our sleeping

hours ; but when the future comes we shall then be able to

collect all the past in every present and to appropriate much

of the future. " I was once told," says De Quincey in a

passage quoted by McCosh, " by a near relative of mine,

that, having in her childhood fallen into a river, and being

on the very verge of death but for the

Drowning. . . , . i»i iii i

critical assistance which reached her, she saw in a moment her whole life in its minutest incidents ar- ranged before her simultaneously, as in a mirror, and she had a faculty developed as suddenly for comprehending the whole and every part. This, from some ojaium experiences of mine, I can believe. I have, indeed, seen the same thing asserted twice in modern books, and accompanied by a re- mark which I am convinced is true : viz., that the dread book of account of which the Scriptures speak is, in fact, the mind itself of each individual. Of this, at least, I feel as- sured, that there is no such thing as forget- for-etting. ""^ ''^ ^^"S possiblc to the mind. A thousand ac- cidents may and will interpose a veil be- tween our present consciousness and the secret inscriptions on the mind ; accidents of the same sort will also rend away the veil ; but alike, Avhether veiled or unveiled, the inscrip- tion remains for ever, just as the stars seem to withdraw before the common light of day, whereas in fact, as we all know, it is the light which is drawn over them as a veil, and that they are waiting to be revealed when the obscuring daylight shall have been withdrawn."

These two circumstances, the intensity with which it will operate and the power to reproduce the entire past in every

Vol, I.— 27

418 THE POLLUTION AND GUILT OF SIX. [Lect. XV.

moment of the present, will give to remorse in the future world unspeakable power to torment. One shudders to think of it; it will indeed be a worm that never dies, a fire that is never quenched. If the remembrance of a sin- gle crime here can drive the criminal to madness, what shall be the distraction of his soul when all his sins shall rise from the grave before him, and the whole scroll of the past visibly and distinctly written be unrolled to his conscious- ness, overwhelming him with a sense of shame, ill desert and guilt ! How shall he feel himself accursed as con- science pursues him with the torch of memory, and forces him to confess, anxious as he may be to deny it, that he is guilty before God ! How shall the sense of guilt sink him like lead in the mighty waters ! Then in the morning they shall say. Would to God it were even ! and at even they shall say. Would to God it were morning ! for the fear of their heart wherewith they shall fear and for the sight of their eyes which they shall see. The murderer, we are told, can- not revisit the spot where he perpetrated his deed of blood, for the rushing memories which sweep over his soul. Who , „ ^, , . can endure the memories that must eter-

IIow shall the lost tolerate for ever their nally SWCCp OVCr the SOul of llini wllOUl a own memory? -.^. •!, j. • j.1 i" o

liielong guilt stares in the lace .' Such is guilt in its own nature and in its manifestations in the conscience. It is the ill desert of sin and its conse- quent obnoxiousness to punishment. It is the distinguish- ing property of sin — nothing else, no other disturbance of our life produces guilt. We may be annoyed with disap- pointments ; we may regret imprudences ; we may feel pain and uneasiness at deformity or accidents, but guilt belongs only and exclusively to sin. That always, when reflectively considered, produces the conviction that we are deserving of punishment, and must in the natural course of things receive it. To deny guilt is, therefore, to deny sin in its most essen- tial characteristic, in the very property which distinguishes the cognition of moral turpitude from every other species of deformity. It is to reduce the distinctions of right and

Lect. XV.] THE POLLUTION AND GUILT OF SIN. 419

wrong from the lofty elevation of duties and crimes to the low proportions of sentiment and taste.

The scriptural representations of guilt are in accordance with the determinations of divines. The rep^I^t'gu'ur'""" ruling idea is that of ill desert— the poten- tial guilt, or guilt in adu primo of the Schools. The terms expressive of it are also applied to condemnation, or the judicial sentence consequent upon the worthiness of death — the actual guilt, or guilt in adu secundo of the Schools. In the Old Testament there are various phrases and circumlocutions by which the general notion is conveyed, but the only single words which in the Hebrew correspond to the English term are the derivatives of ^pi<, asham. The verb, the noun and the adjective are in many passages precisely equivalent to guilt and its derivatives in English. A few examples will suffice to illustrate the usage : " We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us and we would not hear ; therefore, is this distress come upon us." ' Here was the consciousness of ill desert ; their conduct to their brother had been flagrantly wicked, and their con- sciences led them to connect their present distress as a judi- cial visitation with their gross and unnatural cruelty. The meaning is. We deserve to die, and therefore are we now suf- fering. " And Abimelech said, What is this thou hast done unto us ? One of the people might lightly have lien with thy wife, and thou shouldest have brought guiltiness upon us."^ That is. We might have been considered as criminals and treated as worthy of punishment. " Destroy thou them, O God, let them fell by their own counsels."^ In the He- brcAV it is. Condemn or make them guilty. The idea is that of the adual guilt of the theologians. " Evil shall slay the wicked, and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate."* In the Hebrew, Shall be guilty — that, is pun- ished on account of their ill desert. " The Lord redeemeth

1 Gen. xlii. 21. ' Gen. xxvi. 10.

3 Psalm V. 10. * Psalm xxxiv. 21, 22.

420 THE POLLUTIOX AND GUILT OF SIN. [Lect. XV.

the soul of his servants, and none of them that trust in Him shall be desolate." Again, in the Hebrew, it is. Shall be guilty — that is, exposed to punishment as ill-deserving. " Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate." ^ In the Hebrew, Are reckoned guilty — that is, as justly exposed to punishment. " Ashavi is taken by some of the earlier writers in the sense of being desolate. Its true sense is that of being recognized as guilty and treated accordingly ; it, therefore, suggests the ideas of both guilt and punishment." " For Israel hath not been forsaken, nor Judah of his God, of the Lord of Hosts, though their land was filled with sin [in Hebrew, with guilt] against the holy One of Israel." ^ That is, though they have richly deserved punishment, they have not been dealt with accord- ing to their deserts. In these citations from the Old Testa- ment I have purposely avoided all the passages in which the term is used in relation to the guilt-ofPering. The dis- tinction of these offerings from the sin-oifering is so obscure that I have not felt at liberty to present any theory, or to deduce any inference from the use of the word. The cases quoted are sufficient to elucidate the general usage.

In the authorized version of the New Testament the term guilty occurs about six times, and its meaning in each case is clear and definite, though it is conveyed in the original by diiferent words. " Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing ; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty."^ The original is d(/i£i?.ei, he is a debtor, and the word is so translated in the preceding verse. It is only in reference to their guilt that sins can be rep- resented as debts, and sinners as debtors. The notion which underlies this mode of representation is, that the obligation to render satisfaction to the law is as truly grounded in justice as the obligation to discharge a pecu- niary claim, and that God is no less defrauded of His rights when a sinner escapes with impunity than a creditor is robbed of his dues when left in the lurch by a dishonest ' Isaiah xxiv. 6. ' Jer. li. 5. ' Matt, xxiii. 18.

Lect. XV.] THE POLLUTION AND GUILT OF SIN. 421

debtor. " What think ye ? They answered and said he is guilty of death," ^ Ivoyo^ &av6,zou iatc — that is, he is worthy of death, or he deserves to die. The term ivoy^oc: expresses the general notion of being under the arrest of the law, and is construed with the dative or genitive of the punishment, or the dative of the tribunal to which the culprit is respon- sible ; euo-)[oz d-avdvou accordingly means, held by the law to death, or liable to death under the laio. It unites the notions of guilt and punishment. This is remarkably the case in Mark xiv. 64 : " And they all condemned him to be guilty of death," xarsxptvav autov icuac ei^oyou ^avdzou. He was not only considered as worthy of death, but actually sen- tenced to death. He was dealt with according to his alleged demerit. In Rom. iii. 19 we have still a diiferent mode of indicating guilt : " That every mouth may be stopped and the whole world become guilty before God," uTtodcxo^ yiur^ra: Ttdi; b xoajjiO!; tm ^uo. Here the notion of condemnation is evidently the prominent one. The consciousness of ill desert is signalized in the speechlessness which seizes the criminals at the bar, and the consequence of their crimes is expressed by the sentence which proceeds from the omniscient Judge.

From these passages it is clear that the theological deter- minations of guilt are strictly scriptural ; it expresses the relation of sin to the penalty of the law, the state of one who is justly exposed to condemnation or who has already received the sentence. It is the link which connects the sinner with his doom, the bond which unites transgression with death. Its primary and radical notion, as Owen re- marks, is desert of punishment, and all other applications are grounded in that.

It is extremely important to have clear views of the dis-

without this dis- tinction betwixt the stain and the guilt of

tinction of the stain gjn. Witliout them it is impossiblc to un-

and guilt of sin, inipu- i i • • /• j •

tuition cannot be un- dcrstaud thc imputation 01 one man s sin to derstood; aiiothcr. If it be meant that the personal

character of one is transfused into another, that the habits

1 Matt. xxvi. 66.

422 THE POLLUTION AND GUILT OF SIN. [Lect. XV.

which belong to one are made the subjective property of another, and that the acts performed by one are really made to be the acts of another, the doctrine would be simply con- tradictory and absurd. It would amount to saying that two beings are different and yet the same ; that their personal- ities are distinct, but their personal identity is one. To im- pute sin involves no such confusion of the subjective states of different agents ; it means merely that one is held respon- sible for the acts of another. Whether this can be done justly is one question — whether it involves a contradiction in terms is quite another. If reference be had to the stain of sin, such an imputation is a sheer impossibility, but if to the guilt of sin, it is plain and obvious to the feeblest intelli- gence. Most of the objections to the imputation of sin are founded upon a gross inattention to this distinction. They deal with it as if it involved a transfer of subjective states or acts, the transfusion of the stain, and not the imputation . ., A-»- of ffuilt. In the next place, the distinction

nor yet the dirfei-ence o i '

between Justification bctwixt tllC doctriuCS of justification and

and Sanctification. ,.«,• , ji Tj-^-

sanctincation turns upon the distinction betwixt pollution and guilt. Sanctification is an inward subjective change, removing the stain or filth of sin, and restoring the image of God in knowledge, righteousness and holiness. Justification is an external change, touching our relations to the law, and removes the guilt and condemna- tion under which we lie. Sanctification infuses habits of grace — justification cancels the necessity of punishment. Sanctification conforms us with the precept — justification delivers us from the penalty of the law. One deals with the stain — the other with the guilt of sin.

The terminology of the Scripture in relation to sin is such as to keep the distinction between these two proi)erties prom- inently before the mind. V.'lien our sins

This distinction per- t -i i t j

yades Scripture, and arc dcscribcd as discascs, as %\'ounds, as lies at the foundation ulccrs, as filth aud impuritv, the reference is

of Redemption. ' , ttt-i

to the stain — the macula. When our sins are described as debts, as crimes, as offences, as trespasses

Lect. xy.] the pollution and guilt of sin. 423

as injuries or wrongs, the reference is to the guilt of sin. The distinction not only pervades the phraseology of Scrip- ture, but lies at the foundation of the whole scheme of re- demption. The Gospel is a riddle without it.

The distinction drawn by the Papists betwixt reatus culpce and reatus poence has been denounced by approver^iuT'"'^'""' Protcstants as self-contradictory and ab- surd, but I think without reason. It is really their own distinction between poteniial and actual guilt, or guilt in the first and second acts. The reatus culpce is the essential ill desert of sin — that property by virtue of which it renders the transgressor a just subject of punish- ment; quo, peccator ex se indignus statuitur Del gratia, dignus vero ipsius ira et danmatione. This is surely nothing but the familiar dignitas poence. Meatus poence, on the other hand, is actual condemnation, or the positive ordination of the offender to merited punishment ; quo, obnoxius est dam- nationi et ad earn obligatur. The thing to be blamed is not the distinction itself, but the use which is made of it. The Papists wish to lay a foundation for their aeZir^"" ''"''" (loctrine of purgatory and of penitential satisfactions, and have, consequently, in- vented a distinction of pardons, by virtue of which a man may be received into favour, and yet held partially respon- sible for his sins. The culpa may be remitted, and the poena, to some extent, retained. Though accepted in Christ, the penitent transgressor may yet be required, either in this life or the next, to undergo sufferings which are strictly of the nature of satisfactions to the justice of God. This is the point to be condemned, and it is here in the doctrine of a partial pardon — a remission of guilt without the removal of the whole penalty — that the absurdity lies. This is a con- tradiction, to say that a man can be pardoned and yet must be punished — that his ill desert is removed, but its judicial consequence remains. The whole sum of their doctrine we may, with Hooker,^ reduce to these two grounds : " First,

^ Works, vol. iii., p. 799, Oxford edit., 1836— Serin, iii.

424 THE POLLUTION AND GUILT OF SIN. [Lect. XV.

the justice of God requireth that after unto the penitent sin is forgiven, a temporal, satisfactory punishment be, notwith- standing, for sin, inflicted by God on man. Secondly, the same doth also require that such punishment being not in- flicted in this world, it be in the world to come endured ; that so, to the justice of God, full and perfect satisfaction be made." The language of the Council of Trent ^ is : Si quis post acceptam justijlcationis gratiam, cuilibet peecatori poeni- tenti, culpam ita remitti et reatum ceternce poence delerl dixerit, ut nuUus remanent reatus poence temporalis exsolvendce, vel in hoc seculo vel in futuro pwgatorio, antequam ad regna coelo- rum aditus patere possit, anathema sit. I need add nothing to the able and conclusive refutation of the doctrine con- tained in the third book of Calvin's Institutes, chap, iv., § 25, to the end. The whole plausibility which even Thomas Aquinas has been able to impart to it arises from a singular confusion of chastisement with punishments — a tojiic which has already been discussed.

^ Sess. vi., De Just. Can. xxx.

Lecture XVI DEGREES OF GUILT

THAT all sins are not equal, but that there is a difference in degrees of guilt, is, at once, the doctrine of common sense and of the Word of God. The Stoical

stoical paradox. . . i i /> i i i /-n-

paradox, ingeniously deiended by uicero, carries no more conviction with it than similar sophisms against the possibility of motion or the reality of the infi- nite. To say that there is as niucli malignity in a foolish jest as in a deliberate slander, in an angry word as in a premeditated murder, is to contradict — nay more, to outrage and shock — the moral sentiments of mankind. It is one thing to say that offences are equally sins ; it is quite another to say that they are equal sins. One simply predicates reality — the other, degree. All poisons are equally poisons — that is, all are really and truly poisons ; but all poisons are not equal as poisons — that is, are not possessed of the same degree of virulence.

That sins admit of a greater and a less is not only dis- tinctly stated in the Scriptures, but implied

Testimony of Scripture. . ^o^^c n i. rri •,•

in maniiold lorms oi argument, liie cities in which our Saviour performed his mighty works are rep- resented as accumulating by their impenitence a degree of guilt transcendino; that of the cities of the Plain. It shall be more tolerable, is the oft-repeated declaration of the Son of man, for Sodom and Gomorrah, than for such cities. So in Luke xii. 47, 48 : " And that servant which knew his Lord's will and prepared not himself, neither did according

425

426 DEGREES OF GUILT. [Lect. XVI.

to his will, shall be beaten with many striates. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required ; and to whom men have committed much, of him they Avill ask the more." The sin of those who delivered the Saviour to Pilate is ex- pressly said to be aggravated by the superhuman dignity of his character. " Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above ; therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin." ^ The Apostle John makes a distinction of sins, which, however the lan- guage in which it is expressed may have been perverted and abused in the notorious distinction of venial and mortal sins, is wholly unintelligible except upon the supposition that there are degrees of malignity in sin. The same truth stands prominently out in what our Saviour teaches concerning the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, and what Paul teaches concerning a final and irretrievable apostasy. So, too, the arguments of the Scriptures are often from a less to a greater : "If the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salva- tion ? " ^ " He that despised Moses' law, died without mercy under two or three witnesses ; of how much sorer punish- ment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the Covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an un- holy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace! "^ The same doctrine pervades the ritual of the Old Testament, in which different offerings were prescribed according to the different degrees of guilt.

Jovinian, a monk in the age of Augustin, is said to have been the first who attempted to graft the

Jovinian. o • i /■ i t p •

Stoic paradox of the equality of sins upon the Christian faith ; but his efforts were wholly unsuccessful. Indeed, it is not certain that his opinions have been candidly 1 John xix. 11. 2 Heb. ii. 2, 3. » Heb. x. 28, 29.

Lect. XVI.] DEGREES OF GUILT. 427

and impartially represented. It has been surmised that the doctrine was attributed to him not in consequence of any articulate statement of it, but as an inference from other doc- trines which he taught, and which it was attempted to cover with odium by charging them with this absurdity. He ex- pressly maintained that widows and virgins acquired no more merit by celibacy than marriage, and from this it was inferred that he asserted the absolute equality of merits, and, by consequence, the absolute equality of sins.^ The doctrine has also been attributed to Pelagius, but I

Pelagiiis. '^ '

suspect upon no better grounds than those on which it was ascribed by some of the Papists to the Re- formers. It was merely an exaggerated form to which his real opinions were reduced.

In their controversy with Rome the Reformers had equally to guard against the extreme of a minimum

The Reformers. J^ . °

of guilt m which the essential character of sin was lost and the obligation to punishment reduced to zero, and the extreme of making all crimes equally culpa- ble. With one voice they protested that all sin, in its own nature and apart from the provisions of grace, was deadly, and yet that all sins were not equally heinous. Death was due to the least, but death had its degrees, and in the ad- justment of these to the degrees of guilt the justice of God was realized. Baier, who was extremely happy in reducing truth to formulas, has expressed precisely the universal sentiment of the Reformation : Peceata alia graviora, alia leviora esse recte affirmantur ; neque tamen propterea cxisti- mari debet, aliqua peceata ex se et sua natura ita levia esse, ut damnationem ceternam non mereantur. It is easy to see how the misrepresentation could arise if the Protestants held that all sin was worthy of eternal death ; that seemed to be equi- valent to saying that they amounted to the same thing in the end, and as eternal death stood to the mind as the maxi- mum of all evil, each sin, as containing it potentially, ad- mitted of nothing greater. The distinction of majus and ^ Baieri Comp. Theol. Hist., Loc. viii., ^ 2.

428 DEGREES OF GUILT. [Lect. XVI.

minus vanished before this greatest. Still, candid Papists cheerfully acquitted them of maintaining the Stoical paradox. The Protestant doctrine as to the degrees of sin is ex- pressed with some fullness in the West- trile!'*'"'"''"' '"" minster Standards: "All transgressions of the law of God are not equally hein- ous, but some sins in themselves, and by reason of several aggravations, are more heinous in the sight of God than others. Sins receive their aggravations — 1. From the per- sons offending ; if they be of riper age, greater experience or grace, eminent for profession, gifts, place, office, guides to others, and whose example is likely to be followed by others. 2. From the parties offended ; if immediately against God, his attributes and worship, against Christ and his grace, the Holy Spirit, His witness and workings, against superiors, men of eminency, and such we stand especially related and engaged unto ; against any of the saints, particularly weak brethren, the souls of them, or any' other, and the common good of all or of many. 3. From the nature and quality of the offence ; if it be against the express letter of the law, break many commandments, contain in it many sins ; if not only conceived in the heart, but break forth in words and actions, scandalize others, and admit of no reparation; if against means, mercies, judgments, light of nature, convic- tion of conscience, public or private admonition, censures of the Church, civil punishments, and our prayers, pur- poses, promises, voavs, covenants and engagements to God or men ; if done deliberately, wilfully, presumptuously, impudently, boastingly, maliciously, frequently, obstinately, with delight, continuance or relapsing after repentance. 4. From circumstances of time and place ; if on the Lord's day, or other time of Divine worship, or immediately be- fore or after these, or other helps to prevent or remedy such miscarriages ; if in public or in the presence of others who are thereby likely to be provoked or defiled." ^

These determinations are not only fortified by Scripture,

1 Larg. Cat., Ques. 150, 151.

Lect. XVI.] DEGREES OF GUILT. 429

but the}' commend themselves to every unsophisticated con- science. They are founded in truth and reason. The prin- ciple, however, upon which they rest is not evolved, and therefoi'e as a scientific reduction they cannot be accepted as complete. We want a law by virtue of which we can explain the circumstance that transgressions vary in malig- nity. That law must be sought in the nature of sin as involving a subjective condition and an objective matter. There is the thing commanded or forbidden ; there is the attitude of the mind in relation to it. Now, among the things commanded or forbidden — that is, in

One ground of the ,1 i • , ,_, f»ji 1 n

distinction. ''"^^ objcct-matter 01 the law — there is an

obvious difference in magnitude and im- portance. Some precepts respect rights which are inhe- rently of greater moment than others, and in this aspect some of the commandments may be regarded as greater than others. There is one which our Saviour tells us de- serves to be called The first and the great commandment. The arrangement of the Decalogue turns upon the intrinsic importance of the various spheres to which the precept or prohibition pertains. First come God and the whole de- partment of Divine worship ; then comes the family, the very keystone of the arch which sustains society ; then come the interests of man in the order of their magnitude — first, the protection of life, next the purity of families, then the rights of property, and finally the security of character. Here, therefore, is an obvious ground of distinction in the object-matter of the law. It is intrinsically a greater evil to insult God than to reproach our neighbours, because God is greater than our neighbours. It is a greater sin to be contemptuous to a parent than wanting in respect to others, because the parental is the most solemn and sacred of all social ties. It is a greater crime to rob a fellow-man of his life than to defraud him of his prop- erty, because life is more than meat or raiment. It is a greater crime to defile a man's wife than to circulate a lie to his injury, because the purity of families can never be

430 DEGREES OF GUILT. [Lect. XVI.

restored when once lost, but an idle lie may be refuted or lived down.

The other ground of distinction is in the subjective con- dition of the agent. The degrees of guilt, of distiuctilii. ^™"" ^^ ^^^^^ aspect, will depend upon the degree of intensity in the sinful principle of ac- tion— that is, the degree of opposition to the authority of conscience and the law. The more a sin indicates the power and presence of evil in the soul, the more flagrant it becomes. The more it asserts the principle of self-seeking and self- sufficiency, — the more it reveals of the spirit of apostasy from God, — the more aggravated it is. Now, as a general rule, the potency of the inward principle of sin is measured by the light which is resisted. If a man is conscious of his duty, or, in the language of the Saviour, "That servant which knew his Lord's will and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes." Or, to state this aspect of the case in an- other form : The degree of guilt depends upon the degree of completeness with which the sinful act has been produced by the will of the agent,^ or the degree of fullness with which the will has entered into it ; and this again Avill be measured by the degree of consciousness that it is sin. The highest form of evil is reached when a man deliberately perpetrates what he knows to be wrong upon the ground that it is wrong ; when, like Milton's Satan, he deliberately makes evil his good ; and every approximation to this con- dition is an increase of guilt.

Still, it is not to be denied that there are sins of ignorance

which reveal a deeper malignity of the power of evil than

even sins against knowledge when they have not reached the

„ , . heiffht of presumptuous malice. There are

Yet Ignorance, some- fe 1 1

times from desperate cascs iu wliich tlic iguoraucc itsclf is a con- fession of desperate depravity — in which it could not be conceived as possible without a monstrous per- version and degradation of the moral nature. Wherever 1 Miiller, vol. i., p. 218,

Lect. XVI.] DEGREES OF GUILT. 431

ignorance pertains to the essential principles of rectitude — those eternal rules of right which have been written on the heart of man and which constitute the indispensable condi- tion of his moral agency ; there, ignorance itself is a sin, and a sin in the moral sphere analogous to suicide in the sphere of life. Such ignorance is always the result of sin, as well as the cause — the child as well as the parent. It is con- demned by casuists as voluntary in its origin, and as im- parting a voluntary character to all its products. The crimes to which it leads are extenuated in guilt only in the sense that they are less heinous in those who are thus degraded than they would be in those who committed them with the full consciousness of their malignity. The heathen are guilty for their idolatries, superstitions and profane worship — their guilt is of frightful magnitude ; and the only sense in which their blindness extenuates it is that these same abominations are not so odious in them as they would be in those who enjoy the light of the Christian revelation. The only cases in which ignorance absorbs the sin are those in which the ignorance has no connection with the proper exercise of the moral understanding. Whenever the application of an habitual rule is conditioned by outward circumstances, con- tingent and mutable, then a mistake in the application, through an error in the facts, is not formally sin. If, for example, the sister of a young man had been separated from him in early life, and he had satisfactory reasons for believing that she was dead — if, under these circumstances, he should subsequently meet with her as a stranger and contract an in- timacy ending in marriage — no sin could be imputed to him. He would be unfortunate, but not criminal. The ignorance was not of that kind which implies a perversion of the moral nature. The distinction has been clearly pointed out by Midler : ^ " And assuredly there is a so-called sin of igno- rance, in which the ignorance entirely removes the guilt, and therewith altogether the character of real sin. One dis- tinguishes in the ignorance which is here under consideration, as is well known, ignorance of the obligatory law and unac- 1 Vol. i., pp. 219, 220.

432 DEGREES OF GUILT. [Lect. XVI.

quaintance with its own action according to its full determi- nateness. Now the knowledge of one's own conduct refers, according to one of its sides, to the sphere of the external, to the infinite manifoldly conditioned relations in which every action takes place. But in this sphere confusion and igno- rance may very well take place, and therefrom an error in conduct arise, without the smallest degree of guilt in the in- dividual acting, through any deficiency of attention or the like. If any one, for example, disposes of another's property in the opinion fully warranted from the circumstances that it is his own, there exists, it is true, a violation of right,

although there is only a civil but 710 moral guilt

Therefore this kind of error has no place here; but that which arises from the inordinate selfish endeavour, and thus contradicts the^ moral law, is guilt, whether the faulty indi- vidual be conscious or not conscious of this contradiction. Certainly, if it Avere altogether impossible for any one to be- come acquainted with the contents of the moral law, and in consequence he could not at all become conscious of that in- ordinate striving as of that which ought not to be, the impu- tation to such an one of that which may appear in his life as sin would certainly be made void, but equally therewith the completeness of human nature. The distinction too between the insurmoxintahle and the surmountable ignorance in the moment of decision may indeed condition the degree of guilt, but cannot decide concerning the presence or non-presence of guilt. To be in ignorance or error in the sphere of the outward, the accidental, the mutable, does not bring reproach to man ; but not to know the essential truth which an- nounces itself in the conscience, and its relation to the indi- vidual act, is, itself, just the consequence of a sinfully dis- ordered condition of his inward life."

The subject of an erring conscience is treated by Taylor

with considerable minuteness in the first

Infelicity of th. err- ^ -^^ ^ ^j^^ Ductor Dubitautium : and he

ing conscience. '

shows by many apt and painful illustrations that such " is its infelicity that if it goes forward, it enters into a folly ; if it resists, it enters into madness ; if it flies, it

Lect. XVI.] DEGREES OF GUILT. 433

dashes its head against a wall, or falls from a rock ; if it flies not, it is torn in pieces by a bear." The victim of moral ignorance is under the fatal necessity of sin, whether he resists or obeys his conscience. If he resists conscience, he acts undei* the formal notion that he is doing wrong, and thereby reveals the principle of evil ; if he obeys, he rejects the materially good, and thereby evinces the moral disorder of his soul. He can turn neither to the right nor to the left without sin — it is the curse which cleaves to his condition ; and the only remedy is in the removal of the evil by the communication of spiritual light.

^yhile the general doctrine is maintained that there are degrees of guilt, and that these are conditioned by the ob- jective nature of the crime and the subjective condition of the agent, it is preposterous to suppose that a scale of iniquity can be framed by which the precise malignity of every offence

Scale of the Romish ^hall bc determined.. The whole system of Confessional prepos- the Romisli Confessioual is founded in de- lusion. The same act, materially considered, varies in culpability in every instance in which it is per- formed by the same person or by others. The subjective state of the agent is not a fixed but a fluctuating quantity ; and even things materially insignificant may be rendered aggravated crimes by the state of the heart which j^roduces them. The disposition, too, to measure in scales the amount of our misdeeds is a bad symptom. The heart that is truly penitent feels that all guilt is enormous — that even its lightest oifences are intolerable burdens ; and is so thoroughly im- j3ressed with the magnitude of its wickedness that instead of attempting to extenuate its fault in comparison with others, it is ready, with the apostle, to confess that it is the very chief of sinners.

Sins, classified according to their guilt, may be obviously

Three classes of sins, ^educed to sins of prcsumptiou, sins of igno- according to their raucB and sins of weakness. Sins of pre-

guilt. .

sumption vary according to the degree of deliberation and malice which they respectively involve,

Vol. I.— 28

434 DEGREES OF GUILT. [Lect. XVI.

until they culminate in that highest and most appalling of all offences, the sin against the Holy Ghost. Sins of igno- rance vary according to the extent to which the ignorance is voluntary — that is, more precisely stated, according to the degree in which the ignorance implies a perverted develop- ment of the moral nature. Sins of infirmity, which consist in the power of temptation to prevail over the authority of conscience where the duty is known, or in the force of sudden impulses and passions in preventing reflection, vary according to the strength of the temptation and the depth and earnestness of the struggle. They are

yet all malignant and n t ; ,i i j. • • j^t.

^g^j, all malignant ; the least is poison ; the

touch of any is death. But what a picture does even this graduated scale of guilt present of poor human nature ! From weakness up to deliberate malice — a weak- ness which is itself a sin and a sign of general ruin and decay, up to a presumption which reveals a kindred between man and devils ; this is the line which the human heart is always tracing and human life ceaselessly exemplifying. If, by comparison among themselves, some offences are smaller than others, by comparison with God, with the holy law, and the perfect ideal of human nature, the least is enough to fill us with horror and dismay ; and not the least evidence of the fearful wreck of our nature is the tendency which un- spiritual men cherish to look upon some as absolutely small. Well may we say with Cicero : Parva res est, at magna culpa.

Hence, Protestants, with one voice, with the exception of the Socinians — and they are no more en- ven::it:::;tSr:;^ titled to be considered as Christians than Mohammedans — have rejected with abhor- rence the Papal distinction between venial and mortal sins. They have unanimously asserted from the very dawn of the Reformation — Lutherans as well as Calvinists, in harmony with apostles and the earliest and soundest confessors of the truth — that "every sin, even the least, being against the sovereignty, goodness and holiness of God, and against His

Lect. XVI.] DEGREES OF GUILT. 435

righteous law, deserveth His wrath and curse, both in this life and that which is to come, and cannot be expiated but by the blood of Christ."^ By venial sins the Papists un- derstand those which are not inconsistent with spiritual life, and which are not subversive of a supreme and steady regard to the great end of our being. Thomas Aquinas says that they are not against the law, but beside the law — not contra legem, but prceter legem. The meaning is, that they are not so against the law as to be destructive of the end of the com- mandment, which is charity, but beside the law, as they imply something of disorder and inconsistency with the per- fect harmony of the soul. They are slight irregularities, but not real disturbances of the spiritual life. They are said to be of three kinds, according as they are determined by the nature of their object-matter, the imperfect causation by the agent, or the insignificance of the act. The first are venial ex genere; the second, ex imperfectione operis; the third, ex parvitate materice. When the object-matter of an act, though implying some irregularity, does not turn one aside from the supreme end of his being, nor contradict the principle of charity, the offence is denominated venial from its own na- ture— it does not deserve death. To this class belong such irregularities and indecencies as idle words, frivolous jests and excessive laughter.^ To the second class belong those irregularities which, though pertaining to an object-matter in itself deadly, have not a full and complete causation by the agent — his will does not thoroughly enter into them. Such are the sudden emotions of luxury, pride, resentment. Here, as the deliberation is imperfect, the act is not complete, and consequently does not amount to a consent of the will in the deadly object. In this way any mortal sin can be rendered venial. To the third class belong those offences in which, although the object-matter is deadly, yet the act is so insig- nificant as to make it incongruous to punish it with death. To this head are reduced petty thefts, in which the amount stolen is too small to be called a real injury ; delicate scandal ; 1 Larg. Cat., Qu. 152. ^ Aqui., Sum. Pars Prim. Sec, Qu. 88.

436 DEGKEES OF GUILT. [Lect. XVI.

a little too much drink ; and a voluntary distraction for a short time in Divine worship. Mortal sin, on the other hand, is that which is destructive of spiritual health and life — it is, in its own nature, deadly and deserves the pun- ishment of eternal death.

Now the point which Protestants maintain is tliat there are no irregularities, however slight, in the moral sphere which it would be unjust in God to punish with death — no irregu- larities, that can be properly called sins, which in their own nature are such that temporal inconvenience is the only mark of disapprobation which it becomes the holiness of God to impress uj^on them. There are no sins inherently and essentially venial. It is cheerfully conceded that all With Protestants, ^"^•'^> ^^^^^ ouc, are rendered venial through no sins vcniui in their the blood of tlic Lord Jcsus Christ. That

own nature. , in 1 1 • i i • •

cleanseth trom all sm, but the question is not concerning the efficacy of the atonement to cancel guilt, but the nature of the guilt itself. Is there a guilt which does not need the blood of the Redeemer — a guilt which of its own nature and from the sentence of the law does not exclude from the Divine favour? It would seem that the simple statement of the question would suggest the answer. The notion of a sin which is not in itself contradictory to spiritual health and life, which does not leave a stain that mars the beauty and harmony of the soul, is a contradiction in terms. To prove that an act does not involve any turning away from God, does not disturb the supreme and steady prosecution of our highest end, is to prove not that it is venial, but that it is no sin. What is not inconsistent with that love w^hich is the fulfilling of the law, it would be wise above what is written to pronounce a transgression of the law. Those irregularities which seem to us so slight are slight only by comparison. They are mingled with such deep and fearful disorder that their intrinsic nature is hid in tlie profound darkness which surrounds them. But figure to yourselves an angel or a glorified saint indulging in these peccadilloes in heaven ! The supposition is so

Lect. XVI.] DEGREES OF GUILT. 437

monstrous and revolting that Aquinas has admitted, and not only admitted but proved, that a perfectly holy being is incapable of a venial sin, and that it is not until he has lost his integrity by mortal sin he can be betrayed into these weaknesses.^ But if they are obliged to be the result of deadly sin — that is, if they can only be conceived as spring- ing from a condition of moral apostasy — they must partake of the nature of their cause. It is impossible in estimating their guilt to detach them from the collective moral state of the agents. That creates them, and therefore that must determine their significancy. Hence, I cannot but think that Miiller has fallen into error in the countenance which he has given to the distinction of the Papists. He seems to think it possible to isolate the individual act from the gene- ric condition which originates it, and he overlooks the dis- turbing influence which " the smallest precipitation or inat- tentiveness" would necessarily exert upon the character of a sinless creature. But whatever may be our speculations, the authority of Scripture is decisive. " The wages of sin is death." ^ The alternative is inevitable — either venial sin is not sin at all, or it deserves to be visited with death. " Cursed is every one who continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them." ^ Here again the alternative is inevitable — either venial sin is not prohibited by the law, or it brings the transgressor under the curse. If it is pro- hibited by the law, there is as really a contempt of the Divine authority (which is the formal ground of the obli- gation of the law) in these small irregularities as in the weightier matters which pertain to the rights of God and our neighbours. To every unsophisticated conscience the venial offences which spring from the imperfection of the act or the insignificance of the matter are as really sins as the finished transgressions or the more important matters of the same class. The sudden invasions of passion, of anger, malice and revenge show an unsound state of the heart,

1 Sum. Prim. Sec, Ques. 89, 3.

2 Kom. vi. 23. 3 q^i i[i iq

438 DEGREES OF GUILT. [Lect. XVI.

reveal a disease which is essentially fatal ; and the man Avho can see any difference, except in degree, between the steal- ing of a shilling and the stealing of a thousand pounds, who can see any difference which removes one and' leaves the other under the category of knavery, possesses either extraordinary acuteness or extraordinary dullness of spiritual perception. Surely we should suppose that he who apolo- gized for his dishonesty by pleading the smallness of his thefts was not grounded in the nature and root of moral dis- tinctions.

There is a modified sense in which the distinction betwixt

venial and mortal sins has been tolerated

tion of a modified i^ the Protestaut Church. It is not that

sense of this distinc- gome are whilc otlicrs are not deservinar of

tion. , °

eternal death, but some are more violently contradictory to a state of grace than others. Some are totally incompatible with the health and comfort of the Divine life ; they destroy all peace of conscience, all sensi- ble communion with God, and provoke his severe and griev- ous chastisements. They bring about a spiritual declension, which without the provisions of grace would terminate in the total extinction of the Divine life. They cancel the con- sciousness of a state of grace. These sins are -par eminence mortal. There are others which do not disturb our spiritual peace — which, though the occasions of a constant conflict, are yet the means of a more vigorous and watchful exercise of prayer and faith.^ But it is certainly illogical to treat as contraries what differ only by accidental circumstances. All these sins are in their own nature mortal — that is, de- serving of eternal death — all are pardonable and are actu- ally pardoned through the blood of Christ. It would be much better to signalize them by terms expressive of that

1 In other words, mortal sins are those which separate from the king- dom of God, and which therefore must be totally abandoned if we hope to be saved. Venial sins are those which cleave to us as remnants of in- bred corruption until the period of our complete sanctification ; they are the lustings of the flesh which shall never cease until the flesh is laid aside in the grave. See De Moor, cap. xv., § 38.

Lect. XVI.] DEGREES OF GUILT. 439

which really distinguishes them — different degrees of the same kind of guilt. Indeed, the terms venial and mortal have been very partially adopted ; they never harmonized with the conscience of the Protestant Church.

There is one sin, however, about which there can be no mistake. It is marked by a bold pre-

One sin wliich can- . /. .1, I'l Tj' -i -j

not be forgiven. eminence 01 guilt which distinguishes it

from every form of iniquity in which man can be involved. It precludes the possibility of pardon by putting beyond the pale of redeeming blood. Our Saviour twice signalized it in his own earthly teachings, and branded it as blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.' John alludes to it without specifically describing it, and calls it a sin unto death, which we are not at liberty to pray for when we know that it has been committed. Paul, twice in the course of the Epistle to the Hebrews, makes mention of its hopeless cha- racter, and in one passage enters into a somewhat detailed description of the offence itself. That John and Paul have their eye upon the same sin which our Saviour had so awfully reprobated is to be gathered from the fact that the sin unto death and the irrevocable apostasy agree in their distinguishing j^roperty with the sin against the Holy Ghost, and the still further fact that the language of our Saviour evidently implies that there is but one sin possessed of this fearful malignity. It is, therefore, by a comparison of all these passages that we must settle the nature of the sin. It is clear, in the first place, that it cannot be, as Augustin and others have imagined, the sin of final ^^Not final imponi. jj^pgnitency. Final impenitency differs only in the accident of time from any other impenitency, and therefore is not unpardonable from its own nature, but from the relation in which it happens to stand to the remedy. Impenitence itself, divested of the relation of time, is constantly pardoned, and it is the very thing which the invitations, promises and motives of the Gospel are designed to induce men to lay aside. 1 Matt. xii. 31 ; Mark iii. 29 ; Luke xii. 10.

440 DEGREES OF GUILT. [Lect. XVI.

Neither can this sin be regarded as any peculiar insult to the Person of the Holy Ghost. Those Pe^onofTiIe Spirit!" thoughts of blasphcmy against Him— those horrible and revolting expressions of wickedness and reproach which Satan often injects into the minds of the saints, in order to torture them with the fear that they have fallen into irrevocable guilt, have no more malig- nity in them than similar offences against the first or second Persons of the Trinity. If it were the personal aspect of these sins that imparted to them their malice, it would seem that the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost would be less affsravated than that ao;ainst the Father and the Son. As God, they are all one, the same in substance, equal in power and glory ; as Persons, the Father is the first, the Son is the second, and the Holy Spirit the third. There is an order according to which the last place belongs to the Holy Ghost, Hence, no form of mere personal reproach can be meant.

Neither, again, was it an offence so connected with the ... .. miraculous period of the dispensation of

Not peculiar to the i -i

time of tlie miraculous thc GoSpcl aS tO bc UO loUgCr pOSsiblc whcu

signs and wonders ceased to attest the Divine origin of Christianity. To attribute the miracles of Christ to the agency of Beelzebub was no more to blas- pheme" the Holy Ghost than to blaspheme the Father or the Son. Jesus ascribes these miracles more frequently to the Father than to the Spirit, and not unfreqiiently finds in Him- self as His own personal property the power by which He performed them. No traduction, therefore, of His super- natural agency in the sphere of the outward world can be construed into this sin, and we are not authorized from any- thing recorded in relation to it to limit its possibility to the comparatively short period of miraculous gifts.

The Holy Ghost as the object of this sin is to be regarded ^, . . .... in His official character — the agent who re-

It IS sin against the "

Spirit in His official ycals Christ to tlic hcarts and consciences of men as an adequate and complete Sa- viour. His work is to take of the things of Christ and

Lect. XVI.] DEGREES OF GUILT. 441

make them known to the darkened understanding of the sinner. The sin, therefore, must be a sin which pertains directly to Christ as He is manifested in the Gospel, and manifested by the Spirit to the minds of men. With this key the celebrated passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews unlocks the mystery as far forth as we can ever expect to have it unlocked in the present life. It is there described, and in this exposition I but repeat the

Sentiments of the ,• , n n ^ • rn i ;• ivr

Keibnuers. seutimcnts 01 Lalviu, lurrettin, Maresms,

Marck and the great body of Reformed theologians, that it is a total apostasy from the true religion (with a full conviction supernaturally produced that it is the truth of God), arising from intense and malignant opposi- tion to the truth itself — an opposition so intense and malig- nant that it would delight to repeat the tragedy of Cal- vary out of mere hatred to Christ, and actually vents itself in bitter reproaches, and, as it has oj^portunity, bitter per- secution of all true believers. It is just the spirit of the Devil incarnate. It is mad and furious hate, the very ex- uberance of malice, breaking forth in the midst of a light which is as irresistible to the conscience as it is detestable to the heart. It is distinguished by this light from every sin of ignorance, by the nature of the light from a sin of infirm- ity, and by the virulence of its hate from every other sin of presumption. It turns man into a fiend. It is a com- bination of Satanic intelligence wdth satanic hate. Such is its general nature, and the reason why it is unpardonable is perhaps the same as that which has left the devils without redemption.

PEEFATORY NOTE.

The following article is inserted here because its contents pertain chiefly to the topics which Dr. Thornwell regarded as belonging to the first two parts of Theology — all which, according to our classification of his writings, will be embraced in this first volume.

It was written about one year after his inauguration as Professor of Theology, for the Southern Presbyterian Eeview, and appeared in the January No. of that work for 1858.

The propriety of inserting in this volume of Theological dissertations an article containing so much that is personal, may be questioned. But it would have been impossible to leave out what was interwoven with the whole texture of the production. Moreover, as affording an exhibition of Dr. Thornwell's heart as well as mind, it was deemed proper to publish it just as it was written. The reader will take pleasure in noting the ad- miration and love expressed by the author for one who, at the time he wrote, was fighting side by side with him for principles which he held inexpressibly dear.

443

THEOLOGY, ITS PROPER METHOD

ITS CENTRAL PRINCIPLE.

BEING A REVIEW OF BRECKINEIDGE'S KNOWLEDGE OF GOD OBJECTIVELY CONSIDERED.

IN the general notice which we have ah-eady taken of this book^ we promised, in our present number, to make it the subject of a more distinct consideration. That promise we proceed to redeem.

^ The notice referred to was as follows :

It is generally regarded as an evil incidental to Theological Seminaries that they withdraw a large amount of talent, piety and learning from the service of the pulpit, and to that extent have a tendency to weaken the energies of the Church. This book is a triumphant refutation of all charges of the sort. Our Theological Professors are Preachers upon a large scale — Preachers not only to preachers, but to all the congregations of the land. In their studies they are putting forth an influence which, like the atmosphere, penetrates to every part of the country. The ener- gies of the Church can only be competently developed when there is a due mixture of action and speculation, of private study and public labour ; and although the two things are not in themselves incompatible, and must be found in every minister of the Gospel, yet they are not likely to be wisely blended unless there are men whose business it is to give them- selves, some to one, some to the other, predominantly, if not exclusively. We must have representatives of each, and the character formed from their combined agency is the character needed in the service of the pulpit. We congratulate the young Seminary at Danville on the omen which it gives of extensive and profound usefulness. Dr. Breckinridge's book will take its place by the side of the works of the greatest masters, and none will feel that they are dishonoured by the company of the new- comer. It has peculiar merits. It is strictly an original work — the pro-

445

446 THEOLOGY, PROPER METHOD

Dr. Breckinridge has been so eminently a man of action, and the impression so widely prevails that action and spe- culation demand intellects of different orders, that a very general apprehension was entertained, when this work was announced as in press, that it was destined to be a failure. Few could persuade themselves that the great debater was likely to prove himself a great teacher — that he who had been unrivalled in the halls of ecclesiastical legislation should be equally successful in the halls of theological science. There was no foundation for the fear. Those qualities of mind which enable a man to become a leader in any great department of action are precisely the qualities which en- sure success in every department of speculation. Thought and action are neither contradictories nor opposites. On the contrary, thought is the soul of action, the very life of every enterprise which depends on principle and not on policy.^ It is the scale upon which the thinking is done

duct of the author's own thoughts, the offspring of his own mind. He has studied and digested much from the hibours of others, but has bor- rowed nothing. No matter from what quarter the materials have been gathered, they are worked up by him into the frame and texture of his own soul before they are sent forth ; and in this respect he has produced a book widely different from the miserable compilations with which, on almost every subject, the country is flooded. The plan, too, adapts it to general use. The humblest Christian can read it with almost as much profit as the minister. It is pure, unmixed Gospel, presented in a form at once suited to edify and instruct. It is not a dry, didactic treatise — but a warm, living, glowing representation of the truths of religion in their beauty, their power and their glory. The author's soul is always on fire. He knows God only to love him, and he seems to feel that he has taught nothing until he has kindled the same flame in the minds of his pupils.

Thus much, in general, we have tliought proper to say in relation to this remarkable work. But we cannot, in justice to our readers nor in justice to one who has been so eminently blessed in his labours for Christ and His Church, pass it over with this vague commendation. We pro- pose in our next number to make it the subject of a full and articulate notice ; and in the mean time we trust that all our readers will put them- selves in a condition to appreciate our criticisms by studying the work for themselves.

^ Non viribus ant velocitatibus aut celeritate corporum, res magnre gerun- tur, sed consilio, auctoritate, sententia. Cic. de Senect., c. (5.

AND CENTRAL PRINCIPLE. 447

that determines the scale upon which measures are projected and carried out. Bacon was none the less a philosopher because he was a great statesman, and the highest achieve- ments of Greek genius were among those who were as ready for the tented field as the shades of the Academy. The small politician, the brawling demagogue, the wire-worker in elections, the intriguing schemer and the plausible man- ager can never succeed in any walk of meditation ; not be- cause they are men of action, but because they are incapable of anything that deserves to be called action. Restlessness and action are no more synonymous than friskiness and business ; and the interminable piddler, the miserable maggot of society that can never be still for a moment, might just as well be confounded with the industrious citizen as the man of tricks with the man of action. He who is able to em- body great thoughts in achievements suitable to their dig- nity, he who can think illustrious deeds, is precisely the man who will think most forcibly in fitting words. Actions and words are only different expressions of the same energy of mind, and the thought in language has generally preceded the thought in deeds. Convinced that the popular impres- sion in regard to the incompatibility of action and specula- tion was a vulgar prejudice, we were prepared to anticipate from Dr. Breckinridge in the field of speculative theology as brilliant success as in the field of ecclesiastical counsel. We expected to find the same essential qualities of mind, the same grasp of thought, vigour of conception, power of elucidation and skill in evolution. We dreaded no failure. We should not have been disappointed at marks of haste and carelessness in the composition, or occasional looseness of expression, or such bold metaphors and animated tropes as belong to the speech rather than the essay. We knew that Horace's precept had not been observed as to the time that the work had been kept under the eye. Blemishes attaching to it as a work of art we were not unprepared to meet with, but we were certain that the thoughts would be the thoughts of a man with whom thinking had been some-

448 THEOLOGY, PROPER METHOD

thing more than musing — the system, the system of one who had not been accustomed to sport with visions. We ex- pected to see tlie truth in bold outline and harmonious pro- portion— the truth as God has revealed and the renewed soul experiences it, clearly, honestly, completely told. That Dr. Breckinridge has realized our expectations seems to be the general verdict of the public. The work has been received with unwonted favour. It has been j)raised in circles in which we suspect the author's name has been seldom pro- nounced with approbation. We have seen but a single notice of it in which censure has been even hinted at, and that was in reference to a point in which the work is enti- tled to commendation. We allude to the place to which it consigns the argument from final causes for the being of a God. That argument, as it is presented in modern systems of Natural Theology, is not only inconclusive, but pernicious. The God that it gives us is not the God that we want. It makes the Deity but a link in the chain of finite causes, and from the great Creator of the universe degrades him to the low and unworthy condition of the huge mechanic of the world. For aught that appears, matter might have been eternal, its properties essential attributes of its nature, and He may have acquired His knowledge of it and them by observation and experience, as we acquire ours. His power may only be obedience to laws which He has inductively collected, as knowledge on our part, according to the phi- losophy of Bacon, is the measure of our power. The argu- ment turns on the arrangement of things. Its strength lies in the illustrations of general order and special adaptation which the universe supplies. It does not follow that God made the things which He has arranged. He who uses this argument either collects in the conclusion more than he had in the premises, or he limits the infinite and conditions the unconditioned. Surely no intelligent advocate of Theism can be content with a result like this. The true place for the consideration of final causes is just where Dr. Breckinridge has put them in forming from the works of God some con-

AND CENTRAL PRINCIPLE. 449

ception of His nature and perfections. Given a Creatw, we can then deduce from the indications of design that He is an intelligent and spiritual being, and this is the light in which, until Scotch psychology had almost succeeded in banishing from the halls of philosophy metaphysical specu- lations, all the great masters had regarded this argument. The Schoolmen use it to illustrate the intelligence, not the being, of God. That they rested on a very different aspect of the great question of causation. Howe elaborately dem- onstrates a Creator before he comes to Wisdom or Design. The process is instructive through which this argument has come to be invested with the importance which is now con- ceded to it ; and if it were not that the mind is all along preoccupied with the notion of a Creator, if it received its impressions of God from the study of final causes alone, we should soon see that the God of contrivances is not the God in whom we live and move. Creation, as a mysterious fact, putting the nature and operations of the Supreme Being beyond the category of all finite causes, removing God im- measurably from the sphere of limited and conditioned existence, is indispensable to any just conceptions of His relations and character. Hence, the Scriptures uniformly represent the ever-living Jehovah as distinguished from all false deities by his creation of the heavens and the earth. This is His memorial throughout all generations. He is not an architect of signal skill and gigantic power, who works materials ready to His hand, and the qualities of which He has mastered from long and patient observation ; but by a single exercise of will He gives being to all the substances that exist, with all their properties and laws, and arranges them in the order in which they shall best illustrate His knowledge, wisdom and omnipotence. The finite is depend- ent on Him for its being as well as its adjustment, and providence is a continued exercise of the energies of crea- tive power and love.

But it is time to proceed to the book itself. Dr. Breck- inridge treats Theology as the knowledge of God unto sal-

VoL. I.— 29 *

450 THEOLOGY, PROPER METHOD

vation, and his aim is "to demonstrate, classify and expound " those manifestations of the Divine Being from which this knowledge is derived. These manifestations are Creation, Providence, the Incarnation, the Work of the Spirit, the Sacred Scriptures, and the Self-conscious Existence of the Human Soul. The grand departments of theology — that is, the great topics of which its treats — are God Himself, the God-man who is the Mediator between God and men, and Man himself in his self-conscious existence as created and re-created by God. The system of truth which Dr. Breckinridge has developed from these sources and digested under these heads is that which in all ages has been the life of the Church — that which constituted the ancient creed, and has been embodied in modern confessions, and particu- larly in the Standards of the Presbyterian Church. Dr. Breckinridge makes no claims to novelty in doctrines. He has trod in the footsteps of the flock. Satisfied with the old, he has sought no new Gospel, and one of his chief merits is that he has presented the ancient truths of salva- tion with a freshness, an unction and a power which vin- dicate to them the real character of a Gospel. What he claims as his own, " that which makes the work in- dividual," is "the conception, the method, the digestion, the presentation, the order, the impression of the whole." In these respects he thinks he has rendered some service to the cause of theology, which, in common with Aristotle, he pronounces to be " the noblest of all sciences." As these are the points in reference to which he wishes his success or failure to be estimated, it is but fair to him that his critics should try him on his own chosen ground.

What, then, is "the conception" of the book? Surely not its definition of theology, which is neither new nor even logically exact.^ It is rather the great idea which underlies

1 What we mean is that it is too narrow. " The knowledge of God unto salvation" defines only the religion of a sinner, or what Owen calls evangelic theology, and cannot, without an unwarrantable extension of the terms, be made to embrace the religion of the unfallcn. Calvin gives iheobgy a wider sense, comprehending both the religion of nature and the

AND CENTRAL PRINCIPLE. 451

the wliole plan, and furnishes the model after which the whole work has been fashioned. This is both original and grand. Let us explain ourselves. Theological truth may be contemplated absolutely as it is in itself, relatively as it is in effects, and elenchtically in its contrasts to error. In the first case it is merely a matter of thought ; in the sec- ond, of experience ; and in the third, of strife. The result, in the first case, is a doctrine ; in the second, a life ; in the third, a victory. In the first case the mind speculates ; in the second, it feels ; in third, it refutes. The first Dr. Breck- inridge calls objective theology.^ We should prefer to style

religion of grace. It is, in his view, that knowledge of God which is productive of piety. Neque enim Deum, proprie loqnendo, cognosci dicemus, ubi nulla est religio, nee pietas. Lib. 1, c. 2, § 1. Theology, considered as a body of speculative truth, may very jsroperly be defined as the science of true religion.

^ We cannot altogether approve of the selection of the terms objective and subjective to denote different parts of a scientific treatise. Science ia subjective only when considered as the actual possession of the mind that knows ; it indicates a habit, and a habit under the formal notion of in- hering in some subject or person. It is mine or yours, and subjective only as inhering in you or me. The very moment you represent it in thought it becomes to the thinker objective, though as existing in the per- son who has it it is still subjective. If even the possessor should make it a matter of reflection, it becomes to him, in this relation, objective. The thing known or the thing thought, whether it be material or a mode of mind, is always the object ; the mind knowing, and under the formal re- lation of knowing, is always the subject. Hence, theology subjectively considered, or the knowledge of God subjectively considered, can mean nothing, in strict propriety of speech, but the personal piety of each in- dividual believer considered as the property of his own soul. It is sub- jective only as it exists in him. To a third person, who speculates upon it and examines its laws and operations, it is surely objective. Everj' scientific treatise, therefore, must deal with its topics, even when they are mental states and conditions, objectively/. There is no way of considering the knowledge of God but by objectifying it. And this accords precisely with the usage of the terms among theological writers. By objective the- ology they mean Divine truth systematically exhibited ; by subjective the- olor/y, holy habits and dispositions considered as in the souls of the faithful. The first they also call abstract, and the second concrete — to convey the idea that, in the one case, truth was contemplated apart from its inhesion ; in the other, in connection with its inhesion, or under the notion of its in-

452 THEOLOGY, PROPER METHOD

it abstractive or absolute, as indicating more precisely the absence of relations. The second he entitles subjective. We should prefer the epithet concrete, as definitely expressing the kind of relation meant. The third he denominates relative. AVe prefer the old name, polemic or critical, as more exactly defining the kind of relation which is contemplated. These three aspects embrace the whole system of theoretical theology, and upon the principle that the science of contra- ries is one, and that truth is better understood in itself by beina: understood in its contrasts, controversial and didactic Divinity are in most treatises combined. The peculiarity of Dr. Breckinridge's method is that he has separated them ; and not only separated them, but separated the consideration of the truth in itself from the consideration of it in its effects. The " conception " or idea which suggested this departure from the ordinary method was the intense conviction of the grandeur and glory of the Divine system contemplated simply as an object of speculation. The author felt that it ouo-lit to be presented in its own majestic proportions — that there should be nothing to withdraw the gaze of the spectator from the splendid temple. There should be no contrast of a rude hut or dingy walls oifending the eye — the temple should

hesion in the subject. We give an example from Turrettin and a refer- ence to Owen :

Theologia supernaturalis consideratur, vel syntematice prout notat com- pagem doctrince salutaris de Deo et rebus divinis ex Scriptura expressse, per modum discipline alicujus in sua prajcci^ta certa methodo dispositse, quae et abslracliva et objectiva dicitur ; vel habitualiter, et per modura habitus in intellectu residentis, et concretiva et subject iva vocatur. Loc. I., QuiBSt. 2, Pi 8.

Cf. Owen's Theologoumena, Lib, I., c. iii.

To this may be added the remark of Sir "William Hamilton : " An art or science is said to be objective when considered simply as a system of speculative truths or practical rules, but without respect of any actual possessor ; subjective, when considered as a habit of knowledge or a dex- terity inherent in the mind, either vaguely of any, or precisely of this or that possessor." (Reid, p. 808, note.) We think the terms abstract and concrete, though usually employed synonymously with subjective and ob- jective, belter for Dr. Breckinridge's purpose, as less liable to be misun- derstood.

AND CENTRAL PRINCIPLE. 453

s^^eak for itself. Contrasts here would diminish instead of increasing the effect ; they would distract the attention and dissipate the imjiression. Dr. Breckinridge has undertaken to rear the temple of Divine truth — to place it, like the splendid edifice of Solomon, upon a lofty eminence, and to leave it alone to proclaim the gloiy of the mind which con- ceived it and in which its noble image dwelt from eternity. He would have it stand before us in colossal majesty, and as each pillar, capital, wall and stone was surveyed, and as the overpowering impression of the whole structure was taken in, he would have no other direction given to those who questioned whether this were a building of God, but Looh around! The thing speaks for itself. It is a monu- ment of an infinite mind which nothing but wilful blindness can fail to read. This is the conception. The Gospel is its own witness. And to present the Gospel so as to make each proposition vindicate itself by its own inherent excellence, and its relative place and importance in the whole system, is the best argument for the Divine origin of Christianity. Each part is a testimony to Divine wisdom, and the united whole a conspicuous illustration of Divine glory. Dr. Breck- inridge has accordingly endeavoured to catch the image from the glass of the Divine word, to collect the scattered rays, and to present them in a picture of Divine and ineffable effulgence. He has assumed that truth must justify itself, that it must stand in its own light, and that the best way to be impressed and enamoured with it is to look at it. As the daughter of God, her high and heavenly lineage is traced in her features. Her looks certify her birth. Vera inccssu patuit Dea. This conception in itself is not new ; it is of the verv essence of true faith. But to make it the regulative principle of a theological system is peculiar to Dr. Breckin- ridge. To fashion his whole course of instruction so as to present in simple and just proportions the whole body of Divine truth ; to leave that truth to its own inherent power of self-vindication ; to make it a spectacle, or rather an image, of transcendent beauty and glory, the very reflection of the

45-4 THEOLOGY, PROPER METHOD

perfections of God, to be gazed at with admiration, devotion and awe ; this never entered into the mind of any system- maker before. The conception in this form is, beyond all controversy, original. With others it has entered as an element of devotion or a topic of sermons. It is the life and soul of a scientific method with Dr. Breckinridge — the last man from whom, according to the popular estimate of his character, such a result might have been anticipated. The hero of an hundred fields, with the wounds and bruises and scars of the conflict scattered thick over his person, ever ready, like the war-horse in Job, to snufP the breeze of battle, could hardly have been expected to delight in the calm visions of peaceful contemplation. The thing does him in- finite honour. It shows where his heart is ; and whatever may have been the surmises of enemies, it puts beyond doubt that his polemics have been the reflection of an earnest faith — that his rest in the truth, his abiding and satisfying sense of its preciousness, have been the secrets of his zeal in its defence. He has not fought for sect or distinction ; he has fought for the glory of God. He had a treasure in the house, and therefore defended it with might and main. There is a polemic who fights for glory or for party ; such a combatant knows nothing of the spirit of the Gospel. There is another polemic who fights only for the honour of his God and his Saviour ; this man only witnesses a good con- fession, and treads in the footsteps of Jesus and the martyrs. We cannot forbear to add that Dr. Breckinridge's theological method is a proof, in another aspect of the matter, of the singleness, intensity and earnestness of his character. What he does, he does with his might. Where he loves, he loves with his whole soul ; when he hates, he hates with equal cordiality ; and when he fights, he wants a clear field and nothing to do but fight. He has arranged his system so as to concentrate his energies upon each department — to do but one thing at a time, and to do it heartily and well. In the first part, he gives himself to meditation and contemplates truth with undisturbed and admiring gaze ; in the second,

AND CENTRAL PRINCIPLE. 455

he gives himself to action, and girds up the loins of his mind for the Divine life; in the third, he buckles on his armour and has an ear for nothing but the trump of war. His method is the picture of the man ; and his book, in another sense than that of Milton's, is " the precious life-blood of a master spirit," and " preserves, as in a vial, the purest effi- cacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred it." We doubt whether a mind like that of Dr. Breckinridge, so single and intense, could have written successfully on any other plan.

The topics, we have seen, which he considers as making up the science of Theology are God, Man and the Mediator — in this division differing, in form more than in substance, from those who, like Calvin, refer every thing to only two heads, God and Man. The order in which he has arranged his topics is, so far as we know, wholly original. If it did not bear such evident traces of having sprung from the author's own cogitations, we might be tempted to suspect that he had borrowed the hint from one or two passages in Calvin's Institutes. The clue to his plan is the method of the Spirit in the production of faith. He has copied, in his systematic exposition of Divine knowledge, the Divine pro- cedure in imparting it. As the Spirit first convinces us of our gin and misery, and shuts us up to despair as to any hu- man grounds for relief, so Dr. Breckinridge begins with a survey of man in his individual and social relations, and de- monstrates that his ruin is universal and irremediable. As the Spirit revives us by enlightening our minds in the know- ledge of Christ, and inspires us with hope from the revelation of the Cross, so Dr. Breckinridge next proceeds to consider the Mediator in His Person, States, Offices and wonderful Work ; and shows that the provisions of grace are amply adequate, and more than adequate, to repair the ruins of the fall. And as in Christ we know God in the only sense in which He can be a God to us or the soul can rest in the contemplation of His excellencies, so Dr. Breckinridge makes the Divine character, perfections and glory the culminating

456 THEOLOGY, PROPER METHOD

point of his scheme. He begins with Man and ends with God, to M'honi he is conducted through the IMediator. To each of these subjects a book is devoted. Then in another book all the sources of our knowledge of God are consecu- tively considered, and the treatise closes with a fifth book, which brings us back to the point from which m'c started, and encounters, in the light of the whole preceding discus- sion, those great problems of religion which grow out of the relations of the finite and infinite, and which have ever baf- fled and must continue to baftle the capacities of a creature to comprehend. The order being that of experimental relig- ion, and the design to present truth in its integrity and in its own self-evidencing light, all that constitutes the jjvecog- nita of theology in other systems is here omitted, with the exception of two short digressions at the close of the first book on the Being of God and the Immortality of Man. It may appear a little singular, at first sight, that in a work professedly unfolding the knoMdedge of God, His very Ex- istence should be treated as a collateral and incidental point — that the fundamental topic upon which most theologians lay out their strength should enter at all only as an obiter dictum. This apparently anomalous procedure may be ex- plained in two ways : First, the method of the book requires that all controversies should be remitted to the third part, the Atheistic among the rest. What the child of God be- lieves and knows, and as he believes and knows it in its symmetry and dependence, is the exclusive subject of the first part. In the next place, no science is required to prove — it accepts its principles. God's existence is as much an intuition to the spiritual man as the existence of matter to the natural philosopher. The physical inquirer begins with the assumption that matter is. The theologian, in the same way, is at liberty to begin with the doctrine that God is. The question of His existence belongs to Ontology or to Metaphysics, and not to Theology. It is a question which can only be asked by those who are strangers to spiritual perception, and who recognize no other cognition of God but

AND CENTRAL PRINCIPLE. 457

that ■which is analogous to our cognition of other substances and their properties. There are no doubt satisfactory proofs of the being and perfections of God upon ontological grounds, but these proofs give rise to philosophical opinion, not to Divine knowledge. The only knowledge, however, which enters into theology is that which is produced by the illu- mination of the Spirit, and has all the certainty and force of sense. " The understanding here is something else be- sides the intellectual powers of the soul, it is the Spirit." Religion has, as Owen observes,' its demonstrations as the Mathematics and Dialectics have theirs, but the demonstra- tions of religion are spiritual and mighty, and as far removed from those of human wisdom as the heavens are from the earth. It should never be forgotten that theology is not a science of the natural, nor even of the moral, knowledge of God. It is not a science of speculative cognition at all. It is the science of a true and loving faith. It is the science of that form of knowledge which produces love, reverence, trust, hope and fear ; which contains the seeds of every holy exercise and habit ; which understands what is meant by the glory of God, and rejoices in Him as the full, satisfying, everlasting portion of the soul. It is the science of the Di- vine life in the soul of man. Undertaking to exhibit the data of such a science, which is virtually denied the very moment its principles are not assumed as authenticating themselves, Dr. Breckinridge would have contradicted the whole purpose of his book had he turned the questions of a Divine theology into the forms of a human philosophy. Still, as grace presupposes nature, and spiritual perception, natural apprehension, the great questions of ontology, as far as they relate to the existence of God, should find a place in the polemical department, so that the unbeliever may be left without excuse.

Our readers are, perhaps, all familiar with the splendid passage in Foster's essays in which he attempts to show that, without being possessed of omniscience and omnipresence 1 Theologoumena, Lib. I., c. ii. Cf. Lib. VI., c. iii.

458 THEOLOGY, PROPER METHOD

himself, it is impossible for the Atheist to reach the height of knowing that there is no God. The rhetoric of the jjas- sage we have always admired, but the logic appears to us so transparently fallacious that we confess that we have been not a little surprised at Dr. Breckinridge's partial adoption of the argument. The simple truth that there are other existences beside ourselves " draws immediately after it," Dr. Breckinridge maintains, " the utter impossibility of es- tablishing the truth of atheism. Because as there are exist- ences besides myself, and exterior to myself, I must explore the whole universe, and I must be sure that I have explored it all, before it is possible for me to know that one of the existences exterior to myself, some of w^hich have been proved to be eternal, may not be God." — [p. 48.] Surely, from the terms of the definition, if God is not everywhere. He is nowhere ; and if I have fully explored any part of the universe and find that he is not there, I may have the absolute certainty that, whoever or whatever may exist in other portions of it, an omnipresent Being does not. Again, we are unable to perceive why, if it ^vere true that there is no God, it would be a truth which a man could not know, as Foster maintains, without knowing all things. Dr. Breck- inridge simply affirms that in its own nature this does " not admit of being established or even ascertained by such creatures as we are." If an absolute commencement of ex- istence and the independence of the finite were in themselves true (which is the same as saying that there is no God), and could be apprehended as realized in any object whatever — if anything could be known to begin without being created — this would be a complete demonstration that God, in the sense of the universal, all-pervading Cause, does not exist. It would completely set aside the Jehovah of the Bible. If we can know any one finite thing to be independent, we can know that such a Being as our God is not in the heavens. If by creatures " such as Ave are " Dr. Breckinridge means creatures with our intuitions and beliefs, his pi'oposition is true. Such creatures cannot realize in thought the finite as

AND CENTRAL PRINCIPLE. 459

independent or self-existent ; cannot, in other words, even think the possibility of Atheism. It is not, however, that they must know all things in order not to know God ; it is rather that they know nothing without knowing God — the Divine existence being as much the condition of cognition as the condition of existence.

Theology being the spiritual knowledge of God, and all the topics it embraces being only so many streams which empty into this ocean, Dr. Breckinridge has concentrated his energies upon the third book, which is devoted to the nature, perfections and glory of the Supreme Being. The design is to give the sum of what we actually know, and this is done in answer to two questions, Who is God ? and What is God ? that is, by a consideration of His names and His essence. He begins with the Names, and after explaining the grounds of their multiplicity and variety, unfolds those aspects of the Divine nature and perfections which they- respectively in- volve. He then proceeds to the Essence of God, as mani- fested, first, in the mode of His existence, under which head the Scripture doctrine of the Trinity is carefully evolved, the Personality, Deity and Work of the Holy Ghost re- ceiving especial and minute attention ; and secondly, in the attributes of God, the classification of which has engaged Dr. Breckinridge's most earnest and patient labours. He has spared no pains to make his division exhaustive and complete. The central ideas are those of Being, Personal Spirit and Absolute Perfection. Personal Spirit branches out into two subdivisions, according as the notion of Intelli- gence or the notion of Rectitude predominates. We have, accordingly, five classes of attributes : 1 . Those founded on the notion of Beiflg — such as simplicity, infinity, independ- ence, eternity. These the author calls Primary Attributes. 2. Those founded on the notion of Personal Spirit, which implies intellect, will and power. These the author calls Essential Attributes. 3. Those founded on that aspect of Personal existence in which intelligence predominates, in which the distinction between the true and the false deter-

460 THEOLOGY, PROPER METHOD

mines the nature of the perfection. These the author calls Natural Attributes. 4. Those in which Will or Rectitude is the predominant idea, in which the perfection is deter- mined by the distinction betwixt the good and the bad. These the author calls Moral Attributes. 5. And finally, we have another class of properties which are founded on the notion of absolute perfection — the ens I'ealissimum or ens 'perfectisshnum — these he calls Consummate Attributes. Around, therefore, the three central conceptions of Being, Spirit, Most Perfect Being, we have five circles of light and beauty constantly and eternally revolving ; two being, as in EzokieFs vision, wheels wdthin wheels. Given the notion of God simply as being, and you have eternity, immuta- bility, infinity, omnipresence and independence. Given God as a Spirit, you have intelligence, will, power ; branching on the side of intelligence into infinite knowledge and wis- dom ; on the side of will, into holiness, justice, goodness and truth. Given God as a Most Perfect Being, and you have really and eminently all that is beautiful and glorious and blessed in every creature and condition, concentred infinitely and supremely in Him, the all-sufficient good, the plenitude of being, the fullness of excellence, the all-in-all. We think it but justice to the author that, in relation to this important portion of his work, he should be permitted to speak for himself:

"II. — 1. The perfections of God are considered and treated in a separate manner, and are classified, only out of the necessity on our part, that we may, in this manner, con- template God Himself more intelligibly. They are not, in fact, parts of God, nor faculties of God, but they are God Himself When we mean to say that He knows all things, we express that idea by calling Him Omniscient ; when we mean to say that He can do all things, we express that idea by calling Him Omnipotent ; and as both of these facts are true universally, necessarily and inherently in God, we ex- press that idea by saying these are Perfections or Attributes of God. And so of all His other Perfections.

AND CENTRAL PRINCIPLE. 461

" 2, Now as God is manifest in all things, it is impossible even to conjecture in how many ways and upon how many objects He might or does make His Perfections known. In effect, every Divine Perfection is infinite : and the number of Perfections in an infinite being is also infinite — since He is subject to no limitation, and the aspects in which He is capa- ble of manifesting Himself are illimitable. As everything He does lias for its foundation something that He is, and as everything that He is can be conceived of in various relations to everything else that He is, the Perfections which in any particular aspect of His being can be shown to belong to Him are apparently boundless. Throughout His blessed Word the ascriptions of infinite perfections to Him scarcely admit of being numbered. In any systematic treatment of the subject, therefore, what is wanted is, not a vain attempt to enumerate the Divine Perfections and give names to them, but the discovery and clear statement of a method by which such of them as are known to us may be classified and con- templated by our finite understanding, in a manner consist- ent with its own nature and modes of obtaining knoAvledge.

" 3. There are certain Perfections of God which may be contemplated as qualifying His very being, as well as all His other perfections — conditions, if I may so express myself, without which God, considered simply as God, cannot be said to have a being or any other perfection. Such are these — to wit : that He is Simple, Infinite, Independent, Self-ex- istent, Necessary, Eternal, Incorporeal, Immaterial, Immense, Incomprehensible, having life in Himself. These, and the like, I would place in the first class, and call them the Primary Attributes ; meaning thereby to express the idea that these Attriljutes cannot be separated from our conception of the true God ; but that as soon as we say that such a being exists at all, we must necessarily imply that these and all such things are true concerning Him ; because such a being as He is cannot exist except upon these conditions — as inseparable from His existence.

" 4. There are other perfections of God which are neces-

462 THEOLOGY, PROPER METHOD

sarily implied in the exercise by Him of many of those which I woukl call Primary Attributes, and which are also neces- sarily implied in the mode of His being as an Infinite Spirit — jierfections without which we cannot conceive of His being a Sjiirit at all ; nor conceive, if He is a Spirit, that He either lives or imparts life, or that He exerts any of His Primary Attributes. As He is a Spirit, and as He must conceive all that He does, He must have an Intellect : and as He is a vSpirit, and as He does conceive and act. He must have a Will ; and possessing an Intellect and Will, and acting at all, He must possess Power commensurate with His nature and acts. These I would place in the second class, and call Essential Attributes of God ; intending thereby to express the idea that God, as He is not only God simply considered, but as He is God the infinite, eternal and unchangeable Spirit, must be endowed with Intellect, Will and Power — in a manner corresponding with His being and with His Primary Attri- butes. Now there are certain conditions to be predicated of these Essential Attributes of God, which express more dis- tinctly the nature and extent of these perfections themselves ; or which open to us, if we prefer to consider it so, additional perfections of God ; and these can be viewed more distinctly by considering them as related in a manner more or less di- rect to these Essential Attributes. They are such as the following, to wit :

" (a.) As connected with the Divine Intellect : — That amongst God's Essential Perfections are a perfect Intuition of Himself and of all things else ; that He is omniscient, having an unsearchable, incomprehensible and eternal in- sight of all that ever did, will or could be ; that He is the Fountain of all Possibilities and all Ideas, and therefore of all Truth, and that from all eternity, and by an act of His illimitable Intelligence, so that it is not possible that He should err.

" (6.) As connected with the Divine will : — That, amongst the Essential Perfections of God are such as these, to wit : That His will is infinitely free, pure and active ; that, spon-

AND CENTRAL PRINCIPLE. 463

taneously, by one act, and from eternity, in view of all things existing in His infinite understanding, His most per- fect will determines all things ; that seeing all motives, all possibilities, all ends and all means, the determinations of His will are complete, immutable and most sure ; that no- thing is possible except as He wills it, and that anything He wills is certain ; and that He wills everything, not one by one, but all as a part of the boundless scheme which He pi'oposes and the glorious ends He designs.

" (c.) As connected with the Divine power : — That God does and can do whatever does not in itself involve a con- tradiction ; that His Power is of every kind, and extends to every object, and acts in every form and unto every end, and that throughout the universe and through eternity ; so that no appreciable resistance can be conceived of to Him ; and that no exertion or effort can be conceived of as beino^ made by Him ; He is omnipotent.

" 5. There arises a third ground of distinction amongst the Attributes of God, as, advancing from the primary con- ception of Him merely as an Infinite and Self-existent being, we pass onward through the consideration of Him as an Infinite Spirit, and arrive at the view of Him in which He is to be contemplated as an Infinite Spirit under a particular aspect — namely, under the aspect of possessing the perfections of that boundless knowledge and wisdom which have relation to that special distinction which we call True and False. While it is certain that a spirit must possess Intelligence, and an Infinite Spirit must possess infinite Intelligence, yet the special relevancy of a particular kind of Knowledge and the special Wisdom connected therewith to a special aspect of His being, and to our special relations to Him, begets a complete and to us transcendently important distinction amongst the Perfections of God. Here it is founded, as I have observed, on the distinction of the true and false : in the next class upon the distinction of Good and Eml. The Perfections of the former kind I would place in the Third Class, and call them the Natural Attributes of God ; partly

464 THEOLOGY, PROPER METHOD

as expressing the nearest approximation of tlie nature of God to that of the creature, since of all spiritual things know- ledge and wisdom are those in which the creature, which perceives the eternal and ineffaceable distinction between the true and the false, is naturally and universally most capable of growing ; and partly, as expressing a distinction — more slight, between them and the class immediately pre- ceding, and more marked between them and the class im- mediately following.

" 6. In like manner when we conceive of this All-know- ing and All-wise Spirit, which fills immensity, as taking notice of that distinction we express by the words good and evil, and as being actuated by such affections as Love and Aversion ; and conceive of such qualities as Goodness and Mercy, or Anger and Wrath, as attending their exercise ; and then conceive of these being all ordered in Justice, Truth and Long-suffering, it is very manifest that a view of Him is obtained different from any hitherto presented. I would therefore establish a Fourth Class, and refer to it such Perfections as Holiness, Goodness, Graciousness, Love, Mer- cifulness, Long-suffering, Justice, Truth and the like, and call them the Moral Attributes of God ; meaning thereby such perfections as we find some trace of in our moral nature, and which all point to that eternal and ineffaceable distinc- tion between good and evil already suggested.

" 7. And finally, we cannot avoid perceiving that there are other conceptions of God, which cannot be contemplated without exhibiting Him to us in a manner different from any suggested in the four preceding classes. For there are views of Him which necessarily embrace everything — which necessarily show Him to us in the completeness of all His Perfections. I would, therefore, establish a Fifth Class, and refer to it what I will call the Infinite Actuosity of God- that is, the ceaseless movement of His Infinite Life; also His Infinite supremacy — that is, the consummate dominion of that Infinite Life of God ; also His Omnipresence, His All-sufficiency, His Infinite Fullness or Infinitude, His con-

AND CENTRAL PRINCIPLE. 465

summate Perfection, His absolute Oneness and His unutter- able Blessedness. And, as expressive of the particular ground of distinction in these Perfections, I M'ould call them Consummate Attributes of God.

" 8. According to this method we are enabled to contem- plate God successively — 1. As He is an Infinite Being, and endowed ^vith the proper perfections thereof; 2. As He is an Infinite Spirit, and endowed with the })roper perfections thereof; 3. As being both, and endowed with all perfections that belong to both, considered with reference to the eternal and ineffaceable distinction between true and false, which is the fundamental distinction with which our own rational faculties are conversant ; 4. As being endowed with all per- fections, considered with reference to the eternal and inef- faceable distinction between good and evil, which is the fun- damental distinction with wliich our moral faculties are con- versant ; 5. As being endowed with all perfections which underlie, which embrace, or which result from, the union of all the preceding perfections. And so the classes of His perfections would necessarily be — 1. Those called Primary Attributes — that is, such as belong to an Infinite and Self- existent Being, simply considered ; 2. Essential Attributes — that is, those belonging to such a being considered essentially as an Infinite Si^irit ; 3. Natural Attributes — that is, such as appertain to an Infinite Spirit, considered naturally rather than morally or essentially ; 4. Moral Attributes — that is. such as appertain to such a being, considered morally rather than naturally or essentially ; 5, Consummate Attributes — that is, such as appertain to such a being considered com- pletely and absolutely. To the development of these con- ceptions, and the demonstration of the Infinite Perfections of God as thus classified, the five following chapters will be devoted.— [Pp. 262-266.]"

Were we to venture a criticism upon this elaborate and

careful classification of the Divine Attributes, we would

suggest that the consideration of Spirit in its Personal unity,

as involving intellect and will, might be dispensed with,

Vol. I.— 30

466 THEOLOGY, PROPER METHOD

and that the enumeration shoukl proceed at once to its ob- vious subdivisions. Nothing would be lost by this arrange- ment to the completeness of the catalogue, while much would be gained in the improvement of the nomenclature. Pri- mary is certainly an unfortunate epithet to apply to the attributes of God, as it carries the intimation that some are secondary and subordinate. Natural is not the directest antithesis to moral. Essential and Natural are likely to be confounded. By the omission proposed, what the author calls Primary attributes he might denominate Essential — a M'ord evidently appropriate to express the properties of a being in which existence and essence coincide. The second class of attributes, founded on the conception of Spirit as in- telligent, might then be called Intellectual. The third, founded on the conception of Spirit as moral, might retain its present name. We should then have Essential, Intel- lectual, Moral and Consummate; and we are inclined to think that there is not a single perfection enumerated by the author, or capable of being conceived by the human mind, which may not be reduced to one of these four heads. Om- nipotence may strike some as an exception. Accustomed to regard it as the simple energy of God's will directed by in- telligence, they can find no place for it unless the capital idea of the Unity of Spirit is retained as a ground of division. But the truth is, it belongs to the Consummate Perfections of God, and the conception of it becomes not only grand but glorious, when it is contemplated as the fullness of God ex- pressing itself in act, not only as a combination of intelli- gence and will, but a combination of intelligence, goodness and will — an energy of the Divine Life.

In the fourth book, which is devoted to a survey of all the sources of our knowledge of God — that is, of all the ma- nifestations which God has made of Himself to man — the author has been most signally successful. Some portions of it we have read with feelings approaching to rapture. The theme is a grand one. Creation, Providence, Redemption, God's Works of Nature and Grace, — these are the mighty

AND CENTRAL PRINCIPLE. 467

theatres in which the Divine actor is presented. And surely it is a task of no common magnitude to write a drama, the plot of which shall be the unfolding, upon a scale worthy of His glory, of that awful and august Being whose prerogative it is, while essentially light, to dwell in thick darkness ! Dr. Breckinridge felt the inspiration of the theme, and he who can rise from the contemplation of the picture he has drawn without a deeper sense of the majesty, sublimity, wis- dom and goodness of God, without an impression of the Di- vine glory which gives a new lustre to the objects of nature and a richer significance to the history of man, — he that can study the seven chapters of this book and not be penetrated with the profoundest gratitude that he has been made capa- ble of such conceptions as are successively brought before him, is insensible to all that is beautiful in poetry, lovely in art, and divine in truth. The legitimate effect would seem to be to make us blind to everything but God. We should see Him in the stars, hear Him in the winds, catch His smile in the calm serenity of the sky, and in the gayety of the fields discern the dim reflection of His goodness. Every dumb thing should become gifted with a tongue to proclaim its Maker's name. In the light of these discussions nature becomes an august temple which God dwells in and irradi- ates with His light ; all created things a vast congregation of worship^^ers ; and the glory of God, as it shines over all and upon all, is the burden of that mighty chorus of praise and doxology which is ever sounding in the ears of the Al- mighty from all above and all below. Who does not rejoice that such a God reigns ? Who does not glory in this, that he knows and is capable of knowing such a Being? What meaningless things are we, and the sun and moon and stars, if supreme intelligence and love are banished from the world ! It is Theology which puts life into natural science. Laws and phenomena are absolutely dead things if viewed only in themselves. They are mysterious hieroglyphics traced upon a Avail or a monument, which exhibit marks of intelli- gence and design, but which human ingenuity has not yet

468 THEOLOGY, PROPER METHOD

deciphered. The key is wanted to unlock their secrets. That key to nature is the knowledge of God. That makes the senseless symbol pregnant with meaning, the dead image instinct with life. The obscure characters of the heavens and the earth become radiant with light, and what to the eye of ignorance and unbelief was an incomprehensible scra^d — like a page of the Paradise Lost to a fly or a worm — be- come immortal scenes in the epic of eternal truth and provi- dence. No wonder the whole congregation rose when Mas- sillon pronounced those sublime words — God alone is great. And of all beings the blindest is that burlesque upon his species who can dwell in a world that is full of the Divine riches, where God surrounds him at every step and perme- ates with His influence every department of being, and yet he cannot see Him. He may congratulate himself upon his wisdom, but it is the wisdom of the dog, which sees only bright points in the firmament or green spots on the globe. The incapacity of the brute for science is precisely analogous to the incapacity of the fool for Theology ; and astronomy and botany are not more simply and really explanations of the bright points and green spots to the natural philosopher, than the glory of God is the secret of these sciences to the man of spiritual discernment.

Dr. Breckinridge begins this book by a very precise ex- pression of ojiinion in relation to the great problem of modern Philosophy: Are the Infinite and Absolute positive affirmations of intelligence, or are they simply negative and contradictory extremes of all positive thought? The ques- tion is, not whether we can comprehend the infinite, though that extravagance has been maintained, but whether we can Icnov) that the infinite exists as really and as truly as we know that the finite exists. Is it, in other words, an original datum of consciousness manifested in every cognition of the limited and conditioned ? Dr. Breckinridge maintains that it is. He concurs with the great body of divines in ascribing to our conceptions of the infinite and absolute a positive and substantive value, involving the apprehension of existence,

AND CENTRAL PRINCIPLE. 469

but not the comprehension of the things in themselves. His conckision is exactly that of Cousin in the latest form in which he expressed his doctrine, though not that of Cousin in the form in which it was so successfully combated by Sir William Hamilton. We have always thought that in this celebrated controversy both parties were wrong and both were right. Cousin was wrong in vindicating to reason an absolute comprehension of the Godhead ; and Sir William's refutation of this doctrine is triumphant and complete. Sir William was wrong in denying the reality of the infinite to be a positive affirmation of intelligence, and resolving the belief of it into an impotence of mind to realize either of two contradictory extremes, though according to the laws of thought one had to be accepted as necessary. Cousin was wrong in maintaining that the relations of the finite and in- finite are eternal, necessary and fully intelligible ; Sir Wil- liam wrong in maintaining that they are wholly and com- pletely unknown. Cousin arrogated too much, Sir William too little, to intelligence. The tendency of philosophy with the one was to deny all ignorance ; the tendency with the other to deny all knowledge. The truth here, as in most other cases, is in the middle — in medio tutissimus ibis. Pai"- tial knowledge and partial ignorance are the mingled in- heritance of man. Of the infinite we know that it is, though we know not what it is. God is as essentially incomprehen- sible as He is inevitably apprehensible. In the pithy words of Charnock, who herein ex^^resses the deep conviction of the Church of God in all ages : " Though God be so inaccessible that we cannot know Him perfectly, yet He is so much in the light that we cannot be wholly ignorant of Him. As He cannot be comprehended in His essence. He cannot be unknown in His existence ; 'tis as easy by reason to under- stand that He is, as it is difficult to know what He is."

The conception of God, as the Absolute, in the sense of the fullness and perfection of being to which nothing can be added and from which nothing can be taken — the totality, eminently or really, of all existence ; the conception of God

470 THEOLOGY, PROPER METHOD

as the Infinite, in the sense of an exemption from all re- strictions and limitations either upon His essence or perfec- tions, infinite because absolute and absolute because infinite, — this coAception has not only ever been a positive and regu- lative principle of the human mind, but is an irresistible affirmation of the human reason. Even those who have denied to it, as Kant did, an objective reality, have been constrained to admit its subjective necessity. To say that God is wholly unknown, and wholly incapable of being known, is to annihilate the possibility of religion. The wholly inconceivable is relatively to us the wholly non- existent. When we say that the infinite cannot be compre- hended, we mean much more than that our conceptions of it are inadequate and defective ; we mean wholly to exclude it, as it exists in itself, from the domain of science. Its exist- ence is an original and primary belief; its properties and relations, beyond partial manifestations in the region of the finite, transcend the sphere of Logic. Sir William Hamilton and Kant have shown, beyond the possibility of refutation, that nothing but contradiction emerges when we apply the laws of finite thought to what is confessedly above them. To bring the infinite within the sphere of the understanding is to limit, to define it ; to think it as a term of syllogism is to condition it. It becomes one among many. Hence Boethius^ was, in our judgment, right — Aristotle before him was right — in pronouncing a science of the infinite to be impossible. It implies a contradiction in terms. This principle, too much overlooked by divines, is pregnant with most important results in its bearing upon theological sys- tems. It shows where we can reason and explain, and where we can only pause and adore. In every question which touches the immediate connection of the infinite with the finite, and the solution of which depends upon the com- prehension of the infinite as a definite thing, it is intuitively obvious that the solution must be impossible; and every

1 Quod autem ratione mentis circumdari non potest, nullius scientiae fine concluditur ; qiiare infinitorum scienlia nulla est.

AND CENTRAL PRINCIPLE. 471

system which attempts the solution only degrades God to the form and stature of a man. There is in Theology a region which must be left to the dominion of faith ; it can never be entered with the torch of Logic ; and most funda- mental errors proceed from a disregard of this significant fact, and are only abortive eiforts to define the indefinable. The Socinian hopes by searching to find out God, and be- cause he cannot think the Trinity according to the laws of Logic, he denies its existence. The Arminian vainly seeks to penetrate the depths of an infinite understanding, and be- cause predestination and free will, in finite relations, do not consist, he extends his conclusion beyond the legitimate con- tents of his premises. He forgets that the same reason which intuitively gives us man's freedom, intuitively gives us God's prescience ; and that the contradiction between them emerges only when, professing to think them as they are in God, we really think them as they would be in man. Upon no other ground than a total denial of any logical comprehension, and therefore, of any science, of the infinite, can the harmony of faith and reason be maintained. When- ever we directly touch the infinite, we must exjject to en- counter mystery, and a religion which has no mysteries is simply a religion that has no God. Dr. Breckinridge has devoted a chapter of surpassing beauty and interest to this whole subject. These conflicts betwixt faith and reason, or rather faith and our faculties of comparison, he calls the Paradoxes of the Gospel. He shows that they " are all to be found located along that line in which the infinite and the finite, the Divine and the human elements in religion, at once unite and are separated, and therefore all belong not so much to a separate consideration of any particular part of religion, as to a general estimate of religion as a system." He further adds, what harmonizes with all that we have said, " that the only method of their solution is the applica- tion to them of a simple evangelism and a thorough philos- ophy combined ; for the lack of which, on the one side or the other, there is sometimes found so much extravagance.

472 THEOLOGY, PROPER METHOD

and at other times so much shallowness, in the mode in which the most important truth is stated." — [p. 522.] Dr. Breck- inridge fully appreciates the high and awful problems with which the soul of the believer has to grapple, and recognizes a Divine wisdom in faith which mocks the efforts of an earth-born j)hilosophy. There are things to be believed and adored whose glory departs the very moment you compress them to the dimensions of any finite forms of thought. They spurn the bandages of logic. As well wrap a giant in the swaddling-clothes of infancy as these mysteries in the terms of argument. Man has nobler functions than to de- duce and comprehend. Faith is before knowledge, and re- sumes its jurisdiction when knowledge ceases. Comprehen- sion,^ after all, is a very narrow territory, bounded on all sides by an illimitable region of mystery — a region from which we emerge into the liy-ht of knowledge bv faith, and when knowledge fails we fall back upon the guidance of faith again. As pertinent to tliis subject, the following pas- sage from Dr. Breckinridge cannot fail to eno-age the atten- tion and awaken the interest of the reader :

" 4. We often speak of the difficulties of religion as jare- sented in the works of infidels and heretics. But they are not worthy to be so much as once thought of when placed by the side of the difficulties which the soul of the true be- liever has mastered. Satan does not reveal his strength to his willing followers. The spirit which rests in the shallow doubts which outlie the wide frontiers of Divine truth never approaches the real problems over which the heart agonizes and before which the intellect recoils. If the inward strug- gles of any earnest Christian spirit in the progressive devel- opment of its Divine life were distinctly recorded, so that they could be carefully considered by others, they would show nothing more clearly than the utter insignificance and hollowness, the pitiable ignorance and baseness, of the com- mon pretexts of unbelievers. These great spiritual battles are fought around and within these citadels — these strong- holds of God, in each of which is entrenched one of these

AND CENTRAL PEINCIPLE. 473

great Gospel Paradoxes. And if our eyes were opened so that we could see at one glance the whole vanguard of the Church militant, we should behold encamped around or lodged within these very battlements the chief captains of the army of the Lord ; some safely and serenely reposing on the bosom of Christ, having won the great victory ; some discomfited, yet still renewedly girding themselves for the life-battle; some calmly watching and pondering till the signal falls for the new onset; some in the very heat and desperate graj)ple of the imminent deadly breach. Who can pass his eye, even in thought, around their glorious ranks without wonder and love and joy — without perceiving under a new aspect the high communion of the redeemed of God in this form of their union with and in Christ?

" 5. It is a fatal error to imagine that we gain anything, either in the power or the distinctness of our spiritual ex- perience, by avoiding these sublime meditations. And it is another error not less fatal to suppose that the Gospel is commended to the soul of man by our poor attempts to lower the terms of these grand paradoxes on one side or the other, or on both. The difficulty is not created by the Gos^^el : it lies in the infinite nature of "the case, and in the eternal nexus wherein God stands related to His own universe. As I have intimated before, so much of the difficulty as can be solved at all can be solved only through the most intense application of the plan of Salvation to the most profound realities of the case — a result to which all superficial phi- loso2)hy and all shallow evangelism, unitedly or separately, are utterly incompetent. Open them as bottomless chasms across the pathway to eternity, pile them up as impassable mountains in the way toward the New Jerusalem ; and then you will not only tell the whole truth, but you will so tell it that the soul of man can both understand and believe it. It is after that only we can know, or that we care to know, how these mountains can be brought low, these valleys be filled, these rough places be made smooth, these crooked ones become

474v THEOLOGY, PROPER METHOD

straight, and a highway be made for the Lord and for His redeemed.

" 6. And after all it is not by means of the logical faculty that man escapes perdition. Our faith does not stand in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God. It is with the heart that man believeth unto righteousness. It is not merely — nay, it is not even chiefly — upon what we call our reason that the power of God's grace manifests itself in the new creation ; and so it is not mainly, much less merely, by means of philosophy, no matter how pure and deep, that God can be fully comprehended, much less embraced." — [Pp. 522-524.]

It is not our purpose to follow Dr. Breckinridge through the detailed consideration of the sources of our knowledge of God. These are — Creation, Providence, Pedemption, Man himself, and the Sacred Scriptures. As Dr. Breckinridge enumerates them, " God may be known as manifested in His works, God the Creator ; He may be known as manifested in His dominion and reign, the God of Providence ; He may be known as manifested in human nature, the Word made flesh ; He may be known as manifested in the New Creation, God the Spirit ; He may be known as manifested in Pevelation, the God of the Sacred Scriptures ; He may be known as manifested in the Conscious Existence of man, God the Maker and Renewer of the human soul." — [P. 330.] To each of these topics a chapter is devoted.

Up to this point the work has been mainly inductive ; it has followed up successive streams of observation and of fact until they disembogued into the fullness of God. It com- menced with a survey of man as consciousness and universal experience testify that he is. It then contemplated the re- vealed economy in reference to the recovery and redemption of our race, the inquiry still turning only upon facts. The particulars thus collected are all generalized into those mani- festations of God which constitute the sum and substance of our knowledge of His name. Having inductively reached the conclusions of the third book, the fourth recapitulates

AND CENTRAL PRINCIPLE. 475

all the fields of observation which lie before us, and verifies the results which we have successively attained. Induction having by an ascending series conducted us to God, we then descend, in the way of what Dr. Breckinridge calls deduc- tion, through the creation, primitive state and subsequent fall of man, to the condition in which we found him at the opening of the first book. His present ruin and misery are vindicated in the light of the principles previously estab- lished, " mortal existence and Divine truth are brought face to face," and the great problem of human destiny, as it re- lates to individuals and the race, calmly encountered. The questions discussed are among the most intricate that can occupy the mind of man. They cover the whole field of moral government in its essential and fundamental doctrines, and in the gracious modifications which it has assumed towards our race. Primeval Innocence, the Covenant of Works, the Entrance of Sin, the Fall of the Species, Election and Redemption, — this is the scale of descending inquiry which is measured in the book before us — these the mo- mentous questions upon which we must bring to bear all that wc know of God. These weighty topics are despatched in about sixty pages — a clear proof that the author, in rigid adherence to his method, has remitted the whole philosophy of the questions to his third part. He has confined himself mainly to a connected exhibition of Scripture facts and doc- trines, ^vith a reference here and there to the moral and psy- chological laws which are supposed to underlie them. The Covenant of Works, in its general features and specific pro- visions, he has ably presented, except that the precise nature of the change in man's relations to God, contemplated in the promise, is not expressly mentioned. That change was from a servant to a son. Adoption is the crowning blessing of both covenants — the rich prize offered to our race in the garden and secured to believers on the cross. Under the law of nature man was a subject and God a ruler. The Covenant of Works was an interposition of grace by means of M'hich man might become a child and God a father^ and

476 THEOLOGY, PROPER METHOD

the filial relation supersede tlmt of simple and naked law. This glorious adoption, which makes paternal love and goodness, instead of our own merits, the measure of our ex- pectations and security — this priceless blessing which Adam failed to secure — is what Christ has won for us.

We could have wished that Dr. Breckinridge had dwelt more largely on the nature of sin, and particularly the first sin as involving essentially the notion of apostasy. If he had shown that, as a subjective state, it was a falling away from God, and contained seminally the elements of every species of transgression — that it was, in truth, the universal principle of sin — the malignity of Adam's guilt and the righteousness of God's judgment would have been more vividly impressed. These notions are implied, but they are not brought out with the prominence and emphasis that their importance deserves. Indeed, the whole question concerning the rise of sin in the mind of Adam, how a holy creature could sin — the beginning and the steps of the process — is not fairly and fully encountered. AVe are told that man, as a creature, was necessarily Mlible, but Dr. Breckinridge is too good a logician not to know that a posse ad esse non valet consequentia. To say that man was created so that he might sin is not to say that he would sin. And when he has sin- ned, it is no explanation of the fact to say that he could sin. A man builds a house. To tell us that he could build it is not to tell us why he built it. The pinch of the question is, how Adam came to use his power to sin. He was able to stand or able to fall. Why did he choose the latter rather than the former ? Freedom of will enters here only to con- nect responsibility with the act, to give it moral significance and value, but not to give the grounds of it. Dr. Breckin- ridge proceeds to enumerate the elements of wickedness which entered into Adam's first disobedience — " unbelief, inordinate desire of forbidden knowledge, presumptuous as- pirations after equality with God, the pride of the eye, the lust of the appetite, the inordinate mutual devotion of loving hearts, credulity under skilful temptation" — but the ques-

AND CENTRAL PRINCIPLE. 477

tloii is, how these elements ever got possession of a heart created in the image of God and delighting in spiritnal con- formity with His law. We wish that Dr. Breckinridge had given more attention to this profonndly interesting question — that he had resolutely undertaken to solve the phenomenon of the origin of sin in a holy being, or to show, upon philo- sophical grounds, that it is incapable of solution. Had he with his evangelical views grappled with it as Bishop But- ler has done, he might have favoured us with more satisflic- tory results. That he has not done so is simply an omis- sion, and an omission, perhaps, incidental to the nature of his plan.

It is with unfeigned reluctance that we differ from the author upon any subject. We have such profound respect for his judgment that whenever our opinions have not been in accordance with his we have felt that the presumption was against us, and that modesty and caution became us until we had thoroughly reviewed the grounds of our conclusions. Dr. Breckinridge is no rash thinker, and because he is no rash thinker we specially regret that we cannot concur with him in his views of hereditary depravity and imputed sin. We understand Dr. Breckinridge to teach that the native character of man is determined by the natural, and not by the federal, relations of Adam ; that we are born sinners, because Adam our father was a sinner, and begat us under the law that like must propagate like. We understand him further as teaching that inherent corruption of nature is prior, in the order of thought, to the guilt of Adam's first sin, so that unless we were born sinners we could not be in- volved in his curse. ^ In direct contradiction to these state-

^ The prxPScages to wljich we refer are the following :

" 4. I have shown in the previous chapter, when expressly considering the Covenant of Works, that the whole family of man was necessarily and was expi'essly embraced in its stipulations, and must, as the case might be, receive its reward or incur its penalty. Treating now of the penalty alone, it may be proper, before proceeding to the statement of the exact manner in which it was incurred by Adam, to point out precisely the grounds upon which, under the case as it stood, that penalty must em-

478 THEOLOGY, PROPER METHOD

ments, tlic truth to us seems to be, that the moral character of the race is determined by the federal, and not by the natural, relations of Adam, and that inherent depravity is the judicial result, and not the formal ground, of the impu- tation of his sin. Natural headship, in our judgment, does

brace all his ordinary posterity in the same ruin which overtook him. There are two great facts, both of them clear and transcendent, which unitedly control the case. The first is, that Adam was the natural head and common progenitor of his race. The human family is not only of one blood, as has been proved in another place, but the l)lood of Adam is that one blood. The whole Scriptures are subverted, and human life is the grossest of all enigmas, if this be not true. If it be true, nothing is more inevitable than that whatever change may have been produced on the whole nature of Adam by his fall — of which I shall speak presently — before the existence of any of his issue, must have been propagated through all succeeding generations. If there is anything perfectly assured to US, it is the steadfastness of the order of nature in the perpetual repro- duction of all things after their own kind. If the fall produced no change on the nature of Adam, it could produce none on the natui-e of his de- scendants. If it did produce any change upon his nature, it was his na- ture thus changed, and not the form of his nature before his fall, which his posterity must inherit."— [Pp. 487, 488.]

" (a.) Its first element is the guilt of Adam's first sin. By which is meant that on account of our natural and covenanted relations with Adam we are considered and treated precisely as we would have been if each one of us had personally done what Adam did. The guilt of Adam's first sin is imputed to his posterity. There is doubtless a wide difference be- tween imputed sin and inherent sin. We, however, have both, and that naturally ; and it tends only to error to attempt to explicate either of them in disregard of the other, or to separate what God has indissolnbly united — namely, our double relation to Adam. It is infinitely certain that God would never make a legal fiction a pretext to punish as sinners dependent and helpless creatures who were actually innocent. The imputation of our sins to Christ affords no pretext for such a statement ; because that was done by the express consent of Christ, and was, in every respect, the most stupendous proof of Divine grace. Nor is the righteousness of Christ ever imputed for justification, except to the elect : nor ever received ex- cept by faith, wliich is a grace of the Spirit peculiar to the renewed soul. In like manner the sin of Adam is imputed to us, but never irrespective of our nature and its inherent sin. That is, we must not attempt to sepa- rate Adam's federal from his natural headship, by the union of which he is the root of the human race, since we have not a particle of reason to believe that the former would ever have existed without the latter. Nay, Christ to become our federal head liad to take our nature." — [Pp- 498, 499.]

AND CENTRAL PRINCIPLE. 479

notliing more than define the extent of federal representation. It answers the question, Who are inckided in the covenant ? Those descending from Adam by ordinary generation. But apart from the idea of trusteeship, or federal headship, Adam, it appears to us, would have been no more than any other parent. There is nothing in the single circumstance of being first in a series to change the character of the relation, and no reason, therefore, Avhy a first father, considered exclusively as a father, should have any more effect upon his issue than a second or third. The law of like begetting like is alto- gether inapplicable to the transmission of sin. That law contemplates the perpetuation of the species, and not the propagation of accidental differences. Every kind generates beings of the same kind, but there is no law which secures the reproduction of individual peculiarities. Now, sin and holiness are accidents of the soul. They do not pertain to its essence, they do not determine the species Man. The law of propagation, therefore, in itself considered, leaves these accidents to the influence of other causes. If Adam had not been a covenant head, we make no question that his pos- terity would all have been born in holiness, from the opera- tion of the same cause by which he was created upright. But he having been a covenant head and having sinned and fallen, they are begotten under a judicial sentence which determines their moral state. They were born under the law of sin and death. We are aware that the doctrine of Dr. Breckinridge is the doctrine of Calvin, and that the chapter in our Confession of Faith, of the Fall of Man, of Sin and of the Punishment thereof, may be interpreted in the same sense ; but the teaching of the catechisms we take to be clearly and unambiguously on our side. There the Imputation of guilt is direct and immediate, and the true explanation of the degraded condition of the race.

The thirty-third chapter, which is one of uncommon solemnity and pathos, first contemplates the human race as a collective whole, and takes a sui-vey of the dealings of God for its restoration and recovery until the restitution of all

480 » THEOLOGY, PROPER METHOD

things. It then descends to the destiny of individuals, and considers their career in the light of the Divine decrees, and concludes the certain salvation of the elect and the certain perdition of the reprobate — both to the infinite glory of God. The Avhole history of the sj^ecies, whether as a race or as in- dividuals, is thus brought under review. The stream is followed from the bosom of God until it is lost in the fathom- less depths of eternity. From man, in the first part of the book, we took our departure and found ourselves conducted to the kno^\ledge of God ; from God we took our departure a second time, and find our resting-place the endless issues of an immortal and changeless existence. Here the work properly stops. The last chapter, which we have already noticed, is not so much a part of the systematic knoAvledge as a philosophical explanation of the necessary limits within which that knowledge is restrained.

And now, having completed a general view of the A\hole treatise, we are, in some measure, prepared to form an opinion of the author's success in attaining the objects he aimed at — " that all confusion should be escaped, that all dis- location of truth should be avoided, that clear statements should become really convincing proofs, that the grand pro- portion of faith should reign without distortion, that the sublime science of God should emerge distinctly from the chaos of endless disputations, and that the unction of a glo- rious gospel should pervade the whole." — [P. xiv.] We think it may be safely said that he has realized his own ideal as far as it could possibly be done. He has collected with loving industry the scattered members of the mangled body of ti'uth. He has joined bone to bone and limb to limb. He has brought up flesh and blood upon it. And as the image stands before us in loveliness and beauty, we are obliged to confess its Divine original, and can almost jserceive the Spirit of God enter into it and impregnate it with Divine life. The unction of the book is above all praise. The author believes Avith the heart. Faith with him is knowledge, and knowledge is love. The doctrines of

AND CENTRAL PRINCIPLE. 481

the Gospel are not treated as cold and barren speculations. They are sublime and glorious realities, the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. They are not matters about which the disputers of this world may wrangle and harangue, their existence depending upon the preponderance of probabilities, and their power standing in the wisdom of men. They are things to be perceived, certi- fied by their own light, and authenticating their own being. Their power is the power of God. Dr. Breckinridge is never afraid of the truth. He never minces or prevaricates, nor handles the doctrines of grace, to use the comparison of Rowland Hill, like an ass mumbling a thistle. On the con- trary, he reminds us of Cecil's inimitable description of Cado- gan, who " seemed more like a man talking of what he saw, what he felt and what he kept firm hold of, than of what he had heard or read." Dr. Breckinridge, like him, follows with no wary step the teachings of Divine Revelation ; knowing its foundations, " he stands upon it as on the ever- lasting hills." He fills his reader with that same holy sym- pathy which Cadogan is said to have propagated from the unction of his own soul, until he almost entranced his hearers, and " left them like Elisha, after the mantle was cast upon him, wondering what had so strangely carried him away from the plough and the oxen." We know of no book, ancient or modern, always excepting the divine compositions of John Howe, which can compare in spiritual pathos with the work before us. The author has succeeded in his wish — "the unction of a glorious Gospel pervades the whole." , The peculiarities of Dr. Breckinridge's teaching are, as we have seen, the separation of dogmatic from polemic theology, and the concatenation of the truths of religion upon the principle of ascent and descent, or induction and deduc- tion. He aims to present them as a whole, and in joining them together he follows the line of experimental religion until it leads him to God, and then the line of the Divine counsels and operations until our history as a race and as individuals is closed in eternity. The question now recurs Vol. I.— 31

482 THEOLOGY, PROPER METHOD

— and it is one wliich vitally concerns the interests of theological instruction in this country — Should these pecu- liarities be copied ? Is it best to teach the truth apart from its contrasts with error ? And is it consistent with our con- ceptions of science to follow the order of actual discovery or actual development ? We confess that we are skeptical on both points. Systematic divinity is an exposition of the truth as the Church of God holds it — an exposition of it in its dependencies and relations. The faith of the Church, as a body of doctrine distinctly apprehended and realized to reflection, is the product of many and protracted controver- sies, and all the creeds of Christendom, with the exception perhaps of that which goes by the name of the Apostles', are at once a confession of the truth and a protest against error. The terms in which the most important doctrines of Chris- tianity are stated have been studiously selected, sometimes even invented, because of their implicit denial of some form of heresy and falsehood. We do not mean that the doctrine took its rise from these controversies, or that the people of God then first discovered it as lying in His Word. Nothing is of faith which is not in the Bible, and godliness from the beginning has been the moulding of the soul in the type of the Word. But there is a marked difference betwixt the spontaneous and reflective exercises of the mind. It is pos- sible to know implicitly without knowing explicitly — pos- sible to feel the power of an article and be controlled by its influence, without being able to represent in precise and de- finite expressions what is inwardly acknowledged. Heresy, in contradicting the spontaneous life of the Church, led to reflection upon the roots and grounds of that life. Reflec- tion elicited the truth in the clear light of consciousness. And to preserve it, thus distinctly and precisely seized, as a lasting inheritance to all time, it was embalmed in language which derived much of its point from its relation to existing controversies. We do not believe that any one ever becomes explicitly conscious of what is meant by the word Trinity, three Persons in one God, until his attention has been turned

AND CENTRAL PEINCIPLE. 483

to the Arian and SabelHan heresies. He appi"ehends enough for devotion, but the full faith even of his own soul he is able articulately to state only in its contrasts to error. It requires, indeed, a very intense power of abstraction, the very highest exercise of genius, to take the truth which ex- ists full and entire as a habit of the mind and represent it, in its integrity to consciousness, as an object of thought. All the aberrations of philosophy are only confessions of the difficulty which the human mind encounters in seizing and objectifying its own habitudes. As theological instruction aims at the head as well as the heart, we are inclined to think that a steadier and firmer grasp is given of the truth by distinguishing it in the very process of teaching from every species of lie. The lie is itself an impulse to reflection. It contradicts our inner life, and we are enabled more readily to lay hold upon what God has impressed on us by His Spirit. We see the Word in relations of which we had not previously been apprised. A new light is imparted to it. This is the method of the New Testament. Paul, like the builders at Jerusalem, with one hand always wrought in the work and with the other held a weapon ; and John is as particular to warn against false Christs as to commend the love and grace and mercy of the true one. It seems to us that the same law which, in a theological system, would ex- clude polemics from the sphere of positive teaching would remit, in a moral system, the consideration of vices to a dif- ferent part of the system from that which treats of virtues. The science of contraries is one. We suspect that Dr. Breck- inridge will find from experience that his third part will be the part in which he is most successful in making skilful theologians. He may edify more in the first, he will teach more in the third. The first part may be more impressive, the third will be more precise and accurate. The first may strike by the grandeur of the whole, the third will interest by the clearness of the details. The first will be more sub- servient to devotion, the third to intellectual apprehension. Still, we cannot regret that Dr. Breckinridge has produced

484 THEOLOGY, PROPER METHOD

the book under review. The qualities of his mind have en- sured to his method a success in his hands which it were vain to expect from an humbler source. None of the disci- ples can imitate the master, and if our seminaries should un- dertake to introduce this mode of teaching as the general plan, the result would soon show that we must either have a Dr. Breckinridge in each one of them or send out anything but accurate divines.

As to the principle upon which Dr. Breckinridge has con- catenated the various topics of Theology, it is a natural co- rollary from the total exclusion of polemics. We can con- ceive of no order in which the doctrines of spiritual religion, considered in their positive aspects, could be more impres- sively presented. It is the order of the development of the Divine life. But if Theology is to be reduced to the forms of a reflective science, and the truth to be unfolded in its contrasts with error, it is very desirable that some method should be adopted — a thing that has never been done yet, not even by those who have made the most confident pre- tensions to it — that shall reduce to unity all the doctrines of religion. There must be a ground of unity somewhere, for truth is one as well as connected. This unity must be sought in the doctrines themselves, and not in their accidents and adjuncts. It is easy to connect Divine truths by the idea of the Covenants ; or by the correlation of disease and remedy, the fall and redemption ; or by the order of the Divine de- crees as manifested in creation and providence ; or by the idea of the Mediator or the incarnation ; but to connect them is not to unite them. We want a corner-stone which holds the whole buildino- together. We want some central j)rinciple which embraces equally the religion of nature and the religion of grace. Until some such central principle is developed in its all-comprehensive relations, we are obliged to have a twofold Theology, {is we have a twofold religion — a Covenant of Works and a Covenant of Grace — with no bridge between them.

It seems to us — and we make the suggestion with all

AND CENTRAL PRINCIPLE. 485

proper diffidence — that such a principle is found in the great doctrine of justification, which, in more respects than one, deserves the commendation of Calvin, " prcecipuum esse sus- tinendce reUgionis cardinem.^' — [Inst. Lib. iii., c. xi., § 1.] The only systems of religion which God has ever revealed to man consist of the answers which Divine Wisdom has given to the question. How shall a subject of moral govern- ment be justified ? When that subject is considered simply as a creature in a state of innocence and blessed with the image of God, the answer is. The religion of nature ; if that subject is considered as a fallen being, as a sinner, the answer is. The religion of grace. All the provisions of either cove- nant are subordinated to the idea of justification. They are directed to it as their immediate end, and find their respec- tive places in the system according to their tendency to con- tribute to its accomplishment. This is the centre around which every other doctrine revolves, and none can be under- stood fully and adequately apart from their relations to it. Let us consider this matter a little more distinctly.

Justification, it should first be remarked, is not an original or essential principle of moral government. That implies nothing more than the relations of a ruler and a subject through the medium of moral law. It contemplates no change of state, and proposes no alternative but uniform obedience or death. Each man is looked upon simply as an individual, a moral unit, whose responsibility terminates upon himself alone, and whose trial is coextensive with the whole career of the immortality of his being. The law, as such, can never raise him beyond the condition of a servant. It can never relax the contingency of his life. It can never put him beyond the reach of death. Do, and while you do, and as long as you do, you live, is the only language which it can employ. It knows no state of final rewards. Under it there may be perpetual innocence, but there never can be justification. If the relations of law are the only ones which are essential to moral government — and that is obvi- ously the case — it is clear that justification is a superadded

486 THEOLOGY, PROPER METHOD

element, a provision of infinite goodness and love, which modifies essentially the condition and prospects of man. The case seems to be this : God has never been willing to sustain only legal relations to His moral and intelligent creatures. While the very law of their being, as creatures absolutely dependent upon His will, puts them necessarily in this state. His love has always proposed to raise them higher, to bring them nearer to Himself, to make them children and heirs. He has always proposed a fundamental change in their attitude toward Him, and that change has consisted in the adoption of sons — in the substitution of filial for legal ties. Instead of an empire of subjects. Infi- nite Goodness has aimed at a vast family of holy, loving, obedient children. To be admitted into God's family is to be confirmed in holiness, to have life put beyond the reach of contingency, to be for ever like the Lord. It is to be en- titled to higher and richer and more glorious joys than any legal obedience could ever aspire to obtain. The doctrine of justification has been engrafted upon the fundamental principles of moral government, in order to provide the way by which a being that exists necessarily at first in a legal, may be promoted to a filial, relation. It is the expedient of Heaven for making a servant a son. Now, that there may be justification, probation must be limited as to time. Pro- bation must be ended before the subject can be pronounced righteous or entitled to the reward. What an act of good- ness is this ! Each man might have been put on an endless trial. Life might for ever have been at hazard. In the actual provisions for justification which God has applied to our race, the trial has not only been limited as to time, but concentrated as to persons. One stood for all — another pro- vision, rightly understood, of infinite goodness. Hence Federal Headship ; and those who cavil at the representative character of Adam would do well to remember that they had no right to any limited trial at all, and if God chose to limit it in one respect. He not only had a right to limit it in any other, but that the probability is that if it had not been

AND CENTRAL PRINCIPLE. 487

limited in both respects, all would have fallen, and fallen without hope for ever. Every provision of the Covenant of Works is, therefore, a provision of spontaneous grace. But it is equally obvious that all these arrangements have been instituted to realize the idea of justification.

The same result takes place in reference to the religion of grace. The question now is, How shall a sinner be just with God ? And the answer to that question, in consistency with the essential principles of moral government and the requi- sitions of the broken Covenant of Works, necessitates all the provisions of the Covenant of Grace. They are all directed to this as their immediate end — that God may be just, and at the same time justify those who are without works. Hence the incarnation ; hence the mysterious and wonderful Person of the Saviour ; hence His amazing humiliation. His life of poverty, sorrow and self-denial, His death of agony and shame ; hence His glorious resurrection and ascension, and His coming at the last day to judge the quick and the dead. All the facts of His history and mediation depend upon God's purpose to justify sinners through His name. And as justification is the ground or basis of adoption, the sinner who is justified becomes at once a son and is entitled to the blessing of indefectible holiness. He becomes an heir, and has an indefeasible right to the heavenly inheritance. His life — that is, his holiness — becomes as certain to him as Adam's life would have been to his posterity if he had kept ' his first estate. Hence justification necessitates the whole work of the Spirit in the renovation and sanctification of the heart ; converts the present life into a discipline in which our sins are treated as faidts to be corrected, and not as crimes to be punished ; and ensures the perseverance of the saints, the resurrection of the body from the grave at the last day, and the full and complete prej)aration of the whole man for his eternal weight of glory. AVell, therefore, may justification be called the article of a standing or falling Church. It is the key to all of God's dealings with man.

This rapid sketch sufficiently indicates the grounds on

488 THEOLOGY, PROPER METHOD.

which we regard justification as the dogmatic principle which reduces to scientific unity the whole doctrine of religion. It is common to both covenants, and it is evidently the regula- tive idea of both. It presupposes the fundamental concep- tions of moral government, of law, of personal and indi- vidual responsibility. It implies that the legal cannot give way to the filial relation without a trial of the creature. To establish such a trial it modifies probation, imposes limita- tions both as to time and persons, and introduces the notion of Federal Representation. After the tall it presides over the economy of grace, and determines the nature and extent of every provision which this stupendous scheme involves. It is the bow which spans the whole hemisphere of grace. As the law of method in theological treatises, it certainly seems to be exhaustive and complete. It has also the ad- vantage of cutting up by the roots false systems of divinity. They cannot be reduced upon it. It throws oif Armini- anism, Pelagianism, and every theology which leaves life contingent and resolves acceptance into mere pardon. It throws off all such schemes as foreign to its own spirit. It plants the feet of the saints upon a rock, and in itself and its adjuncts it may well be styled the glorious Gospel of the blessed God.

PREFATORY NOTE.

This Discussion of the Divine Personality was published in the South- ern Presbyterian Keview for October, 1861. It had been delivered pre- viously by invitation in Milledgeville, Georgia, at the Commencement of Oglethorpe College. The author first sets forth beautifully and forcibly what is involved in the notion of a personal God in opposition to Pan- theism, and then proceeds to show the effects of admitting and of rejecting the doctrine, upon Science, upon Morals, upon Religion, and upon the credibility of Kevelation.

489

THE PERSONALITY OF GOD.

SIMONIDES the poet, when questioned by Hiero the king concerning the nature of God, demanded a day for consideration. The question being repeated at the ex- piration of the time, he begged to be allowed two days longer, and after having frequently evaded an answer by still prolonging the period of deliberation, he was at length required by the king to give a reason for this strange pro- cedure. Simonides, who was a philosopher as well as a poet, gave the pregnant reply, that the longer he thought upon the subject the greater was the difficulty of a satisfac- tory answer. Obscurities multiplied to reflection. "Be- hold, God is great," says Job, "and we know Him not, neither can the number of His years be searched out." The inscription upon the altar at Athens which furnished Paul with a text for his memorable sermon on Mars Hill, contains a confession of ignorance which can never cease to be true until God ceases to be infinite and we the creatures of a day. He must ever be not only the unknown, but the unknowable God. " Canst thou, by searching, find out God ? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection ? It is as high as heaven ; what canst thou do ? deeper than hell ; what canst thou know ? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea."

In striking contrast with these representations of antiquity we have a modern statement that the very essence of God is comprehensibility — that it is His nature to be known, and

/ 491

492 THE PERSONALITY OF GOD.

that only in so far as He is intelligible can He be said to have real existence.

To explain how such contradictory conclusions have been arrived at, we must understand the problem which, from the dawn of speculation, philosophy has set herself to solve, and the methods by which she has conducted the investi- gation. The point has been to unfold the mystery of the universe — to tell whence it came and how it has been pro- duced. Being in itself and being in its laws — the causes and principles of all existing things — the great master of ancient speculation makes to be the end and aim of that science which he dignifies as wisdom. It is clear that, in every inquiry into causes and princijjles, the final answer must be — God. He is pre-eminently the Being from whom all other beings spring, and the constitution of the universe must be referred to Him as the ground and measure of its existence. In this general answer which resolves everything at last into God, every philosophy which deserves the name, whether in ancient or modern times, has concurred. They all end in Him. But when they undertake to answer the further question, what He is and how all things centre in Him, they come to diiferent results, according to their dif- ferent views of the nature of the universe, and its relation to its first principle or cause.

According to Aristotle, those who first philosophized on the subject directed their attention to the principle of things, defining a principle as that of which all things are, out of which they are first generated, and into which they are at last corrupted ; the essence remaining, though changed in its affections. What this essence was — this nature of thiners — whether one or many, the philosophers were not agreed. The language employed by Aristotle in recounting early opinions, and the subsequent history of philosophy, suggest different views of the nature of the universe: 1. It may be regarded as an organic whole, similar to the body of an animal or the structure of a plant ; and then, as the law of its being would be simply that of development, we could

THE PERSONALITY OF GOD. 493

easily explain its phenomena if we could only seize upon the germ from which it was gradually unfolded. The inquiry in this aspect is into the o.py^^^ the seminal principle, and its law of manifestation and of growth. Given this principle in itself and in its law of operation, and the problem of the universe is solved. You find God, who is at once the com- mencement and the complement of being. 2. Or the uni- verse may be regarded as a complex whole, a unity made by composition and mixture, consisting of parts entirely distinct in themselves, and held together by some species of cohesion. In this aspect the problem is, What are the elements of which it is compounded, and how are they sustained in union and combination ? The answer here might be atheistic or not, according as the doctrine of efficient causes was excluded or rejected. The ancient arguments for Theism proceeded, for the most part, upon this conception of the universe, and postulated the necessity of a designing mind and a control- ling Providence upon the arrangements of matter. The universe was a vast and complicated machine, which required mind to construct it and mind to regulate its movements. Or, 3. The universe may be regarded as absolutely an unit, a single being, whose essence or nature determines its phe- nomena as if by logical necessity. There is a something which is the substratum of all properties — in which they in- here, and from which they are derived, as qualities are de- pendent upon substance ; and Avhen this essence, which is synonymous with being, has been discovered, we have found God. He is the essence of all things. They are only mani- festations or properties of His infinite substance. This, it is needless to add, is the most ancient form of the philosophy of the absolute.

Modern schools of philosophy have pursued essentially the same tracks in explaining the mysteries of being. The most striking difference is not in relation to the problem to be solved, but in relation to the point from which the in- vestigation takes its departure. Ancient speculation fast-

494 THE PERSONALITY OF GOD.

ened on the objective and material, and its principles and causes were primarily, as Aristotle remarks, in the species of matter. Modern sj^eculation begins with consciousness, and, confounding thought with existence, reality with know- ledge, has made the laws of thought the regulative and con- stitutive principles of being. God is nothing but the com- plement of primitive cognitions — the collection of those fun- damental ideas which are involved in every act of sponta- neous consciousness, and whose nature it is not only to be intelligible, but to furnish the conditions of the intelligibility of everything besides. The characteristic of all the systems, whether ancient or modern, which make God figure at the head of their various theories as cause, principle, or law, and which resolve all phenomena into manifestation, combina- tion, or development, is the stern necessity to which they reduce everything. Pantheism and Positivism, how much soever they may differ in other respects, unite in the denial of a Personal God. They consequently exclude, with equal rigour, the possibility of morals and religion, and shift the grounds of the certainty of science. It is the Personal God, whose name we regard with awe and veneration, whose throne is encircled with clouds and darkness, and who must for ever be the unknown God. lie is the great mystery which, once admitted, throws light upon everything but the depths of His own being. He is the Infinite One who, transcending all the categories of thought and mocking the limits of all finite science, can only be adored as a Being past finding out. He is the God whom human nature has spontaneously acknowledged. It is a corrupt philosophy, and not the dictate of humanity — a spirit of bold and pre- sumptuous speculation, and not the instinctive voice of the human spirit — that has replaced Him with a law, a prin- ciple or an element. So radical and all-pervading is this truth of the Personality of God — so essential to all the dear- est interests of man — that we propose to make it the subject of a more distinct consideration.

I. It may be well to begin by explaining what is involved

THE PERSONALITY OF GOD. 495

in the notion of a Personal God. What is it, in other words, to be a Person ?

A definition of a simple and primitive belief is not to be expected. We may describe the occasions on which it is elicited in consciousness, or the conditions on w^hich it is realized, but the thing itself is incapable of being represented in thought. We have, for example^ a belief of power and of substance, and we can detail the circumstances under which the belief is felt, but the power and substance we are incompetent to define ; they are to us the unknown causes of effects which we experience. So it is with Person ; what it is in itself, what constitutes and distinguishes it, we can- not comprehend; but there are conditions on which the belief of it, as the unknown and inexplicable cause of obvious phenomena, is developed in consciousness. These conditions, as the necessary adjuncts of the natural and spontaneous belief, we are able to apprehend.

1. The first circumstance which distinguishes this notion is that of individuality. The notion is developed only under the antithesis of something different from itself wdiich takes place in every act of consciousness. Every instance of know- ledge is the affirmation of a self on the one hand, and a something which is not self on the other. There is the sub- ject knowing, and the object known. A man believes his own existence only in believing the existence of somewhat that is distinct from himself. He affirms his personality in contrast with another and a different reality. AVhen, there- fore, we assert the Personality of God, we mean to affirm that He is distinct from other beings and from other objects. We mean to affirm that He is not the universe, either in its matter or form, its seminal principle or final development. He is essentially separate from it. His substance is in no sense the substance of the things that we see. He might have existed, and through a past eternity did exist, without them. They are objects to Him as a subject — no more parts of His own being than the material world is a part of our- selves. This notion of individuality is essential to every

496 THE PERSONALITY OF GOD.

conception of the Deity, which enables him to use the pro- noun I. An absohite Being cannot be a person. The God of Pantheism cannot say, " I will " or " I know" — and the notion of such a being ever reaching the stage of what the absolute philosophers call self-consciousness is a flagrant contradiction in terms. AVhen subject and object are iden- tified, there can be no consciousness, no knowledge. When they are carried up to indifference, the result is personal ex- tinction.

2. But, though individuality is a necessary adjunct of the notion of person, it is not always a necessary sign of its ex- istence. There may be individuals that are not persons. The trees which we see around us, the plants and animals that cover the surface of the globe, are all individuals, but they are not persons. There are other conditions essential to the development of the notion : these may be reduced to two — intelligence and will, or intelligence and conscience. Self is affirmed only in consciousness, and consciousness is the property only of intelligence. A being that cannot re- flect and attribute its thoughts or impressions to itself, that cannot say, " I think," " I feel," " I believe," cannot be regarded as a person. It is probable that the brute has no reflective consciousness. He has present states, but does not distinguish in the spontaneous feeling the antithesis of subject and object. This is possibly the condition of infancy also. But the dignity and full significancy of the notion of person are developed in the sphere of morals, in which man is regarded as the subject of rights and the responsi- ble author of his own actions. To be a person is to be one who can regulate his motions according to a law, and who feels that there are certain things which he can justly claim as his own. He who can say, " I have a right," evinces himself, in the highest sense, to be a true and proper per- son. Hence, as morals are conversant only about volun- tary states and acts, the doctrine has become common that personality is seated exclusively in the will ; but this nar- row and restricted view puts asunder what God has joined

THE PERSONALITY OF GOD. 497

together. Intelligence and responsibility can never be divorced, and though it is in the sphere of duties and of rights that the importance of self becomes most conspicu- ous, yet the simplest act of knowledge cannot possibly take place without the recognition of it.

3. Another thing equally essential to self-hood is the feel- ing of absolute simplicity. It cannot be divided or sepa- rated into parts. Consciousness is an unit — responsibility is an unit. Every person is not only separate from every other being, but is incapable of disccrption in himself.

When, therefore, we maintain the Personality of God, we mean distinctly to affirm that He is an absolutely simple intelligence, possessed of consciousness and will, who acts from purpose and from choice, and is not to be confounded with any of the creatures of His hand. He is not a blind fatality, not a necessary principle, not a necessary law. He has every attribute which we recognize in ourselves as beings of reason and of will. It is pre-eminently in our person- ality, and the qualities which perfect and adorn it, that the image of God consists in which man was originally formed, and this is the immense chasm betwixt us and the other creatures that inhabit this globe.

The plant has life and sensibility ; the brute is capable of perception and motion, and exhibits perhaps some rude traces of dawning intelligence. But neither plants nor brutes have anything approximating to the feeling of self- consciousness. Neither can rise to the affirmation of a self, and neither is the subject of rights or duties. But to man it belongs to say, " I," " Me," and in this respect he resembles the God that made him. But while the essence of the Divine image consists in the property of personality, the perfection of that image consists in the knowledge, righteousness and holiness which invest a person with all its dignity and excellence. All retain the essence — none but the redeemed have now the qualities that adorn. It is still true that God has set His eternal canon against mur- der, because the life Avhich is violently taken away is the

Vol. I.— 32

498 THE PERSONALITY OF GOD.

property of him who as a person still resembles his Maker, and has rights which cannot with impunity be disregarded. Take away from man his personality, and the destruction of a human being would be no more serious a thing than the slaughter of a beast. It is the sanctity which is thrown around a person as the reflection of the Divine glory that makes it so awful a thing to be a man. He who can say, " Myself," is immeasurably nearer to God than any other form of being. He is not only from God, but like Him — not only carries impressions of the Divine character, as the sun, the moon and the stars, but carries in his bosom resem- blances of the Divine attributes. "VVe are not only His creatures, but His offspring, and, regulating our thoughts of Him by the analogies of our own nature, " we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device." We should rise to the conception of His majesty as of One that made the world and all things therein — of One who as Lord of heaven and earth dwelleth not in temples made with hands.

This statement of the conditions under which the notion of personality is realized Avill correct the error into which the ignorant and unreflecting are apt to fall, of confounding it with figure or material shape. We apply the term per- son so constantly to our bodies that there is an imperceptible tendency to make the possession of a body essential to per- sonal existence. But a little consideration will convince us that our bodies belong to us, but are not ourselves. We use them, and act through them and by means of them. They are organs and instruments, but have not a single character- istic of personality. It is not the eye that sees, but the man that sees by means of the eye ; it is not the ear that hears, but the man that hears through the instrumentality of the ear ; it is not the leg or the foot that walks, but the man that walks by its help. These organs may be destroyed, and yet the power of vision, of hearing, of motion remain in full integrity. They cannot be exercised for the want of the proper appliances, but they are there, and could simi-

THE PERSOXALITY OF GOD. 499

lar organs be replaced might be easily called into action. In affirming, therefore, a jiersonal we are not affirming a material God, bounded by any outline of figure or shape or circumscribed to any space. We affirm a Spirit who is essentially self-conscious, whose essence is knowledge, holi- ness, power and life — a Spirit infinite, eternal, unchange- able in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, good- ness and truth. We affirm the existence of that great Beino> who sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof arc as grasshoppers — that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in — that great Being who dwelling in glory and light inacces- sible, the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, permits us to behold the skirts of His robe in the analogies of finite per- sonalities. We can catch a glimpse of Him, but we cannot see Him, and the overpowering force of that glimpse causes us to fall back in ourselves exhausted and wearied under the mighty idea of God. He alone is great. He only doeth wondrous things.

II. The difference is immense between the admission and rejection of such a Being in every department of thought and of action.

1. Speculation, equally with practice, changes its cha- racter according to the nature of the Divinity that termi- nates its inquiries. Upon the hypothesis of Pantheism, or any hypothesis which construes God into a logical, physi- cal or metaphysical necessity, the relation of the finite to the infinite can only proceed, as a great living writer has observed, upon the supposition of the immanent, or, more correctly speaking, of substantial identity. Given this per- vading essence, this principle of being, and all things can be deduced from God with as rigorous certainty as the propositions of geometry from the definitions of the science. He being what He is, they must be what they are. He is necessary cause, they, necessary effect; He, necessary sub- stance, they, its necessary affections. It is obvious that upon this theory all science must be a priori and deductive, and

500 THE PERSONALITY OF GOD.

Spinoza Avas consulting the exigencies of his system full as much as the spirit of the age in reducing his philosoj)hy to the forms of mathematical demonstration. The case is very different upon the supposition of a personal God. There, the universe is the product of will. It is an effect which might or might not have been ; its nature and constitution are alike contingent — all depends upon the choice, the pur- pose, the plans of the Creator. Philosophy becomes an inquiry into the designs of God, and these designs, as in every other case, nmst be determined by the appearances submitted to the scrutiny of experience. We have no data to deter- mine beforehand what kind of a thing the world should be, what kind of creatures it should contain, by what kind of physical laws it should be governed. We could not con- struct it from any principles upon which the understanding might seize. The simple circumstance that it and all its l)heuomena are contingent puts it beyond the reach of phi- losophical anticipation, and establishes at once the method of induction as the only method of inquiry. Sj^eculation, upon this hypothesis, is the reduction to unity of the facts of observation, the elimination of the laws which create and preserve the order which the will of God has established. Though the universe is a contingent effect, it is not the off- spring of caprice or arbitrary power. In ascribing it to a personal God we ascribe it to a Being who is possessed of wisdom and knowledge, and whose will is always deter- mined by the infinite perfections of His character. We may expect, therefore, to find a plan which is worthy of this august and glorious Being, and we can pronounce with confidence beforehand that whatever is essentially contradic- tory to wisdom, goodness and truth cannot enter into the scheme. But when the question arises as to the concrete realities that shall positively be called into being, man can know, either in the world of matter or of mind, only what he has observed. In a personal being you introduce the operation of a free cause ; power becomes will, and the only necessity, which is conceivable is that of acting from design.

THE PERSONALITY OF GOD. 601

The whole problem of philosophy becomes changed, the absolute is resolved into a metaphysical absurdity, and a principle of existence apart from the omnipotent will of a creator is a mere delusion. Hence the Scriptures recognize God in everything. It is His almighty arm that sustains the fabric of the universe. He projected and keeps in their orl)its those planets, suns and adamantine spheres wheeling unshaken through the void immense. It is His to create the sweet influences of the Pleiades and to loose the bands of Orion. All things live and move and have their being in Him ; but not in Him as part and parcel of His own ex- istence, not as the properties or developments of His nature ; only as the products of His will, which are absolutely noth- ing without that will. God's purpose, this is the only prin- ciple of being which the Bible recognizes. The counsel of His will, this is the goal of philosophy — the last point which science is capable of reaching. All our inquiries end at last in the confession, " Even so. Father ; for so it seemed good in Thy sight." " For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things ; to whom be glory for ever ! Amen." We regret that we have not time to enter more at length into this discussion, and to show how the deductive and in- ductive methods of philosophy are essentially dependent upon the admission or rejection of the Personality of God. Many who are enamoured with what appears to them to be a very profound and earnest philosophy of life, are not aware that the very spirit in which that philosophy is born is at war with the first principles of Theism. They do not see that any theory which involves a necessary principle of the world excludes contingency, and, consequently, the operation of all will. It is clear, too, that this principle, if it exists, must be sought in consciousness. As thought, upon the hypothesis in question, must be the reflection of existence, and as wx ourselves are a species of microcosm, we must look into the depths of our own souls for those great, controlling elements which determine the existence of everything around us. We shall surelv be able to find those fundamental and

502 THE PERSONALITY OF GOD.

unquestionable data, stored away in the recesses of our minds, which shall contain the absolute explanation of everything — those laws or primitive cognitions which belong to and constitute the Eternal Reason. We shall be able, in other words, to find the only God that can exist, in ourselves. What Madame de Stael said of Ficlite, that he announced the purpose of a future lecture in these atrocious words — " We shall proceed to make God " — is perfectly in keeping with the whole genius and temper of a speculation that ex- jDccts to find any other nexus but that of a personal will be- tween the finite and the infinite.

The question of a personal God might well be suspended uj)on the results, in science, to which its method of investi- gation has led. Bacori expounded the law, and since Bacon what has not been accomplished ? There is not a conquest in the world of matter or of mind which has not been won by the spirit of the inductive philosophy. It has exjilored every nook and corner of nature ; it has trusted to nothing but its eyes and ears, and those eternal laws of thought which constitute the forms of knowledge. It has found order, law, a plan ; it has discovered design, the operations of intelli- gence and will, and penetrated beyond nature to nature's God, as the author and finisher of all. It has seen and known. What, on the other hand, has Pantheism done? Nothing, absolutely nothing, but transmute into its own jargon the laws which induction has established. The em- pirical, indeed, it despises ; but, unfortunately, the empirical is all that exists ; and in desj^ising that it destroys the pos- sibility of any real science of things. To sum up all that we would say in a few words, experimental philosophy is grounded in the hypothesis of a personal God. The Jeho- vah of the Bible is presupposed in the method of induction. The method of pure speculation is grounded in the hypothe- sis of a necessary cause or principle, aud identity of sub- stance is presupposed in its methods of inquiry. The nexus between the finite and the infinite in the one case is w^ill, and will alone : in the other, it is that of immanence or in-

THE PERSONALITY OF GOD. 503

being. The universe, according to one, is the product of Divine power; according to the other, it is God Himself, coming into sensible manifestation — the chicken hatched from the egg. The problem of philosophy in one case is to discover the plan of God as gathered from the actual opera- tions of His hands ; according to the other, the very notion of a plan or design becomes an insoluble contradiction. Ac- cording to the one, man knows nothing until he has learned from observation and experiment ; according to the other, he carries the elements of omniscience in his bosom. This is a faithful picture of the spirit and genius of the two systems. Judge them by their fruits.

2. The two systems are equally in contrast in their influence upon the whole department of moral obligation. According to the scheme of Theism, the relations betwixt God and man are those of a ruler and a subject — all intelli- gent beings are under authority and government. They are placed in subjection to a law which they are bound to obey, but which they are at liberty to disregard ; and their happi- ness or misery is dependent upon their obedience or disobe- dience. The simplest — perhaps the most primitive — notion which we are able to form of the Father of spirits is, as Butler suggests,^ that of " a master or governor. The fact of our case, which we find by experience, is that He actually exercises dominion or government over us, at present, by rewarding and punishing us for our actions, in as strict and proper a sense of these words, and even in the same sense, as children, servants, subjects are rewarded and punished by those who govern them." This is not so much, says the same great thinker, a deduction of reason as a matter of ex- jierience, that we are under His government in the same sense that we are under the government of civil magistrates. All this is obviously inconsistent with the theory of Panthe- ism. The ruler and the ruled must be distinct ; and yet, upon the hypothesis in question, they are essentially the same, only under different manifestations or in different 1 Anal., Pt. I., ch. ii.

504 THE PERSOXALITY OF GOD.

stages of development. A law is a measure of conduct pre- scribed by a superior will, and the notions which underlie it are those of rightful authority on the one hand, and the possibility of obedience or disobedience on ,the other. Both these notions are discarded by Pantheism ; and, as it deprives us of will, so it leaves us no other law but that of the neces- sary evolution of phenomena. It demands on the one hand an inviolable necessity, and on the other a rigid continuity. Obligation is the correlative of law, and rewards and pun- ishments are the expressions of merit and demerit. But justice is utterly annihilated; reward, as distinct from mere pleasure — punishment, as distinct from mere annoyance or pain — becomes unmeaning. All moral differences in actions are contradictory and absurd where the effect is a necessary manifestation or an inevitable development. Sin as moral disorder or evil cannot be conceived ; it becomes only one step in the stage of events — a contrast in individual life or the history of the world, by which the balanced harmony of a complicated system is preserved. It is no more liable to blame than the bitterness of wormwood or the filth of grease ; and he who, by patient continuance in well-doing, seeks for glory, honour, and immortality is no more entitled to praise or to eternal life than sugar for being sweet or milk nutritious. These are only parts and parcels of the grand world-process. Good and evil occupy the same posi- tion as light and darkness, or any other contrasts in nature. Sin, as a transgression of the law deserving death, is a pure fiction. The system, therefore, in obliterating moral dis- tinctions and reducino; the differences of right and wrong to the category of necessary contrasts, not only makes war upon the government of God, but aims a decisive blow at the gov^ernments of man. It is in deadly hostility to the prin- ciples which hold society together and impart to States their authority. Strike out justice and moral law, and society becomes the mere aggregation of individuals, and not their union by solemn and sacred ties upon the basis of mutual rights and duties ; and man ceases to be anything

THE PERSONALITY OF GOD. 505

but a liiglier class of beast. Every being works out its destiny by the same resistless process. These conclusions could be verified by a copious appeal to the best and purest philosophers who have speculated upon morals in the spirit of Pantheism. The accomplished Schleiermacher could make no more of sin than Fichte or Hegel. The deepest convictions of conscience, the mast earnest utterances of the soul, the sense of guilt and demerit, the ineffiiceable impres- sion of justice, he was obliged to explain away in obedience to a system which, in the extinction of a personal God, had removed the centre around which alone these sentimeuts could find place. They are, indeed, memorials of a personal God which never can be totally destroyed. We feel that we are under law, that we are responsible for our actions, that we are capable of praise or blame. We feel that there is a right and a wrong in human conduct ; and no sophistry can eradicate, in some of its manifestations, the sense of justice. So clear is the connection between God and our moral na- ture that we can never get quit of the notion of Him as a ruler until we have suppressed the voice of our consciences. It is here, more than anywhere else, that we recognize the Personality of the Supreme Being. We feel His existence, because we feel the pressure of His law and have ominous forebodings of reward or punishment. Apart from the ex- istence of a personal God, it is impossible to construct a con- sistent scheme of moral philosophy. We must stumble at the very threshold in explaining the great central fact of ob- ligation. Turn it and twist it as you may, it always leads you to a superior will as the immediate ground of duty. Virtue never becomes law until it is enforced by authority. That will, to be sure, is determined by the nature of the person, and the ultimate ground of moral distinctions must be traced to the essential holiness of God. He cannot but Avill what is right, and it is precisely the relation of right to this perfect and holy will that creates the obligation of the creature. From God all moral distinctions proceed, and to God they naturally and necessarily lead. Their very essence

606 THE PERSONALITY OF GOD.

is destroyed the very moment you lay your hand ujion His throne.

Here, then, the contrast between Pantheism and Theism is fundamental. It goes to the springs and measures of human action. Society, the State, the Family — every sphere into which the moral element enters — becomes, in the speculations of the Pantheist, a very different thing from what our natural sentiments lead us to apprehend, and from what is possible to be realized in experience. Man, in all his interests and relations, is a very different being accord- ing as you view him in one aspect or the other — a moral subject under the government of God, or the property and affection, the mere modus, of an all-pervading substance.

It is vain, therefore, to treat those speculations Avhich strike at the personality of God as the harmless excursions of curiosity. True, the instincts of nature, in the ordinary tenor of life, are stronger upon the whole than these disas- trous conclusions, but still they are not without their mis- chief in the humblest sphere, and on great occasions, when great interests are at stake, in periods of agitation and revo- lution, they may prompt to the most atrocious crimes. The Reign of Terror could never have been distinguished by its enormities if God and Retribution had not first been ban- ished from the minds of its guilty agents. It is no light thing; to make a mock at sin. He who trifles with the eter- nal distinctions of right and wrong not only foregoes the blessedness of the next world, but introduces disorder and confusion in this. He is an enemy to earth as well as to heaven. The belief of a superintending Providence is the guardian of Society, the security of the State, the safeguard of the Family. Its influence pervades every interest and sanctifies every office of man ; it ennobles his actions, sweetens his affections, animates his hopes, gives courage in the hour of dang-cr, serenitv in time of trouble and vie- tory in death. If there be a God it is a great thing to be a man ; if there be none, and men should universally act on the belief that there were none, we had rather be anything

THE PERSONALITY OF GOD. 507

than a member of the human race. Hell and earth would differ only in topography.

3. But there is another aspect in which the two systems remain to be contrasted, and the immense importance of a personal God, such as nature and the Scriptures reveal, to be evinced.

Upon the hypothesis of Pantheism, religion becomes a contradiction in terms. What Howe long ago asserted of the scheme of Spinoza is equally applicable to every system which abolishes the "Thou" of our prayers — that "though he and his followers would cheat the world with names and with a specious show of piety, it is as directly levelled against all religion as any, the most avowed, Atheism ; for, as to religion, it is all one whether we make nothing to be God, or everything; whether we allow of no God to be wor- shipped, or leave none to worship Him." But apart from this consideration, which of itself is conclusive — apart from the circumstance that religion necessarily implies moral government, and is founded on the relations of a moral and intelligent agent to a supreme Lawgiver — piety is subverted by having no object upon which to fasten its regards. It consists essentially in affections — in fear, reverence, venera- tion and love — which presuppose the existence of a person upon whom they can terminate. Its highest form is that of fellowship with God. It holds communion, a real, liv- ing intercourse, with the Father of our spirits. We speak to Him in the language of prayer, penitence, faith, thanks- giving and praise ; He speaks to us by those sensible com- munications of His grace which make us feel at once that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. This free circulation of the affections and inter- change of offices of love is the very essence of spiritual religion. But when you remove a personal God you destroy the only condition on which this state of things is possible. There is no Being to love, no Being to adore, no Being either to swear by or pray to, and all that remains of piety is a collection of blind impulses and cravings, which must create

508 THE PERSONALITY OF GOD.

their object, and which in their develop.ncnt, according to the law of suggestion, are singularly enough termed a life. The disciples of this school employ the language of genuine devotion, and seem to be intent upon a more full, vigorous and earnest piety than that which is fostered by symbols and creeds. Their hostility to the latter is pretended to be grounded upon an intense zeal for the Spirit. But when we come to look beneath these phrases, and inquire into the life which is so warmly commended, we find nothing but the yearnings of humanity — a pervading sense of emptiness and want — without reference to their moral character and tendencies, exalted into architects of God. It is the study of these w^ants, and the fabrication of a being, or a princi- ple, or anything that seems suggested by them, that consti- tute the whole life of godliness. It is like leaving a hun- gry man, from the impulse of appetite, in the first place to conceive and then to create bread ; or a thirsty man, from the mere craving of his thirst, to image and then produce water. A craving enables us to recognize the suitable ob- ject when presented, but never to frame either the concep- tion of it or the reality beforehand. If a man had never seen or tasted or heard of food, he might have starved to death w^ithout knowing what he wanted. The feebleness and dependence of the creature may prompt it to admit the Self-sufficient and Almighty God when once He is revealed ; but without being made known upon other grounds, the sense of dependence, however intense and penetrating, could never have carried us farther than a something on which we were dependent.

But in religion it is universallv true that all our lono'ino^s are the results and not the antecedents of knowledge. It is what the mind knows that inspires its aspirations and affec- tions. Religious instincts are the offspring of reason and truth, and not the blind feeling of nature. When we know God and sin and ourselves, when we undei'stand the law and our destiny, then comes a sense of guilt, a longing for pardon, a desire for holiness and peace. It is light let into

THE PERSONALITY OF GOD. 509

the soul, truth pointed by the Holy Spirit, that awakens every truly religious emotion. We feel because we believe ; we do not believe because we feel. The eye affects the heart ; it is not the heart that produces the eye.

Men in their unconverted state are compelled, from the dictates of conscience and the voice of reason, to recognize a personal God, but only in those relations in which the guilty stand to a judge — they believe and tremble. Hence their anxiety to suppress the conviction. They would gladly embrace some principle of beauty or feminine pity which would bless their persons without paying attention to their crimes. They would gladly fall back upon some imper- sonal spirit of nature, smiling in the stars or whispering in the breeze, about which they could indulge in soft and romantic sentiments without being put upon the trouble- some duties of penitence, faith, humiliation and self-denial. They, therefore, can spare a personal God, because they have nothing to hope and much to dread from Him. But the truly Christian man is robbed of everything if you take away his Lord and Master. He has indeed lost a Friend, and such a Friend as no substitute can replace. When he is unable to cry, "Abba, Father," his spirit is burdened with intolerable anguish. The very life of his soul is ex- tinguished.

The privilege of communion with God is the reward sig- nalized in no system but that of the Gospel. The complete- ness of the notion is there developed, and the manner in which it may be realized in individual exjjerience definitely described. It reconciles man to God and God to man, and institutes a fellowship which, though it may be occasionally disturbed, can never be broken off. The love which it en- joins and engenders is the union of the soul with the Author of its being ; not the absurd imagination of the mystic — of being absorbed and swallowed up in God as a drop in the ocean. " There is nothing, therefore," says an able writer, " we should be more anxious to protect from eveiy presump- tuous attempt to disturb the holy boundary between God

510 THE PERSONALITY OF GOD.

and the creature, than just the opinion of the imperishable nature of love which binds both together. Instead of the self-hood of the personal creature being destroyed in the per- fection of its love to God, it is much rather thereby elevated to its full truth and revealed in its eternal significance as the subject and object of a love between God and the crea- ture. Then does man first of all come into the true posses- sion of himself when he gives himself to God; whoever loses his life shall find it. What true love to God desires is, not at all abstract identity, not a resolution into the Di- vine Being, but perfect and undisturbed fellowship with God, just as is promised in the Scripture, as its highest end — not that it shall become God, but shall see God face to face." The result of any hypothesis which confounds them, it may be added, is the simple destruction of one or of both. In this aspect, therefore, Pantheism is most fatal in its re- sults ; it contradicts every principle of our religious nature, and, in leaving us without God, leaves us without hope in the world. It lays an interdict upon all the piety of the heart, and cheats us with the delusive sentiments of a vain fancy. It gives us poetry for God.

4. The personality of God has also a decisive influence upon the question in relation to the credibility of revelation in itself and in its miraculous credentials, which is now so keenly agitated among Neologists and the orthodox. The rigid continuity of nature is assumed, because nature is only a blind manifestation of properties and attributes which be- long to a necessary substance. But the very moment you postulate intelligence and will, and ascribe the constitution of the universe to a free cause, its order is altogether con- tingent ; and whether it shall ever be disturbed or not, de- pends entii-ely upon the plans and purposes of that Wisdom which presides over all. Temporary and occasional changes may contribute to the ultimate end to be achieved. Occa- sions may arise, from the operations of subordinate intelli- gences, which will render extraordinary interpositions the most effective instruments of good. Miracles certainly be-

THE PERSONALITY OF GOD. 511

come possible, since He who made nature can control it; and they become credible if circumstances should ever be such as to render them important.

As to revelation, it is antecedently credible upon the sup- position that God is a person — that He should hold inter- course with His intelligent creatures. Persons naturally seek union ; society is the sphere in which this mysterious reality becomes fully and completely developed. All finite persons would be miserable if there were none to converse with, and every principle of morality, truth, justice and be- nevolence supposes the existence of a social economy. So intimate is the connection between society and personality that, in our humble judgment, the infinite God could neither be holy nor blessed unless there was a foundation for society in the very essence of Deity. A God that was only a single person would want that union without Avhich the person would be imperfect. Solitude may be enjoyed for a while, but it is imprisonment and death if made permanent. Hence, there is a deep philosophy in the doctrine of the Trinity. The Triune God is an all-sujfficient God — all-sufii- cient to Himself and all-sufficient to His creatures. Before time began, or the stars were born, the Father rejoiced in the Son, and the Son rejoiced in the Father. There was the deepest union and the most ineffable communion, and it was only to reflect their blessedness and glory that other persons and other societies were formed, whose laws and principles must be traced to the very bosom of the Deity.

God being a person, therefore, it is antecedently likely that He would condescend to hold communion with His creatures ; and hence all nations, whether barbarous or civilized, have assumed it as an indisputable truth that the Deity converses with man. Go where you will, there are altars, oracles and priests. This general consent in the credibility of revelation is the testimony of the race to an original feeling of the soul ; a premonition on the part of God of what may be expected at His hands. The voice of nature is never a lie ; and hence, given a personal God, we

512 THE PERSONALITY OF GOD.

may confidently conclude that He will not be without mes- sages to those who are capable of intercourse with Him. He will delight in condescending to talk with His subjects. The instinct of personality for union will prompt it, benevo- lence will prompt it, goodness will prompt it, and wisdom will direct and regulate all. With humility and reverence be it spoken, there may be a something in the bosom of the infinite God, arising from His personal relations to us, analogous to those feelinos of tenderness and solicitude which a parent cherishes, and which impel him to pour forth on his children his words of parting counsel.

PREFATORY NOTE.

The Rev. Dr. Samuel J. Baird published his able and elaborate work on Original Sin and topics connected therewith, under the title of " The First Adam and the Second. The Elohim Revealed in the Creation and Redemption of Man." Dr. Thornwell reviewed it in the Southern Pres- byterian Review for April, 1860, from which we take the following pages. This vigorous production will close his discussion of those topics of Theology which relate to Moral Government in its essential principles and as modified by the Covenant of Works. In the next volume will commence his discussion of Moral Government as modified by the Covenant of Grace.

It is due to the author of "The Elohim Revealed" to state that he has publicly disclaimed holding, or designing to teach, the doctrine of phil- osophical Realism imputed to his work by Dr. Thornwell.

Vol. I.— 33

513

NATURE OF OUR INTEREST

SIN OF ADAM.

BEING A REVIEW OF BAIRD'S ELOHIM REVEALED.

THIS book, as its title imports, covers the whole region of revealed Theology. It begins with the creation and ends with the consummation of all things. Exclusive of the Introduction, it consists of twenty-three chapters, and in- clusive of the Index, of six hundred and eighty-eight octavo pages. A glance at the table of contents is sufficient to show that the author deals in " thoughts more elevate ;" and that the high themes which he discusses, " providence, foreknow- ledge, will and fate," the primitive and fallen condition of mankind, the nature, consequences and extent of sin, and the nature, consequences and extent of redemption, are not dis- cussed in a spirit of vain curiosity and false philosophy, but with the loyal design that he may " assert eternal providence, and justify the ways of God to men." All the topics which are successively brought before us — and they are those in which the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves are concentrated — are reviewed under the formal notion of a manifestation of the Divine perfections and glory. In the second chapter we have, indeed, as a key to the title of the work, an articulate exposition of the doctrine that the design of all God's works, whether of creation or providence, is to reveal Himself. The heavens and the earth are treated as

515

516 NATURE OF OUR INTEREST

'' an incomparable vesture," in which the Divine Majesty arrays itself in order to become visible to men ; and this whole outward scene of things, the object of our sensations and perfections, is not regarded as a dark, gloomy, foreign power, but as an illustration of the Divine wisdom, a lan- guage in which God notifies to intelligence His own glory. The works are apprehended as so many words of God, and the sense with which they are all burdened is His own eternal power and Godhead. It is in man, however, that Dr. Baird finds the pre-eminent revealer of the triune Jeho- vah. He is the image of God. To him, therefore, special attention is given. His moral history is traced from the first moment of his being to the final consummation of the scheme of grace. The plan of Providence in relation to him is critically canvassed, and the result of the whole is that solid wisdom, that knowledge of God and of ourselves, which constitutes the perfection and unity of our moral and intellectual nature. The author lays out his chief strength upon the doctrine of original sin. This is the central topic of the book. To this everything else converges ; the pre- liminary account of man's original condition is only an in- troduction to a just exposition of the effects of the fall, and the subsequent evolution of the economy of redemption is designed to cast its light back upon the nature and extent of the malady of which redem})tion is the remedy. The book, therefore, might very well have been entitled a Treatise of Original Sin. It opens with an historical sketch of the doc- trine in question, briefly recapitulating the state and progi'ess of opinion from Tertullian to Edwards. The first three chapters, on the Triune Creator, the Eternal Plan, and the Providential Administration, are designed to furnish the key to the subsequent discussion, to lay down the principle which pervades the entire Divine economy, and in the light of which all doctrinal truths are reduced to harmony and ii'radiated with new beauty. The author then enters directly upon the consideration of Man, and in the peculiarities of his being, as personal and generic, in his moral and spiritual

IN THE SIN OF ADAM. 517

relations to God, and in the dispensations of Providence which have determined and conditioned them, he enconnters those supreme questions concerning the law, sin and death ; concerning redemption, holiness and life ; concerning, in short, the two great covenants exhausting the Divine dealings with man, which constitute the sum and substance of Chris- tian Theology. In the prosecution of these high themes he has exhibited abilities of no common order. He has en- deavoured everywhere to find the one in the many, to trace facts to their principles, and to reconcile the testimonies of Scripture with the inductions of a sound philosophy. He has no charity for error. From the beginning of the book to the end he keeps up a running fire against Pelagians and Hopkinsians, Avhom he evidently regards as the pests of the Church, left, like the remnants of the nations among the Jews, to be pricks in the eyes and thorns in the sides, as a punishment for unfaithfulness in the work of extermination. His eye never pities, nor his hand spares. Wherever he finds an enemy of God and His truth, he never declines the contest ; and is quite content to leave the choice of weapons to his antagonist, being equally ready to assail heresy with the sword of the Spirit, and science, falsely so called, with the weapons of right reason. That he has done good service to the cause of sound doctrine cannot be denied. His chap- ters on Providence, the Eternal Plan, the Principle of the Law, the Nature of Sin, and on the various phases of Op- timism, are singularly happy specimens of judicious specula- tion. The chapter on Providence, particularly, is entitled to great praise ; and though we are not sure that he has done justice to McCosh, and are quite certain that, in relation to things generated and corruptible, he will find it difficult to excogitate a better theory of identity than that of Edwards properly restrained, yet the M'hole discussion touching the connection betwixt God and His works is sound and scrip- tural. It strikes us as a fault of the book that it betrays something of a captious spirit, a tendency to minute excep- tions. Dr. Baird detects an error where others can see only

518 NATURE OF OUR INTEREST

a fault of expression, and belabours opinions with great ve- hemence which the reader finds it impossible to discriminate from his own. Against Edwards, particukirly, he has an inveterate spite. His doctrine of causation, his scheme of identity and his theory of the will, as well as special forms of theological opinion, are made the subjects of severe and biting criticism. In some of his strictures. Dr. Baird is un- questionably right; but in relation to the will we confess ourselves utterly at a loss to discover the difference in their fundamental principles between the doctrines of Edwards and himself. If Dr. Baird's theory is not one of rigid, ab- solute determinism, we are unable to understand him ; and if it is, it is a matter of comparatively little moment whether the immediate determining cause be called a motive or an impulse, since in either case its efficacy is grounded in the nature. What the man is determines what he does as clearly according to Edwards as according to onr author, and no man has given more prominence to innate habits and dispositions as controlling the will than Edwards.

But without dwellino;; longer on minor and incidental points, we hasten to the main subject of the book. The light which the author thinks that he has thrown upon the doctrine of original sin constitutes the distinguishing fea- ture of the work, and gives it whatever claim it may have to special consideration as a theological contribution. He has a theory which, in his judgment, relieves the question of hereditary sin of most, if not of all, its difficulties. He can show how we are born guilty and depraved without any imputation upon the goodness or justice of God, or any per- plexity in the notions of sin and holiness. The whole subject is perfectly clear to his mind, and the design of his book is to make it perfectly clear to the minds of others. Would that his success were commensurate with his aim ! The chances are certainly against him. In a matter which penetrates into the lowest depths of human consciousness, which lays hold of the highest interests of the soul, which has agitated the most devout minds, and elicited the most earnest and

IX THE SIN OF ADAM. 519

anxious thoughts of the profoundest thinkers for eighteen centuries — in which all, without exception, have failed, and the more profoundly they have thought the more intensely they have exclaimed, " Oh the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!" — on such a subject the presumption is that no new light has dawned upon the world, either from Scripture or consciousness, to dispel the obscurity which enshrouds it. We have read Dr. Baird's book with no little care, and while acknowledging its merits in other respects, we are constrained to say that, in reference to its main design, its success is no exception to the general rule. He has solved one mystery by the substi- tution of another, or rather buried the mystery altogether in impenetrable darkness. His theory briefly resolves itself into the doctrine of a numerical identity of nature between Adam and his posterity, in consequence of which his sin is not constructively and legally, but strictly and properly, theirs. The thing which transgressed, and became guilty and corrupt in him, is the very identical thing which reap- pears in us, and of course brings its guilt and corruption with it. The only mystery in the case is that of the reap- pearance of the same thing in different forms of personal manifestation. This depends upon the law of generation. Dr. Baird, accordingly, lays out his whole strength upon that law, as being the keystone of the arch which supports his structure. He endeavours to show that it involves the com- munication, not of a similar or like, but of numerically the same, nature from the parent to the child. The father, sub- stantially and essentially, though not personally, is repro- duced in the offspring. This is the theory, as compen- diously as we can express it, upon which the author has undertaken to solve the probleni of the Fall.

Of course, in all this there is nothing new. It is as old as the introduction of Eealism into the Christian Church. The author himself, in his preliminary historical sketch, has treart:ed us to some rare specimens of this style of thinking,

520 NATURE OF OUR INTEREST

and we have lying before us, from Anselm and the oppo- nents of Roscelin and Abelard, illustrations equally rich of the same type of speculation. When we read Dr. Baird's lucubrations upon a nature, the law of generation and the relation subsisting between a nature and a person, we almost felt that we had been transported by some mysterious power ■ of enchantment, across the track of centuries, to the clois- ters of mediaeval monks and to the halls of mediaeval uni- versities, and were listening again to the everlasting jangles about entities and quiddities, genera and species which John of Salisbury so graphically describes. Dr. Baird's sympa- thies are with the buried Realism of the past. He has pro- claimed an open revolt against the whole spirit of modern speculation, and has endeavoured to remand philosophy to the frivolous discussions from which w^e had hoped that Bacon had for ever redeemed it. If the proof had not been before our eyes, we could not have believed that in the nine- teenth century a man was to be found, out of " Laputa or the Empire," Avho could seriously undertake to solve theo- logical problems by an appeal to the exploded henads of the Realists, or gravely attribute a real substantive existence to genera and species. The book is, in this respect, as an American production, a downright curiosity. It is a reac- tion against the entire current of modern thought, not only in theology, but in philosophy — as formal a protest against Nominalism, and the spirit of the inductive philosophy grounded in Nominalism, as against the received system of orthodoxy grounded in the same doctrine. It is, at least, five centuries too late, and five centuries ago it would not have been needed. Realism is dead and buried, and the progress of human knowledge, in every department of inquiry, since the thorough installation of the inductive method, is a sufficient proof that the death of Realism is the resurrection of truth. Dr. Baird has not given his alle- giance to Realism in the form in which it was maintained by Plato, and in which it first entered into Christian specula- tion. He expressly denies the separate and independent

IX THE SIN OF ADAM. 521

existence of universals, universaUa ante rem. He embraces it as it Avas modified by Aristotle, universaUa in re. His doctrine is, " that universals are, in a certain sense, realities in nature, but that the general conceptions are merely logi- cal, the universals not having an existence of their own sepa- rate from the individuals through which they were mani- fested." The last clause of this sentence expresses precisely the Peripatetic doctrine as it was commonly understood. The first clause we are not certain that we fully compre- hend. When Dr. Baird says that general conceptions are merely logical, does he mean that they do not represent the realities which, in some sense, exist in nature ? If so, then no reliance is to be placed upon them. They have only a formal validity, and subjective consistency of thought be- comes no guarantee for objective consistency of being. If the universals which we think are not the universals which exist in nature, it is obvious that we cannot pass from one to the other, or make them the subjects of common predi- cates. If the universals which we think are the universals which exist in nature, then how can it be said that our con- ceptions are merely logical ? They evidently have an ob- jective validity. This language, in the mouth of a Nomi- nalist, we can perfectly comprehend, and we can also under- stand how a Peripatetic Kealist can consistently maintain that our general conceptions are derived from individuals and dependent upon them — that they are logical in the sense that they are formed by the logical processes of anal- ysis and comparison ; but how he could represent them as merely logical — that is, as purely formal — we are unable to perceive. Dr. Baird restricts the existence of universals to a "certain sense." This qualifying clause means simply that they are never detached from individuals, that their existence is not separate and independent ; but still he makes a real distinction between the particular and universal as pertaining to the same object. In every individual thing there arc, according to him, two elements — the principle of individuation, or that which makes the thing to be this

522 NATURE OF OUR INTEREST

and not that, or that and not this, and the principle of universality, which determines it to a certain genus. These are not different forms of contemplating the object, or different relations in which its properties and qualities are viewed ; they are really different things — as distinct as the Persons of the Trinity, and as incapable of being divided. The universal realizes itself in the individual, but is not to be confounded with it. It pervades it without being a part of it. 1. In estimating the value of Dr. Baird's contributions, the first thing to be done is to settle precisely his notion of nature. What do we mean when we speak of the nature of a man, of the nature of *a thing, and particularly of a moral nature? We confess that we have experienced no little difficulty in trying to compass the precise sense in which Dr. Baird uses the term. In the first place, he ex- plicitly denies that it can be legitimately used to designate " our conception of the mere aggregate of characteristics belonging to a given substance." ^ Does this mean, that to signalize the properties of a substance, and to indicate the mode of their coexistence, is not to define its nature ? — that its nature is something more than the sum and combination of its attributes ? If so, he distinctly repudiates the sense in which it becomes applicable to a class-notion, and the only sense in which it can enter into the description of an object. Man's nature does not consist of those qualities and faculties which are manifested in consciousness. It is nothing personal, nothing individual, and nothing even generic, in the sense of an abstraction of what is similar in the consciousness of the race. It is not thought, will nor emotion, singly or combined in the unity of a personal sub- ject. Neither, according to Dr. Baird, is the nature some- thing relative and accidental. In this sense it is used by divines when the predicates holy and sinful are applied to it. The phrase " moral nature" commonly denotes the posses- sion of the faculties which are necessary to moral agency, while a " sinful " or a " holy nature" designates the pervading

1 ra£?e 149.

IN THE SIN OF ADAM. 523

attitude of the soul in relation to God and the Divine law. There are passages in which Dr. Baird seems to use the term in both these senses. " A moral nature," he says, " is one, the essential characteristics of. which are reason, will, the moral sense or conscience."^ Again, the nature is used as a synonym of the heart,^ and must accordingly be taken as the complement of the affinities and tendencies which belong to th*e soul. It is that which lies at the root of the will, and conditions and determines all its operations. But, with these occasional exceptions, the whole current of his argument re- quires the sense of prevailing habitude or disposition to be discounted as impertinent. In this sense the idea of a nu- merical identity of nature in diiferent persons becomes sim- ply absurd. If nature expresses the tendencies or attitudes of the soul, the mode of its existence, or the law under which it exists and acts, it must obviously be numerically diiferent, though it may be logically the same, in the case of every human being. A mode cannot be conceived apart from that of which it is a mode. To be and to be in some definite condition are the same thing. Natural or abstract being is impossible. Each soul must, therefore, have its own nature. It may be holy, it may be sinful — it must be one or the other, and its holiness or sinfulness is its own. These terms define the moral character of the particular being. Other souls may also be sinful or holy, and their holiness or sinful- ness is also their own. The ci'ookedness of one tree is not the crookedness of another. The posture of the soul is as strictly individual as the posture of the body. We might as w^ell say that the hump-back of two men is numerically the same deformity, as to confound the moral obliquity of one man with the moral obliquity of another. The identity of these relations is simply the similarity of nature by which they are comprehended under a common term. Hence, according to that conception of nature which makes it the moral attitude of the soul, the depravity of A is no more the depravity of B than the personal qualities of A are the per- 1 Page 236. 2 p^gg 160.

524 NATUEE OF OUR INTEREST

sonal qualities of B. A numerical identity of nature and a personal diversity of existence are flat contradictions. Dis- counting both these senses of nature, what other sense re- mains ? Dr. Baird undertakes to enlighten us. In the first place, his natwe " is not expressive of a mere abstraction, but designates an actual thing, an objective reality." ^ This actual thing, or objective reality, is the "sum of the perma- nent forces which were at the beginning incorporated in the constitution of Adam and the creatures, and which, by their severalty, determine and define the several species of the living things."^ Here the Realism strongly crops out. Adam's constitution, in so far as he was an individual, is one thing : there is incorporated in it a set of forces which makes the henad humanity, and in that set of forces his nature must be sought. Substances, we are told, " were at the beginning endowed with forces which are distinctive and abiding, and which in organic nature flow distributively in continuous order to the successive generations of the crea- tures." ^ It is clear, from these passages, that Dr. Baird un- derstands by nature a real entity, active, efficient and power- ful, which enters into and conditions the individual, but is not strictly a part of it — a something in which the individual lives and moves, and which is entirely distinct from its own properties or states. Accordingly, he explains our oneness with Adam upon the baldest principles of Realism. " Our oneness," he says, " does not express the fact merely that we and Adam are alike, but that we are thus alike because the forces which are in us and make us what we are were in him, and are numerically the same which in him constituted his nature and gave him his likeness. The body which is impelled by two diverse forces, x and y, moves in the direc- tion of neither of them, but in that of a different force, z, the resultant of the two. Yet is neither of the forces lost, but merely modified, each by contact with the other. The new force, z, is simply x modified by y. So, in the successive generations of the human race, so far as their traits are the I Page 150. ^ Ibid. ^ Page 148.

IN THE SIN OF ADAM. 525

result of propagation, so far as they are the offspring of their parents, theirs are but the same identical forces which were in their parents, only appearing under new forms." ^

But the crowning proof that Dr. Baird means something more than mere habits and dispositions, or an all-controlling generic habit, or disposition, or tendency, or law (for all these terms have been employed to express the same idea), is that he makes the nature the proper and exclusive ground of moral obligation. The person is only a contrivance to reach the nature. The seat of obligation is not the man, but his nature. " From all this it inevitably follows," says he, " that all the responsibilities and obligations which can in any conceivable way attach to a person must have their ground in the nature and attach themselves essentially to it. Since, in general, every kind of obligation implies the exer- cise of some kind of efficiency, and since the moral nature is the only principle of moral efficiency in a person, it follows that all moral obligations must lay hold of the nature, else they are altogether nugatory and void."^ If by nature were here meant the properties of the personal soul, as endued with faculties adapted to moral distinctions, the meaning would be proper enough. But that sense the author has explicitly repudiated. Nature is nothing that constitutes a man — it is only what makes the man. To say that he here means moral habits and dispositions would be to make him write the most preposterous nonsense. The nature in that sense is not the subject, but the end of the obligation of the law. It is the very thing which the law requires. To have a holy heart, to love God supremely, to love our neighbours as ourselves, — these are the very things which constitute the matter of the command. The very essence of obedience is the possession of a right nature. How absurd, therefore, to say that they are the things bound or to which the command is addressed ! Dr. Baird evidently means — or he means no- thing— that behind the personal soul, with its essential cog- nitive and moral faculties, there exists a mysterious entity 1 PaM 150. 2 Page 249.

526 NATURE OP OUR INTEREST

of whose efficiency this soul, with its properties and attributes, is only the instrument. To that entity the law is addressed ; that entity God holds responsible in the person ; that entity is the substance of the man. The rest is mere contingency and accident. His meaning is put beyond all doubt by the comparison which he institutes between humanity and the Godhead. "A person," he tells us, "is a several subsistence which is endowed with a moral nature. The word person is expressive of the severalty, Avhile the phrase moral agent in- dicates the efficiency of such a subsistence. In the blessed Trinity each several subsistence is a Person of whom the three subsist in common in one undivided nature and essence. Among the angelic hosts each one is a several person, having a distinct and several nature. Among men a nearer likeness to God is seen in a plurality of persons, possessing a several and distributive property in one common nature. The re- lationship which subsists between men by virtue of their community of nature is a shadow of the Divine unity, which falls infinitely short of the intimacy and identity which are realized in the blessed Persons of the Godhead."^ Now, when it is remembered that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are the same in substance, that this is precisely the ground of their being one God and equal in power and glory, it is obvious that Dr. Baird must mean that the ground of identity with the individuals of the human species is their possession of a common substance. Their community of natures thus resolves itself into community of substance. And as the substance of the Godhead is that Divine spirit which can be equally predicated of the three Persons, so the substance of humanity must be that spiritual essence by virtue of which each man becomes a living soul. Adam's soul was the same substance with the souls of all his posterity. The forms of consciousness which this substance has assumed are as manifold and various as the human creatures in which it has been found, but the substance itself remains ever the same. The whole substance of the race was created in Adam

1 Page 237.

IN THE SIX OF ADAM. 527

— no new human substance has been created since. Man is essentially one spirit. As a dozen chairs made from the same oak are one matter, so a dozen souls sprung from Adam are the same spirit.

We have thus endeavoured to elicit Dr. Baird's notion of human nature. We have seen that it is not found in any of those properties and aifections which constitute the j)ersonal consciousness; it is not the habitude or tendency of these properties and attributes to any given mode of manifestation ; it is nothing relative or accidental. It is the ultimate ground of personality, the material condition of intelligence, responsibility and will. It is an efficient power or a com- plement of forces which absolutely conditions and determines all the activities and all the states of the individual. It is the bond of unity to the whole race. It sustains the same relation to human persons that the substance of the Godhead sustains to the ineffable Three. It is clearly, therefore, the substance of the soul, considered as the substratum or basis of all personal consciousness — as that Avhicli contains the forces, the entire sum of the forces, that characterize the human sj^ecies. Adam and his posterity are one substance ; the same spiritual essence which underlay his consciousness underlies theirs ; they are partakers, not of a like, but of a common nature. This is the doctrine as far as we have been able to apprehend it. Hence the soul and natwe are fre- quently used as interchangeable terms. For example : " The will is the soul disposed to the active embrace of the affini- ties which it realizes. It is the nature viewed in the light of its tendency to give expressions to the aptitudes which it intuitively feels." ^ Again : " Edwards has much on this point ; but entirely fails to bring out the fundamental fact, that at last it is the soul itself which endows the motive with the character in which it appears. The nature of the trans- gressor is the cause of his sins."" Throughout the whole discussion upon the subject of the will, the soul, the nature of the soul, and the moral nature, are used as equivalent 1 Page 160. 2 iijid.

528 NATURE OF OUR INTEREST

terms. One other passage will close this part of the subject. Considered as being appointed to glorify God and enjoy Him for ever, the elements, Dr. Baird tells us, which are of most significance in the constitution of men are "their moral natures and personality. The word nature we have for- merly defined to be the designation of a permanent force dwelling in a substance. A moral nature is one the es- sential characteristics of which are reason, will and the moral sense or conscience." These faculties, it will be no- ticed, do not constitute, but characterize, a moral nature. They themselves are not the permanent, abiding force which is called moral, but only the marks or signs of it. This force, therefore, can be nothing less than the substance of the soul manifesting its moral peculiarities through these facul- ties of the personal consciousness as its organs. The author subsequently adds, " the proper subject of a moral nature is a spiritual substance. In no other mode have we any reason to imagine it possible for it to exist at all." ^ The substance of the soul, as endowed with the forces which realize them- selves in the faculties and energies of the personal conscious- ness, of which these operations are the signs and charac- teristics— that substance, as a causal force, which underlies them all, and conditions and determines them all — that sub- stance is the nature. Or if there be any distinction between them, the substance is the ground and the nature the causal energies which are contained in it. That is, the soul con- sidered as simple being may be called substance ; considered as a cause or as endowed with power, it is nature ; the word nature expressing directly the forces, and substance that in which they inhere. But for all the purposes of speculation the diiference is purely formal. A substance to human thought is only the correlative of the properties which manifest it.

2. The next point to which we invite the attention of the reader, as further developing the philosophy of Dr. Baird, and furnisliing cumulative proof of the truth of what we 1 Pages 226, 227.

IN THE SIN OF ADAM. 529

have said, is the relation subsisting between person and na- ture. It is briefly that of a cause to its eiFect, The person is a jiroduct of the nature. " It is certain/'^ says he, " that nothing may be predicated of the person which does not grow out of the nature. And if this must be achiiitted, there appears to be no ground on which it can be claimed that the nature, because existing in another person, is entitled to exemption from its essential guilt. The opposite view as- sumes the absurdity that there may be and is that, in the person, which has a subsistency and moral agency of its own — a competence to responsibility and capacity to appreciate and experience the power of the law's sanctions distinct from and independent of the nature. Is it said to be unjust to hold ray person bound for an act which was committed in the person of another ? The objection would be valid were the person a force to control or modify the nature. But since the contrary is the case, it does not appear reasonable that exemption should be claimed on that ground. In fact, the nature, which was the cause of my person, was there. And as every power or principle of efficiency which is in the eifect must have been in its cause, it follows inevitably that everything in me, upon which resistance to the apostasy might be imagined, w^as actually there, and, so far from op- posing, took part in the treason. We sinned in Adam, and fell with him in his first transgression. The accident of my personal existence, had it then been realized, would have added no new influences to those which were actually en- gaged, and would not have modified the result nor changed the responsibility attaching to it. The objection here con- sidered strikes at the root of all responsibility, as well for personal as for native sin. If I am not justly responsible for Adam's transgression, because only my nature was effi- cient in it, then may I, with equal propriety, claim exemp- tion in respect to personal sins, since in them my person is the mere subject of the action, and my nature is the sole efficient cause."

1 Page 257. Vol. L— 34

5S0 NATURE OF OUR INTEREST

The nature not only generates the person, but the person is merely an organization or instrument through which the properties of the nature can be unfolded in action. Without the person, the nature is a power without tools. Its appe- tencies can find no means of gratification. If it could be conceived as existing at all — which it cannot be — its forces would have to assume the form of a vain conatus. They would be simply strivings after being or manifestation. But the person furnishes them with all that is necessary for a full and distinct realization of their energies. Of course the person in itself is quite subordinate ; and all the rhetoric about its intrinsic dignity and its superiority to things, its essential rights and its ethical importance, is but attributing to the casket the properties which belong to the jewel en- shrined in it. Dr. Baird distinctly affirms that the person is but an accident of the nature — inseparable to be sure, but only an accident — and that its whole moral significance is to be resolved into the nature. ' It is no great thing, therefore, to be able to say " I." It is not the personal sul)ject, it is the impersonal forces which move it, that constitute the real dignity of man. All the faculties which distinguish the being that I call " Myself" — memory, intelligence, con- science and will — are but the organs through which a being that is not myself plays off its fantastic tricks. I am a pup- .pet, called into being by this mysterious power, only that it may have something to sport with and develop its resistless forces. Never was a poor demoniac more completely at the bidding of the possessing fiend than the personal subject at the beck of this impersonal nature. Other philosophers have foolishly imagined that they were going to the very core of man's nature, essentially considered, when they de- scribed it as personal. They have signalized this peculiarity as that which contains in it the ground of every other dis- tinction from the rest of this sublunary world ; other beings are things, man is a person. It is his nature to be a person. But Dr. Baird sharply distinguishes, though he does not di- vide, nature and personality. The person is to the nature

IN THE SIN OF ADAM. 531

what the eye is to vision or the muscles to motion. The following passage is an explicit statement of his doctrine :

" Whilst thus all moral obligations arise out of the con- stitution of the nature, and lay hold essentially upon it, the subject against which they are enforced is the person in which the nature subsists ; and this for evident reasons. It is only in the form of a person that a moral nature can sub- sist. All that is proper to the person, or in any way cha- racteristic of it as such, grows out of the nature, and is de- signed and constructed as a means for the activity of the na- ture ; so that the person is but the nature embodied in a form adapted to its efficient action. It is the organization through which the nature may meet its responsibilities by performing the duties demanded of it. Since, therefore, the nature can neither exist nor therefore be responsible, neither recognize nor satisfy its responsibilities, but as it is embodied in a per- son ; and since to it as thus embodied the obligations which rest upon it are, for this reason, by God addressed, it follows that persons are the immediate and only subjects of moral law and responsibility. The nature comprehends all the forces which are proper to the person in which it subsists. Among these are not only included those of which obliga- tion or obedience may be supposed, but those susceptibilities upon which may be predicated the realization of suffering, the endurance of punishment. There is, therefore, nothing in the person of which exemption can be imagined as apart from the nature. Were it possible to take away the nature and yet the person remain — were it possible to suppose any other forces proper to the person than all its proper forces — then would there be room for the conception that the person might be irresponsible for tlie nature, and have a responsi- bility distinct from it. But so long as it is true that the moral nature is that wdiich makes the person what it is in all moral respects, and that the only existence of the nature is in the person, it will follow that the attempt to separate the obligations of the nature and of the person is absurd and preposterous. The person is bound under the responsibili-

532 NATURE OF OUR INTEREST

ties which attach to the nature as subsisting therein, and can be held to no others than such as arise therein. The form of the obligation is indeed modified by the accidents of the person ; but such accidental forms are always capable of resolution into general principles which attach essentially to the nature." ^

3. Let us next attend to the law of generation. In Adam the nature and the person were concreated. He was, in the first moment of his existence, both an individual and the species, a man and humanity. In him the nature of the entire race was created once for all, and from him is propa- gated by generation, and so descends to all his seed.^ But what does the doctrine of propagation involve? " It implies that all the powers and forces which are, or to the end of time shall be, in the living creatures, vegetable and animal, by which the earth is filled and peopled, have their origin in those creatures which were made at the beginning of the world, and were implanted in them thus to be developed and perpetuated in their seed to the end of time. It is not that the powers which are developed in the oiFspring have a like- ness merely to those of the parent. This would be to at- tribute the whole matter to a continual exercise of creative energy. But the forces of the oifspriug are derived by prop- agation from the parents. Those very forces, numerically, were in the parents, and so back to the original progenitors. And yet it is as undeniable as it is inscrutable that the en- tire sum of forces which operate in the living creation, vege- table and animal, were created and implanted in the primeval creatures at the beginnino;." ^ Dr. Baird further teaches that the first man is the efficient cause of the existence of all other men. God made Adam, and Adam made the rest of the race. The whole man, in his entire existence as spirit and body, is the effect of which generation is the cause. " We take the position," says Dr. Baird, " that the entire man proceeds by generation from the parents. We do not say, we do not mean, that the soul is generated by the soul, 1 Page 250. ^ Page 256. ' Pages 144, 145.

IN THE SIN OF ADAM. 533

or the body by the body. But man, in his soul, body and spirit, is an unit composed of diverse elements, yet having but one personality, in which the soul is the element of uni- versal efficiency. Of that personality, efficient thus, it is that we predicate generation, and, according to the maxim that like begets like, we hold the child, in its entire nature, to be the offsj)ring of the parent. The entire race of man was in our first parents, not individually and personally, but natively and seminally, as the i)lant is in the seed. When Adam was created, among the powers which constituted his nature was that of generation. His substance was made to be an efficient cause, of which posterity, taken in their whole being, physical and spiritual, are the normal and necessary effect. Thus, in Adam and Eve the human race had not a potential existence merely ; but God, in creating the first pair, put into efficient operation the sufficient and entire cause of the existence of their seed."'^

Generation, according to this account, performs two won- ders. It first propagates the nature, and next, as the indis- pensable condition of the existence of the nature, it creates the person in whom the nature is to appear. The person is as truly the effect of the causal energy of the parent as the communication of the nature. Here there occurs to us a difficulty which we crave to have, solved. The nature of Adam and his posterity, we are told, is one, because it de- scends to us by generation. The essence of generation is to reproduce the same. If now the law of generation estab- lishes an identity of nature between the parent and the child, why not also an identity of person? If the person is as truly its product as the nature, how comes it that the gene- rated person should be different, while the generated nature is the same? If to generate is to propagate, why not the pei'son be a propagation as well as the nature? Then, again, what is it that generates ? Dr. Baird answers. The nature through the person. What is generated ? The nature in a person. ^\^hat now restricts the identity to one part of the 1 Pages 340, 3-11.

534 NATURE OF OUR INTEREST

product, while that which answers to both parts is active in the production ? To us the dilemma seems inevitable that either every human being descended from Adam is the same person with him, or that the law of generation concludes no- thing as to the identity of nature. If a person can beget a numerically different person, we do not see why he cannot beget a numerically difterent nature. Besides this we have a vague suspicion that a cause and its eifect are not commonly construed as the same thing. They are certainly diiferent in thought, whatever they may be in existence. If the cause does nothing more than continue itself, if what is called the effect is only a change in the mode of existence of the cause — a phenomenal variety of being — we crave to understand how the universe can be really different from its Author? Dr. Baird says that Adam is the cause, the efficient cause, of the existence of his posterity. If now his causal energy terminates in the" reproduction of himself, and they must be one with him because he is their cause, the bearing of the principle upon the theistic argument is too palpable to be mistaken. AVe shall land in but one substance in the uni- verse, the ovzcoz ov of the Platonists, and all else will be shadow and appearance.

The reader must have been struck already with the close correspondence between tlie reasonings of Dr. Baird iu rela- tion to the nature of man, and the reasonings of the Pan- theists in relation to God. They postulate a great, imper- sonal, all-pervading ground of universal being, as he postu- lates a great, impersonal, all-pervading ground of human manifestation. The primal substance of the Pantheist is the life of all that lives, and yet has no life of its own ; at the root of every consciousness, and yet without consciousness itself; the radical principle of all knowledge, and yet unable to utter the formula, "Behold I know." So Dr. Baird's nature has no separate being of its own, and yet gives being to the man ; is without intelligence or self-hood, and yet the basis of them both. The real being of the Pantheist condi- tions all, while itself is unconditioned ; determines all differ-

IN THE SIX OF ADAM. 535

ences, while itself without differences ; is the secret of all relations, and yet absolved in itself from every relation. Equally absolute in reference to man is Dr. Baird's nature. And, as with the Pantheist, all that we call creatures are but phenomena of the primordial substance — forms in which it realizes itself; — so with Dr. Baird all human persons are but phenomena of his original nature — the vestments with which it clothes itself in order to become visible, or the in- struments it seizes in order to act. The phenomenal mani- festations of the Pantheist obey the law of development ; those of Dr. Baird, the law of generation. Each is a phi- losophy of one in the many. They both, too, arise from the same process of thought. The highest genus must necessa- rily absorb all differences and potentially contain them, while none can be predicated of it. The descent develops these differences in increasing fullness until we come to in- dividuals, which logically are of no value. The void abso- lute is the logical result of a Realism which attributes real existence to genera and species. Beginning at the bottom of the line, we remove difference after difference until we reach undifferenced being — the rb ou. If the genus is real, it develops from itself, as you come down the line, all the varieties of subordinate classes in which it is found. The nothing in this way is made to yield everything. The highest genus, though itself nothing, yet, as a genus, con- tains essentially all properties and all attributes. We have before us a curious illustration of the tendencies of Realism to end in nihilism in an elaborate argument of Fredigesius, which concludes with the famous axiom of Hegel, God equal nothing. The logic is unassailable ; the absurdity lies in at- tributing existence to general names. Once give up the maxim of Nominalists, that all real beings are singular, and the law of classification expresses not only a process of thought but the order of being, and you cannot stop until you reacli an ens realissimum which, at one and the same time, includes the ^vhole fullness of existence, and is totally void of predicates — at once a plenum and a vacuum. The

536 NATURE OF OUR INTEREST

argument is short, simple and unanswerable. If a species is a real substance, numerically the same in all the indi- viduals, the genus must be a substance numerically the same in all its species ; and thus, in ascending from genus to genus, we extend the numerical identity of substance until we arrive at absolute being, which is numerically the same in all things, and which, being without attributes, must be both everything and nothing. We are quite confident that all the absurd speculations concerning the absolute which have aimed to take away from us a jjersonal God, and to re- solve all existence into an unconditioned unity of substance, are but offshoots of the spirit of Realism. The body has been buried, but the ghost still hovers about the haunts of speculation.

While on this subject of generation, there are other diffi- culties which we would like to have solved. Its law is that it propagates the same nature — not a like, but numerically the same, nature. Does this nature exist whole and entire in each individual ? If so, how can it be found in millions and millions of persons, and yet be only one? How can each man have all of it, and yet all have it at the same time ? Upon this point we are like Snug the joiner, rather dull of comprehension. Or is the nature divided ? Then each man has only a distributive share, and if in proportion to the number of heirs the inheritance is diminished the last man that is to be has the prospect of a very slender interest. If, too, original sin grows less with the diminution in the quan- tum of nature, the race stands a chance of being considerably improved by the very law which has ruined it. Hoav will Dr. Baird solve this problem of the one and the many ? He has fairly raised the question, and he ought to have answered it. He has scouted the old doctrine that generation pro- duces sons like their fathers ; he ought to have shown us how they and their fathers can both have identically the same nature at the same time, without making that nature mani- fold or without dividing it. We wish to see him fairly en- counter the question which baffled the genius of Plato, and

IN THE SIN OF ADAM. 537

wliicli Socrates pronounced to be a wonder in nature. It is a question wliicli every phase of Realism gives rise to, and when a man in the nineteenth century revolts to that phi- losophy, he ought to have something to say upon this cai'- dinal matter.

As to the doctrine, for which Dr. Baird contends, of the Traduction of souls, we regard it, in a theological point of view, as of very little importance. Holding, as we do, that the child is numerically a ditferent being from the parent — different in substance, different in person, different in nature, different in everything in which he is distinct, though in all essential respects precisely like the parent — we do not see that the doctrine of original sin is relieved of a single difficulty l)y any theory as to the mode of the production of the man. No matter how called into being, he is a separate, indivisible moral agent, and he is either mediately or immediately the creature of God. Generation is but the process through which God creates him, and whatever causes, independently of himself, condition his being are ultimately to be referred to God. If it were wrong to create him under guilt, it is wrong to permit him to be generated under guilt. The only effect which the doctrine of Traduction has is to widen the interval between the direct agency of God and the com- mencement of the soul ; but make the chain of second causes as long as you please, you reach God at last, and these determining intermediate influences do not shift from Him the responsibility under which that soul begins to be. They are independent of it, and its state is as truly to be re- ferred to His will as if He created it at once by the breath of His mouth. Let it be granted that the soul begins its being in a certain state, and the con(;lusion is inevitable, either that the state in question cannot be sinful, cannot be charged upon the soul as guilt, or you must seek some other ground for the imputation than the mode of that soul's pro- duction. The great difficulty is how it comes to be guilty in God's sight before it had a being, and it is no solution of this difficulty to tell us how it received its being. It is not,

538 NATURE OF OUR INTEREST

and cannot be responsible for its state, unless that state is grounded in guilt "which can be justly charged upon it. If it passes through a dirty channel and becomes filthy its filth is misfortune and not sin unless it passes through that channel in consequence of a sin which can be regarded as its own. Hence, we have never felt any zeal upon the question of Traduction as a theological problem. If the child is a new being, it is a matter of no moment whether it is created at first or second hand. The guilt or innoceuee of its state must turn upon quite other grounds than those which determine how it came to be at all. Dr. Baird's hypothesis would solve the difficulty completely if it were not wanting in one capital condition — the possibility of being true. It implies a palpable contradiction in terms. It makes a million to be one, and one to be a million. It relieves perplexity by ab- surdity.

We cannot dismiss this subject without entering a caveat against the repeated representations of Dr. Baird, that the parent is the cause of the child. Stapfer is even still more extravagant in the manner in which he has reasoned upon the causal relation. And they both mean not material or instrumental causes, but causes strictly and properly efficient. But can such language be vindicated ? Consider the parent in the only light in which he has any ethical value, that of a personal, voluntary agent, and is he the maker of the child ? Does he produce by a conscious exercise of power, and with a predetermined reference to the nature of the effect to be achieved ? Does he act from design, or is he a blind, me- chanical instrument? Can he fix the size, shape, bodily constitution or personal features of his offspring ? Can he determine the bias or extent of its intellectual capacities ? Has his will — and that Dr. Baird tells us is the exponent of the nature — anything to do with the shaping and mould- ing of the peculiarities which attach to the foetus ? Can he even determine that there shall be any foetus at all ? It is perfectly clear that he is in no other sense a cause than as an act of his constitutes the occasion upon which processes

IN THE SIN OF ADAM. 539

connected with the vital and material constitution of the sexes, and entirely independent of his will, are instituted, which, under the providence of God, terminate in an off- spring which the Almighty has moulded and fashioned ac- cording to His will. He simply touches a spring which sets powers at work that he can neither control nor modify. He is only a link in a chain of instruments through which God calls into being, and the organic law through which all the changes take place that form and develop the child is but the expression, in the last analysis, of the efficiency of God. We cannot say, therefore, that the parent is the effi- cient cause of his offspring. The relation between them is not that of cause and effect, if by cause be meant anything more than an instrument or means. Our parents have no more made us than we have made ourselves. We are God's creatures, and owe our being to His sovereign will.

The reader has now before him the grounds on which Dr. Baird explains our interest in the sin of Adam. It was strictly and properly ours — as really so as if it had been com- mitted in our own persons. Each man can say, to use lan- guage which he has quoted with approbation, " there sinned in him not I, but this which is I. My substance sinned, but not my person ; and since the substance does not exist otherwise than in a person, the sin of my substance attaches to my person, although not a personal sin. For a personal sin is such as, not that which I am, but I who am, commit — in which Odo and not humanity sins — in which I, a per- son, and not a nature, sins. But inasmuch as there is no person without a nature, the sin of a person is also the sin of a nature, although it is not a sin of nature." In a single phrase, Adam was every man, and therefore every man sin- ned in Adam. The very identical thing which makes any one a man is the thing which apostatized in his great trans- gression, and therefore there is no marvel that it sliould be held guilty wherever it is found. The rogue is a rogue, no matter under what disguise he appears. The same is the same, and must always continue so ; and original sin is there-

640 NATURE OF OUR INTEREST

fore as necessary anJ inevitable as the law of identity. The imputation of guilt is disembarrassed of all difficulty, for it is nothing more than a finding of the real facts in the case. It finds the race to be Adam, and it simply says so. There is no fiction of law, no constructive unity of persons, no mere relations, whether moral or political. There is simply the naked fact that every human being did actually apostatize in the person of Adam in the whole essence of his humanity. There are some other conclusions which seem to us to fol- low with as rigid necessity from Dr. Baird's premises as the denial of constructive guilt: (1.) In the first place, they make every man responsible for every sin of Adam. In every sin his nature was implicated — it was his nature that made him capable of sin or holiness — and his nature is ex- pressed in every determination of his w'ill. Now if that na- ture passes to his posterity precisely as it was in him, it must pass burdened with all the guilt of all the transgressions of his life. We are, therefore, answerable not for the one offence alone, which seems to have been the idea of Paul, but for all his iniquity. His personal sins cannot be de- tached from the nature. The person is only the tool of the nature ; and therefore, as growing out of the nature, and conditioned upon the existence of the nature, all his personal shortcomings are really and truly ours. Dr. Baird has re- coiled from this conclusion, but the distinction with which he has sought to evade it will not sustain him. " There are two classes of actions which, in this objection, are confounded, but which should be carefully distinguished. Of these one consists in such personal actions as result from the fact that the nature is of a given and determinate character. These, in no respect, change the nature or indicate any change oc- curring in it, but constitute the mere criteria by which the character and strength of its attributes may be known. After their occurrence the nature flows on unchanged to posterity, conveying to them, not the transient accidents which have thus arisen from it, but itself, as essentially it is. To this class belong all those sins of our intermediate ances-

IN THE SIN OF ADAM. 641

tors, "svhieli are here objected to us. These in nowise modify tlie nature, nor are they fruits of any change taking place in it as inherited by them, but are the evidences and fruits of its being wliat it is in the person by whom they are wrought, and to whom therefore they attach. The other class consists of such agency as springing from within constitutes an ac- tion of the nature itself, by which its attitude is changed. The single case referable to this class is that of apostasy — the voluntary self-depravation of a nature created holy. Here, as the nature flows downward in the line of generation, it communicates to the successive members of the race not only itself thus transformed, but, with itself, the moral re- sponsibility which attaches inseparably to it, as active in the transformation wrought by it and thus conveyed." ^

Here, in the first place, it is explicitly stated that the only sin in which the nature is active is that which changes its general attitude — perverts it from holiness and God. After it has become perverted it remains dormant, and the person comes forward as a mere exponent of this perverted state. Does Dr. Baird mean to say that the nature is not implicated in every sin ? If so, he eats his own words, for he has again and again affirmed that the relation of an action to the nature is the sole ground of its moral significance. Besides, how can these actions manifest the nature if they do not spring from it ? If the nature is not their cause, how can we determine anything in regard to its attitude from them as effects ? Moreover, if the nature always conditions the moral determinations of will, these sins are either not voluntary or the nature has ultimately produced them. In the next place, the ground of distinction between those moral actions which indicate a perverted nature, but in which it is not itself active, and those in which it is active, is most ex- traordinary. A man wants to know when his nature is active antl when not ; or what actions modify it and >vhat do not ; and what is the answer of Dr. Baird ? Simply this, that those actions alone directly implicate the nature which 1 Pages 508, 509.

542 NATURE OF OUR INTEREST

change its attitude. The criterion is not in the actions them- selves, but in the effect. That is to say, Dr. Baird was anxious to limit the responsibility of Adam's posterity for his guilt to the single sin of his apostasy, and therefore ex- temporizes a distinction to suit the occasion. He does not show us how it appears that the nature was more active in this sin than in any other — that it was any more self-caused, or that it any more sprang from within. It had graver con- sequences— that will be freely admitted — but the conse- quences of an action do not determine its origin. In the third place, we do not understand what Dr. Baird means when he says that the sins of a fallen being do not modify his nature. If his idea is that they do not change its general attitude, that is clear. But surely they increase the amount of guilt and depravity. The blindness of the sinner may daily become intenser and his heart harder. Are there no modifications of the nature ? A man can fall but once, but surely he may continue to sink lower. He but once turns his back upon God, but surely he can proceed farther in the direction to which he has turned. The body dies but once, but after death it can putrefy. Is putrefaction no modifica- tion of its state ? Dr. Baird's doctrine, if this is his mean- ing, is simply absurd. Every sin modifies the nature ; it strengthens the general habit of depravity, and increases the tendency to repeat itself. There are endless degrees of wick- edness and guilt, from the first act of apostasy to the des- perate and malignant condition of damned spirits. Guilt accumulates and corruption festers. Hence, every sin which he committed modified Adam's nature. He first turned his face from God, and every succeeding one was a step farther from the Holy One. Until renewed, his heart grew harder and his mind darker with every transgression ; his guilt in- creased in the same proportion ; and if his nature were nu- merically the same with ours, his nature must have come to us not only as it was perverted by the first sin, but as it was modified by every subsequent offence. This conclusion is inevitable until Dr. Baird can specify what relation his na-

IN THE SIN OF ADAM. 543

tiire had to the first sin, which it did not have to any other sin. The distinction must not be grounded in the effect, but in the nature of the relation itself.

(2.) Another consequence which follows from Dr. Baird's doctrine — in fact from every doctrine which resolves the propagation of sin exclusively into the parental relation — but more stringently from Dr. Baird's notion of numerical identity, is that Adam, penitent and believing, must have begotten penitent and believing children. Conversion was another change in the attitude of his nature. It, at least, was no transient accident, but revolutionized the nature it- self. Under the influence of Divine grace the renewed na- ture turned again to God and embraced Him as the portion of the soul. Now, if the nature flows from parent to child as it is in the parent — and this must be the case if it is nu- merically the same — then a converted parent must beget converted children. Dr. Baird will certainly admit that if Adam had maintained his integrity. his descendants would have been holy — he would have propagated the nature as it was in him. Having fallen, he propagates the nature as it is now perverted — that is, he still propagates it as it exists in him. If, now, he can propagate as a holy being and pro- j^agate as a fallen being, why not as a renewed being? What is there, we ask, in the new attitude superinduced by Divine grace that prevents it from being imparted likewise ? Or if there be anything, how can that be numerically the same which is radically different in all its aspirations and affections? Can a crooked tree be numerically the same with a straight one ? Can a holy nature and a sinful nature be one ? To state the matter in a very few words : the pa- rent reproduces his nature in the child ; his nature is a re- newed one, therefore the child must be renewed. This is the difficulty which never yet has been solved by those who are reluctant to recognize any other relation betwixt Adam and his seed than that of the parent and child ; and we sus- pect never will be.

4. Having considered the essential principles of Dr.

544 NATURE OF OUR INTEREST

Baird's theory of original sin, we proceed to point out the modifications which, if generally adopted, they would in- evitably work in our current theology. And first, in rela- tion to imputation and guilt. Dr. Baird, as we understand him, does not object to the common definition that guilt is the obligation to punishment arising from the ill desert of sin ; neither would he cancel the distinction between the moral necessity of punishment or that which springs from the inherent righteousness of the case, and the legal or judi- cial necessity which springs from the sentence of the law. To deserve condemnation and to be condemned are not for- mally the same thing. Intrinsic ill desert divines are ac- customed to denominate potential guilt or guilt in the first act — it is dignitas poence. The judicial sentence of condem- nation they call actual guilt, guilt in the second act — obli- gatio ad pcenam. Dr. Baird, however — and in this we agree with him — restricts the term guilt to the ill desert itself, and makes the judicial sentence only the consequence of that. Hence, in strict propriety of speech, guilt is the ground and not the essence of condemnation — the moral and not the legal necessity of punishment. He is guilty who deserves to be condemned, whether he actually is so or not. So far there is no difference of opinion. We also agree with Dr. Baird that the imputation of guilt is simply the declaration of the fact. To condemn a man is to find or pronounce him guilty, and not to make him so. It is a verdict upon the case as it is, and introduces no new element. But the ques- tion arises, Upon what grounds is a man pronounced de- serving of punishment? And here we are compelled to shake hands and part from our brother. He explicitly maintains that the only ground upon which the ill desert of an action can attach to a man is his own personal causal re- lation to it as its author. This we utterly deny. But we do not maintain, as Dr. Baird seems to insinuate, that a man can be pronounced guilty when the sin is not really his. All that we maintain is that a sin may be ours, really and truly ours, and therefore chargeable upon us, when we

IN THE SIN OF ADAM. 545

have not in our own proper persons committed it ; when we have in fact sustained no causal relation to it whatever. This is the point upon which we differ — not whether a man can be punished for what is not his own, but whether there is only one way of a thing's being his own. If there is a just moral sense in wliich an action can be mine without my having actually committed it, then there is a ground upon which it may be righteously imputed to me without my being the cause of it. Dr. Baird has nowhere proved that personal causation is the sole ground of propriety in actions. He asserts it and confidently assumes it, but no- where proves it. His notion is that where there is guilt there must necessarily be the stain. We admit that guilt springs from the stain, but we deny that it is limited to the person in whom the stain is found. We contend that repre- sentation as really establishes the relation of propriety in ac- tions as personal causation — that what a man does by his agent he as truly does as if he did it in his own proper per- son. The maxim expresses the common sense of mankind — qui fac'it per al'mm, faoit per se. The whole system of sponsorship in society is founded upon it, and no common- wealth could hang; toscether for a single s^eneration if the principle were discarded. This is the principle upon which the imputation of Adam's first sin to us proceeds. He was our representative ; he was our head or agent, on proba- tion not for himself alone, but for all who should descend from him by ordinary generation. There can be no question that if he sustained this relation to us, we are implicated in all that he did in this relation. His acts are ours, and we are as responsible for them as if we had committed them ourselves. " We sinned in him, and fell with him in his first transgression."

According to this view there is consistency in the language of our Standards when it is said that what is imputed to us is not our own personal act nor the act of that wdiich subse- quently became ourselves, but the guilt of Adam's first sin. It was the one sin of the one man that ruined us. Accord-

VoL. I.— 35

546 NATURE OF OUR INTEREST

ing to Dr. Baird it was no more Adam's sin than ours. The relation of his person to it was altogether accidental — it only happened to express itself through his will — but essentially it is ours in the very same sense in which it is his. What was peculiar to Adam is not imputed. If there is force in language or coherence in thought, Dr. Baird totally and ab- solutely denies that anything personal to Adam is charged upon us. What is now ourselves used him as an instru- ment. He was simply the paw which the roguish nature used to steal with. We are now the paws ^\ith Avhich it continues to practice its villainy ; the instruments are changed, but the agent is the same. We leave it to any man in his senses to say whether such an account is recon- cilable with the language of the Westminster formularies. " The sin of Adam and Eve, which God was pleased, ac- cording to His wise and holy counsel, to permit," ^ is ex- plicitly affirmed to be the act, the personal act, of eating the forbidden fruit, and the guilt of this sin, this personal act, is what is said to be imputed. But, according to Dr. Baird, that specific act could not have been imputed : it was not the act of the nature, but only an accidental manifestation of what the nature had become. It was personal and not generic. " The action of plucking and eating the fruit was in itself, as a mere act, a matter utterly insignificant."^ "We have shown already that the plucking and eating of the fruit of the forbidden tree was a mere accident following the heart-sin." ^ Now our Standards just as precisely assert that this was the very " sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created." " By this sin they fell from their original righteousness." Dr. Baird says that they had fallen before they committed the deed, and that the deed was only the proof of their fall ; the Confession says, that the fall was the consequence of the deed, and that the deed was the judicial ground of the fall. It is perfectly clear that Dr. Baird does not teach -the doctrines of the Westminster divines. They hold that the personal offence 1 Conf. of Faith, ch. vi. ^ Page 508. ^ Page 497.

IX THE SIN OF ADAM. 547

of our first parents was imputed ; he holds that only our own offence is imputed. To make it clear that they mean a per- sonal act, they specify the act to which they trace the ruin and condemnation of the race. Dr. Baird says that the race was ruined before that act was committed, and that the act itself " was utterly insignificant, a mere accident, follo^ving the heart-sin." They teach that the formal ground of the imputation of the first sin is the representative relation of Adam to his race. Dr. Baird teaches that the formal ground of the imputation of the first sin is that his race committed it. It is imputed to them in the same sense and on the same principle as it is imputed to him.

We repeat, therefore — and we defy Dr. Baird to escape from the conclusion — that upon his premises there is no im- putation of Adam's sin at all. It is not as his, but as sub- jectively and inherently ours, that we are held responsible for it. Upon the federal view the sin could not be ours, but as it was Adcwi's; — his personal relations to it were absolutely necessary to create our interest in it. He, as a person and not a nature, was our head and representative ; and there- fore, before we can be called to account, it is presupposed that he has acted.

In the next place, Dr. Baird utterly confounds the twofold relations in which Adam stood to the species as a natural and as a representative head. According to him they are one and the same thing. The truth is, then, that in strict propriety of language there is no headship at all. The na- ture in every case is the same, and the person is a mere chan- nel of transmission. One man stands in the same relation to it as another, and instead of the parent representing the child, the nature represents itself in both. But, passing over this objection, the parental relation ex necessitate rei, accord- ing to Dr. Baird, is federal. In the very act of creation, " his Maker," we are told,^ " endowed him with a prolific constitution, and in the blessing pronounced upon him at his creation, prior to any of the external actions by which the ' Page 305.

548 NATURE OF OUR INTEREST

covenant of nature was formally sealed, lie was ordained to multiply — to become of one the myriads of the human race. In all God's dealings with him he is regarded in this light as the root and father of a race who should proceed from him. They, by virtue of this derivative relation to him, w^ere contemplated by God, as in him their head, parties in all the transactions which had respect to the covenant. Thus they sinned in his sin, fell in his apostasy, were de- praved in his corruption, and in him became the children of Satan and of the wrath of God." Hence, to be a man and to be a covenant-head are the same thing. It is the propagative peculiarity which directly makes the child re- sponsible for the parent, and the parent for the child. God could not have dealt with Adam but as a federal head. He did not appoint him to the office, but created him in it. " By the phrase covenant-head we do not mean t]iat Adam was by covenant made head of the race, but that, being its head by virtue of the nature v/iih which God had endowed him, he stood as such in the covenant. Adam sustained in his person two distinct characters, the demarkation of which must be carefully observed if we would attain to any just conclusions as to the relation he held toward us and the effects upon us of his actions. First, in him was a nature of a specific character, the common endowment of the hu- man race, and transmissible to them by propagation with their being. Again, he was an individual person endowed Avith the nature thus bestow^ed on him in common with his posterity. Personal actions and relations of his which did not affect his nature were peculiar to him as a private per- son. But such as affected his nature, with him and to the same extent, involved all those to whom that nature was given in its bestowal on him."^ Accordingly, Dr. Baird teaches that the Covenant of Works was not a positive in- stitution into which God entered with Adam after his crea- tion, but was the very form, and the only conceivable form, under which such a creature could be subject to the moral 1 Pages 305, 306.

IN THE SIN OF ADAM. 549

government of God. If not a word had been said concern- ing the forbidden fruit, and no limitation of probation in- troduced, it would still have been true that the apostasy of Adam would have been the apostasy of his race. His rela- tionship as a parent necessarily implicated his seed in all that affected his nature. One more extract will remove all room for doubt.

" Here, however, it is necessary to enter more particularly into a consideration of the manner in which Adam was in- vested with the functions of a representative. That the cause of that office was the will of God is not disputed by any who recognize the office. But it is a question how the Creator gave effect to His will in this matter. Was it by a positive arrangement, unessential to the completeness of the constitution of nature, extraneous to it, superimposed uj^on it after the work of creation was complete ? Or did he so order that the relation between the representative body and its head should be an organic one, a relation im- plied in the very structure of Adam's nature, incorporated with the substance of his being, and constituting an element essential to the completeness and symmetry of the whole system, physical, moral and spiritual ? By many orthodox theologians of the present day it is held that the representa- tive relation of Adam did not exist until the positive pro- vision was made respecting the tree of knowledge, when it was constituted by a decretive act of God's sovereignty. We are constrained to take the opposite view, and to maintain with the older divines that the relation is as old as the first inscription of the covenant of nature on the heart of man in His creation. We look upon it as the essential element in the parental relation as it subsisted in Adam — the ele- ment which gives the family constitution all its signifi- cance."—pp. 308, 309.

Now we do not hesitate to assert that this complete confu- sion, or rather amalgamation, of the federal with natural head- ship is a total abolition of the federal, in the sense in which it is taken in the Westminster Standards. Their covenant is

550 NATURE OF OUR INTEREST

an institution posterior to creation — an institution proceeding from the sovereign "will of God, in which the essential ele- ments of moral government were largely modified by grace. What those modifications were we shall not here specify, as they are unimportant to the point before us. It is enough to say that moral government and the Covenant of Works are not synonymous, but that the covenant was the special form which God impressed upon it after the creation of man. We say further that there is no reason to believe that, independently of the sovereign appointment of God, the character and conduct of Adam, considered simply as a creature, a moral creature, would have had any legal effects upon the destiny of his offspring. Each man would have been under the moral law for himself, and his fortunes would have been in his own hand. All this is clear if the covenant was subsequent to the creation. What say our Standards? The first covenant is represented as having "been made with man." The inference would seem to be that man was already in existence. This is not the lan- guage which any one would adopt who intended to describe an innate law or a connatural principle. And although in- genuity may put it to tlie torture, and wring out of it an interpretation to suit Dr. Baird's hypothesis, no one can pretend that it is the simple and obvious sense of the words. But let us admit, for the sake of argument, that these words are not decisive : what shall we say to the teachings of the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, in which it is expressly affirmed that the Covenant of Works ivas a special act of Providence toioard man in the estate wherein he was created^ Providence j)rcsupposes creation, and here man's previous existence in a definite state is unequivocally affirmed, and the covenant is made with him as a creature existing in that holy and happy condition. The Larger Cate- chism^ recounts first his creation, then his insertion into Paradise, the injunction to cultivate the garden, the per- mission to eat of the fruits of the earth, the subjection 1 Questiou 20,

IN THE SIN OF ADAM. 551

of the creatures to his authority, the institution of mar- riage and the Sabbath, the privilege of communion with God, — all these before it comes to the establishment of the covenant, making it as clear as the sun in the heavens that the covenant was regarded as posterior to the creation, and as by no means synonymous with that moral law which was confessedly the rule and measure of the holiness that he had as a moral creature. The Shorter Catechism removes all perplexity when it declares in so many words,' that "when God had created man he entered into a covenant of life w^ith him." The Latin version is, " After God had created man," post quani Deus hominem condidlsset. It is needless to pursue so plain a matter any farther. Dr. Baird and the AYestminster Standards teach an entirely different doc- trine as to the covenant, and, of course, as to Adam's federal headship. One makes both concreated with man — elements of his being as a moral propagative creature, his necessary attitude to God and his posterity. . The other makes both the sovereign appointment of God — gracious dispensations of Providence towards him and his race — looking to a good which without such an arrangement he could have no right to ex])ect. In support of these views we are happy to be able to cite an authority which we know that Dr. Baird sin- cerely respects, and Avhich is likely to have more weight with him than any arguments that we can employ. Dr. Breckinridge has put this subject in its proper light in a work to which Dr. Baird has more than once referred, and referred to in terms which indicate a deserved appre- ciation of its value.^

Whatever, therefore, " the older divines" may have taught to the contrary, it is indisputable that the AVestminster As- sembly has represented federal headship as an instituted, and natural headship as an original relation, and has clearly dis- tinguished between them. An instituted is not, however, to be confounded with an arbitrary relation. The appoint- ment of Adam to the office of a federal head was not in ^ Quest. 12. 2 Knowl. God Object,, book v., c. 31.

552 NATURE OF OUR INTEREST

contempt or defiance of the principles of equity and truth. His natural relations to his race rendered it consistent with justice that he should also be their representative. His natural headship, in other -words, is the ground of his fede- ral headship. The connection by blood betwixt him and his descendants constitutes a basis of unity by which, though numerically different as individuals, they may be treated as one collective whole. There is a close and intimate union, though not an identity, among the members of the human family. They are one race, one blood, one body — an unity, not like that of the Realists, growing out of the participa- tion of a common objective reality, answering to the defini- tion of a genus or species, but an unity founded in the rela- tions of individual beings. It is this unity, and not the fancied identity of Dr. Baird, that distinguishes the Family, the State, the Church, the World. That the human race is not an aggregate of separate and independent atoms, but constitutes something analogous to an organic whole, with a common life springing from the intimate connection be- tween the parts, is obvious from the very organization of society. There is one unity of nations, in consequence of which national character becomes as obtrusively marked as the peculiarities of individuals. There was one type among the Greeks, another among the Asiatics, still another among the Romans. The Englishman is in no danger of ever being mistaken for a Frenchman, and the Frenchman is not more distinguished from his Continental neighbours by his language than by his habits, his sentiments, his modes of thought. In the narrowest of the social spheres the same prin- ciple is at work, and families are as decisively difierent by their characters as by their names. These facts show that there is a bond among men, a fundamental basis of unity, which embraces the whole race. What it is we may be unable to define; we know, however, that it is connected with blood. This basis is that which justifies, but does not necessitate, God's dealing with the race in one man as a whole. So that Adam's federal headship is the immediate ground of our

IN THE SIN OF ADAM. 553

interest in his sin, and his natural headship is the ground of the representative economy. Adam stood only for his children, because his children alone sustained those relations to him by virtue of which he could justly represent them. If required to specify ])recisely what that is which consti- tutes the unity, the nature and kind of relationship, we frankly confess that we are not competent to solve the problem. We do not profess to understand the whole case. We accept whatever God has thought proper to reveal, and whenever the curtain drops upon His revelation we lay our hands upon our mouth. In the mean time, although we cannot see the whole reason which is contained in natural or federal headship, we can see that the moral economy which admits of representation is supremely benevolent. If Adam had maintained his integrity, and we had inherited life and glory through his obedience, none would ever have dreamed that there was aught of hardship, injustice or cruelty in the scheme by which our happiness had been so cheaply secured. The diiference of result makes no differ- ence in the nature of the principle. Those who object do not remember that the law which made Adam our head and representative is the law by virtue of which alone, so far as we know, the happiness of any man can be secured. With- out the principle of representation it is possible that the whole race might have perished, an.d perished for ever. Each man, as the species successively came into existence, would have been placed under the law of distributive jus- tice. His safety, therefore, would have been for ever con- tingent. It is possible that if the first man with all his advantages abused his liberty and fell, each of his descend- ants might have imitated his example and fallen also. It is possible, therefore, that the whole race might have be- come involved in guilt and ruin. Some might have stood longer than others, but what is any measure of time to im- mortality ? Who shall say but that in the boundless pro- gress of their immortal being one by one all may have sinned? It is possible, nay, more, even probable; it is

554 NATURE OF OUR INTEREST

quite sure that this would Imve been the case Avith some — that multitudes indeed would abuse their freedom and die. But to sin under such circumstances is to sin hopelessly. There can be no Redeemer if each man is to be treated ex- clusively as an individual. If we cannot sin in another, we cannot be righteous in another. If the principle of repre- sentation is not to be admitted into God's government, sal- vation to the guilty becomes hopelessly impossible. Under this principle multitudes are in fact saved, when without it all might have been lost. Hence, it is clearly a provision of grace introduced for our good, for our safety, for our hap- piness, and not as a snare or a curse. God had an eye to it when He constituted our species a race, connected by unity of Ijlood, and not a mere aggregation or assemblage of similar individuals. He made Adam the root, because He designed to make him the head — the father, because He designed to make him the representative of all mankind. The natural constitution is evidently in order to the federal relation. Both are necessary in order to understand the doctrine of original sin. If we consider Adam merely as our first parent, his act is not necessarily the act of his child. If the paternal relation, such as it now obtains in the species, exhausted his relations to the race, it would be impossible to explain how they can be guilty on account of the first sin rather than any other. Even if it were granted that as a father he must propagate his own moral features, his chil- dren would receive them simply as a nature without being ill deserving on account of them, as a child might inno- cently iidierit a distorted body which the parent had brought upon himself by guilt. The natural relation, therefore, talcen as exclusive and alone, is wholly incompetent to bear the load of hereditary sin. There must be something more than parent and child in the case. It is vain to appeal to those analogies in which the offspring share in the sufferings inci- dent to the wickedness of their fathers. The offspring do indeed suffer, but they do not charge themselves with guilt ; their sufferings are calamities, and not punishments. There

IN THE SIN OF ADAM. 555

must be some relation, legal and moral, by virtue of whicli the act of the parent becomes judicially theirs before they can be penally responsible. This relationship is established in the covenant. That makes the act of their parent their sin and their crime. The two relations together, the natu- ral and federal, explain the whole case as far as God has thought proper to reveal it. I am guilty because Adam represented me. Adam represented me because I am his child. Birth unites me to him as faith unites me to Christ. The union in each case is the basis of the covenant, and the covenant is the immediate ground of condemnation or acceptance.

That Dr. Baird's doctrine of guilt and imputation is not that of the Reformed Church is susceptible of superfluous proof. We have not space for quotations in detail, but there are several considerations which show that whatever that doctrine might have been, it could not have been the scheme of Dr. Baird. In the first place, we acquit him of any sympathy with the mediate imputation of Placfeus ; but did it not occur to him that the theory of Placoeus could never have been originated had the general sentiment of the Church been that we were actually guilty of the sin of Adam ? Mediate imputation is an expedient for establish- ing a direct personal relation betwixt ourselves and the first transgression. It goes on the supposition that a man can be punished only for the sin which he has really committed. The problem it undertook to solve was how the sin of an- other could be made to stand in personal relations to our- selves, and the answer it gave was that we make it our own by a voluntary appropriation. Now, if it had been the doctrine of the Church that the sin of Adam was actually ours, it would have been ridiculously absurd to cast about for expedients in order to make us jnstly responsible for it. No one would ever have dreamed of doubting that a man is chargeable with his own sins. This mediate theory, tliere- fore, is a pregnant proof that tlie form in which the Church held the doctrine was one which made us responsible for a

556 NATURE OF OUR INTEREST

crime in Avliich we had no causal agency. In the next place, the bitter and malignant opposition of Socinians, Remon- strants and Pelagians is wholly unaccountable if the Re- formers taught nothing more than that a man was punished for his actual transgressions. This principle could not have been denied without abolishing moral distinctions. In Dr. Baird's doctrine the vulnerable point is our numerical identity with Adam. That being given, guilt and corruption follow as a matter of course. Now, if the Reformers had stated the doctrine in this shape, the opposition would have been to the principle and not to the consequence. Then, again, the Reformers, almost to a man, asserted the immediate crea- tion, and denied the generation of the soul. Calvin treats the theory of traduction with utter contempt. It received hardly less favour among the divines of France, Holland, Germany, England and Scotland. But the theory of tra- duction is essential to Dr. Baird's doctrine. It is, there- fore, certain that this doctrine could not have been held by the Reformers. These considerations are conclusive. But there is another to be added which makes assurance doubly sure. The Reformers all taught the imputation of our sins to Christ. Our ill desert, our guilt were charged upon Him, and yet they never dreamed of the blasphemy of making Him actually a sinner. Here, clearly, imputation implied responsibility for crimes on the part of One who was abso- lutely free from the stain, and who sustained no causal rela- tion to them.

But how does Dr. Baird dispose of this case? Will the reader believe it ? By a flat and palpable contradiction of every principle that he has sought elaborately to establish in the case of Adam and his posterity. He retracts his entire philosophy of guilt and punishment. We have never known a more remarkable instance of a theory breaking down under its own weight. He admits that Christ was our substitute ; that He assumed our guilt ; that He was held responsible for our sins. Was He, therefore, actually a sinner ? Was the nature which He had numerically the same nature which

IN THE SIN OF ADAM. 557

apostatized ? and was it charged only with its own proper act? Xot at all. Objective imputation does not involve subjective pollution. He simply sustains a relation to His people in which their sins are, " in some proper sense/^ to be regarded as His. "What is this proper sense ? The reader will mark the answer.^ The substance is, that He was the federal head of those whose sins He bore, and who constituted one body with Him by virtue of, not a numerical identity of nature, but of a spiritual union subsisting between them — the very doctrine for which we have contended. He ac- tually quotes with approbation the sentence of Owen, which is an unequivocal denial of his whole doctrine. " As what He (Christ) did is imputed unto them as if done by them, so what they deserved on the account of sin is charged upon Him." How true that if you expel nature with a fork she will return ! Dr. Baird is reduced to the necessity of aban- doning his whole theory of imputation, or of admitting that Christ was a personal transgressor.

As to the authorities which he quotes in the chapter Of the Definition of Guilt and Imputation, they make nothing for him. They only prove that guilt is inseparable from crime ; no one denies that. They prove further that a man cannot be punished for a crime which is in no sense his own ; no one denies that. But the real j)oint in dispute is, whether there is only one sense, that of actual causation, in which a crime may be said to belong to us ; and this point his authorities do not touch. Nay, if he had gone farther, he would have seen that these very authorities distinctly teach not only that we can sin, but that we have sinned vica- riously. Then, again, Dr. Baird has quietly assumed that all those expressions by which the Reformers signalized our union with Adam, and represent his sin as ours, convey the idea of an actual participation in his offence. He has con- founded union with identity. They clearly meant nothing more than that close and intimate relationship, springing from natural birth, which lies at the basis of federal repre- 1 Pages 606, 607.

558 NATURE OF OUR INTEREST

sentation. To be in him seniiiially and radically is not to be numerically one nature with him. It is to be like him and of him. As we have already said, they never taught an arbitrary imputation. They never taught that guilt was unconnected with crime ; but they did teach that the crime might belong to a man, might be justly called Ms, where he was not implicated in the stain of it. If this is conceded, every passage which Dr. Baird has quoted in the chapter re- ferred to goes for nothing. And that this must be conceded, we think capable of irrefragable proof Although our limits do not allow us to enter into details, we must be permitted, in addition to the numerous quotations to be found in the popular treatises of theology, to close with one which we do not remember to have seen cited before. It is from the learned and venerable Cocceius. In allusion to the handle which Socinians made of the ambiguity of the word impute, he says : " They explain it to mean that God imputes the sin of Adam by thinking or judging that the posterity of Adam willed, thought, did, what Adam perversely willed, thought, did. Hence they represent God as judging those to be in existence who were only radically in being." That is, the Socinians charge imputation with making the descend- ants of Adam personally guilty of his sin. This would be to attribute an actual being to those whose existence was only potential. But, adds Cocceius, " to impute, in the style of Sci'ipture, is to judge that he has done a thing who has not done it ; not to impute is to judge that he has not done a thing who has done it. To impute is either to condemn or absolve many individuals by one' sentence, on account of the conjunction between themj' ^ This is exactly our doctrine, the doctrine of the Westminster Standards and of the whole Reformed Church. But it is not the doctrine of Dr. Baird.

Dr. Baird says, " the opinion seems to be entertained by some that the attempt to base our relation to the covenant and to the apostasy upon our natural relation to Adam, in- volves, as a logical result, the doctrine of mediate imputa- ^ Sum. Theol., chap, xxx., § 4.

IN THE SIN OF ADAM. 559

tion." He refers to ourselves, but has entirely misconceived our doctrine. We have always held that the natural is the ground of the federal relation. The doctrine is explicitly stated in the article referred to.' What we objected to was the idea that the natural relation alone explains our guilt and corruption — that we must receive our nature from Adam precisely in the moral attitude which it occupied in him, simply because Adam was our father. We insisted then, and insist now, that the law of generation, singly and alone — the law that like begets like — does not explain even native depravity, let alone guilt ; and that if guilt is conceived as attaching to us in the first instance because we have a cor- rupt nature, that is the doctrine of mediate imputation. We insisted then, and insist now, that the immediate formal ground of guilt is the covenant headship of Adam, that our depravity of nature is the penal consequence of our guilt in him, and that we are made parties to the covenant by the circumstance of birth or the natural relation to Adam. We stated then that Calvin held the doctrine to which we ob- ject. We are now prepared to say, after a thorough ex- amination of the writings of that great man, that, although he has often expressed himself vaguely and ambiguously, we are convinced that his opinion at bottom was tlie same as our own.

Dr. Baird exults in the superiority of his theory to the current theology, on account of the completeness wdth which it solves the difficulties in relation to hereditary sin. We admit, very candidly, that in this case the only difficulty is in the theory itself. Given a numerical identity of nature transmitted from father to son, and its moral condition in tlie one is as explicable as its moral condition in the other. The murderer is the same whether found in a palace or a hovel, and the law seizes him wherever it finds him on ac- count of a crime which his change of place cannot modify. But ujoon the supposition that xidam's children are not

1 It was the article next but one preceding this one — the Keview of Breckinridge's " Objective Theology."

560 NATURE OF OUR INTEREST

Adam, but themselves — that they are new beings called into existence by the providence of God — two questions cannot fail to arise which have always presented difficulties in speculation. The first is, How can that which, now and here, begins its being, begin it in a state of sin without an imputation upon the character of God ? The problem is to make God the author of the man without making Him the author of his sin. The second question is, How can that Avhich is inherent, which comes to us from without as a con- ditioning cause, and not as a self-conditioned eifect, carry the imputation of crime ? How, as it exists in us, independently of any agency of ours, can it be contemplated with moral disapprobation, and render us personally ill deserving? The answers to these questions exhaust the different theories of original sin, and Dr. Baird congratulates himself that he has fairly got rid of them. Confident in the advantages of his position, he has assailed with spirit and vigour the strong- hold within which Edwards and his disciples have thought themselves impregnable. We really enjoyed the fight, it being, as Lucretius observes, " a great satisfaction to stand in the window of a castle and to see a battle, and the ad- ventures thereof, in the vale below." AVe felt all along that all that was necessary was for them to take the offensive, and very feeble guns would be sufficient to demolish the for- tress in which Dr. Baird conceived himself so strong. He may succeed in weakening their defences, but they can ut- terly annihilate his. Their doctrine has difficulties, but his is an absurdity.

A complete answer to these questions in the present state of our knowledge we hold to be impossible. Until we are put in possession of the entire case, no solution that can be given will go to the bottom of the subject. There will ever remain phenomena which our philosophy does not cover. But at the same time we are confident that the solution must be sought in the line of those principles of natural and federal headship which the Scriptures so clearly reveal. These principles show, paradoxical as the thing may appear,

IN THE SIX OF ADAM. 561

that the history of the individual does not absolutely begin with its birth. It sustained moral relations and was im- plicated in moral acts before it was born. This notion is essentially involved in the notion of a covenant. When Adam was appointed to this office, all his descendants, constituting an unity of body with him, sustained the same relations to the law and God which he sustained. Morally and legally they were in being ; their interest in the covenant was just the same as if they had already re- ceived an actual existence. This being so, the sin of Adam must have produced the same judicial effects upon them as upon him. Their actual existence was to begin under the law of sin and death, as his Avas continued under it. God in calling them successively into being must, as the Ruler and Judge of the universe, produce them in the state to Avhich justice had morally consigned them. The covenant, therefore, does explain the fact of their being sinners be- fore they were born, does give them a history before their actual being. The only question is, Was the covenant just ? That depends upon the fact whether natural headship cre- ates an union with Adam sufficiently intimate to ground these judicial transactions. If it does the mystery is solved. AVe maintain that it does, but acknowledge very frankly that we do not fully see how. We understand a part of the case, and only a j)art. The thing which has always per- plexed us most is to account for the sense of personal de- merit, of guilt and shame, which unquestionably accompa- nies our sense of native corruption. It is not felt to be a misfortune or calamity, but a crime. We subscribe to every syllable which Dr. Baird has Avritten upon this subject. Now, how shall this be explained ? Discounting all the schemes wdiich deny the fact itself and construe native cor- ruption into native misfortune, there are but three hypotheses which are supposable in the case. The first is, we have really had a being antecedent to our birth, in which by a personal abuse of liberty we determined and conditioned our mundane history. The second is, that we had a being Vol. I.— 36

562 NATURE OF OUR INTEREST

in our substance, tliough not in our persons, which has de- termined the attitude of that substance. The third is, that we sinned in another, whose relations to us were such as to make him morally one with us. The first two hypotheses remove the difficulty, but they substitute a greater one. Of the two, if we were driven to choose between them, we should prefer the theory of a supersensible existence. The consciousness of guilt connects it with our persons, and the arofument is a short one which concludes from this conscious- ness to a previous personal existence. Our nature is sinful ; it could not have been made so without our act ; that cor- rupting act could not have taken place in time, for corruption begins with our life in time. We must, therefore, have had a transcendent existence in which we could have conditioned the moral type of our appearance in time. Yet the objec- tions to this hypothesis are unanswerable. In the first place, the notion of a timeless existence is itself utterly un- intelligible. Every finite being is conditioned, and condi- tioned both by time and space, and an intelligible world of real, substantive existences without temporal relations is altogether contradictory. In the next place, it is wholly unaccountable how such a state, signalized by so moment- ous an act as that which ruined the agent, has so entirely passed from the memory as to leave no trace behind. Surely, if anything had impressed itself upon our minds, such a condition, so different from the present and so fi'uit^ ful in its consequences, could not have failed to be remem- bered. Add to this the silence of Scripture, or rather the contrary teaching of Scripture in its necessary imj)lications, and the argument is complete.

The hypothesis of Dr. Baird being no less untenable, we are shut up to the third scheme, which we take to be the scheme of the Bible. We cannot carry human existence beyond Adam, nor Adam's existence beyond that creative fiat which gave him his being on the sixth day. Then and there the species began, and began holy. The Scriptures further inform us when and where and how he lost his in-

IN THE SIN OF ADAM. 563

tegrlty. From the time of his disobedience all the race have borne the type of sin. There has been no holiness in the sj)ecies from that hour to this, unless as supernaturally produced by the grace of God. It would seem, therefore, that the all-cojiditioning act which has shaped the moral character of the race was no other than the act which lost to Adam the image of God in the garden of Eden. Such seems to be the explicit testimony of Scripture. By one man's disobedience many were made sinners. Either we are guilty of that act, or original corruption is in us simply misfortune. In some way or other it is ours, justly imput- able to us,- or we are not and cannot be born the children of wratli. But we are guilty ; conscience testifies that we are guilty — that our native corruption is sin. But as we did not sin personally, as we did not sin naturally, we must have sinned vicariously. The only alternative is : In our- selves or in another. Ourselves are out of the question. Therefore we sinned in Adam, and our history truly be- gan before our birth. Our appearance in time was not an absolute commencement, but moral relations preceded and determined it. In bringing us into the world sinners, God did nothing more than execute the decree of justice. As to the manner in which God executed that decree, the negative agency of withholding or not imparting the Divine image is sufficient to explain the effect. To be destitute of the im- age of God is to be in an unholy state, and the want of original righteousness necessitates positive corrujjtion. But still the agency of God in the production of that corruption is purely privative and judicial. The case is this : The being to be produced is under the curse, exposed to the penalty of the law. That implies the withdrawal of the Divine favour as manifested in that highest proof of it, the Divine image, and that implies the dominion of sin. This is precisely the doctrine of our Standards. There is, first, guilt, then tlie want of original righteousness, and then the corruption of the whole nature. This is also the doctrine of Calvin, who expressly re2)udiatcs natural generation as an adequate ex-

564 NATURE OF OUR INTEREST

planation of depravity. His words are : " For the human race has not naturally derived corruption through its descent from Adam, but that result is rather to be traced to the ap- pointment of God, who, as He had adorned the whole nature of mankind with most excellent endowments in one man, so in the same man he denuded it." ^

Dr. Baird deceives himself with an analogy which, as il- lustrating the unity of the race, is perfectly proper — the analogy of the seed to the plant and the oak to the acorn. But when an argument is derived from a figure of speech, the figure should be pertinent to the very point on which the argument turns. Here the design is to show that one man has corrupted the race in the way of nature because all have sprung from him. The true comparison, in a case thus con- templating derivative individuals, is not that of an acorn to the oak, but of a parent oak to other oaks which have come from it. God did not at first make acorns, but trees, and these trees produced the acorns, and these acorns have per- petuated forests. If, now, an oak in full maturity should drop an hundred acorns, and these acorns grow into an hun- dred other oaks, the question is. Would these hundred oaks be numerically the same with one another and with their pa- rent stock ? And would this whole forest die if the parent tree should happen to decay? This is the case which is parallel with Adam and his posterity, and we humbly think that it gives no help to those who can see nothing but nature in the propagation of sin.

But if imputed guilt makes Adam's descendants really and personally corruj)t, how shall we exempt Christ from the operation of the same penal consequence? He bare our sins in his own body on the tree, and yet was holy, harmless, un- defiled, and separate from sinners. The judicial displeasure of God did not involve Him in personal sin. But, in the first place, it is overlooked that Christ never existed as a hu- man person. He had our nature, but the person was that of the Eternal Son. In consequence of the intimate relation- ^ Comment., Gen. iii. 7.

IN THE SIN OF ADAM. 565

ship of the liuniaii nature in Him to the Divine Logos, that nature was pervaded, conditioned and determined, in all its habitudes and in its whole being, by an influence which pre- served it not only from sin, but from the possibility of sin. Jesus was wdiat no other man ever was or ever can be but as made so by Him, absolutely impeccable. It is a mystery how His Divine person, without disturbing His human liberty, or absorbing His human consciousness, or interfering with His human properties, or diminishing the moral sig- nificance of His temptations, could yet make it certain that He should never fail. But the case is even so. It was in consequence of this mystery that the enduring of the penalty by Him was an act of obedience. Others suffer from neces- sity. He obeyed, achieved an active righteousness, as truly in His death as in His life. As the judicial displeasure of God could not destroy the personal union between the two natures, it could not destroy that life of God in His soul which is the condition of all holiness. ' He could not have become a sinner without ceasing to be Divine. His case, therefore, is altogether sui generis. In the next place, it is equally important to recollect that he stood as the head of a covenant, as a new beginning of the race, or rather of his seed. He was the representative, and not those whose sins He bore. If they had been His head, then the case would have been parallel with the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity. But He was not in them — they are not the centre of union — but they are in Him, and He is, accordingly, the source of influence. In the third place, the very nature of His undertaking required Him to be stronger than the curse. The penalty could not crush Him as it buries a creature in death, and therefore He is declared to be the Son of God, with power by His resurrection from the dead. The case of Christ, therefore, is no manner of exception to our argu- ment, that guilt, resting upon grounds of representative unity, must as necessarily entail a fall to the creature as personal transgression.

We have already intimated that we regard Dr. Baird's ac-

566 NATURE OF OUR INTEREST

\

count of the covenant as seriously defective. He looks upon it as a natural institution, essentially contained in the moral law, as addressed to such a creature as man. He confounds the state of man, considered simply as a moral agent under a dispensation of moral government, and the state of man as in covenant with God. We have not space now to en- large upon this error. We shall content ourselves with an exhibition of what we take to be the teachings of Scripture and of our own Standards. As a moral creature, invested with the image of God, man was under the law as a servant, bound to execute his master's will, with no promise but the continuance of the Divine favour as he then enjoyed it. The condition of his servitude was perpetual innocence. As long as he obeyed he would remain holy and happy as he was. As soon as he disobeyed he was to die. His state was con- tingent, dependent upon his legitimate use or the abuse of his liberty. As a moral creature, moreover, he was treated purely as an individual, and had no change taken place in his relations, each man as he came into being would have been on trial for himself. JS^ow the covenant of works was a special dispensation of God's goodness, modifying this state in several important respects. Its aim was twofold — to change the relation of man from that of a servant to a sou, and to confirm him indefectibly in holiness, which is the es- sential notion of life. To achieve these ends the period of probation was first made definite, and the notion of a com- jileted righteousness or justification introduced. In the next place, the persons on probation were limited, and one made to stand for all, and thus the notion of imputation was in- troduced. In the third place, the field of temptation was contracted, and the question of obedience made to turn upon a single positive precept, which brought the will of man di- rectly face to face with the will of God. Had man obeyed, he would have been justified, and as that justification is the equivalent of perpetual innocence, it must have secured it, and man have been rendered immutable in holiness. This subjective change in his will from mutability to impecca-

IN THE SIN OF ADAM. 567

bility would have been accompanied with an external change in his relations from a servant to a son. This twofold change would have realized the notion of life. Upon this view the covenant is a conspicuous manifestation of the goodness of God. But it is a view totally inconsistent with Dr. Baird's notions of the constitution of man, and therefore, with him, the grace of God retreats before logical consistency.

One more thought and we have done. We regret that the importance which Dr. Baird attaches to the propagative property of man has led him to rank this among the elements which enter into the biblical notion of the image of God. In the relation betwixt a parent and his child he detects a re- semblance to the ineffable relation betwixt the first and se- cond persons of the Trinity, and, what is still more remark- able, in our faculty of breathing he finds a representation of the procession of the Holy Ghost. This last is a pure fancy ; there is nothing approximating to an analogy, much less to a resemblance of the things themselves. That there is some analogy in the first case may be admitted, but that is very far from proving that the analogy is any part of the Divine image. Man in his dominion over the creatures sus- tains a relation analogous to that of God as Supreme Ruler, but dominion over the creatures is treated in the Scriptures as a consequence, not as an element, of the image. The phrase has a specific, definite sense, abundantly explained in the Scriptures themselves, and we should neither add to it nor take from it. Least of all should we trust to fancy as its expositor. One thing would seem to be certain, that no- thing can be included in it which is shared by man in com- mon with the brutes. To propagate their species and to breathe is characteristic of all terrestrial animals, and as, in these respects, the dog and the goat stand on a level with man, we are conscious of something like the degradation of a grand subject when we undertake to define the Divine image by such properties.

We shall here pause. We have singled out the prominent parts of Dr. Baird's book, in which we find ourselves unable

568 OUR INTEREST IN THE SIN OF ADAM.

to agree with liim. It would have given us more pleasure to have dwelt upon the many fine features of it which we can most cordially approve. It is by no means a common- place work. The very consistency with which he has carried through a single leading idea, and interwoven it with the texture of a difficult and complicated discussion, shows the hand of genius, and the poAver of disciplined thought. We thank him for his incidental deathblows to popular errors, and we love him for the zeal and heartiness with which he clings to the glorious doctrines of grace. If in the points in which we have differed from him we have said anything personally offensive, it would give us more pain to discover it than it can give him to read it. We are conscious that we have Avritten under a strong sense of personal esteem, and we are sure that Dr. Baird will reciprocate the wish that, in relation to the matters in dispute, each of us may seek exclusively for truth. We adopt the noble language of Socrates in the Philebus of Plato : vDv yap oh diJTZou Ttpoi; ye adzb rouzo (fdouecxod/xsv, oTzcoq a' yco rc&eiJ.ac, rauz' iazai zd vcxQjuza, rj zau&' & au, zco o^dkr^&eazdza) oe7 zoo auiiixayuv

APPENDIXES.

569

PREFATORY NOTE TO APPENDIXES.

Appendix A is Dr. Thornwell's Inaugural, delivered on the evening of the 13th of Oct., 1857, at the Presbyterian Church of Columbia, S. C, in the presence of the Board of Directors of the Seminary, and of many members of the Synod of South Carolina on their way to its meeting at Laurensville the next day. He had, however, actually entered on the duties of the Chair of Didactic and Polemic Theology during the pre- vious year.

Upon that occasion the Kev. Dr. Thomas Smyth, of Charleston, first pronounced a solemn charge to the Professor, who then subscribed the usual formula binding him to teach nothing contrary to the standards of the Church, and delivered this Inaugural. It was not read, nor did he have it before him ; but, as his manner was, having written it by way simply of preparing his mind for the effort', he delivered it far more fullv in many parts than it was written, and throughout the whole of it in words which came to him on the occasion. Those whose privilege it was to be present can never forget the fervour and the force with which he gave utterance to the views presented in this discourse. He had written it the night of the 12tli of October at one sitting, but, as he said, " with his mind at a white heat."

Appendix B consists of the questions of Dr. Thornwell, of which he made use in examining his classes upon the Lectures. It is proper to say that for the Lectures upon Original Sin, upon the Pollution and Guilt of Sin, and upon Degrees of Guilt, the full form of his questions could not be found, and it was necessary to supply the gap with a few questions from a more summary form found amongst his papers ; and that his Ques- tions upon the State and Nature of Sin are not a complete copy.

Appendix C is an Analysis of the most important Chapters of Calvin's Institutes, with Notes and Comments by Dr. Thornwell. The Institutio was his text-book, and he used these papers in examining his classes. They are, of course, brief and informal, and sometimes quite familiar and abrupt in style, but they are deemed too intrinsically valuable to be omitted here.

Appendix D is composed of Dr. Thornwell's Questions to his Classes upon the Institutes. They are confined to the most important Chapters of Book I.

671

APPENDIX A.

Discourse D ELIVERED BY

DR. THORNWELL,

UPON BEING INAUGUEATED AS PEOFESSOK OF THEOLOGY.

I TRUST that I am not insensible to the solemnity of this occasion, nor to the momentous character of the relation into which I am about to enter. When, a little more than twenty-two years ago, I was set apart by the imposition of hands to the general functions of the ministry and the special duties of a pastor, I felt that my position was a solemn one, and the test from which on that occasion the usual sermon was preached, "Who is sufficient for these things?" exactly expressed my sense of the magnitude and grandeur of the duties I had assumed. The cure of souls is a burden ; however, like the Re- deemer's burden, it is lightened to those who sincerely and humbly seek His glory. It is a burden — a burden upon the conscience and a burden upon the heart — but still a burden of that peculiar kind that he who has once borne it would rather bear it on for ever than he released from it. He feels it a greater burden to be without it than to have it. That burden I have ever since canied. When, three years afterward, I was called to mingle in another sphere the elements of Divine and human knowledge, and to minister at the altars alike of philosophy and religion among those who are pre-eminently the hope of the land, I felt that I had undertaken an arduous tnist — that I stood in relations of grave responsibility to the Church and to the State. But those occasions, solemn as they were, and serious and awfid as the duties they imposed, yield to this in the magnitude of the trust and the strength and emphasis of the obligations imposed. A single parish, though it contains immortal souls — and one soul is more precious than the world — is yet a comparatively narrow sphere ; the circle of relations and the compass of operations can be partially measui'ed. A charge

573

574 APPENDIX A.

like that of the College, though it touches upon many and complicated interests, is yet for the most part bounded by the State. The sphere here is not incommensurable. But the office of a teacher in a school which aims to prepare a ministry for the whole Chm'ch and for a dying world, which aims to realize the ascension gifts of the Saviour in evan- gelists, pastors and teachers, until the whole body of Christ shall be gathered and the bride be adorned to receive her husband at His sec- ond coming in glory and majesty and power, — a trust like this no mortal may lightly assume it; an angel's intellect cannot gauge the extent and magnitude of its influence. It is that trust, deep, awful, momentous, whose consequences lose themselves in the abyss of an unfathomable eternity, bearing alike on the destinies of redeemed and lost ; it is this trust which I am to assume this night. Unborn souls are destined to wail or rejoice at these transactions. Who is sufficient for this work? Fathers and brethren, not I ! — with profound impres- sion of the truth I say it. Not I ! And, like Moses, as I buckle on the armour of a graver warfare than I ever waged before, 1 utter from the heart the prayer of conscious weakness: "If thy Spirit go not with me, carry me not up hence." Nothing reconciles me to these perilous responsibilities but the full persuasion that God, through you and the operations of His Spirit upon my own soul, has called me to the func- tions for which you have girded me to-night.

I have reached a crisis in my life, and as I stand to-night and look back iipon the past and forward to the future, I can distinctly see that the cloud has led me by day and the pillar of fire by night ; and though it has often been by a way that I knew not, I now perceive that all my training, whether moral, intellectual or spiiitual, the bent of my studies, the peculiar turn of my mind, my cherished tastes and my chosen speculations, have all been controlled and modified and shaped with reference to the solemnities of this hour. God had this night in His own eternal view when in j'onder college walls I rose up early and sat up late to store my mind with that knowledge which I then designed to make only an instrument of ambition. I can understand that spell which boiind me to Homer's matchless verse and the immortal tongue in which Demosthenes wielded at will " the fierce democratic of Athens."' I can comprehend the mysterious charm which the Stagyrite threw around me, and the enchantment with which I listened to Schoolman and Monk as they discoursed in mood and figure of the high problems of existence. I can understand the fascination with which I loved to go with Socrates to the market or listen to Plato's lectures, and to his great pupil, " the intellect of his school" [fop, though his companions called him), when he built up the whole encyclopaedia uf knowledge. Up to this point, by God's help, I have safely come ; I can ]iraise Him for the past, and I hope that I am not unprepared to trust Him for

INAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 575

the future, an<J with my whole heart I hereby consecrate myself with what little knowledge and little experience I have been able to gain, — I consecrate all freely, unreservedly, for ever, to His glory and the ser- vice of His Church.

The security which you have exacted from me, that 1 shall not in- dulge a licentious liberty of speculation, nor teach for doctrines the commandments of men ; the restraints which you have put upon the excursions of philosophy or the conjectures of fancy ; the limits within which you have wisely and righteously bound me, — are no oppression to my spirit. The pledge which I have solemnly given, that I shall neither directly nor indirectly teach any doctrine contrary to the vene- rable Standards which I have just subscribed, I mean faithfully to redeem. I was not born in j'our department ^ of the kingdom of God ; it was that Confession which first drew me to you. Your noble testi- mony for God and His truth brought me into your communion, and the same love to your doctrines which first induced me to cast in my lot among you continues to burn in my bosom, and to inspire me with zeal for the propagation of those doctrines in all wise and proper methods.

I am not ashamed of that Confession of Faith. I am not ashamed of the men who formed it, of the men who adopted it, of the noble army of martyrs and confessors who have sealed its doctrines by their blood, \yhen the Long Parliament of England had itself solved the question. What is human liberty? and reduced to practice the answer which William the Silent had before given, two centuries in advance of his age, as to the foundation and ends of civil government ; when this body of true and immortal Englishmen had answered the ques- tion, What is liberty? they collected a nobler assembly than had ever met in St. Stephen's Hall before, and proposed to them the ques- tion which Pilate proposed to Jesus, What is truth? What is the truth of God ? The answer of this venerable conclave of learned, praj''- ing, godly divines was your Confession of Faith. It was the answer of religion to freedom ; it was the faith that made the mighty men of war and peace — which distinguished a period in which were deposited the seeds of all that has been noble, generous or great in the history of England or America from that day to this. Then and there the man'iage rites betwixt Liberty and Truth were duly solemnized ; from that period they have gone hand in hand, and are destined to keep together until they shall finally, in their IMaster's name and by their Master's power, subdue the world! Ashamed of the Westminster Confession of Faith? the inspiration of Heroes and Sages, of Martyrs and Philosophers? — a faith that has founded states, immortalized kingdoms and redeemed countless multitudes of souls from the thral- ' Dr. Thoruwell's mother was a member of the Baptist Church.

576 APPENDIX A.

dom of slavery and sin ? No, never ! I love it, sir, aod love it with all my heart, and bless God that in His providence 1 was permitted to see that book with a knowledge of which my earlier years had not been blessed as yours were — though, thanks to a noble mother, 1 was taught from the cradle those eternal princiitles of grace which that book contains. Your Church is the Church of my adoption, j'our min- istry the ministry which Grod led me to seek when he called me into the kingdom of His Son ; and your Church 1 love, not as a sect, not from personal, private or political considerations, but for her noble testimony, her glorious history, her moral power, her spiritual free- dom— the mother of heroes and saints, of scholai's, orators and states- men, a blessing to this world and a sure guide to everlasting joy. Grod is known in her palaces for a refuge. For, lo ! the kings were assem- bled, they passed by together ; they saw it and so they marvelled, they were troubled and hasted away. I would say of her as David of his darling Jerusalem: "If I forget thee, let my right hand forget her cunning ! If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth !"

But this general view of what I am to teach as not contrary to and as consistent with the Confession of Faith is hardly a sufficiently exact description of the scope and sphere of the department which you have committed to my hands. The occasion requires that 1 should more minutely and accurately sketch my own conceptions of the nature of the work I have to do, and of the manner in which it should be done. You will bear with me, then, while I unfold, as briefly as I can con- sistently with clearness, the scope of Theology, its claims to be consid- ered as a science, and the principle which should regulate the aiTange- ments of the parts and their combination into a complete and harmo- nious whole.

I. The first question is. What is Theology ? "What is that definite and precise matter which distingiiishes it from every other deiiartment of inquiry, and gives to it the unity and consistency which pertain to a science ?

1. The word Theology^ compounded of two Grreek terms, properly implies a discourse of which God is the subject. The speculations of Pherecydes and Hesiod concerning the origin of things were stj'led theological; they themselves were called Theologians^ and their cos- mogonies denominated theologia. But the gods of the Muses were very different from the God with whom we have to do, and the gene- rations and works which poetry, fiction and idolatry ascribe to the dei- fied heroes of Olympus have nothing in common with the sublime fiat of om' God, who sitteth in the heaven upon a throne of unchangeable being, and who has but to speak and it is done, to command and it stands fast. Still, these early and crude cosmogonies illustrate the

IXAUGURAL DISCOURSE. 577

txBndency of human speculation to begin at the beginning, and I am quite sure that no adequate conception can be framed even of our own God without taking in the great fact of creation. A system of The- ology cannot possibly ignore this truth without halting at every subse- quent step. The Bible opens with God as Creator, and there is hardly a passage in the Psalms or Prophets in which God distinguishes Him- self from the false gods of the heathen without appealing to the cir- cumstance that He is the Creator of all things. Modern wi-iters on Natural Theology have paid entirely too little attention to this pecu- liarity, and have consequently been content with a proof of His being and perfections which represent Him at best as only a huge man — the great Mechanic of the universe. But it would be preposterous to con- stitute creation as the adequate subject of Theology ; that is only one skirt of the Divine glory.

Neither again would it do to confine Theology to a discussion of the essential relations of the Godhead, the generation of the Son, the pro- cession of the Spirit ; as the mythologists applied the term to analogous discussions concerning the dependences and births of their numerous brood of divinities. Plato used the word in this restricted sense as a discourse concerning the Divine nature, and the early Fathers of the Christian Church followed the example. Athanasius, Photius and Theophylact confine it to discussions concerning the Trinity ; others give it a wider application, to any discourse of which the being and per- fections of God are the subject ; others restrict it to the consideration and proof of Christ in contrast with his humanity ; and others apply the title to the Scriptures themselves, as being a discourse concerning the being, perfections and glory of God.

In all these cases there is a vrspi -Qeov /l<5yof, but the aspect under which God is contemplated is too narrow and contracted to express what is now meant by Theoloyy.

2. But we are not to suppose, on the other hand, that there can be an adequate knowledge of God — that He can be the object of a science in any such sense as that we can deduce from Him, from the essential perfections of His nature, the laws, properties and conditions of all existing things. Such knowledge would be science in the highest and most absolute sense, but such knowledge is the prerogative of God alone. It is to me passing strange that any man should ever have dreamed of an absolute knowledge of anything. Our science can never transcend our faculties, the soaring eagle can never outstrip the atmosphere which supports it. ^Ve know the essences of nothing ; we cannot think a substance in itself; we cannot detach it from its properties and adjuncts and lay our fingers upon that secret, invisible, mysterious something which we construe in thought as the centre and bond of union and coexistence to these multifarious phenomena. We Vol. I.— 37

678 APPENDIX A.

know not matter, we know not our own souls, and how can we know. God?

All our knowledge is relative and phenomenal, measured by our faculties and confined to appearances. But as far as it goes it is real — phenomena are not a sham ; thoy are the indications of realities which transcend themselves and are embraced by faith.

Hence, the law of all human science is induction. We do not begin with things in themselves and then deduce their properties and mani- festations, but we begin with appearances, and after ascending to our highest generalizations are compelled to admit that the thing itself still lies beyond our reach in the boundless domain of faith.

The incomprehensibility of God as an object of science is the univer- sal confession of all classes of divines.

3. Then we are confined to phenomena, to manifestations, to the works of God. Now we advance one step farther : Is that knowledge of God's being, character and perfections which we are able to derive from His works, however complete and perfect it may be, that knowledge in which God is considered simply as a subject to be investigated and known, — is that the knowledge which Theology, properly so called, has in view ? Is simple cognition the end of this knowledge, or does it exist merely as an intellectual relation to its object? Certainly not. This would be to degrade God and to make Metaphysics and Theology synonymous expressions. The knowledge of God which Theology has in view is the knowledge of God as the supreme good — the knowledge of God as the full and perfect and everlasting portion of the soul. It subordinates eveiy other department of truth ; it lays its hand upon every science, makes excursions into every field of speculation, but it brings all its treasures and lays them at the feet of a just Ruler and a merciful Redeemer. Theology, then, is precisely and definitely the science of true religion, or the science of the Hfe of God in the soul of man.

4. This distinction applies as well to the nature as to the end of the knowledge, and hence what we now call Theology was by the primitive fathers and by the apostles, and even our Saviour Himself, called sim • ply knowledge. It is a peculiar kind of cognition, like the perceptions of the moral faculty, and to distinguish it we call it a living knowledge in opposition to a formal apprehension. Here is the real source of traditionalism ; it is not that the truth is systematic, but that the truth is not apprehended in its true character ; it is not that there is science, but that the phenomena of the science are misunderstood.

II. The next point is, Can it be called a science f The answer depends on what is meant by science. 1. If science is taken in the subjective sense for habitual knowledge, Theology is pre-eminently a science. Its truths are the very bone and

INAUGUEAL DISCOURSE. 579

sinew and marrow of a Divine life — the verj^ moulds into which the whole frame of the mind is cast. The perfection of science in this sense is indicated by the ease and spontaneousness of congruous acts, as in Rhetoric, Grammar, Logic.

2. If science is objectively taken for a mere logical and systematic arrangement of dependent and connected truths, there can be but one answer, unless it is affirmed that there is no distinction here of more and less general.

3. But if hy science is meant a deduction from principles intuitively given, and a demonstration from the nature and properties of its mat- ter, then there is no science of God, but at the same time there is uo science of anything else. All knowledge begins in faith ; principles must be accepted, not proved, and it matters not whether you call them principles of fiith or reason.

4. But it is said that there is no unity of matter — God, angels, men, creation, providence, etc. But there is a unity of relation^ and it is under that relation that they fall under the consideration of theolo.- gical science.

5. If by science is meant the highest certainty of reflpctive know- ledge, then we have it here in a pre-eminent degree.

6. It is the queen science. It makes all other sciences ministers to God, and draws a Divine life from them. It quickens knowledge and converts speculation into life.

III. I come now to the arrangements and method of the science.

Theology as a science was slowly developed in its reflective form. The first creeds were accepted as facts, and men lived upon the truth without having traced the deep philosophy which pei-vades it. It was a life, but not a system. The successive controversies which arose reduced to scientific precision the great doctrines of the Trinity, of the incarnation and of grace ; but still a complete view of the whole system of doctrine in its logical coherence was not attempted until the eighth century, when the foundations were laid of the scholastic Theology in the work of John Damascenus. He was followed by John Scotus Erigena, who applied the method of Aristotle to the questions of religion. The scholastic Theology received a fuller development at the hands of Lom- bard, the jMaster of the Sentences, and its final consummation in the great work of Thomas Aquinas. These productions of the Middle Ages are not without their value, and he who applies to them vpitli a discriminating search will find many a jewel in the heaps of rubbish which cover it.

1. The first great division is a division according to the sources :

Into Natural and Revealed Theology. This is not to be confounded with the distinction of Natural and Revealed Religion, which is indeed a distinction in the thing itself, in the matter considered. But who in

580 APPENDIX A.

constructing a science of minerals would distinguish them according to the senses which report their ijroperties? Truth is trath, and the divisions of a science should spring from its object-matter, and not from contingent circumstances and relations.

2. Into Dogmatic and Polemic, or Elenctic. This is only a division of the mode of treating it, and as the science of contraries is one, it appears to me that every didactic treatise is obliged to be in some degree polemic.

But taking Dogmatic Theology as a science, is there any pi-inciple in the whole system which can be called central, and around which all the parts may be made to revolve? Is there any feature which gives shape and position to every other featvu-e? Two such principles have been proposed — (1. ) In the Dutch school the doctrine of the Covenants ; and (2. ) In more recent times, the fact of redemption, the incarnation, or the Person of Christ.

There are serious objections to both these methods considered as logical exhibitions. The theory of the Covenants makes an acci- dental feature — the mode of administration — determine the character of the thing administered. It has advantages, but also disadvantages, and much has to be postulated as prior to the covenants which in this view does not constitute a part of the whole. It does not exhaust the subject. But to start from redemption, or from incarnation, or from the Person of Christ, gives us no point of logical connection with nat- ural religion. Grace and nature are widely separated states, and the religion of grace and the religion of nature have no bridge between them.

Without criticising farther the method of others, I proceed to indi- cate the principles upon which, in my judgment, the whole subject can be logically treated without confusion, mixture or undue separation of parts.

The central principle of all Theology \b justification, and every Divine system of religion is only the answer which Divine wisdom gives to the question, How shall a moral creature be justified? If that crea- ture be considered simply as a creature in the image of God, the answer is the Religion of Nature ; if that creature be considered as fallen, as a sinner, the answer is the Religion of Grace. Here the principle evidently rules the parts ; they grow out of it and spring from it, and there is not a single doctrine of religion which may not directly or remotely be traced to it. Let us consider this more distinctly.

1. The princi])le of justification is not an original and essential princi- ple of moral government. All which that implies is a law, a moral sub- ject and a just ruler. Continued obedience would be continued favour, and one transgression, ruin. Here, each man is a unit, and his moral responsibility is in himself and for himself alone. The relations

INAUGURAL DISCOUESE. 581

through the law are the only ones which are essential and enter into the case. Now, while these individual relations and this individual respon- sibility are maintained, the principle of justification (1.) Uiwits pro- bation as to time, which is an act of infinite grace; (2.) concentrates it as to persons ; whence federal headship — all are put into one. And here we may see the folly of the objection that 1 ought not to have been represented in Adam. The alternative was no limitation of pro- bation at all, or a limitation as it pleased Grod, and a condensation as to the rule or measure of obedience.

Here, then, starting from the principle of justification, you have, Jirst^ the great doctrine of moral government in its essential principles presupposed; you have, then^ the modification of that government in the Covenant of works and the whole system of natural religion ; and, more than all, you have individual responsibility fully harmonized with covenant representations — a point which no other scheme attains.

2. The same thing is seen when you come to revealed religion. The question is. How shall a sinner be just with God ? and the solution of that problem in consistency with the essential principles of moral govern- ment necessitates all the provisions of the covenant of grace. Hence the incarnation, hence the mysterious and wonderful person of the Saviour, hence His astonishing humiliatiou. His life of poverty, sor- row and obedience, and His death of agony and shame ; hence His glo- rious resurrection and ascension, and His coming at the last day to judge the world. All the facts of His history and mediation depend upon Grod's purpose to justify the ungodly.

3. But it may be said that this view leaves a sinner just half saved — out of hell, but not fit for heaven. Here consider what it involves, the very essence, indefectibility before the fall, union with God after the fall — in other words, the guarantee of holiness. This is precisely what we are justified to — the very inheritance to which we are adopted.

This method is certainly exhaustive. It presents truth in its logical order, and, above all, it cuts up by the roots many erroneous systems of Theology. The whole doctrine of a precarious and contingent holi- ness is given to the winds, and the feet of the saints are establislied on a rock. And it explains i^recisely how they are individually and per- sonally under the law, and yet in no danger of condemnation.

IV. The sources of Theology.

1. The facts of revelation. It is a science already developed in its principles, and to be received and mastered by us. The instrument employed is a sound interpretation under the guidance of God's Holy Spirit. But the theologian has not done his work when he has sim- ply accepted his principles.

2. Many of these principles are found in ourselves, in the light of reason, and the two sources are to be blended.

582 APPENDIX A.

3. But there is a higher work in evolving the philosophj' of the whole system, and showing how it accords with the indestructible data of consciousness. We may carp and cavil at philosophy as we will, but it is a fundamental want of the human soul and cannot be dis- pensed with. Reflect man must and wUl, and religion has no sanctity to protect it from the torch of a searching inquiry into its principles. The error into which we may fall is twofold :

(1.) We may proceed on the assumption that Theology is to be con- structed from consciousness — that the Divine life within us is the rule and measure of it. This is a radical mistake ; it is the rule and meas- ure of that Divine life. We must try our hearts by it, and not it by our hearts.

(2. ) We may go to the Scriptures with a preconceived system, and endeavour to harmonize their teachings with our illusive crotchets. This is the stone over which the New England theologians have fallen and broken their necks. They have made the Bible an appen- dix to their shallow and sophistical psychology, and to their still shal- lower and more sophistical ethics.

4. Now, the true method is to accept the facts of revelation as we accept the facts of natm-e. We are by enlightened interpretation to ascertain the dicta ; these are to be received without suspicion and without doubt. They are the principles of faith. Then from these principles proceed to the laws, the philosophy if you please, which underlies them, and in which they find their explanation and their unity. In this way we shall reach truth, and shall be partially able to harmonize it with all other truth.

5. But we must never forget that all cannot be explained. Our knowledge is a point, our ignorance immense. But we can know enough to glorify Grod, and to save our souls. We can know enough to make us sure that the unknown is full of glory and beauty.

Thus feebly have I sketched the work I have to do.

1 . Is it not vast ? God, Creation, Providence, Angels, Men, Heaven and Hell !

2. Is it not most important? Other knowledges bring comfort, power, wealth — this is eternal life.

3. The peculiar responsibilities of a religious teacher in this age. Irreligion is now a religion, a philosophy. An ignorant ministry will no longer do. God bless us, our Seminary, His Church and our work !

APPENDIX B.

QUESTIONS UPON THE LECTURES IN THEOLOGY.

LECTUEE I.

WHAT is said of the dignity of Theologj' as a science? 2. How would you answer the objection that the word Theology is not found in Scripture ?

3. How was the term used among the ancient Greeks ?

4. How among the Christian Fathers? '

5. When did it assume its present significance ?

6. In a wide sense what does it embrace ?

7. As restricted to a particular science, how has the science been divided ?

8. What is meant by thetic and antithetic theology ?

9. What terms have supplanted these ?

10. Define Theology as hereafter to be used.

11. What are the objections to considering Theology a science?

12. Answer these objections.

13. What would you say of the question, whether Theology is a speculative or practical science ?

14. What is the object of all religion? How would you show that religion is not exclusively subjective and one-sided ?

15. What terms must be given in order to construct a science of religion?

, 16. Into how many parts may a complete treatise of Theology be divided ?

17. In regard to the sources of Theology, what three answers have been given as to the Principle of Theology?

18. Refute the Romanist.

19. What is the true function of the Church?

20. State the scheme of the Rationalist, and refute it.

683

584 APPENDIX B.

21. What is the Protestant doctrine?

22. The office of reason in regard to Revelation?

LECTUKE II.

1. What are the three questions concerning God?

2. Why has this subject ehcited so much speculation ?

3. What has been one occasion of perplexity?

4. How does it appear that the proofs of the Divine existence must lie very close to our faculties ?

5. What does the universal belief of a God prove ?

6. Would the kind of reasoning which disproves the existence of God stop at that point ? What other truths does it equally overthrow ?

7. What is the process of argument contained in the lectm-e ?

8. What is the nature of religion as a form of life ?

9. What are the three elements contained in it?

10. What is the law which lies at the root of speculative reason?

11. Upon what occasion does this law give us necessary being?

12. What two factors in the argument ?

13. Is it a syllogism ? What is it?

14. What has Kant called this proof?

15. What is the datum upon which this law gives an intelligent being ?

16. What is tliis argument called?

17. Apart from the first, what is its defect?

18. What is the ontological proof?

19. What is its value ?

20. Develop the argument from conscience.

21. What do Kant and Hamilton say of this argument?

22. Show that every step increases our knowledge of God.

23. Develop the argument from the religious natm-e — the instinct of worship.

24. What form does it assume in the Christian heart?

25. In what sense is the knowledge of God natural ?

26. Is our knowledge immediate or mediate ?

27. Are the principles above enumerated the only ones which enter into any argument?

28. Show their application to the argument from geology, from history, from miracles and from a Divine revelation.

Lecture III

1. What is the question discussed in this lecture?

2. Show how it emerges, and the importance of an answer.

3. What is the ignorance of God which is justly attributed to the natural man?

QUESTIONS UPOX THE LECTUEES. 585

4. To what causes is it ascribed ?

5. What is tlie relation of Satan to the human soul since the fall?

6. How does he operate on men ?

7. In what light must Paganism, Popeiy, Mohammedanism and Infidelity be regarded ?

8. Is the responsibility of man diminished ?

9. Illustrate human depravity in general as a disturbing element.

10. Show its influence in the sphere of speculation.

11. Show its influence on the imagination, and state the results,

12. Show the power of an evil conscience acting through the attrac- tive and repulsive principle of religion in om' fallen nature.

13. Explain the influence of the instinct of worship.

14. Define and prove spiritual ignorance as the inheritance of all men.

15. Specify the general benefits of revelation to any people.

16. What is the estimate of the moral character of heathenism?

LECTUEE IV.

1. What question do we now come to touching God?

2. What is the first extreme answer that has been given ?

3. What has been the problem of recent philosophy in Germany?

4. What is the other extreme answer? Quote its language.

5. What seems to be the truth ?

6. Is om- knowledge of God subject to the conditions of all other knowledge ?

7. Mention three conditions of human knowledge.

8. What, then, is the real amount of om* knowledge of mind and matter?

9. What two elements enter into all knowledge of the finite ?

10. How are they conjoined?

11. What two elements enter into our knowledge of God?

12. How are they conjoined?

13. What is the real iuijiort of the law of causality?

14. In relation to the infinite how does it appear?

15. Quote Calvin's Commentary on Genesis, etc.

16. What is the matter that is thought in the concept of God?

17. What is the threefold method of ascending from the finite to the infinite, noted by the Pseudo-Dionysius?

18. Illustrate it.

19. What notion of God is the mind thus lead to postulate?

20. What is an absolutely perfect being ?

21. What is the distinction between the infinite and the absolute?

22. What is the result when both are applied to God ?

586 APPENDIX B.

23. Show that it abolishes the distinction between the possible and the actual.

24. Quote Howe's Living Temple.

25. What are the two elements which enter into our positive notion of God?

26. How do we attribute the finite perfection to God?

27. What is meant by analogy f

28. Quote Berkeley's Minute Philosopher.

29. What criticism on this passage ?

30. What is the importance of the negative element in our concep- tion of God ?

31. Recapitulate the sum of the foregoing discussion.

82. What is said to be the Catholic doctrine of Theology on this point?

33. Quote Calvin's Institutes.

34. How would you answer the objection that our knowledge of God, according to this view, is delusive and deceptive? State the objec- tion first, and then solve it.

35. Show that it applies equally to all human knowledge.

36. Where would it lead if consistently carried out?

37. What is truth, and what is the test that a given representation is true ? Quote Mansel.

38. What confusion of ideas does the objection involve ?

39. How would you show that our partial, relative knowledge is adequate for the purposes of religion ? Show it first in general.

40. Show it specially with reference to the threefold state of man.

41. Show how this view of our knowledge connects our natural and our religious life. Quote Mansel.

42. Show how the two elements of oui* knowledge complete the notion of religion.

43. How the belief of the Infinite heightens devotion.

44. Show the harmony of our doctrine with the teaching of Scrip- ture. Quote Mansel again.

45. Show the consequences of oui- ignorance of the absolute.

LECTUEE V.

1. What is tlae design of the names of God in the Scriptures?

2. What is the peculiarity of these names?

3. What is the difference between denote and connote, notative and connotative ?

4. What is the difficulty in determining the connotation of those proper names of God which are not attributive ?

5. Why in the earlier stages of llevelatiou are names of God more numerous than in the later ?

QUESTIONS UPON THE LECTURES. 587

6. How many names of God does Jerome enumerate among the Hebrews?

7. State the defects of this catalogue.

8. What is the import of the word Sahaoth f

9. What three names in Jerome's catalogue are probably the same ?

10. What are the two most important names of Grod in the Hebrew Scrii)tures ?

11. How are they rendered in Grreek?

12. Into how many classes of sections may the Pentateuch be divided with respect to the use of them?

13. What is said of the extent and variety of this usage?

14. What is the first name of God employed in the Hebrew Bible ?

15. How do you explain its plural form ?

16. Show that it is not a plural of majesty or intensity.

17. Why is this term used in the account of the creation?

IS. What are the two most probable etjonologies of this word?

19. What is its connotation according to the first?

20. What is its connotation according to Delitzsch ?

21. What objections to this connotation?

22. What is its connotation according to the other etymology?

23. Which connotation is most probable, and why ?

24. Explain the analogical application of this term to kings and magistrates.

25. How does Cocceius explain this term ?

26. What is the next most important name of God ?

27. Why called tetragrammaton f

28. What is the superstition of the Jews with reference to it?

29. Show that it was known and used among the patriarchs.

30. Explain Exodus vi. 2, 3.

31. What is the absolute signification of Jehovah f

32. What is its relative signification to us ?

33. Why can it not be analogically applied to other beings?

34. What would you infer from the application of this name to Christ?

35. Mention some uses of this word which justify the above expo- sition.

36. What is the origin and import of the word Jah ?

37. What is the meaning of Adonaif of Shaddaif of Elf of Ely on?

38. What are the names of God in Greek?

39. Explain their use in the New Testament.

40. What end have these various names sei-ved in the progress of Revelation?

/

588 APPENDIX B.

LECTUEE VI.

1. What distinction do you make in answering the question whether God can be defined ?

2. Show that, strictly speaking, He cannot be defined at all.

3. Show that He can be described in terms equivalent to a defi- nition.

4. Criticise the definition, Grod is the absolutely perfect Being.

5. In what does Perrone place the essence of God?

6. What four conditions does he make essential to an essence ?

7. Does his own definition fulfil these conditions ?

8. How do we i^roceed in defining God?

9. What brief definition is specially commended ?

10. What defect is suggested in it?

11. How does the notion of attributes arise ?

12. Does the distinction of essential and non-essential hold in relation to the attributes of God ?

13. On what ground is it maintained that there is no real distinc- tion among the attributes themselves?

14. How is it explained that the one appears as the many ?

15. Explain what is meant by real and virtual or eminent distinc- tion.

16. Is this distinction a sufiicient explanation?

17. What is the synthetic method of enumerating the attributes of God.

18. What sevenfold scheme of classification is signalized?

19. What is said of the agreement in these various schemes?

20. What is said of the terms communicable and incommunicable ?

21. What is Dr. Hodge's classification?

22. What is Dr. Breckinridge's?

23. What objections to it?

24. What simpler classification is proposed ?

25. In what order should the whole subject be treated?

LECTUEE VII.

1. What is the importance of the spirituality of God?

2. In what Scripture is it expressly affirmed ?

3. How does Vorstius interpret that passage ?

4. State his reasons, and show their inadequacy.

5. How else is it taught in Scriptiu-e ? Cite passages.

6. What was the doctrine of ancient philosophers?

7. In what two lights may the spirituality of God be considered?

8. Negatively taken, what does it imply?

9. What is said of the Anthropomorphites?

QUESTIONS UPON THE LECTURES. 589

10. What is said of Tertullian?

11. How are those Scriptures to be interpreted whicli attribute bodily organs to God?

12. AVhat kind of organs is attributed to Him?

13. How is the immateriality of God proved from Scripture?

14. Explain Exodus xxiv. 8-10.

15. What is positively involved in the spirituality of God?

16. What is a self-conscious subject?

17. Are we directly conscious of self, or is it only an inference?

18. From what phenomena is a direct consciousness manifested?

19. Given a Sjtirit, what is the first thing contained in it?

20. Illustrate the life of God.

21. What is the nature of God's activity, and what is said of this species of action ?

22. What is said of the unity and simplicity of God ?

23. What is said of the communicativeness of God?

24. What are the falsehoods involved in image-worship ?

LECTUKE VIII.

1. What is the subject of this lecture ?

2. How are these attributes classified, and what are they?

3. What is meant by the Independence of God ?

4. How has it been otherwise expressed ?

5. What forms of expression are censured ?

6. Is the idea conveyed negative or positive ?

7. How would you prove it ?

8. Is it confined to the being of God ?

9. How hasJEternity been defined?

10. How alone can we conceive Time ? Can we conceive Eternity ?

11. What is said of Eternity a parte ante and a parte post ?

12. What is implied in the notion of Eternity?

13. What is Immensity? How does it differ from Omnipresence?

14. What is the relation of spirits to space, bodies, God, as ex- pressed by Schoolmen ?

15. Is God mixed with the creature, or present by difiusion?

16. What is virtual presence, and is it the only presence of God?

17. Prove Immensity from Scripture.

18. How does the God of the Bible contrast in this respect with heathenism ?

19. In what other senses may God be said to be present?

20. Show the value of Immensity as a regulative truth.

21. What is the All-sufficiency of God?

22. What is the distinction between /orwia?, eminent and virtual^ as applied to the modes in which perfections are predicated of God ?

590 APPENDIX B.

23. Show the regulative value of this truth.

24. What is Immutability, and how involved in eveiy notion of the Absolute?

25. Prove it from reason and from Scripture.

26. How reconciled with the flict of creation? of the incarnation? with finite changes ?

27. Explain those Scriptures which speak of God as changing, re- penting, etc.

28. What is the regulative value of this truth ?

29. How does an unchangeable God differ from fate ?

30. Mention some points of dissimilitude between God and man.

31. What follows as to our competency to judge of His ways?

LECTUKE IX.

1. What five conceivable hypotheses touching the relations of the finite and infinite?

2. Why do we discount those of the Atheist and Eleatic?

3. Why may we discount that of the Dualist ?

4. What, then, is the real issue that remains?

5. What is the prevailing tendency of philosophy?

6. To what is the question between Pantheists and Theists reduced ?

7. What is the fundamental postulate of Pantheism ?

8. How is the notion of creation represented as contradictory.

9. How is it shown to be inconsistent with the idea of the absolute ?

10. What is the objection from tlie will of God? State the whole series of difiiculties.

11. What is the objection from the existence of evil?

12. What general answer may be given to these four classes of ob- jections ?

13. How woiold you answer specifically the first objection, that the notion of creation is contradictory ?

14. How woidd you answer the second, that it is incompatible with the absolute?

15. How would you answer the third, from the will of God?

16. How the fom-th, from the existence of evil?

17. What are the steps by which it is shown that creation is the natural faith of mankind? Mention the first averment of conscious- ness.

18. What is the second truth clearly given in experience?

19. What is the third proposition?

20. What must be the conclusion ?

21. How does it happen that speculation diverts us from this nat- ural faith ?

22. Show that no creature possesses creative power.

QUESTIONS UPON THE LECTURES. 591

23. What is the teaching of the Scriptures in relation to creation?

24. What proof of their Divine origin is hereby furnished ?

Lecture X

1. What is the importance of the knowledge of Man?

2. What elements unite in him ? Hence called what ?

3. What is his general position ?

4. What is the method piirsued in treating of man ?

5. How may his distinguishing features be briefly expressed ?

6. What are they ? Explain the conditions of intelligence.

7. What is conscience? What is will? What are passions?

8. Show the immutability of the soul.

9. What is said of the threefold life in man ?

10. State the arguments for natural immortality.

11. What are the theories as to the primitive condition of man?

12. What is the importance of this subject?

13. What is meant by in pirn's naturalilnis f

14. Show that this is not the primitive state of man.

15. Prove that man was created in maturity of knowledge.

16. Give the Scripture arguments on the subject, direct and indirect.

17. Show that man's original state was not savage.

18. Explain what is meant by the image of God.

19. Was the hoKness of man contingent or immutable?

20. What diiFerent theories to explain the psychological history of sin?

21. State the Pelagian, and that of the Papists, and that of Bishop Butler.

22. What objection to this theory?

23. Where must the true solution be sought ?

24. What is the true doctrine of the will ?

25. What conditions must a just theory of the will fulfil?

26. What is the universal doctrine of divines as to the mutability of man's will?

27. What was the end of man's creation?

28. What is imi^lied in his being a servant ?

Lecture XI

1. What is the importance of rightly understanding the essential principles of Moral Government?

2. What is the defect of the definition which makes it consist in a government whose rule of obedience is the Moral Law ?

3. Give an exact definition.

4. Whence the notions of justice and of merit? Define conscience.

592 APPENDIX B.

5. Show that the cognitions of conscience, though logically distinct, are really inseparable. Illustrate each cognition.

6. How are moral rules elicited?

7. Show that man was under such a government from the moment of his creation.

8. What does the conviction of good and ill desert imply ?

9. What is the effect of one sin upon the sense of good desert?

10. What is the reward of mere moral government?

11. Does moral government imply representation?

12. What is the relation of man to God under moral government?

13. What are the essential differences betwixt a son and a servant?

14. Prove the doctrine of this lecture from Scripture.

15. Explain the difference betwixt moral government and moral dis- cipline.

16. Under what circumstances is discipline possible to a sinner?

17. Recapitulate the whole lecture.

LECTUEE XII.

1. What was the general design of the dispensation mider which man was placed immediately after his creation ?

2. What is implied in sonship ?

3. What was the motive to this aiTangement on God's part?

4. Illustrate the riches of this grace.

5. What was necessaiy in order to convert a servant into a son ?

6. What modification of moral government was accordingly intro- duced ?

7. What principle did this modification introduce?

8. Explain the nature and effect of justification.

9. In what sense are these modifications of moral government (adoption and justification) arbitrary?

10. How was man to be made acquainted with them?

11. What follows as to the natm-e of the religion which was always exacted of him?

12. What is this dispensation of religion called?

13. What is a covenant? and what en-or must we avoid in speaking of a covenant betwixt man and God ?

14. What are the essential things in a covenant?

15. What other modification of moral government was introduced into this covenant?

16. How would you show that the principle of representation is a benevolent principle?

17. What is the ground of representation?

18. Whom did Adam represent? Was Christ included ?

19. Explain the operation of the two principles of natural headship

QUESTIONS UPON THE LECTUEES. 593

and federal headship in relation to the promises or threats of the covenant.

20. How would you show that federal headship is the immediate ground of imputation?

21. What are the two principles introduced hy the covenant which pervade every system of religion ?

22. What peculiarity in relation to duties does the condition of the covenant evolve ?

23. Explain Butler's account of the difference of the moral and positive.

24. Point out its defect. State the truth.

25. Why must the positive give place to the moral ?

26. Show the fitness of testing man's obedience by a positive pre- cept.

27. What was the precept ? Why was the tree so called?

28. What other explanations of this tree have been given? Re- fute them.

29. What is the error, or rather, exaggerated statement, of the Dutch divines?

30. Was the moral law also a condition of the covenant ?

31. In what relation did the twofold elenients of the condition stand to each other?

32. How would you show that the moral law is the permanent con- dition of life?

33. What special consideration is here urged ?

34. How does it appear that tiie covenant must have had a special promise ?

35. Does Moses record the promise?

36. What is the first argument that shows a special promise?

37. What is the express teaching of Scripture ?

38. What is the third argument from redemption?

39. What, then, was the promise ? What elements included in life ?

40. What is the import of the tree of life ?

41. What was Warburton's theoiy of the Covenant of Works?

42. What is the last point to be considered in relation to this cov- enant?

43. How have the answers given to this question been modified ?

44. What is the dmtli threatened, according to Warbm-ton ?

45. Why do some exclude temporal or natural death and disease ?

46. To what do others restrict the penalty ?

47. How are we to ascertain the truth upon this subject ?

48. What is the scriptural meaning of death ?

49. Is pain a necessary proof of guilt?

50. What was the first form of death threatened in the covenant? Vol. I.— 38

594 APPENDIX B.

51. How could a single sin produce a state of total depravity?

52. What was the second form of death ?

53. What was the third form of death?

54. How long did Adam stand ?

55. What is the first cu-cumstance mentioned in the natural history of sin?

56. What is the second ?

57. What was the nature of the sin by which man fell ?

58. What were its aggravations?

59. What are the general relations of the human race to God since the fall, apart from redemption ?

LECTUEE XIII.

1. W^hat is Original Sin ? Explain the diiFerent usage of the word.

2. What are the elements embraced in the doctrine ?

3. To what point may the whole question of its tnith be reduced ?

4. How does it appear that man is utterly destitute of righteousness ?

5. How would you explain the moral excellence of unconverted men ?

6. What is the ground of this native depravity ? Explain the dif- ferent theories.

7. What is the ground of federal representation ?

8. Can we understand the whole subject? What analogies illus- trated ?

9. How is native depravity propagated ?

10. Is there any importance in the question as to the origin of the soul?

Lecture XIV

1. Recapitulate briefly the history of man as thus far presented.

2. What is his present state, and how is he dealt with?

3. What fine passage from McCosh referred to as an illustration?

4. What is the importance of the fall in solving the mysteries of Providence towards man ?

5. What is the method pursued in treating of the state of sin?

6. What is the first point to be considered ?

7. What is the first and most obvious determination of sin?

8. What does the law regulate in man ? Show that it is not re stricted to external acts or internal resolutions.

9. How can permanent states be matter of responsibility ?

10. How, then, may sin, materially considered, be defined?

11. How is sin distinguished from vice or immorality?

12. Is the will of God the ultimate standard of right?

13. What is the ethical ground of the supremacy of the Divine will?

QUESTIONS UPON THE LECTURES. 595

14. Is the doctrine of creation essential to moral government?

15. What, then, is the normal attitude of the soid to God?

16. How is this supreme devotion realized?

17. Is love, materially considered, the fulfilling of the law?

18. What is the real ground of love to the creature?

19. Annul the notion of creation, and could there be any moral ties among the creatures ?

20. Subjectively considered, what becomes the nature of sin ?

21. How is this reconciled with disinterested affections?

22. What has been the consistent teaching of divines as to the sub- jective nature of sin?

23. Show how selfishness leads to the violation of the whole law.

24. What other question remains to be asked ?

25. What is said of the theory which resolves moral distinctions into pure will ?

26. What general objection to all theories which resolve virtue into prudence, or benevolence, or sympathy?

27. What is the only unity they admit in rectitude?

28. What kind of a cognition is that of the right?

29. What is the real ground of the unity of all its concrete mani- festations ?

30. Develop fully the notion of holiness in God.

31. Develop next the notion of holiness in man.

32. The analogy betwixt holiness and life.

33. In what aspect does holiness contemplate God ?

34. How, then, may it be defined ?

35. Show the distinction betwixt morality and holiness — the right and the good.

36. Is a sense of duty the highest principle of action ?

37. According to this account, how does sin first appear?

38. Explain the distinction betwixt privation and negation.

39. Has privation been, generally considered a complete explanation of the nature of sin? The doctrine of Augustin, of Lombard, of Reformers.

40. Why has the purely privative character of sin been so strenu- ously maintained ? Cite authorities.

41. What distinction in vindication of this theory has been made between sin in the concrete and sin in the abstract?

42. Explain Augustin when he says that "there is no sin wliich does not attach itself to the good."

43. ^\^lat is the first argument against this theory drawn from its double confusion ?

[Remainder wanting.]

596 APPENDIX B.

LECTUEE XV.

1. What two inseparable properties of sin are there?

2. What is the stain — the macula ?

3. Show the relation between the beautiftd and the impure — re- ligion and art.

4. What is the sentiment proper to sin as the vile ?

5. What is the precise sphere of the operation of this sentiment ?

6. Under what condition is it most powerful?

7. What is guilt? actual? potential? in x>riino actu? in secundo?

8. What is the natural expression of the sense of guilt?

9. Analyze remorse.

10. Show the inexorable necessity of punishment.

11. The eifect upon a community of the relaxation of this senti- ment.

12. Show the hopeless necessity of sin arising from one sin.

1 3. The eternity of punishment.

14. What circumstances repress the full effects of sin here?

15. Scripture usage of guilt.

16. Importance of the distinction betwixt stain and guilt.

17. Papal distinction — reatus culpce and pcejicc.

LECTUEE XVI.

1. Are all sins equally heinous ? Show from Scripture.

2. The Stoic paradox.

3. The Confession of Faith.

4. The ground of these distinctions.

5. Sins of ignorance, presumption, weakness.

6. What does eveiy sin deserve ?

7. Venial and mortal sins.

8. Sin against the Holy Ghost

APPENDIX C.

ANALYSIS OF CALVIN'S INSTITUTES,

WITH NOTES AND COMMENTS.

BOOK FIRST.

OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE CEEATOE.

Chapter I CONNECTION BETWEEN THE KNOWLEDGE OP GOD AND THE KNOWLEDGE OP OURSELVES

ALL solid wisdom consists of two parts — the knowledge of Grod and the knowledge of ourselves. These are the terms that must be given in order to constitute the possibility of religion.

2. Each necessary to the other; each implies the other. If we look at ourselves —

(1.) Our dependent and contingent being suggests the eternity and independence of God.

(2.) His bounties suggest His ftdlness — our consciousness of self- inSufficiency, His self-sufficiency.

(3.) Our misery and destitution, His glory and blessedness. This is the point at which we generally begin to seek Him.

3. But then, again, there can be no true knowledge of ourselves without a knowledge of Grod.

He is the only standard of comparison by which we can be made sensible of our imperfection and unworthiness.

To him that had never seen a perfect specimen of whiteness the dingy may appear white, and the eye knows not its weakness until it attempts to gaze upon the sun.

4. That we are made deeply sensible of our own worthlessness by

697

598 APPENDIX C.

the knowledge of God is evident from tlie consternation and alarm which manifestations of God have made even upon the saints. Hence the saying, None could see Him and live.

CHAPTEE II.

WHAT IT IS TO KNOW GOD.

As this hook begins with the knowledge of God, this second chapter defines what is meant by the knowledge — that is, the kind of cogni- tion which enters into Theology.

1. It is that knowledge which lies at the foundation of religion, which produces and cherishes true piety — not the knowledge of the ontological fact there is a God, nor of the metaphysical fact that He is the first cause, but of the moral fact that He is our Good. Hence, Theology is the science of r dig Ion.

Now, religion is twofold — one the religion of man in innocence, the other the religion of man as a sinner. There is, therefore, a twofold Theology — one the knowledge of God which fed the religion of Adam before he fell, the other the knowledge of God in Christ.

It is the first knowledge which is discussed in this book. The other is discussed in the second book. The view of God or sense of God which produces religion is that of God as the supreme Good.

2. Hence, religion contemplates rather the character and relations of God to the creatm-e than the Divine essence.

This whole paragraph possesses great beauty.

CHAPTEE III.

NATURALLY THE HUMAN MIND WAS IMBUED WITH THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD.

To the question, Whence have we the knowledge of God ? this chap- ter answers —

1. It is natural. It is in the human mind by natural instinct. (1.) Shown by universal sense of religion. , (2.) Specially shown by idolatry, to which a man could not degrade

himself without a strong impulse to worship.

2. Religion is not a factitious and artificial sentiment. Politicians could not have used it as an instrument had there not been the orig- inal susceptibility in human nature.

This fiuther shown by the fact that professed atheists on alarming emergencies, when nature acts spontaneously, give utterances of their dreadful sense of God, as in the case of Caligula.

3. This sense of God is ineradicable. It is the real instinct to the tnie end of our existence. The whole passage deserves to be thought- fully weighed. It asserts in divers forms the intuitive knowledge of

ANALYSIS OF CALVIX. 599

God, or that it is an original element of intelligence, and particularly of conscience. Religion is the true end of man, acknowledged by Plato and by Grj'llus in Plutarch. This is his characteristic excellence.

CHAPTEK IV.

THROUGH IGNORANCE AND THROUGH MALICE THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD STIFLED OR CORRUPTED.

This chapter undertakes to solve the phenomenon that while the knowledge of God is natural, it confessedly produces no real piety among men as long as they are left to themselves. The seed never matures into a fruit-bearing tree. The causes are ignorance and malice — the ignorance inexcusable because it is the offspring of pride, vanity and contumacy.

1. Supei'stition is described, and traced to vanity and pride. Tlie reasoning is that of Rom. i. 22.

2. The malicious are next described in an explanation of the fool who, according to the Psalmist, has said in his heart. There is no God — the man who is anxious to get quit of a moral administration that he may revel in his crimes.

3. Having considered the two classes, he next considers the vanity of superstition considered as an expression of true worship. It is said to proceed from a religious spirit and to indicate a religious life. The true ground and rule of worship shown to lie in the truth. All will- worship offensive.

4. He shows, in the last place, that mahce often joins hands with superstition, and produces a monstrous religion of stupid rites and slavish fears.

This chapter is a veiy just picture of the religious condition of man- kind without the enlightening and sanctifying grace of God.

CHAPTEK V.

THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD AS DISPLAYED IN MAN HIMSELF, IN CREATION AND IN PROVIDENCE.

In addition to the knowledge of God involved in the very constitu- tion of the mind, this chapter considers the manifestations of the Divine glory in the creation and government of the world.

1. They are asserted to be so clear and conspicuous that nothing but the most wilful blindness can fail to perceive them. The Psalm- ist (civ. 20) calls light His garment. It was the first dress in which God made Himself visible. The heavens are His tents, etc.

Eveiy j)artide of the world boars witness, l)ut the universe as a whole contains a testimony of overpowering splendour. Hence, the

600 APPENDIX C.

lieavens declare His glory (Ps, sis. 1), and the visible things His in- visible (Rom. i. 19).

2. Though the manifestations of Grod are more numerous and strik- ing to the eye of science, yet enough to leave us without escuse can be perceived without science. Science only multiplies the instances. It gives a greater number of special adaptations, but hardly deepens the sense of general order.

3. Among these mirrors of God in nature, man himself is pre- eminent. Hence, he has been called a microcosm. We do not go beyond ourselves to seek God. The Psalmist (Ps. viii.) passes from the heavens to man. The heathen poet calls us God's offspring.

4. The traces of God in man, the elements of proof in his soul and body, are mentioned briefly as a rebuke to our stupidity for not having and retaining the knowledge of His name. If such a body as that of man is governed by such a soul, shall the universe be without a mind ? The passage is striking in relation to the worm five feet long.

5. The argument from the faculties of the soul, its rare endow- ments, its independence in its highest operations upon the body, its moral discernment and its impress of immortality, is pursued. The notion of a soul of the world contained in the celebrated verses of Virgil, ^neid vi. 724, and in Georgics, iv. 220, is esploded. Calvin objects to the phrase that Nature is God, though he admits that it may be used in a good sense.

6. The Divine power is especially illustrious in the sustentation and guidance of this mighty fabric, and in storms, earthquakes, thunders, lightnings and the management of the seas. His power as Creator leads us to His eternity and to His goodness as the motive of creation.

7. Calvin now calls attention to a class of works out of the ordinary course of nature. He alludes to tho?e flagrant instances in providence which show as if with the finger tlie real character of God. The gen- eral lessons of providence are in fiivour of moral government. They teach God's benignity to the righteous and His disapi^robation of the wicked. Still, the righteous are often depressed and the wicked flourish. But these flagrant instances of signal punishment or reward leave no doubt, and give us a key in the prospect of a future state to the inequalities of the present dispensation.

8. In this aspect may be contemplated the astonishing contrasts which Providence often produces in the lives of men. They were signalized by the Psalmist (Ps. cvii. ) ; similar contrasts are constantly presented now, and they illustrate the power and wisdom of God — the desperateness of the case showing forth His power, and the time- liness of the aid His wisdom.

9. This manner of knowing God in His works seems to be singularly

ANALYSIS OF CALVIX. 601

suited to promote pietj'. It brings Him before us, not in His essence, but in His perfections, in His actual workings, in His benefits, and shows us a Being not only good, but ceaselessly doing good.

10. It furnishes the sure ground of hope of a future life ; it shows us a moral administration begun, but not finished. The phenomena of Providence point as with a finger to a future judgment.

11. And yet while such are the tendencies of nature, no man, if left to it alone, ever attained a true knowledge of God.

(1.) With regard to the structure of the world and the ordinarj' course of phenomena, we stop at the works themselves, or content our- selves with secondary causes, and never inquire after God.

(2. ) "With respect to striking events in providence out of the usual course, we ascribe things to fortune and not to God ; or, if forced to admit the finger of God, we corrupt His name by our vain imagi- nations.

None seek after God ; high and low, ignorant and philosophers, all alike have departed from Him to stupidity and folly.

12. The vanity of the human mind is shown in the multitude of gods it has introduced, and the multitude of fictions in relation to them. It is a spring bubbling up with idols. This blindness in rela- tion to the true God conspicuous among the most refined and culti- vated. The philosophers who attempted to maintain a show of reason have stumbled and fallen. Illustrated in the case of the Stoics and the mystical theology of the Egyptians.

The endless dissensions of philosophers led the Epicureans to the shorter method of denjdng any true God — an equal instance of blind- ness.

The answer of Simonides to Hiero a confession of inability to know God.

13. All worship which is founded in the opinion of man, however specious, is treated in the Scripture as apostasy. Common sense has never led to the true glorifying of God.

(1.) The Ephesians in their unconverted state are said to have been without God. J

(2. ) The whole Gentile world, Paul says, knew Him not.

(3.) Even the Samaritans, our Saviour says, worshipped they knew not what.

(4. ) Paul articulately declares that the world by wisdom knew not God ; and this is evinced by the fact that the custom of their ancestors or the authority of the State were sufficient grounds of worship.

14. Hence it follows that nature alone leads no one to God. We suflFocate her light. Divine teaching must be superadded. God must reveal Himself by the illumination of His word and Spirit.

15. Still, this ignorance is without excuse. The difficulty is in us.

G02 APPENDIX C.

It is our lethargj^ our ingratitude, our vanity and pride that darken the mind. This concluding section is very beautifully expressed.

Notes.

1. The importance of a devout contemplation of nature. We should habitually look upon it as Grod's workmanship, and all its beauty, order, benevolent arrangements we should attribute to Him. We should endeavour to feel that aU His works praise Him and give Him the glory which they represent. Man should be the interpreter, the tongue of their mute doxologies. Second causes and laws must not conceal Him.

2. Providence we should study as the key to God's character and His estimate of us. Our relations to Him as sinners, His character as holy, and His gracious purpose to us, after all furnish the key.

CHAPTEE VI.

THE NEED OF SCRIPTURE TO GUIDE MAN TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD.

The design of this chapter is to show that there is no true know- ledge of God from the light of nature without Revelation.

1. To those who have known Him, God has always made Himself known by His word. The Jews were so instructed, the Christian Church is so instructed. Revelation is not only necessary to teach the plan of salvation, but to teach the doctrines of natural religion. Without it we cannot know the Creator of the world. Calvin here uses a fine figure. To a man of weak vision a book is presented ; he can see that there are characters, but cannot distinguish them. You give him spectacles and he reads distinctly. Nature is such a book ; man in his fallen state has weak eyes. Revelation is the spec- tacles.

2. The reality of the Revelation was plain to those to whom it was made. It certified itself It was committed to writing that it might be preserved and transmitted free from conniption. Of course, the main design of the Law and Prophets was to teach the doctrines of salvation, but they also teach the doctrines of natural religion. These are presupposed as the basis of the scheme of grace.

3. rience no true method of knowing God but by Revelation. Here alone have we the key for the interpretation of nature.

4. Hence the frequent contrasts between the lights of nature and Revelation, and hence all are said to be without God who have not the Word. Even the Samaritans worshipped they knew not what.

ANALYSIS OF CALVIN. 603

Chapter VII SCRIPTURE DOES NOT DEPEND FOR ITS AUTHORITY UPON THE CHURCH

The design of this chapter is to explain the ground of the author- ity of Scripture, and how we come to know that it is Scripture.

1. Supposing a Divine revelation admitted, there can be no ques- tion as to its authority and the ground of it. But when the question is whether such and such books are Divine revelations, how are we to determine what books to receive and what to reject? Here it is said the Church must decide. She determines what is and what is not Revelation, and her decision is authoritative.

2. This answer reverses the doctrine of the apostle, who makes the Church the creature of Scripture, and not Scripture the creatui-e of the Church. She is built on the foundation of prophets and apos- tles. Eph. ii. 20. Scripture judges the Church, and not the Church Scriptiu-e. She pays homage to Scripture, but does not constitute it. How, then, are we to know Scripture? It authenticates itself, its light is in itself A man judges of it as he judges of tastes, smells and colours.

3. The sentiment of Augustin, that "he would not believe the Gos- pel unless moved by the authority of the Church" (Cont. Epist. Fun- daments, c. V. ), means only that the testimony of the Church is a valid argument or motive to induce an unbeliever to investigate the claims and contents of Scripture. The Church proposes their doctrines as Divine, and testifies to her own faith in their divinity. This testimony should induce the lover of truth to examine the question, and he may soon find himself a true believer through the teaching of God's Spirit.

Augustin evidently uses authority in the sense of a strong motive ; it is her proposing and witnessing to Divine truth that he alludes to. This proved by a passage from chap. iv. of the same treatise.

4. The real ground of the authority of Scripture is the reality of its being a Divine revelation. Its authority is the authority of its Author. That it may exert this authority there must be a certain and infallible persuasion that it is the word of God. This certain and in- fallible persuasion is produced only by the illumination of the Spirit. What are called the evidences of Christianity, its historical proofs, are of use in conciliating attention and in leading to the study of Scrip- ture, but they can never produce anything but opinion. They cannot give birth to a faith which establishes the heaii. The Word contains the evidences of its own origin, the Spirit enables us to perceive them. The Word is objective light, the Spirit subjective light; their concm-- rence produces spiritual vision or faith.

5. This, then, is the result of the whole matter : the Scriptures are self-authenticated, and the Spirit enables us to apprehend their

604 APPENDIX C.

Divinity, not as a matter of reason nor as a blind credulity, but as an intuitive perception. They come liome to the spiritual sense with a life and power which show them to be Divine. Faith is a Divine in- tuition above reason, and not dependent on it. Hence, the promises of Divine teaching. Hence, too, the spiritual ignorance in the world.

Notes.

1. The true authority of the Church is happily expressed by Me- lancthon [De Ecdesla et Auct. Verhi Dei, p. 124): "We are to hear the Church as a teacher and admonisher, but are not to believe on account of the authority of the Church ; for the Church does not make — she only teaches and admonishes articles of faith. The truth is to be believed only on account of the word of Grod when, having been admonished by the Church, we perceive that the doctrine is really and unequivocally delivered in the word of God."

2. The same doctrine is repeated in the Loci Communes, p. 229 : "Wherefore the Church is to be heard as a teacher, but faith and invocation lean only on the word of God, not on human authority."

This testifying power Melancthon considers important as a bridle upon the extravagance of men in broaching new-fangled doctrines. But the Word is ever supreme.

Chapter IX THOSE ARE FANATICS WHO SUBSTITUTE THEIR REVELATIONS FOR SCRIPTURE

Those who reject the Word under pretence of being led by the Spirit are guilty of madness as well as error.

1. The Spirit always produces reverence for the Word. Isaiah sig- nalizes the union of the Spirit and the Word, not only as a mark of the Church in pupilage, but of the Church in its highest maturity. (Isa. lix. 21.)

Paul caught up into the third heavens stiU studies the Word, and commends the study of it to Timothy. (1 Tim. iv. 13.)

The Spirit as promised to the apostles was to bring to their remem- brance the words of Christ. (John xvi. 13.) He teaches, imjiresses and seals the Word.

2. The cavil that to judge the Spirit by the Word is derogatoiy to the Spirit, as implying subjection on His part, is a gross misappre- hension. We do not subject Him to any authority — we only represent Him as consistent with Himself We have only a test, and a test derived from Himself, by which we can distinguish Him from every false claimant.

3. That the Word is the dead letter is equally frivolous. The

ANALYSIS OF CALVIN. 605

Word without the Spirit is dead, but with the Spirit quick and powerful. Hence Paul calls his preaching the ministration of the Spirit.

The Word is the Spirit's organ, the Spirit's instrument in conver- sion and teaching. The one is never without the other. The Word without the Spu-it is formalism. The Spirit without the Word is en- thusiasm.

CHAPTEE X.

SCRIPTURE HOLDS FORTH THE TRUE GOD ALONE, AS OPPOSED TO ALL FALSE GODS.

1. The character of G-od as described in Revelation exactly corre- sponds to His character as manifested in the works of creation and providence. It is the same God in both. We could not have dis- covered Him from nature, but being discovered by Revelation we can trace the same features in nature.

2. He is revealed in the Word by His names — Jehovah, Elohim — His attributes and His works.

His names are significant. His attributes articulately mentioned and illustrated by His works.

3. He is particularly distingviished from all gods. The heathen and all men under the true instincts of nature recognize one supreme G-od ; but vanity and speculation have introduced so many errors that the true God is opposed to all their imaginations.

CHAPTEK XL

THE SETTING UP OF IDOLS A REVOLT AGAINST THE TRUE GOD.

This chapter is introduced here because idolatry or images are con- sidered as a source of the knowledge of God.

1. The i)rinciple is laid down that the glory of God is corrupted by an impious lie wherever God is represented under any form of the imagination. Idols are specified because Scripture takes the most striking instances of a class. But the principle extends to all repre- sentations, whether externally figured or intellectually conceived.

The specifications of the second commandment are directed against prevailing forms of idolatry — Sabiism, fetichism, human shapes.

2. That this is the true meaning of the law gathered from Moses (Deut. iv. 15) : "Ye heard a voice, but saw no manner of similitude." The Word and images opposed. Then from the prophets, particu- larly Isaiah, who shows the absurdity of idolatry (xl. 18; xli. 7. 29; xlv. 9; xlvi. 5). Then Paul in his address at Athens. ( Acts xvii. 29. ) This absurdity signalized by heathens themselves, by Seneca as quoted

606 APPENDIX C.

by Angustiii. This shows thcit idolatry was not prohibited to the Jews on account of a pecuhar jironeness to superstition.

3. The true explanation of the symbols of the Divine presence under the Law — the cloud, the smoke, the flame. They show God to be in- comprehensible. Hence Moses could not see His face. The Dove as a symbol of the Spirit. It was vanishing. The figures over the mercy-seat, what they mean? Why the Seraphim are veiled? Fur- ther, these things belong to the paedagogy of the Law.

4. The Psalmist also exposes the folly of idolatry (cxv. 4 ; cxxxv. 15). He asserts first that these images are not gods, and then that every human device is vanity.

(1.) He insists upon the intrinsic improbability that these things can represent Grod. (2.) Upon the presumption of a feeble creature making a God. To this may be added the raillery of Horace.

The same vein is found in Isaiah xliv. 15. Again, in xl. 21, he shows that creation should have taught them better. These and other passages teach that all ■will-worship is detestable. The Psalmist de- nounces as no better than these idols those who worship them.

The picture as much reproved as the graven image.

5. It is a common defence that images are the books of the illite- rate. So says Gregory. But the Spirit of God says: "The stock is a doctrine of vanity" (Jer. x. 8), and "the molten image a lie" (Hab. ii. 18). This is true not only of the abuse of the image, but of any use in religion, for all use is abuse.

6. This was the testimony of Lactantius, Eusebius, the Council of Eliberis, and Augustin, who quotes with approbation the sentence of the heathen Varro, that the introduction of images took away rever- ence and added error. Hence, no pretext for saying that images are teachers.

7. This further illustrated by the indecent and immodest nature of the images. But particularly by the fact that God has instituted an- other method of teaching, the preaching of the Gospel and the dis- pensation of sacraments.

8. The oiigin of idolatry traced in Wisdom to the worshij) of the dead. Tliis a mistake. A short history of idolatry from the Bible. Its true origin in the desire of a present God. Its trae forge the imagination.

9. The process by which they come to be adored traced. It is a natural process of association — a striking passage. Where men feign, they fix God. The plea that they do not regard the images as gods ; among the heathen and among Papists.

10. That the image is treated with peculiar respect shown from facts. Why pray before it? Why prize one more than another?

11. The distinction between Ldtria and Dulia ridiculed.

12. 13. The true use of sculptm-e and painting. Two kinds of pic-

ANALYSIS OF CALVIN. 607

tures — individual, historical. Neither lawfiil in the worship of God, neither used in the first ages, and both liable to abuse. 14, 15, IC. Ridicules the Second Council of Nice.

CHAPTEE XIII.

THE SCRIPTURES TEACH THAT GOD EXISTS IN THREE PERSONS.

1. The Divine essence represented in the Scriptures as immense and spiritual. These two epithets rebuke alike the follies of the vul- gar and the subtleties of the philosophers.

(1.) He is immense. Then he cannot be measured by sense.

(2.) He is spiritual. Then earthly and carnal thoughts are re- proved. For the same reason he is said to have his dwelling in heaven — not that he does not also fill earth, but to raise our thoughts above the sensible and finite.

(3.) His immensity and unity refute the error of the Manichees, as there cannot be two infinites, nor can unity be divided.

(4. ) Anthropomorphism is only a condescension to our weakness.

2. In addition to the marks of immensity and spirituality, the Scriptures distinguish the true God by another peculiarity. He is both one and three, and if we do not believe one God in three Persons, we embrace only a name without the reality. The essence is not three- fold, but simple ; it is not divided, but whole and entire in each Per- son. Some object to the word person as a human invention, but the Scriptures evidently justify the thing.

The apostle in calling the Son (Heb. i. 3) the character or ex- press image of the Father's hypostasis attributes a subsistence to the Father diiferent from that of the Son. This cannot mean that the Son has the essence of the Father, for as that is simple and indivisi- ble, and numerically the same in both, its possession by one caiuiot be called an image of the other. The same thing is itself, and not an image of itself There is then a distinction of subsistence. The same reasoning applies to the Holy Ghost. This distinction, called by the apostle hypostasis, is rendered by the Latins Persona; more strictly it would be subsistentia. Many render it substantia. The Greeks use the term Tvpoauira. The word Person, therefore, is not altogether an arbitrary invention.

3. Still, if it were a mere human word, its introduction is not abso- lutely to be condemned. If divines, in explaining and interpreting Scripture, are to use no words but those that they find in Scripture, their expositions wovild be mere collections of Scripture texts. The true princi])le which should regulate the introduction of exotic words is the edification of the Church. What explains, what neatly and pre- cisely conveys the sense of the Holy Ghost, is admissible. What min- isters to subtlety, to strife, to confusion, must be avoided. We are to

608 APPENDIX C.

be certain that we tliiah according to the Bible — that is the main point.

4. The terms which have been introduced in stating the doctrine of the Trinity have been rendered necessary by the perverseness of heretics. These terms were the only expedients by which their eva- sions could be detected and exposed. Arius, for example, was willing to confess that Christ was God, but still he made Him a creature, a subordinate deity. The word consuhstaiitud., liomousion, treed him. The Sabellians seemed to recognize a Trinity, but it was a Trinity of relations or attributes. The distinction of Persons exposed their error.

5. The danger is that in rejecting the words we reject the thing. If the faith could be held in sincerity and truth, we might dispense with the terms. Nor indeed were the Fathers always consistent with each other in their use of some of the terms employed to express the relations of the Divine Persons. This shown in the words consubstan- tial and hypostasis, which produced perplexity from confounding Per- son and Substance with Essence. Augustin and Hilary examples of moderation and caution in censuring the phraseology of others.

Necessity introduced the distinctions, and necessity keeps them up. We cannot state the truth in its contrasts with error without them.

6. But all disputes about words aside. Let us come to the doctrine itself

(1.) A Person is a subsistence in the Divine essence, which, though related to others, is distinguished from them by an incommunicable property. Subsistence and Essence are not the same. If the Word were simply God, and had nothing peculiar, He could not be said to have been with God. When immediately after it is added, He was God, the allusion is to the essence. Here we have subsistence — with God, and essence — was God. Hence, too, we see that though the sub- sistence is inseparably joined to the essence, it is yet distinguished from it by a special mark.

(2. ) Each subsistence is related to the others and distinguished from them. The term God applies equally to all, but the Persons are cha- racterized by their peculiar properties.

(3.) This Personal property is incommunicable.

7. We advance now to an articulate proof of the Deity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The first class of iMssages are those relating to the Logos.

(1.) The Word of God, which is so conspicuous in the creation of the world, was not a momentary, transient sound, but that eternal Wisdom whence all the oracles proceeded. He was the Inspirer of prophets as well as of apostles, as Peter testifies. (1 Pet. i. 11.) Hence, as His word was the word of God, He Himself was God. This was the Word which created the worlds.

ANALYSIS OF CALVIN. 609

(2.) To the objection that the Word in Genesis is a mere command, we oppose the testimony of the Scriptures that the worlds were cre- ated by the eternal Word (Heb. i. 2 ; Prov. viii. 22; John i.), and His own testimony that He and His Father had worked from the be- ginning.

8. To the cavil that the Word only began to exist when God spake at the creation, we reply that no change can take place in the nature of God. Nothing new can begin to exist in Him. The Word was then manifested, but did not then, like a creature, receive its being. Hence, he pre-existed, according to His prayer. (John xvii. 5. )

9. The second class of passages are those in which He is expressly called God in the Old Testament (Ps. xlv. 6) : "Thy throne, 0 God," etc. Calvin refutes the evasive interpretations of Arians and Socin- ians.

(1.) God in the sense that Moses was a god to Pharaoh. Answer: The term always qualified when used in a relative sense. Both terms of the relation must be given.

(2.) God is thy throne. Harsh and unnatural. (.3.) Nor thy throne is of God.

Besides, He is called the mighty God in Isaiah. This passage also vindicated.

10. Third class of passages. The same thing proved from the angel of the covenant in the Old Testament. That angel was God, and yet distinct from God. The passages referred to are — Judges xiii. 16, et seq., about Manoah ; the angel that vn-estled with Jacob, explained by Hosea to be the Lord God of Hosts. (Hos. xii. 5.) So also in Zechariah there are two angels, one of whom sends the other, and the first called Lord of Hosts. (Zech. i. 9.) Malachi's messenger of the covenant. (Mai. iii. 1.)

11. We come now to the proofs from the New Testament.

First, the passages in which things ascribed to Jehovah in the Old are ascribed to Christ in the New. For example, Jehovah a stone of stumbling, etc. (Lsa. viii. 14), is in Rom. ix. 33 applied to Christ. Isa. xlv. 23: "Every knee," etc., is applied to Christ. The Ascen- sion (see Ps. Ixviii.) also applied to Chri.st. The glory which Isaiah saw (vi. 1) applied to Christ in John xii. 41. Li Hebrews Christ treated as the Jehovah of the Old Testament. The true God and eternal life. Form of God, etc.

12. We come now to His works — Creation, Providence, Judgment, are all ascribed to Him. He works as ceaselessly as the Father, which the Jews understood as an assertion of Divinity. He par- dons sin.

13. His miracles are a conspicuous proof, since He wrought them by His own power, and not in the name of another, as the apostles

Vol. I.— 39

GIO APPENDIX C.

did. The whole work of salvation ascribed to Him. He is to be trusted, adored, worshipped — to be our all.

14. We come now to the Deity of the Holy Spirit.

(1.) His first appearance is when Grod breathed upon the formless mass at creation. (2.) The Lord God and His Spirit has sent me, (Isa. xlviii. 16.) (3.) He is the all-diffused principle of life, and therefore omnipresent. (4. ) The Author of the new life, Regenera- tion. (5.) Attributes and works of Grod ascribed to Him. He knoics God, searches His deep things. He is the Author of eveiy grace and the Dispenser of every gift to the Church, and that according to His will.

1.5. The Scriptures do not scruple to call Him God. "VYe are the temple of God as we are His temple. Ananias lied to God. What Isaiah says Jehovah spake, that Paul says the Spirit spoke (Acts xxviii. 25, 26). He is the Author of inspiration. He can be sinned against. The unpardonable sin is against Him.

16. Baptism the sacrament of faith. We are baptized into the Trinity. Hence three Persons.

17. Yet there is a certain distinction between the Three. It should be reverently approached. We should never so think of the Three as to lose sight of the One, nor of the (3ne as to lose sight of the Three. ,

Again, it is distinction^ but not division. They are inseparable.

We have already quoted passages which prove a distinction, as in John about the Logos, and when Christ speaks of a glory which He had with the Father. Also the Son represents the Father and Him- self as two icitncsses. (John v. 32. ) Then again the incarnation and life of Christ on the earth prove a distinction. The Holy Ghost dis- tinct, because He proceeds from both, and Christ speaks of Him as another Comforter.

18. Earthly analogies not suited to express the distinctions, though the Fathers used them. Calvin calls the Father the imncipium, fons ; the Son, sapientia, consilium ; the Spirit, virtux, efficacia — undei*- standing, thought, will.

Then again the distinction is indicated in the order of subsistence. The Father is firsts the Son second, the Holy Spirit third, though equally eternal. The Father is of none, the Son of the Father, the Spirit of the Father and the Son.

19. The distinction, so far from contradicting the Unity, proves it. By it we escape Tritheism. The Father and Son are the same, be- cause they have the same Spirit. The whole Father is in the Son, the whole Son is in the Father. Hence, we can explain the apparent con- tradictions of the Fathers about the self-subsistence of the Son.

20. A recapitulation of the doctrine, and an explanation of the meaning of the term God absolutely employed.

ANALYSIS OF CALVIX. 611

CHAPTEE XIV.

THE TRUE GOD DISTINGUISHED FROM FALSE GODS BY HIS WORKS OF CREATION.

Having considered what God is, Calvin now proceeds to His works, and in this chapter begins the discussion of Creation.

1. The importance of the doctrine of creation consists in two things — in explaining the real distinction between Grod and the universe, and in preventing idolatrj^ Creation is the badge, the mark of the true Jehovah. Hence Grod has given a history of the creation by virtue of which the mind can rest in certified fact, and not lose itself in fables.

The time of the creation is noted. It is a profane and absurd cavil that God did not begin creation sooner. The reply of the old man in Augustin to the question. What was God doing before He created the world ?

2. The creation was a gradual, not an instantaneous work. This was in accommodation to the nature of man. He thinks in time, and the law of time was observed in providing for him the materials of thought. One day specially set apart for devout contemplation. In this order God's goodness to man is conspicuous, as he was not created until ample provisions had been made for his comfoi't.

3. Postponing the consideration of Man to the next cha]-)ter, Calvin devotes this chapter mainly to the Angels, good and bad. The import- ance of the doctrine concerning angels is in rebuking idolatry. It jfcfutes Manichajism. No spirit was originally evil. Evil is a corrup- tion of the good.

4. The time and order of the creation of angels not made known, and therefore frivolous to inquire into it. Such questions as those discussed by Dionysius altogether impertinent. God reveals only what edifies.

5. Angels are creatures of God, and are employed as messengers to execute His will. Hence the name. They are also called Hosts, as an army surrounding the throne of God. They are called Dominions, Pi-incipalities, Powers. They are also called Thrones, but the reason obscure. They are called Gods.

6. The most important thing for us is that angels are the ministers of God's beneficence to man. They watch for our safety, defend us from danger, direct our path, and take heed that no evil befalls us. They ministered to Christ before us.

7. We are not warranted to say that each believer has a Guardian angel. The arguments in favour are — that each kingdom seems to be under an angel ; the passage about the little ones, whose angels behold the face of their Father in heaven ; and the case of Peter, whose angel

G12 APPENDIX C.

■was supposed to be at the gate. But the Scriptures do teach that we are under the care of all the angels.

8. The number, order and ranks of angels not defined. Their num- ber great. One archangel mentioned, but their relative positions un- known.

9. This section proves them to be real, substantive, personal beings, and not mere influences.

10. Angel-wor,shi]3 shown to be idolatrous. God the real Author of every good. Angelic relation is ministerial.

11. He uses angels, and reveals the fact as a prop to the weakness of our faith. It aids our faith to show us the means by which a thing is to be done.

12. The general doctrine concerning angels should be used to invig- orate our confidence in God. We should feel that He has ample re- sources for executing all His will. Particularly should we ascend beyond angels to God.

13. The scope of what the Scriptures teach in relation to the Devil is to guard us against his wiles and machinations. He is called the ruler of the darkness of this world, the strong man armed, the roar- ing lion — all to put us on our guard. Hence Peter exhorts to i-eslst Mm.

14. To make the necessity of caution more apparent, these evil spirits are represented as very many, and as leagued under one prin- cipal leader.

15. What should equally stimulate is, that the Devil is both our adversary and the adversary of God. He was the seducer of our first parents, a liar and a murderer from the beginning, a blas- phemer.

16. The Devil is wicked, not by creation, but by depravation. He had a trial and a fall, but the details the Scriptures have not revealed. We know enough to put us on our guard.

17. The Devil is absolutely subject to the power of God, and can do nothing without Plis permission and consent.

18. God permits the Devil to try true believers by manifold tempta- tions, but he can never finally triumph over them. The wicked he rules.

19. Devils are personal beings, and not mere evil suggestions.

20. The delight with which we should contemplate the works of God ; the creation a scene of beauty and of grandeur. It is a noble spectacle to sanctified taste.

21. The universe is the first school of Theology. There we should study and adore the perfections of God.

22. God's goodness to man, as exemplified in creation, should espe- cially animate us to confidence in His fatherly goodness.

ANALYSIS OF CALVIN. Gl 3 r

CHAPTEK XV.

MAN AS HE WAS CREATED GOD'S NOBLEST TERRESTRIAL WORK.

1. Having considered angels, Calvin comes now to the considera- tion of man, and that because he is the noblest specimen of God's terrestrial works. The account of his twofold state is requisite to a proper knowledge of him. His primitive condition should be under- stood for two reasons — (1.) as showing his normal condition, and thus measuring his fall ; and (2. ) as vindicating Grod for his present ruin.

The first thing to be noticed is, that his body was made out of dust — a lesson of humility.

2. But man is evidently a compound being. He has a sovd as well as a body. The soul is an immortal essence. It is also called spirit. The two words synonj^mous, except when used together. The soul is not a mere influence, or breath, or result of organization. It is an im- mortal svibstance. Proved — (L) from conscience ; (2.) from its capa- city of knowing God; (3.) from the vigour and activity of its powers and their independence of the body, as shown (4.) in the fancies of sleep. (5.) Scripture asserts it as teaching that we dwell in houses of clay ; distinguishing us from our bodies ; that we put off corrup- tion ; filthiness of the flesh and spirit ; Christ bishop of souls ; pastors watch for souls ; Paul calls God to witness upon his soul ; Dives and Lazarus.

3. The strong proof of the dignity of the soul is that man was made in the image of God. This is seated primarily in the soul. This image reflected in the body and the erect stature, but not seated there. Osiander places the image in the whole man, the body being a pro- lejitic resemblance of the body Christ was to wear. According to him Christ would have been incarnate independently of sin. This doctrine makes Christ the image of the Si)irit and destroys the distinction be- twixt them. It makes Christ the image of Himself

Image and likeness are synonymous. Osiander' s objection that the whole man is said to be the image, frivolous.

4. But to understand particularly what this image is, we must study it in the regeneration and sanctification of man. The original image is that to which we are restored.

The particulars of this image are knowledge, righteousness, holiness. Hence, at first, there was light of intellect, rectitude of heart and universal soundness. Its restoration is only partial now, perfect here- after. Paul makes man the image of God to the exclusion of woman ; easily answered — a political difference.

5. The Manichsean doctrine that the soul is an emanation fjom God, revived by Servetus, is now refuted. That would be to attribute to God the imperfections of man. So also Osiander' s notion of the im-

614 APPENDIX C.

age, as iraplj^ing our participation in the essential righteousness of God, falls to the ground.

6. The philosophers have not been able to define the soul ; none but Plato admitting its immortality. He made it the image of God. Others confined it to the body. Now the body is its instrument, but not necessary to its being or operation. It should govern the body, and that in reference to religion as well as the present life. Our true end is religion, and even our vices proclaim our immortality. Our whole nature is constituted with a reference to religion. The doctrine of several souls refuted.

(1.) The first division of the faculties noticed is — (a.) Five senses, terminating in a common sense; [b.) Imagination; (c. ) Reason; {d.) Intellect. To Intellect, Fancy and Reason, three cognitive facul- ties, correspond three appetitive. Will, Irascibility and Concupiscence — their objects being the good (will), the beautiful (irascibility), the sen- sual (concupiscence. )

(2. ) The second division is into Intellect and Will.

(3.) Sense, Intellect, Will.

(4.) Intellect, Appetite, both double. Intellect contemplative and practical. Appetite contains will and passion.

7. Philosophy defective from its ignorance of the fall, especially in relation to will.

Calvin's division into intellect and will. The one guides, the other obeys. Under intellect he includes all the higher energies of our na- ture ; under will, all the active and emotive. Before the fall man's will was/reti.

(The best division is into cognitive, conative, emotive.)

8. The order and subordination of the faculties in an upright being. Particularly the normal condition of the will.

Chapter XVI GOD'S WORK OF PROVIDENCE

1. God's interest in His works was not at all absolved by the original act of creation. His presence is ever with it, and determines all its conditions. The creation is hardly intelligible without Providence. The carnal mind stops at creation, and the energies then infused or the impetus then given. God made the world and set it agoing, but it continues to move of itself But faith makes Him the Governor, the Ruler, the Disposer, as well as the Creator. He sustains, cherishes and cares for everything which He has made, even to the minutest sparrow. This is the view of Providence signalized in the Psalms (Ps. xxxiii. 6-13; Ps. civ. 27-30; Acts xvii. 28: "In Him we live," etc.).

ANALYSIS OF CALVIN. 615

2. The scheme opi)osed to the true doctrine of Providence is that of Fortune and Fortuitous Causes. A man falHng among robbers or ravenous beasts, a gust of wind at sea causing shipwreck, the being struck down by the fall of a house or a tree, etc. — these and such like are ascribed to chance.

The Scripture teaches that these and all other events are positive determinations of the Divine Avill.

Inanimate objects are His instruments to execute His purposes. The sun a conspicuous example, but that the sun onlj^ obeys a supe- rior will is evident — (1. ) from the fact that light and heat did not origi- nally belong to it ; (2. ) that God made it stand still at the command of Joshua, and go back upon the dial of Ahaz. So the seasons ai'e appointments of will, and not a mere matter of course. Evident from the changes in them.

3. God's omnipotence is not an otiose omnipotence, but efficacious, energetic, ever active, not directed to the general, but to the special. He is omnipotent as doing His pleasure. There is a twofold benefit resulting from this view of Divine Providence—

(1.) Sense of security under His protection. (2. ) Freedom from superstitious fears.

No other view of Providence aifords any real solace to the child of God.

4. Providence, therefore, implies a real agency of God. It extends to the hand and the eye ; it is action, not bare prescience. The notion of confused and general providence inconsistent with this action of God, and leaves the creature under God's yower, but not His decree. The Epicurean doctrine still worse. There is no real Providence with- out giving to God the disposal and direction of all things. That is the vital point. His will must rule and determine each event.

5. This is the only view which affords scope for the paternal favour or for the judgments of God. If events have not proceeded from will, they cannot express His feelings toward us.

6. Man is the special subject of Providence. Man is now under the absolute disposal of God. (Jer. x. 23; Prov. xx. 24.) Man's willing, choosing, acting, all ordered. (Prov. xvi. L)

The events which befall him, however fortuitous they seem, are ordered. If struck by a branch from a tree, it is from the Lord. (Ex. xxi. 13.) The lot at God's disposal. (Prov. xvi. 33.) So the condition of men as rich and poor, etc., all ordered. (Prov. xxix. 13; Ps. Ixxv. 6-7. )

7. Particular events ascribed to special Providence. The south wind supplied the people in the wilderness with quails, but winds are always the messengers of God. The storm and the calm at sea He makes. (Ps. cvii. 25-29.) Offspring are His gift. (Gen. xxx. 2.)

616 APPENDIX C.

Our daily bread a signal proof of special Providence. He makes the earth fruitful or ban-en.

8. The doctrine of Providence is not the Stoic doctrine of Fate. That was a blind necessity ; this the determination of an intelligent will. But it does follow that there is no such thing properly as chance. All things are necessary in the sense of certain with reference to God. Basil and Augustin against chance quoted.

9. Relatively to us there is chance — that is, events are uncertain, and causes unknown. The twofold necessity of the schools, secundum quid and absolute, also consequentice and consequent.

Chapter XVII USE OF THE DOCTRINE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE

1. The design of the doctrine of Providence is not to minister to the subtleties of vain speculation, but to promote edification. Four things to be considered — (1.) Providence extends equally to the past and the futm-e. It is a scheme. (2.) It works by, without, or against means. (3.) Its object is man generally, but the Church most spe- cially. Adversity is for reproof, for chastisement, for prevention of sin, for humility, or to punish the wicked. There is always an end. (4.) The design often concealed, but we are not to condemn. ^Vhat we know is enough to repress any rash judgments. God is always wise and good.

2. The study of Providence should be approached with reverence and humility. It is not a point to be profanely handled. Many ob- ject to the doctrine altogether as dangerous. But it is enough that the Scripture has revealed it, and requires us to adore the depths of God's counsel. (Ps. xxxvi. 7 ; Rom. xi. 33, 34. ) Moses particularly illustrates God's unsearchable wisdom in' governing the world. Secret things, etc. (Deut. xxix. 29.) God's will is an immutable law, but it is not an arbitrary law.

3. The true doctrine of Providence does not authorize the perverse inferences which the ungodly deduce from it: (1.) God to blame for our sins ; (2. ) vain to use means ; (3. ) useless to discharge duty.

4. Providence and human deliberation are compatible, as both are affirmed in Scripture. (Prov. xvi. 9.) The decree connects together means and end, antecedent and consequent, the conditions and the result.

5. Providence no excuse for crime — (1.) Wicked men do not obey God's will, which commands; (2.) conscience condemns them; (3.) God uses men without being a party to their crimes. The sun rouses the odour from the dung-hill, but is not itself defiled.

6. Calvin gives now a holy meditation on Providence, showing the

ANALYSIS OF CALVIN. 617 *

use of the doctrine — (1.) every event ordered; (2.) all for tte good of the godly; (3.) all agents in God's hand; (4.) has a special care for His people. Scripture proofs.

7. Meditation continued. God has complete control of aU enemies, Satan and wicked men.

8. The Christian view of injuries and of afflictions as from the hand of God.

9. Providence does not absolve us from gratitude to friends, nor from the use of means, nor encourage sin. Christian view of Provi- dence in these respects.

10. The happiness of a pious mind beautifully illustrated.

11. Its tranquillity in trouble illustrated. 12 and 13. Repentance in God.

14. Change of His decrees.

BOOK SECOND.

OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE REDEEMER IN CHRIST. CHAPTEE i;

THROUGH THE FALL OF ADAM THE WHOLE RACE ACCURSED AND DE- GENERATE—OF ORIGINAL SIN.

1. The importance of self-knowledge exemplified in the proverb. It is shameful not to know ourselves. The mistake of philosophers in relation to this knowledge ; they made it the minister of pride and vanity. Its true nature consists in the consideration of what we were, what we might have been, and the precariousness of our gifts, which will inspire gratitude and a sense of dependence ; then in a consider- ation of what we are since the fall, to inspire humility and shame. The first consideration leads us to a perception of the true end of our existence. The second, to a sense of impotency in achieving it.

2. Hence, the truth of God requires as the end of self-knowledge a conviction of helplessness, a renunciation of all confidence in ourselves. This, however, is contrary to the natural suggestions of the human mind.. Self-love prompts vis to find every excellence in ourselves. Man thinks himself endowed with every requisite to secure the end of his being. Hence, discourses on the dignity of human natm-e are soothing to his pride.

3. Hence, while philosophers and the Bible commend self-knowledge as a principal branch of wisdom, they diifer widely as to its nature and end. One tends to self-sufficiency and independence, the other to humility and self-despair. But the Scriptures do not repress a

618 APPENDIX C.

knowledge or contemplation of man's primitive gifts. His original excellence measures his present ruin. So also a sense of the intrinsic dignity of his faculties teaches him to seek a better and higher end than the flesh can reach. Self-knowledge, therefore, involves two things: (1.) The end of his being considered as endowed with such excellent gifts. (2. ) A sense of inability to attain the end suited to his faculties. The first consideration is the measure of duty, the other of our weakness. The latter, or man's state by the fall, is con- sidered first.

4. The sin by which Adam fell is shown from its punishment to have been fearfully great. It was not inordinate appetite. Calvin makes it to be essentially unbeliefs whence sprang ambition, pride and ingratitude. By unbelief he fell away from God; this was the secret of his sin.

5. This defection produced spiritual death in him. This death he transmits to his posterity, as indeed the effects of his fall are conspicu- ous throughout the creation. If the lower animals have been affected by his sin, it is not wonderful that his children should be. Hereditary corruption was what the fathers called original sin, meaning by sin the depravation of a nature originally pure. Pelagians denied native depravity, and said that sin was propagated by imitation. Augustin showed that it came from Adam and was propagated by birth. (Rom. V. ]2. ) David confesses it (Ps. li. 7), and Job explains the natural- ness of it. (xiv. 4. )

6. The ground of the transmission of a corrupt nature is our rela- tion to Adam as the root of mankind. This ajjpears from the com- parison betwixt him and Christ. (Rom. v. 12.) Righteousness is not communicated to us by imitation. Christ is not a mere example. But Paul makes life and deatlt, depend upon the same principle. Here Calvin has in view regeneration, and not justification. We are renewed or receive from Christ a holy nature on the same principle that we receive from Adam an unholy nature. The same thing asserted 1 Cor. xv. 22. By nature children of wrath. (Eph. ii. 3.) Whatsoever is born of flesh, etc. (John iii. 6. ) The principle of im- putation, though implied in this section, is not explicitly stated. Calvin makes a distinction betwixt Adam as a progenitor and Adam as a root, but does not define the difference.

7. This section considers more articulately the ground of propaga- tion. The notion seems to be that Adam was not only a man, but human nature. What he had was for the race as well as himself; what he lost was for the race as well as himself Human nature, therefore, became corrupt in him, and passes down as he tainted it. The question, how souls are propagated, is frivolous, as corruption is not in the essence or substance of the soul, but is sup6rinduced by

ANALYSIS OF CALVIN. 619

the appointment which determined its state in Adam. The Pelagian objection that saints beget sinners he answers by asserting that they beget according to nature and not grace. The principle of federal representation is not seized as it should be. A mystic ReaHsm is made to take the place of it.

8. This section articulately defines original sin, a hereditary pravity and corruption of our nature, diffused through all the parts of the soul, rendering us obnoxious to the Divine wrath, and producing in us those works which the Scripture calls works of the flesh. (1.) It is sin because Paul so styles it, and particularly the fruits of it. (2. ) Because it is the ground of condemnation ; it makes the infant guilty in the sight of God ; it is odious to Him. Calvin here evidently teaches that corruption in the order of nature precedes guilt. ( 3. ) This de- pravity is ever operative ; it produces ceaseless fruits of sin — not a hare privation — not concupiscence, except as that extends to the whole soul.

9. This section shows that depravity aifects the ivhole man, and not the sensual appetites alone. In all the parts and faculties its pervad- ing influence is felt.

10. This section attributes our ruin only to ourselves. God is not to blame. He made us upright, but we have corrupted ourselves. The objection that He might have prevented the fall we have no right to put. It belongs to a mystery which we cannot penetrate.

11. This section shows the ambiguity of the word nature. "We are not corrupt by nature in the sense that the substance of our faculties is vitiated or that sin is an original endowment. It is altogether ad- ventitious and accidental. Sin is natural in the sense that it is not an acquired habit, but from birth.

Notes.

1. Calvin confines the terms original sin to \\\e depravity which is inherent in us, and does not include the guilt of Adam's first sin.

2. These words are sometimes, however, taken in a wider sense to include both— (1.) as including the guilt of Adam's sin it is called originale ortginans or originale impntatum ; (2.) as embracing native depravity, originale originatum or inhcerens.

3. Augustin introduces the phrase to indicate — (1.) that it springs from the origin of the race, from our first parents ; (2. ) that it begins in us with our own being, it attaches to us at oiir origin ; (3. ) it is the origin of all other sins.

4. In common and popular usage the phrase is used in the sense of Calvin. Our Shorter Catechism seems to include both.

620 APPENDIX C.

CHAPTEE II. MAX NOW DESPOILED OF FREEDOM OF WILL AND MISERABLY ENSLAVED.

1. The design of this chapter is to vindicate the doctrine of total depravity. We have ah'eady seen that the race and every individual of it are corrupt. The question arises as to the extent of this corrup- tion in each soul. Calvin makes it total — that is, it extends to all the parts of the soul, and involves the complete extinction of spiritual life. These are the two ideas involved in total dej^ravity. He states it as the entire want of liberty. Before vindicating the doctrine he shows that the method of discussion must equally avoid the extremes of en- couraging either sloth or presumption in man. It should be so pre- sented as to make him feel that his strength is in God, and to seek for it there. He compares human strength to a reed — rather to smoke.

2. The human soul is divided into mind and heart. The mind pos- sesses reason, which enlightens and directs. The heart involves appe- tite, which lies between reason and sense. When appetite follows rea- son it becomes will; when it follows sense it becomes lust. Now the will is in a condition to obey either, and this is its freedom. Reason places before it good, sense evil, and it can choose either, and accord- ing to its choice form character. This is the moral philosophy of the l^hilosophers.

3. The philosophers have admitted the difficulty of yielding to rea- son under the influence of temptations from the solicitations of exter- nal objects and the influence of the passions, and have well described the bondage which indulgence brings upon us. They compare our passions and lusts to wild horses which it is extremely difficult to tame. But still they maintain that virtue and vice are absolutely in our power. The Stoics went so far as to affirm that a man's virtue so completely depended upon himself that it was not a subject of grati- tude to the gods.

4. The early Christian writers, of whom Chrysostom and Jerome are given as examples, acknowledged the influence of depravity upon the whole man, yet conceded entirely too much to the philosoi)hers. They wished to avoid the imputation of absurdity, and especially to avoid encouraging human torpor and indolence. Later writers went so far as to represent depravity as confined to the sensual appetites, while rea- son was untouched and the will still capable of obeying it. The School- men generally adopted the sentiment of Augustin that man was cor- rupted in his natural endowments and the supernatural taken away. But they misapprehended the precise import of the doctrine, and mod- ified it almost away by their distinctions. The power which man has in relation to virtue the Latins call free will. The Greeks a])plied an epithet to the will, self-power, which seemed to make it entirely sov-

ANALYSIS OF CALVIN. 621

ereign. Calvin proposes to examine first the meaning of the term, and then to investigate the Scripture doctrine concerning man's power. Origen places free will in reason and choice. Augustin substantially agrees with him who defines it as a power of reason and will by which Grod is chosen when grace assists ; evil, when grace is wanting. Aqui- nas makes it an elective power — that is, a power of intelligent choice. All agree that it pertains both to reason and to will. The question arises, how much they attributed to both.

5. In common and external things, those not involving the kingdom of God, they ascribed to man full freedom — righteousness and true holiness to grace. Hence, some made a distinction of the will into the sensitive, animal, and spiritual. The two former we possess by nature ; the latter is the gift of the Spirit. A common distinction of freedom was into freedom from necessity, freedom from sin, freedom from misery. The first was natural, the two others we lost by the fall. This distinction Calvin accepts, substituting coaction for necessity.

6. It is clear from this distinction that man needs grace in order to good works, and that special grace. But it does not appear that he is wholly devoid of power. Lombard distinguishes between operative and co-operative grace. Operative, as effiectual in producing a good will ; co-operative concurs in producing obedience. Calvin objects to the distinction — (1.) as impljang that we are self-impelled to seek a good will ; (2. ) that we accept or reject gi'ace when given. This last doctiine has been articulately announced as necessary to explain human merit. But the result of Lombard's discussion is to place freedom in mere exemption from constraint. Man sins freely because he sins voluntarily.

7. Calvin objects decidedly to calling the voluntaiy indulgence of sin by the name of freedom if man cannot choose the opposite. The term misleads in spite of all our explanations.

8. This section shows that Augustin clearly taught the hondage of the will — that it was free from righteousness. As ambiguous and abusive the term ought not to be used. The word will expresses all they mean by freedom from restraint; the epithet /rte is either tauto- logical or teaches an en'or.

9. This section shows that vacillating as the other fathers were, ex- cept Augustin, they yet in various places teach the very same doctrine which he did of man's absolute dependence on grace. Grace is com- pared to the tree of life, free will to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

10. True self-knowledge is the sense of entire helplessness in our- selves, and of dependence upon God. This dependence upon God is our strength. It is not a property absolute in man, but as he is in God.

11. Hence humility is the foundation of our philosophy — the first,

622 APPENDIX C.

second and third thing in religion. Tliis humility explained by va- rious passages from Augustin. It is self-emptiness to be filled with Grod.

12. Calvin proceeds to an articulate statement of his views as to the extent of the injury done to us by the fall. He accepts the announce- ment of Augustin that our natural talents have been corrupted, our supernatural lost. By the supernatural are meant faith, holiness and whatever pertains to the kingdom of God. It is the same as the spiritual — whatever pertains to that knowledge and love of God which constitute true religion. Whatever is restored in regeneration was lost by the fall. Still, the faculty of reason remains. Yet in rela- tion to secular things it is debilitated and vitiated. As a faculty of truth, if it were in a sound state, we should be protected from error. Error is, therefore, a proof of disease. Then, we mistake the true method of philosophy, and blunder as to the value of the objects of knowledge. 13. To present the matter more distinctly, we consider — (1.) the understanding in relation to terrestrial things, and then (2.) in relation to celestial. In the first class are embraced civil polity, domes- tic economy and the arts and sciences. Calvin shows that there are principles of reason which are regulative, and therefore are so much light in relation to these interests. There is the idea of justice on which the state is founded. This is universal — the very controversies about the best form of polity prove it.

14. The arts, liberal and manual.

For these man has capacity and aptitude. Though variously dis- tributed, the talents here yet really exist, and great results have been achieved. These talents evince beyond a doubt man's rational and intelligent nature.

15. The sciences require a still higher order of inteUigence, and these have been admirably cultivated among the heathen. Logic, Rhetoric, Poetry, Geometry, Medicine may be taken as examples.

16. Calvin shows that these attainments of reason are really the gifts of the Spirit. They are the results of that vitalizing energy without which a plant cannot grow. They are dispensed in goodness, variously distributed so as to promote the interests of society, and spe cial talents are imparted to men for special services.

17. These considerations show that reason is not extinguished. There is a sphere in which it still operates, though diseased. It is God's goodness that has saved it from idiocy even here. Man is therefore shown to be rational and intelligent.

18. When we come to spiritual matters reason is stark blind. These consist in three things — (1.) the knowledge of God; (2.) of

His paternal favour; (3.) of the rule of life. In relation to the first, the heathen philosophers had occasional glimpses, which, like flashes

ANALYSIS OF CALVIN. 623

of liglitniiig, only ru.ade the darkness more intense. The world by wisdom knew not God.

19. The blindness of reason on these points Calvin establishes by Scripture-proofs rather than by argument, ^e quotes John i. 4, our being called "darkness;" and Matt. xvi. 17.

20. He notices particularly the Scripture account of regeneration in which illumination figures so conspicuously. The whole doctrine goes on the supposition that the natural man is unable to discern the thing? of the Spirit.

21. The same line of argument is pursued in this section.

22. The next point is to inquire into our ability to discover the rule of life. Here we have some knowledge. Conscience is a law, but it rather serves to take away excuse than to inform the virtue.

23. Themistius has attributed to men the universal knowledge of the general definition — that is, of the fundamental princijiles of right. But their debility ap])ears in applying the rule to concrete cases. Here we are liable to grievous mistakes. We are further liable to a species of sophistry which blinds the mind for the moment, but which is immediately dissipated when the crime has been perpetrated.

24. But take our best moral judgments and bring them to the stand- ard of the Divine law, and they are grievously defective. Our best morality falls short of holiness. The principle of obedience never rises higher than the authority of law ; it never grasps the love of holiness ; then, it is confined too much to the letter, and there is often positive error.

While, therefore, we know something of the law materially con- sidered, in relation to true holiness we are as blind as bats.

2.5, Hence the conclusion beautifully carried out in this section is that in these matters reason is a blind guide.

26. Let us look now at the state of the case in relation to the will. Here the blind impulse which prompts us to desire good is not to be confounded with will. Mere natural inclination is not will. That im- plies intelligence, discrimination, choice. If, then, the understanding which is to present the grounds of choice be dark, the will has nothing spiritual before it, and therefore cannot choose.

27. Our inability to will or even to desire a good will proved from Scripture.

Chapter III FROM THE CORRUPT NATURE PROCEEDS NOTHING BUT WHAT IS DAMNABLE

1. We have seen that total depravity includes two ideas: First, that it pervades the whole man ; second, that it totally precludes all

624 APPENDIX C.

good. The first i^oint was discussed in the preceding chapter. The second is fully exhibited in this. The proposition is that man is wholly destitute of anything that is spiritually good.

(1.) Proved first frouj the Saviour's declaration that he is flesh — that whatsoever is born of the flesh is flesh. What flash means proved by Paul, " to be carnally-minded is death, the carnal mind," etc.

(2. ) The objection that flesh means the sensual part of our nature reflited by the doctrine of the new birth, which does not refer to the body, and by the articulate statement that we must be renewed in the sjnrit of the mind. The description of a Gentile state (Eph. iv. 17, 18) is applicable to all. Christ hence said to be light.

(3.) The vanity of man the burden of many parts of Scripture.

2. The total destitution of all spiritual good further evinced by Jer- emiah xvii. 9, "The heart deceitful," etc., and by Romans iii. 10-18, which Calvin fully expounds. Such is the clear testimony of Scrip- ture.

3. A difficulty arises in relation to the virtues of the heathen and of many natural men whose lives are examples of virtue. Calvin attributes these virtues to restrainviff grace, and draws the distinction betwixt it and purifjdng grace. The elements of this restraint are often shame and pride.

4. But the question arises. Is Camillus no better than Catiline?

(1.) If the question be, Has Camillus any more holiness than Cati- line ? the answer is. Both are equally destitute. The heart in both is radically the same.

(2.) If the question be, Has Camillus as much sin? the answer is in the negative. One is more coiTupt than the other, and the viitues of Camillus are gifts of God, produced by restraining and not sanc- tifying grace.

5. Such being the state of man, his will is under a necessity of sin. This is its miserable bondage. Necessity is not force, and is not incon- sistent with the nature of will. A necessity of holiness is the consum- mation of freedom. Sin is none the less voluntarj' because there is no alternative. Confirmed by divers passages from Augustin.

6. This miserable condition of man evinced by the nature of the remedy provided by grace. This will illustrate om- need.

(1.) God begins the work. (Phil. i. 6.)

(2.) The nature of His work includes complete renovation of heart — new heart, new spirit, etc. (3.) God can-ies on the work.

7. The notion of co-oi^erating grace as understood by the School- men is refuted, and Augustin shown to be misunderstood.

8. Efficacious grace now more articulately proved from Scriptm-e and from the testimony of Augustin.

ANALYSIS OF CALVIN. 625

(1.) Grace begins in election, but that precludes any good in man. (2.) Good begins m faith, but faith is the gift of God.

9. The praj^ers of the saints tend to the same point. The same proved by Christ's relation to His people as their Life, Branch and Vine. He works in us both to will and to do.

10. His influence on the will is efficacious; it does not simply sub- mit to us an alternative. Good will is not offered, but given. They who hear come.

11. Perseverance is equally the result of grace. It is not a reward to tlie improvement of grace. It is not a legal blessing, but a. gra- cious privilege. The true nature of the rewards of grace.

12. The objection that Paul represents himself as a co-worker with God answered, Paul affirms just the opposite.

13 and 14. Explain the doctrine of Augustin.

CHAPTEK IV.

now GOD OPERATES IN THE HEART OF MAN.

1. We have seen that man is so perfectly the captive of sin that he is incapable of desiring that which is good. We have also seen the distinction betwixt coaction and necessity, so that while he sins neces- sarily he sins also voluntaiily. Devoted as he is to the service of Satan, the question arises as to the nature of Satan's agency in his sinful actions, and then a further question as to the nature of God's agency in the same actions.

Augustin compares the will to a horse, and God and the Devil to riders. The will of a natural man is not forced by Satan. There is no reluctant obedience. It is fascinated by his fallacies. He works through deceptions. His agency is described as a blinding of their minds. He works therefore by deceit, they being willing dupes. The foundation of his power is in the perverseness of their wills.

2. The agency of God in wicked actions is very different. To have a clear view of it, take the case of Job. He was spoiled by the Chal- deans. Now, here there were three agents — the Devil, Man and God. The Devil prompted the act, the Chaldeans performed it. and yet God was concerned in it, as Job saj's that the Lord had taken away his goods. Now, how can we attribute any agency to God without excus- ing Man and the Devil, or making God the author of sin? The an- swer is, that the agency of each is different, having a different end and exercised in a different manner. In the case before us God's purpose is a trial of faith and patience ; the Devil's purpose is to produce apos- tasy by driving a good man to despair ; the purpose of the Chaldeans was plunder. The mode of acting is equally different. God permits Satan to afflict, Satan instigates the wickedness of the Chaldeans,

Vol. I.— 40

626 APPENDIX C.

and tliej' indulge their lusts. Satan is God's instrument to execute His purposes. While acting from his own malice he j'et fulfils tlie purposes of Providence. We do not speak of the general influence by which Grod sustains him and keeps him and his energies in being, but of the special influence which appears in each particular act. The same action may be therefore ascribed to the three, but so differently as to end and manner that the moral significancy is by no means tl^e .same.

3. The Fathers were timid in ascribing any agency to Grod in wicked actions, lest they should give a handle to profaneness. Even Augustin expressed himself fearfully when he made the blinding of the wicked the work of Satan, and only a prescience or permission on the part of God. But the Scriptures go further than this and make God's ope- ration twofold :

(1.) Negative, withholding his Spirit, and therefore depriving them of the light.

(2. ) Positive, in determining the particular acts which they should commit. They did not order their own way. He uses Satan in these cases as his instrument.

4. The first mode of operation is proved by sundry passages of Scripture. (Job xii. 20-24; Isa. Ixiii. 17.)

The second mode proved by the case of Pharaoh, in which there was more than a negative influence, and particularly by the fact that in the judgments which God inflicted upon His people through the in- strumentality of wicked nations and rulers, he speaks of them as His tools. They are His sword, ministers of His will. He calls them, hisses for them, etc., etc. Sennacherib was His axe. Augustin prop- erly remarked : Quod ipsi peccant, eorum esse, quod pcccando hoc vel illud agant, ex virtute Dei esse, tenehras prout visum est dividentis.

5. The agency of Satan as permitted by God illustrated in the case of Saul, who was subject to the incursions of an evil spirit from the Lord. This expresses the whole doctrine. The actual agency of such spirits and their accomplishing the purposes of God. They act out their wickedness, and He turns it to the ends of His own righteousness and glory.

6. The next point is the freedom of the will in matters indifferent. Here some have conceded the matter, rather to avoid disputes than from the force of truth.

The providence of God here also controls and directs, and it is im- portant to know it, that we may recognize oiu- obligation to His good- ness. He suggests thoughts and purposes and resolutions, and gives them success. Illustrated by several examples.

7. The objection that the cases mentioned were peculiar and special answered by showing that the wills of men are comprehended within

ANALYSIS OF CALVIN". 627

the wheels of Providence, and that God turns them according to His own pleasure. The fluctuations of our minds, sometimes feeble and irresolute and then heroic and resolved, a proof of this. The Scrip- tures articulately teach it. Even the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord.

8. The real question concerning the will is not man's ability to exe- cute his wishes. There he is confessedly restrained. But concerning the ability to will oppositely as an internal phenomenon fi-om what he does will.

Chapter V REFUTATION OF OBJECTIONS TO THE SLAVERY OF THE WILL

1. This chapter considers the objections usually alleged against the doctrine already established, and undertakes through them to prove the slavery of the will.

The objections are of two sorts — 1, those derived fi-om principles of reason or common sense ; 2, those derived from Scripture.

The first of the first kind is that necessity destroys the nature of sin; its very essence is to be voluntary or avoidable. Calvin shows that sin is not from creation but corruption, that we are really guilty of Adam's first sin, and that therefore we came voluntarily into our present state. Again, necessity does not destroy the moral sig- nificancy of acts, as seen in the holiness of God and the wickedness of devils. The more necessary, the more intense is the moral quality.

2. The next is that without freedom of choice man would neither be punishable nor rewardable. This argument, derived from Aris- totle, was employed by Chrj'sostom and Jerome. The answer is that sin is voluntai-y and therefore punishable ; it is from the man himself. As to rewards, we discard all merit but that which consists in the grace of God, and in this we follow the Scriptures.

3. Thirdly, free will is shown by the doctiine of Chrysostom, that all would be equally good or bad without it. There would not be the diversity that there is. But grace makes the difference.

4. The fourth is that exhortations, promises, rebukes, threatenings, all presuppose free will. The answer is a threefold one :

[a. ) Christ and His apostles taught the impotency of man, and yet used these means.

5. (6. ) They have their valiie as illustrating the connection betwixt things, as producing a sense of misery, and as leading to the source of help.

(c.) They manifest the truth and extent of depravity.

6. We come now to objections drawn from Scripture. These, though singly numerous, may be reduced to a few heads.

628 APPENDIX C.

The first class of arguments is drawn from the multitude of Scrip- ture precepts, and the argument is that commands imply the power of obedience. Calvin, in answer, reduces all the precepts of the Bible to three points :

{<!.) Those requiring first conversion.

{h. ) Others relate to duties of the law.

(c. ) Others to perseverance in grace received.

Before noticing each head particularly, Calvin discusses the principle, Does the command imply corresponding ability? That it does pro- ceeds on the assumption that it would be otherwise given in vain. But Paul expressly indicates other uses. Hence, though it cannot be obeyed by natural strength, it was not given in vain.

Y. But the promises connected with the law show conclusively that strength must come from grace. Still, we are not stocks nor stones. There is moral agency in all this.

8. Calvin now shows that the law does not imply corresponding power, by considering the three kinds of precepts ah-eady mentioned, and proving (a) that the Scripture directly teaches that we cannot do the things commanded, and [b] gives special promises of grace to God's children in reference to each.

9. He considers the objection that the work of obedience is repre- sented as divided betwixt God and us — that we have some strength and He assists our weakness. This is first false, but if it were true it establishes the proposition that the command transcends our power. The question is not about the degree, but the fact. If we require any assistance at all, the law is too much for us, and the point is given up.

10. The second class of arguments drawn from conditional promises, which imply a power to fulfil. Calvin shows the use of these promises in evincing our unworthiness, stimulating our desires and illustrat- ing the real connections of things.

11. The third class of arguments is derived from those passages which represent our ruin as our own fault. The answer here is, that sin is none the less voluntary because it is inevitable. Then, moral ends are answered by these reproaches in the children of God.

12. The passage from Moses (Deut. xxx. 11-14) considered. Calvin shows that the reference here is to the gospel and to the promises of grace, and that there is no implication that the law can be easily ob- served.

13. A class of passages in which God is represented as withdrawing from men to see what they will do, considered. The implication is not that men can convert themselves without God's grace. They are a moral discipline by which God awakens us to a sense of our danger and unworthiness.

ANALYSIS OF CALVIN. 629

14. Those passages considered in which our actions are represented as our own.

15. A still further answer to the same objection. The concluding sections are occupied with the consideration of particular texts sup- posed to prove ability : Gen. iv. 7, in which it is maintained that sin was subject to Cain; Rom. ix. 16, in which it is implied that a man does well ; but particularly the parable concerning the traveller who fell among thieves.

Chapter VI REDEMPTION FOR LOST MAN TO BE SOUGHT IN CHRIST

1. Natural religion is simply introductory to the doctrine of re- demption by Christ. It shows the need of a Saviour. It would be of no use to know our present wretchedness if there were no hope of relief Our only hope is in the cross. The world by wisdom knows not God. Since the fall no saving knowledge of God has ever been enjoyed apart from the cross of Christ. It is eternal life to know God and Christ. Those who are without Christ are without God. Natural religion leaves every man under the curse.

2. Christ was always the hope of the Church. The ancient fathers looked to Him, and to Him alone. He was the Seed promised to Abra- ham. The adoption of Abraham's posterity was in Him. Hannah refers to Him (1 Sam. ii. 10): "The Lord shall give strength unto His King and exalt the horn of His Anointed. ' ' David was a type of Him, and treats of His coronation in Psalm ii. Tlie promise of Christ was the ground of stability to David's throne. All worship was in and by Him.

3. Christ was the hope of the Church in afflictions. He had to come, and the people must be preserved for that event. He was the sign of deliverance. Hence the promise to Ahaz : "A virgin shall conceive," etc. David's throne always held out as the source of relief.

4. Hence a general expectation of a INIessiah prevailed among the Jews. It was spiritual among some, grievously misapi^lied among others, but in either case shows the general drift of prophetic teaching.

Chapter VII THE LAW WAS GIVEN TO KEEP ALIVE THE HOPE OF SALVATION THROUGH CHRIST TILL HE SHOULD COME

This treats of the design of giving the law, and shows that it was nut subversive of the grace of the Gospel.

1. The ceremonies of the law evidently looked beyond themselves.

(1.) From their own nature. They would have been ridiculous and absurd as final and comj^letc.

630 APPENDIX C.

(2. ) They were said exi)resslj' to be conformed to the pattern shown in the mount.

(3.) The Epistle to the Hebrews articulatel.v proves it.

2. The kingdom of David may be regarded as belonging to the ministry of the law. So that its two principal features were King- dom and Priesthood. Both look to Christ.

3. The use of the moral law, and particularly the conditional promises, is next discussed. The' connection betwixt holiness and happiness, sin and death, clearly established. But the consequence is despair to ourselves.

4. These promises, however, not in vain, but the discussion of this subject po.stponed until he comes to the subject of justification.

5. Perfect obedience shown, however, to be impossible. The law, therefore, cannot be given that we may live by it.

6 and 7. Hence the question of the use of the law. This is, first, to convince of sin, of impotence, of just and righteous condemnation.

8. The design not to j^roduce despair, but resort to God's grace.

9. Augustin illustrates its use in making us seek grace.

10. The second office of the law is to restrain. It represses wick- edness. Calvin has here a thought that our discipline of restraint by the law before conversion is of use to us in self-denial after conversion.

11. "The law a schoolmaster" explained.

12. The third use of the law is to furnish a perfect rule of right- eousness and to incite our indolence ; it is a guide and a spur.

13. Hence Antinomianism rebuked.

14. The remaining sections discuss the abolition of the law. His ex- planation of ' ' the handwriting of ordinances against us, ' ' borrowed from Augustin, is quite ingenious, though hardly consistent with the contest.

CHAPTEK VIII.

CHRIST, TO BE MEDIATOR, MUST BE BOTH GOD AND MAN.

1. The necessity that our mediator should be truly God and man is not an absolute but hypothetical necessity, conditioned upon the pur- pose of redemption. There could be no salvation without it. Man separated from God by sin ; none could bring them together but One who could lay his hand upon both.

(1.) Angels could not, for they needed a head as the. ground of their own firm and indissoluble union with God.

(2. ) If man had not fallen he would have needed a mediator that he might penetrate to God.

(3.) The elements of union are found in the two natures in the Me- diator. He is near to us — our kinsman, our flesh, and hence signal- ized as a man. He is also God. Immanuel.

ANALYSIS OF CALVIN. G31

2. Tlie work to be done evinces the stringency of this necessitj''. We were to be made sons of God. That this might be done the Son of God must become a son of man ; He must participate with us in what was ours that we might share with Him in what was His. His incarnation, therefore, which makes Him oui" Brother, is the pledge of our sonship. Again, He was to swallow up death. Who could do that but Life ? He was to conquer sin. Who could do that but Right- eousness? To conquer death and hell, and hence the need of Almighty power.

3. Another principal branch of His work was to render satisfaction to the law in the i^lace of man. He must be human in order to suffer — Divine, to give efficacy to His death.

4. Do the Scriptures resolve the ichole necessity of the incarnation into the necessity of redemption ? Or is there reason to believe that if man had not sinned the Son would have become incarnate ? Calvin shows that the Scriptures uniformly resolve the necessity into that of a redemption by sacrifice and blood, and that it is rash to speculate beyond this. The only necessity which they teach is that which springs from the purpose of grace. This proved by a copious citation of texts.

5. Should it be said that the Scriptures do not teach that the Son would not have been incarnate had not man sinned, it is answered : ^\^e have no right to say so. It is enough that the incarnation and redemption are always connected in Scripture as mutually (lepcndent parts of one scheme of grace. Paul traces the scheme to the eternal decree of God, but connects incarnation with redemption ; and when he illustrates the love of Christ, he is always careful that his argu- ments centre on the cross.

6. The ground on which Osiander insists that the incarnation would have tiiken place whether man had sinned or not, is that the image of God in which man was originally created was the future humanity of Christ. That was the pattern of the human body. But this is an absurd perversion of what is meant by the image of God.

(1.) The Son was then, at the time of creation, the image of God. (2. ) Angels also bear that image.

7. Hence no need of incarnation that man might bear the image of God. Nor does Christ lose His dignity by being made as Redeemer after the fashion of man — not the first but the second Adam. Nor was His incarnation necessary to His headship over angels and all creatures. That He was as Son. Hence we are not authorized to say that there was any other necessity of the incarnation but that which springs from the purpose of salvation.

632 APPENDIX C.

Chapter XIII THE TRUE HUMANITY OF CHRIST

1. The Deity of Christ having been already proved, it remains to show that He was really and truly a man, in opposition to the JMar- cionites, who make His humanity a phantom, and the JManichees, who give Him a celestial flesh.

(1.) The promise of a blessing was in the seed of Abraham and of a kingdom to the seed of David. He is a man, not because born of a virgin, having been created elsewhere and transmitted through her, but because He was the seed of David according to the flesh.

(2.) He was subject to human infirmities — hunger, cold, thirst, fatigue, .etc.

(3.) He was like unto the brethren. (Heb. ii. 16.)

(4. ) His receiving the Spirit, and being pure and sanetifjdng Him- self, imply His humanity. This paragraph is a brief but conclusive demonstration of His true and proper humanity.

2. Calvin proceeds to notice the cavils of opponents : (1.) He was said to be in the figure or fashion of a man, therefore not a real man. The scope of the argument is to illustrate His humility, and the whole point would be destroyed if He was not really a man. Peter and Paul both teach that He suffered through weakness, through the flesh. (2.) He is the second Adam, the Lord from heaven. Paul is speaking of His efficacy, not His nature, but the whole argument from His resurrection to ours implies that He was a man, or it is in- conclusive. (3.) Son of man is not a title given to Him because He was promised, but because He had our nature. (4.) First-born, if He were a man, would make Him the first descendant of Adam, but it is a title of dignity and precedence.

3. An allegorical seed of David and Abraham evidently inconsistent with Paul's reasoning.

(I.) Objected that He is only from Mary, and not from David. (2. ) That the woman has no seed. This argument refuted by the law of incest and the law of hereditary slavery.

4. The objection answered that if Christ were really descended from Adam, He would have been involved in original sin. Depravity is not the result of the law of generation simply in itself, but of the law as affected by the fall. The immaculate conception of Jesus is conclusive proof that it is federal headship, and not bu'th simply, that determines moral character.

ANALYSIS OF CALVIN. 633

Chapter XIV THE TWO NATURES IN ONE PERSON

Union of the two natures is not by confusion or mixture of sub- stances, but in the unity of the Person. The Son of God took into union with His Divine Person human nature. Each nature retains its own properties, but they constitute but one Christ.

BOOK THIRD.

OF THE MODE OF OUR PARTAKING OF THE GRACE OF CHRIST : WHAT BENEFITS IT CONFERS; AND WHAT FRUITS FLOW FROM IT.

Chapter I THE BENEFITS OF CHRIST MADE AVAILABLE TO US BY THE SECRET OPERATION OF THE SPIRIT

1. Union with Christ is the indispensable condition of our partici- pating in His benefits. As long as we are separate from Him, His salvation is nothing to us. He must become ours, or we get no good from Him. He is the head. This union is produced by the Holy Spirit. He applies salvation by working faith in us and uniting us to Christ in our efi"ectual calling. Hence the Spirit testifies in earth and heaven.

2. The Spirit is the bond of our union with Christ, and therefore Christ is furnished with Him without measure. He is, therefore, called the Spirit of sanctification. Joel distinguishes the Christian as the dispensation of the Spirit ; and though the gift signalized in his prophecy is that of prophecy, it indicates the general illuniination by which disciples should be largely made. He is both the Spirit of the Father, and also of the Son as Mediator.

3. The epithets applied to the Spirit are considered, and the rea- sons of them explained : The Spirit of Adoption, First- Fruits and Earnest, Water, Fire, Oil and Unction, Fountain, Hand of God.

4. His principal work is the production of Faith. This is His gift. The renovation and resurrection of the soul are His prerogatives.

Chapter II OF FAITH: DEFINITION OF IT, AND ITS PECULIAR PROPERTIES

1. That we may understand the nature of Faith we must appreciate our state of ruin and despair under the law, and the i^rovisions of the Gospel for our salvation. It is clear that there must be something

634 APPENDIX C.

peculiar in the Faith which apprehends such blessings. It is not blind opinion or persuasion. It is not mere assent to the Grospel his- tory. Neither is God absolutel.y the object of it, as the Schoolmen fancy. It is God, but God in Christ. This truth must be distinctly apprehended.

2. The doctrine of implicit faith must be specially avoided. It is utterly subversive of true faith. In reality it is neither faith nor knowledge, but a negation of l)oth. It is mere submission to the Church. But true faith is intelligent.

3. In our present condition of ignorance and weakness many things are obscure to us, many incomprehensible, and the attitude of our minds should be docility. This is nothing but ignorance combined with humility, and is not to be abusively confounded with foith. That is the knowledge of Christ, and not reverence for the Church.

4. Our ignorance and imperfection of knowledge in the present state preclude comprehension of many things. Much must always remain implicit. Our motto is progress, but faith is only predicable of what we actually apprehend and as we apprehend it. The dispo- sition to follow principles is only docility ; it puts us in a condition to believe, but is not faith itself, except in its generic jninciple.

5. That may be called an implicit faith, therefore, which is only a IDreparation for faith, the acknowledgment of a princij^le which shall guarantee articles. The case of the Samaritans. But there is always here a Divine principle divinely received ; it is a beginning of truth and knowledge. This initial knowledge, combined with a desire for more, very different from the blind submission of Papists.

6. The function of true faith is to receive Christ as invested with His Gosj^el. This is the object of saving faith. This does not ex- clude the Old Testament, but the object is more clearly revealed now. Faith is always measured by the Word. This is its rule and standard.

7. That in the Word which faith seizes upon for life is the mercy of God in Christ. The Spirit enables us to perceive and embrace God's testimony on that point. Putting these elements together, we have Calvin's definition of Faith : ''^ Diviiice erga 7ios henevolentice Jirmam certamque cognitionem^ quce gratuitoe. in Christo promissionis veritate fundata, per Spiritum Sanctum et revelatur mentihis nostris et cor- dihns ohsignatur."

Note. — Calvin seems to have collected more into his definition than he had gathered in his analysis. His analysis gives — (1. ) Christ as the object; (2.) Christ clothed with the Gospel; (3.) the Word as the measure ; (4. ) the promi.se of salvation as the special matter of the Word ; (5. ) belief of this ])romise implies reliance on Christ for sal- vation ; and (6. ) as this belief is produced by the Holy Spirit, the defi- nition ought to be "a firm and steady knowledge of God's benevo-

ANALYSIS OF CALVIN. 635

lence to sinners in Christ, and a consequent reliance upon Jesus accord- ing to the Gospel for salvation." Nid to me, but to simiers. I 8. Before vindicating his definition and considering it in detail, Cal- vin disposes of some preliminary points, and first in relation to the distinction between a formed and an unformed faith. A formed faith is faith with the addition of pious afiection; an unformed faith is without it. The faith in each case is the same ; it is mere assent. This is its essence. It becomes saving by the addition of pious affec- tion, itself remaining essentially the same. Calvin shows, on the con- trary, that the ^'ery essence of faith is the pious aiFection ; that saving faith therefore is essentially a different thing from, mere assent. Faith is of the heart rather than the head, is the special gift of the Spirit as the Spirit of adoption, and embraces Christ for sanctijication as well as for pardon.

9. The passage, 1 Cor. xiii. 2, that "faith without charity is noth- ing," which is supposed to prove an unformed faith, is explained. Faith, there, is the special persuasion of miraculous power, and in the preceding chapter is discriminated from saving faith. The error aiises by not noting the ambiguity of the word. The same word is used for diflFerent thing.s. But when is it applied to the pious, it has one meaning which necessarily includes charity. The thing there is always the same, and is never mere assent. Among the ambiguities may be noted historic faith and temporary, both specifically different from saving faith.

10. As temporary faith, though really unworthy of the name of faith, is an image or shadow of it, Calvin specially notes it. Simon Magus and tlie stony-ground hearers are instances of it. Such persons de- ceive themselves as well as others. They have emotions, but they are not the emotions of true piety. Calvin makes a remark here : Those who believe without trembling are inferior to devils ; those who believe and only tremble are on a par with them.

IL If it is objected that temporary faith ought not to be called faith, since that is the fruit of election, it is answered that the resem- blance between them is the ground of the common appellation. The resemblance is so close as to deceive themselves and others. They taste something of the goodness of God ; they believe Him to be pro- pitious to them ; they have a .sense of reconciliation, but they have not the spirit of adoption. This widely separates thorn from the elect.

12. Their sense of Divine things, next, is temporary, it has no root; their love is mercenary', it is not filial. But still the principle of their exercises is called faith.

13. Other ambiguities of the word faith are pointed out, as when it is put for the doctrine of the Gospel, belief of some special proposi- tion. This catachresis is of the same kind as when the worship

636 APPENDIX C.

of idolaters is called piety. But the question returns as to saving faith.

14. Calvin now proceeds to an articulate consideration of the definition previously given. Faith is first referred to the category of knowh'dge. But it is knowledge of a peculiar kind. It is not like the comprehen- sion of an object submitted to our senses. It is not bare thought. It is a higher type of cognition beyond the reach of nature — a cognition in which we understand more Ijy the certainty of the persuasion than by any power of representation. It is a sense, a loving sense, of the Divine goodness. The Scriptures uniformly describe it in terms of knowledge.

15. It is a certain and solid knowledge, not a fluctuating opinion or a vacillating conviction. It rests upon the promises of God. The Scriptures are emphatic in representing their own stability in order to root unbelief out of our hearts, and bring us to a steady and fixed per- suasion of their truth. Faith grasps with a firm hold what God testi- fies of His goodness in Christ.

16. Faith, therefore, is accompanied with confidence arising from appropriation of the promises. If by confidence is meant reliance and expectation, it is right ; if it is meant, as it seems to be, that faith consists in the assurance of my own personal salvation, this is to con- found its reflex with its direct exercise. Cahan's language is very strong as to assurance entering into the essence of faith.

17. This section undertakes to reconcile the doctrine of assurance with the doubts, anxieties and conflicts of believers. The certainty does not preclude all doubt nor all solicitude. On the contrarj', the Christian life is a perpetual conflict, but faith never fails to look to God and struggles until it gets the masterj'. David is taken as an illustrious example.

Note. — This section is a fine description of the conflicts of faith, but it fails to prove that a believer always has a steady sense of his acceptance ; it only proves that he has a steady reliance upon God — that his troubles carry him to God instead of from God, as with hypocrites.

18. The struggle of faith and unbelief is the contest of the flesh and Spirit, This is finely described. But does not such a contest show that faith is not assurance? By no means, for faith always triumphs.

Note. — It does prove that the believer is not always assured. Cal- vin is confounding the essence of faith in itself with faith as it is^-eal- ized in the believer. Faith in its own nature may be assurance, but the believer mixes other things with it which obscure it, so that he is not assured.

19. The sum of all is, that faith at first is feeble and imperfect, but

ANALYSIS OF CALVIN. 637

alwaJ^s of the same nature ; it sees a reconciled God ; it grows in clear- ness, distinctness and strength with our growth in experience and knowledge, but the lowest degree contemplates God as merciful and reconciled — that is, relies upon His grace.

20. Both points — that is, the incipient weakness and subsequent growth of faith — the apostle illustrates in the noted passage (1 Cor. xiii. 9), "we know in part." Our rudeness of knowledge exposes us to temptations and perpetual conflicts. We groan and struggle.

21. In this conflict faith uses the word of God, and against all the insinuations that He has cast us ofi", that He is not merciful, opposes His promises and grace. In this way it finally triumphs, showing that it is an incorruptible seed.

Note. — Here also the thing proved is only that it continues to rely, to trust.

22. There is a salutary fear impressed by the Divine judgments and a sense of weakness and danger which, so far from being inconsistent, strengthens faith. It is the fear of one solicitous for righteousness, and arises from the love of God and distrust of ourselves. It is caution.

23. It is not inconsistent with confidence in God. This largely proved : caution combined with a sense of security.

24. Considers the semi-Papistic notion that faith must always be accompanied with doubt, a fear of real apprehension. When we look at Christ, we hope ; at om-selves, we fear — that is, we must mix law and grace.

25. Bernard quoted on this point.

26. The pious fear of God analyzed and resolved into reverence and fear, or honor and fear — the fear being filial, a tender regard for God's glory and sensibility to sin.

27. The fear which has torment, of which John speaks, very differ- ent from this. That is a slavish fear — nothing ingenuous and loving about it.

28. The blessing which faith is certified of is eternal life. It looks to the future. Its rewards are not here, but hereafter, and eternal life includes grace and glory — all real good, but especially final glory.

29. The precise ground of faith is the promise. The whole Word is embraced and acted agreeably to, but the promise is that in which life is found, and saving faith apprehends God's mercy in Christ.

30. The objection of those who say that faith respects the whole word of God equally, considered. We admit that it respects the whole word of God, but we maintain it is neither firm nor finds life and peace until it finds Christ. It is saving not as faith, but as uniting to Him. Steadiness and life flow from the promise.

31. Faith, therefore, is measured by the Word. As well might a tree bear fruit without a root as faith exist without the Word. It,

638 APPENDIX C.

of course, iuiplies a conviction of the Divine power or a sense of the Divine ability to reaUze the Word. Hence the frequent descriptions of the Divine omnipotence in the Scriptures. Power props faith, but the credenda, things to be beheved, must be gathered from the Word, particularly God's goodness. We must laiow to believe, and the knowledge is from the Word. To go beyond the Word is a weakness, an error, a sin. Sarah did it, Rebecca did it, Isaac did it : all these had faith, but they mixed their own devices with it, showing that we err when we trust at all to ourselves.

32. Faith embraces the ijromises in Christ. It can embrace them only in Him, for it is only in Him that God is reconciled to us. The goodness of God, however manifested in benefits and favours, is never really apprehended until it is apprehended in Him. The promises have no efficacy apart fi-om Him. The cases of Naaman, the Eunuch, and Cornelius have been urged as showing true faith without a refer- ence to Christ. But in these cases there was a rudimental, general knowledge, and in a proper sense an impKcit faith.

33. The necessity of the Spirit to produce faith. He enlightens the mind and establishes the heart. It is not mere assent. The Spirit also perfects the faith by constant additions. How it is that we re- ceive the Spirit by faith and yet the Spirit is the Author of faith.

34. A more distinct consideration of the grounds of our need of the S]iirit — (1.) Incapacity to apprehend spiritual things; (2.) Aversion from them. The positive teaching of Scripture on these points,

35. Faith affirmed to be the gift and the work of God.

36. Faith, as including a work upon the heart as well as the intellect, a cognition of the good as well as the true. Hence the Spirit an earnest and a seal. This experience the foundation of certitude.

37. Faith — as we have seen, liable to fluctuations, but this is its security — God' s faithfulness.

38. The doctrine that personal assurance should be excluded from faith exploded.

39. This assurance shown to involve no presumption.

40. And to involve final perseverance.

The last three sections show: Section 41, the concun-ence of Cal- vin with Paul in Heb. xi. i; Sections 42 and 43, the relations of Faith and Hope.

CHAPTEK XI.

OF JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH

1 . We have already exjilained that faith in Christ is the only way of salvation to a sinner. Two benefits result from it. Justification and Holiness. The second has already been discussed. We come

ANALYSIS OF CALVIN. 639

now to the first, Justification. This is the 2:>rincipal hinge of re- ligion.

2. The meaning of the expressions, To he justified in the sight of God., to he justified hy works, to he justified hy faith. To be justified is to be reiDuted and accepted as righteous. To be justified by works is to be reputed righteous because our works are what the law requires. To be justified by faith is to be reputed and accepted as righteous on account of the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and ajjpropriated by faith. It consists of two parts — the remission of sins and the im- putation of the righteousness of Christ.

3. That the word justify does not mean to make a man righteous, but to declare him so, is evident from many passages of Scripture. A few will suffice : Luke vii. 29-35, "The people that heard Christ jus- tified God," and Christ says, "Wisdom is justified of her children." Here the words are evidently taken in a declarative sense. They de- note an ascription to God and Wisdom of the praise to which they are entitled. (Luke xvi. 15.) Our Saviour reprehends the Pharisees for "justifying themselves;" that is, not for making themselves right- eous, but for seeking the reputation of it without deserving it. The Hebrew idiom calls those sinners who are reputed such, whether they

.are so or not. Bathsheba says, " I and my son shall be counted offenders and sinners," meaning that they will be treated so, though they were not so. So much for the Scripture usage of the word.

That justification by faith is justification by the righteousness of Christ imputed and received by faith, is plain from the comparison of all the passages which treat of tlie subject :

(1.) "God justifieth the ungodly which believe in Jesus." Here they are ungodly, and yet, according to Scripture use, declared right- eous.

(2.) "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect," etc. Here ju.stification is opposed to condemnation, and implies an acquittal from guilt.

(3.) As we are justified by the mediation of Christ, it is clearly His righteousness that is imputed. Acts xiii. 38, 39, "Through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins," etc. This passage shows that justification implies remission of sins — that it is an acquit- tal by mere favour without the works of the law. And so, too, the Publican was justified. Ambrose stj'les confession of sins a legitimate justification.

4. The thing itself is so represented in Scripture as to leave no doubt that justification refers to the state, and not the character. (Eph. i. 5, 6.) Our acceptance is the same as being justified freely by His grace in Komans iii. 24. In Romans iv. 6-8, justification, the imputation of righteousness and jiardun are all clearly one and the

640 APPENDIX c.

same thing. In 2 Cor. v. 18, 19, reconciliation to God is made the great end of the gospel, and it consists in not imputing trespasses.

So we are made righteous by the obedience of Christ, and He is our righteousness.

CHAPTEE XIX.

OF CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.

1. The importance of this subject as a cure of scruples, an. aijpen- dix to justification. The two extremes of opinion — one denj'ing it alto- gether, the other abusing it into licentiousness. Hence the necessity of discussing it. The Grospel cannot be understood without it.

2. Christian liberty consists in three things :

The first is freedom from the law in the matter of justification. The abolition of the law in reference to that end. ' ' Christ the end of the law," etc. If any place be allowed to the law, there can be no certainty to the conscience. This does not dispense with the law, as a rule of life.

3. The Epistle to the Galatians is an articulate exposition of the element of Christian liberty. Paul is not discussing chiefly the cere- monial law. The argument is this: (1.) Those who introduce the shadows when the substance is come, abridge our liberty.

(2.) Those who introduce the principle of works on which they pleaded for ceremonies, deny the Gospel. (3.) A fortiori^ ceremonial works nothing.

4. The second element of Christian liberty is freedom from a legal spirit and the possession of the spirit of adoption. The question is as to the ground or motive to obedience, the iminilse from which it springs, and here the diiference between the slave and the child is at once revealed. This freedom absolutely essential to peace of mind and alacrity of obedience. It is the sense of adoption. The efiect of it illustrated in the first commandment. Legal obedience impossible.

5. How the spirit of adoption is aff'ected by the same thing.

6. Proofs from Hebrews and Romans of this part of Christian lib- erty: "Sin shall not have dominion over you," etc. Hebrews attri- butes all obedience to faith.

7. The third element of Christian liberty is freedom of conscience in relation to matters of indifiierence. This feature necessary to re- buke superstition and will-worship. It seems trivial, but is more im- portant than at first blush appears. Calvin illustrates the progress of scruple in linen, hemp, tow, wine, delicate and coarse, water pure or bitter.

8. Romans xiv. 14: " Nothing unclean of itself. " It may be made so by our scruples. The conscience is happy which is free. Not under- standing this principle makes men — (1.) despisers of God; (2.) des-

ANALYSIS OF CALVIN. 641

perate; (3.) ungrateful or incapable of rendering thanks for God's gifts to them.

9. Christian liberty spiritual ; its seat the conscience, and the con- science in reference to God. No pretext, therefore, for luxury, van- ity, ostentation and pride. The criterion by which indiiferent things cease to be indifferent to us.

10. A caution (o those who think that Christian liberty consists in always asserting it before men. In this way they cause offences to the weak. The liberty allows abstinence as much as use.

11. Hence necessary to understand the doctrine of offences; two kinds, the offence given and the offence taken.

(1.) Offence given. (Rom. xiv. 1, 13; Rom. xv. 1.) (2.) Offence taken. (Matt. xv. 14.)

12. But how are we to distinguish the weak from the Pharisees? Paul's conduct in the case of Titus and Timothy considered.

13. No liberty in matters commanded or expressly laid down in Scripture. There must be no compromise here, but stUl the spirit of kindness and love.

14. The conscience therefore absolutely free from all authority but that of God.

15. The distinction between spiritual and human or civil govern- ment, and the relation of the conscience to each. Analysis of con- science.

16. Summary of all. Vol. I.— 41

APPENDIX D.

QUESTIONS ON CALVIN'S INSTITUTES.

BOOK FIRST.

Chapter I

IN wtat sense does Calvin use the term Wisdom ? 2. What is the propriety of this use ?

3. What is the sense attached to it in the Scriptures, particularly in the Proverbs of Solomon ?

4. What was the use of it with Plato and Aristotle ?

5. In what does wisdom principally consist?

6. What is the scope of the first chapter ?

7. Show how the knowledge of ourselves conduces to the know- ledge of God. Greneralize Calvin's three propositions upon this point.

8. Show how the knowledge of Grod conduces to the knowledge of ourselves. Generalize the proposition and give the illustration.

9. What effect has the presence of God clearly manifested, even upon good men, and why? Illustrate by instances.

10. Recapitulate the chapter.

Chapter II

1 . What is the scope of this chapter ?

2. What kind of knowledge does Calvin mean? Discriminate it from two other kinds of knowledge of God.

3. What is the question in regard to God which this knowledge answers?

4. Can we answer the question, Quid sit Deus ?

5. Recapitulate. 642

QUESTIONS ON CALVIN. 643

CHAPTEK III.

1. What is the connection of this chapter with the preceding?

2. What does Calvin mean by saying that the knowledge of God is natural?

3. What is the doctrine of innate ideas combated by Locke?

4. What is the true doctrine in relation to a priori cognitions?

5. Are Calvin's expressions liable to any just censure?

6. What is the proof that the knowledge of Grod is natural?

7. What are the recognized criteria of primitive tmths?

8. Show that a sense of religion is universal.

9. Answer the objection that religion is the invention of politicians. 10. Show that a sense of religion is ineffaceable. Recapitulate.

Chapter IV

1. What is the scope of this chapter and its connection with the preceding ?

2. To what two causes does Calvin ascribe man's natm-al ignorance of God?

3. Is this ignorance excusable or not, and why not?

4. Show the effects of vanity coupled with pride, explaining what vanity and pride are.

5. Show the effects of malice or deliberate wickedness.

6. How would you meet the objection that superstitious worship will be accepted, because it is well-meant and sincere ?

7. What is the kind of worship rendered by the malicious?

Chapter V

1. What is the design of this chapter?

2. Into how many parts may it l)e divided ?

8. What is said of the fitness of nature to teach us the being and character of God? What is the testimony of the Psalmist?

4. Is this testimony confined to the universe as a whole, or is it true of every department of God's works? What is the impression produced by it as a whole f

5. What is the difference between the unlearned and the man of science with relation to this testhuony ?

6. Among the mirrors of God in nature which is the most eminent? and why ?

7. How does Calvin illustrate our ingratitude in not recognizing God in our own structure and constitution?

8. How does Calvin illustrate the wonderful constitution of the soul ?

9. What does he say of a soul of the world ?

y

644 APPENDIX D.

10. What is said of the sustentation and guidance of this mighty fabric? And how are God's eternity and goodness educed?

11. What does Calvin mean by extraordinary works?

12. What is the real teaching of Providence in its ordinary and ex- traordinary operations ?

13. What may we infer from the astonishing contrasts often pre- sented in the lives of men?

14. How would you show that the manifestations of Grod in His works are singularly suited to promote piety ?

15. What light does it throw upon the doctrine of a future life?

16. What is the actual effect of this teaching upon men ? How do they pervert it ?

17. How, particularly, is the vanity of the human mind illustrated?

18. How do the Scriptures represent all vrill- worship ? Mention the four Scripture proofs appealed to.

19. Is nature, then, alone competent to lead a sinner to God?

20. Is human ignorance excusable?

21. What two inferences may be drawn from this chapter?

CHAPTEE VI.

1. What is the design of this chapter?

2. What has been God's method from the beginning in instructing His Church ?

3. Is revelation necessary in order to the knowledge of natural religion ?

4. How does Calvin illustrate this ?

5. To what two heads may revelation be reduced ?

6. If reason in our fallen state cannot discover the doctrines of natural religion, of what use is it in relation to them?

7. How did God at first communicate His will ?

8. What was the next step ?

9. What is the advantage of reducing it to wi-iting ?

10. Where is the entire revelation now found?

11. What is the chief scope of this revelation?

12. How do the doctrines of natural religion stand related to this end ?

13. What, therefore, is the only true method of knowing God?

14. How do the Scriptm-es contrast the lights of natm-e and reve- lation?

Chapter VII

1. What is the scope of this chapter?

2. What is the real state of the question ?

3. What is the thesis which Calvin maintains? and what is the opposite one which he condemns ?

QUESTIONS ON CALVIN. 645

4. What is the first objection to the Romanist doctrine ?

5. What is the Church's commendation of Scripture?

6. How is Scripture authenticated ?

7. How is the sentiment so often quoted from Augustin ex- plained ?

8. What is the real ground of the authority of Scripture ?

9. How can we infallibly know it to be the word of God ?

10. Of what use are the i^robable proofs?

11. What is the nature of that faith which the self-evidence of Scripture produces?

12. How is the relation of the Chm-ch and Scripture expressed by Melancthon ?

CHAPTEE IX.

1. What is the connection of this chapter with the preceding?

2. What does Calvin say of those who neglect the Word under the pretext of being led by the Spirit?

3. How does he show that the Holy Spirit always produces reve- rence for the Word ? Mention all the Scripture arguments.

4. How would you answer the objection that the Spirit is degraded by subjecting Him to the trial of Scripture ?

5. How would you answer the cavil against the Word, that it is merely the letter which killeth ? Explain the passage.

6. What is the precise function of the Spirit in relation to the Word? and how is the Word a test of the Spirit?

7. What is the Word without the Spirit, and what the Spirit with- out the Word?

CHAPTEE X.

1. What is the scope of this chapter?

2. What is Calvin's method of showing that revelation and nature both teach the same God ?

3. Recite the passages of Scripture on which he relies, and de- velop the argument.

4. How do nature and revelation coincide in the end of their teaching ?

5. What is the sum of the general teaching of Scriptm-e in rela- tion to God as Creator?

CHAPTEE XI.

1. What is the connection of this chapter with the preceding?

2. What is the general design of it?

3. Into how many parts may it be distributed ?

4. What is its general thesis ?

646 APPENDIX D.

5. Why are idols particularly specified ?

6. What is the significance of the various specifications in the sec- ond commandment ?

7. What is the first proof that God rejects absolutely all images and all representations to the imagination ?

8. Recite and explain the passage from Isaiah and from Paul.

9. What is the testimony of heathen philosophers to the same point?

10. From this testimony what may we infer as to the prohibition of idolatry among the Jews ?

11. Plow does Calvin show that the symbols of the Divine presence employed under the law aiford no countenance to images of God ?

12. How does the Psalmist expose the folly of idolatry? Analyze his argument.

13. What is the raillery of Horace ? Quote Isaiah in the same vein.

14. What is said of the distinction between pictures and images?

15. What is the ground on which Gregory defends images?

16. What is the teaching of the Spirit of God?

17. What is the testimony of Lactantius, Eusebius, the Council of Eliberis, and Augustin, and even of the heathen Varro?

18. What is said of the decency and modesty of Papal images?

19. What is the Divine method of teaching?

20. What is the real origin of idolatry? Give a short history of it from the Scriptures.

21. Explain the process by which images came to be adored.

22. What is the plea for image-worship among the Papists and among enlightened heathen ?

23. Show the futility of this plea.

24. What is the distinction between Latvia and Dulia ? Show it to be vain.

25. What is the true use of sculpture and painting?

26. Is either ever lawful in the worship of God ? and whj^ not ?

27. What Council of Nice declared that images were to be wor- shipped ?

28. Mention some of the arguments used in that Council.

29. Mention some of the impieties which were uttered.

30. Is any refutation needed of such arguments ?

CHAPTEE XII.

1. What is the design of the exclusive definition of God which the Scriptures contain ?

2. What is religion? Give the origin and significance of the term.

3. What is superstition? Its origin and import?

4. Why cannot religious worship be rendered to any being but God ?

QUESTIONS ON CALVIN. 647

5. Show the futiUty of the distinction between Latvia and Dulia ?

6. What is idolatry in its largest sense?

Chapter XIII

1. What is the question which this chapter proposes to answer?

2. What two properties of the Divine essence are first signaUzed ?

3. How should these properties regulate our speculations concern- ing Him ?

4. Show their bearing upon the error of the Manichees and An- thropomorphites.

5. What other peculiarity of the Divine essence is signalized in Scripture ?

6. In showing that we do not make a threefold God, what method does Calvin pursue?

7. How does he show that the term Person is scriptural as expres- sive of the three subsistences in the Trinity ? What is the Greek word, and how may it best be rendered ?

8. What term is employed by the Greek Church?

9. What are the objections to the use of the term Person^ and how does Calvin answer them? What criterion does he lay down as to the propriety of introducing new terms?

10. Show how Arianism and Sabellianism rendered the terms con- Siihstautial and Person absolutely necessary to the Church.

11. What is the danger now of rejecting these words?

12. Were the Fathers consistent with each other in the use of these terms ? How did they vindicate their use ?

13. What is the thing we are particularly to aim at?

14. How does Calvin define the word Person ?

15. How does Calvin vindicate the distinction betwixt subsistence and essence ?

16. Having defined the terms, what is Calvin's method of proving the doctrine of the Trinity?

17. How does it appear that the word of God is not a transient sound, but an eternal subsistence ? Mention the three proofs.

18. Answer the objection that the Word only began to be at the creation. How is this opinion defended? Explain Moses.

19. State the passages from the Old Testament which affirm the Divinity of Christ.

20. Signalize those particularly which speak of the Angel of Je- hovah.

21. What is the first class of passages cited from the New Testa- ment?

22. What other passages may be cited ?

23. What is the argument from the works of Christ?

648 APPENDIX D.

24. What is the argument from miracles?

25. What is the argument from reHgious worship?

26. How is the Holy Spirit proved to be God ?

27. Give the steps of this argument.

28. Do the Scriptures expressly call Him God ?

29. What class of passages signalize the whole Trinity?

30. Show that there is a distinction betwixt the Persons.

31. Are they separable because distinct?

32. What is the nature of this distinction ?

33. Show that the distinction infers Unity.

34. What is Calvin's summation of the doctrine in Section 20?

35. What is the scope of the remainder of this chapter?

36. What caution does Calvin give as to the extent of our know- ledge of the essence of God ?

CHAPTEE XIV.

1. What is the importance of the doctrine of the Creation?

2. What would you say of the cavil that the creation did not take place sooner?

3. Why was the creation successive, and not simultaneous ?

4. What special proof have we in this order of goodness to man?

5. What are the first creatures Calvin considers ?

6. What is the importance of the doctrine concerning angels ?

7. How does IManichaeism detract from the gloiy of God ?

8. How could God have created evil spirits ?

9. When and in what order were angels created ?

10. What rule should regulate our inquiries on all subjects tran- scending the sphere of experience ?

11. What question does Calvin dismiss as frivolous?

12. What important observation does he make as to the duty of a theologian?

13. What does he say of the work of Dionysius of Areopagus?

14. What are angels, and why so called ?

15. Why called Hosts? Powers? Principalities? Dominions? Thrones? Gods?

16. What is the general office of angels with respect to us?

17. What special functions do they execute?

18. Give Scripture proofs.

19. What would you say of guardian angels? The arguments pro and con ?

20. What doctrine is clear and consolatory?

21. What is said of the number and rank of angels? Are they material ? Why are the cherubim said to be winged ?

QUESTIONS ON CALVIN. 649

22. Show that they are real, substantive beings, and not mere influ- ences.

23. What error does the doctrine concerning angels as ministers rebuke ?

24. Why is their ministry made known to us ?

25. What is the general use of this doctrine of angels ?

26. What is the end of what Scripture teaches us about devils ?

27. What is said of the number of evil spirits ?

28. Why is one singled out from the rest?

29. What is the employment of devils in relation to God and the saints ?

30. Do we know the history of the fall of devils?

31. Is the Devil absolutely in the power of Grod?

32. Scripture proofs.

33. In what sense do devils resist and in what obey God ?

34. What power have devils over believers? Over unbelievers?

35. Prove the personality of devils.

36. Why should we delight in contemplating creation?

37. How does this contemplation bear on piety?

38. What particularly should stimulate our faith in God ?

CPIAPTER XVI.

1. Was God's interest in His works absolved at the creation?

2. Is creation intelligible without Providence ?

3. What low and carnal doctrine touching the relation of God to the creature does Calvin condemn ?

4. What is the Scripture view of Providence?

5. How is God's providential care of the creature signalized in the Psalms ?

6. To what schemes is the doctrine of Providence opposed ?

7. What kind of events is ascribed to chance? Give examijles.

8. How do the Scriptures explain this same class of events?

9. What is the relation of inanimate objects to the agency of God ?

10. Illustrate in the case of the sun and the seasons, and show that something beside necessary law is involved.

11 . How do the Scriptures teach us to recognize God's omnipotence ?

12. What two benefits result from this view?

13. How does Calvin briefly define Providence?

14. Show that simple prescience does not complete the idea.

15. What is the confused or general providence of the philosophers which he condemns?

16. What is the Epicurean doctrine?

17. How does general Providence detract from our views of God as a benefactor and a judge ?

650 APPENDIX D.

18. What creature in tliis world is the especial object of Divine care ?

19. How far does Providence extend in relation to man? Give the Scripture proofs.

20. What are the illustrations of God's special providence men- tioned in the seventh section?

21. How would you show that the doctrine of Providence is not ob- noxious to the charge of being a new form of the Stoic Fate?

22. Is there any such thing as chance, strictly considered ? Quote the passages from Basil and Augustin.

23. In what sense may we make a distinction between contingent and necessary events?

24. What twofold necessity did the Schoolmen make?

CIIAPTEE XVII.

1. What is the general pvirpose of the doctrine of Providence?

2. What four things must be taken into consideration in judging of Providence ?

3. What is the spirit which we should bring to the study of Providence ?

4. On what grounds do some object to the doctrine altogether?

5. To what department of truth would they confine us ?

6. Show that the Scripture teaches the doctrine, and requires us to acquiesce in it with adoring reverence.

7. Is the will of God in providence, which is immutable and supreme, at all arbitrary?

8. What perverse inferences have men drawn from the doctrine of Providence?

9. How would j'ou reconcile Providence with human deliberation and care ?

10. Show that Providence affords no excuse for wickedness.

11. What are the points in the holy meditation on Providence which Calvin begins in the sixth section ?

12. Show God's com]:)lete control over wicked men and devils in making them subserve His ends.

13. How docs the doctrine of Providence reconcile us to injuries and afflictions?

14. Is Providence any argument against gratitude? Against the use of means? For commission of crime or negligence in duty? How does the Christian contemplate Providence in all these respects?

15. How does Calvin illustrate the happiness of a pious mind? See§UO, 11.

16. What do the Scriptures mean when they ascribe repentance to God?

17. Are the Divine decrees ever annulled?

INDEX.

A.

Abelard, the first to use the term Theology for scientific treatment of truths of Re- ligion, 2S.

Ability and iiiabiiity, natural and moral, 394-399.

Absolute and Infinite. — these terms explained, 113-115.

Absoldte, the, indefinable, yet the human mind demands it, 116; most ancient form of the philosophy of, 493.

Adam was made our root that he might be our head, our father that he might be our representative, 271, 341-345, 477-479.

Adimai, meaning of, 156.

Adoption, of grace and yet a reward, 266 ; depends on justiiieation, 267.

Albertus Magnus, 35.

All-sufficiency of God, 198, 199.

Angels, could they be dealt with in the- Di- vine economy on the principle of represen- tation? 271.

Antemundank probation, 341-343, 561.

Antithetic Theology, 32.

Anthropomorphism, ancient and modern, 176.

Aquinas' Summa Theol., 35 ; apophthegm about Thnology, 49; on the Divine perfec- tions, 118 ; on Purgatory, 424; on venial sins, 435 ; consummated Scholastic Theol- ogy, 579.

Archetypal Theology, 28.

Armixians, their doctrine respecting Origi- nal Sin, 316, 337 ; their abuse of Logic, 471.

Aristotle, his estimate of Tlieology, 25, 27 ; he first used the term Theology in a scien- tific sense, 27 ; represents the supreme God as Mind, 175 ; on the science of the In- finite, 470 ; on early opinions as to nature of universe, 492, 494.

Atheism, no demonstration of, note to p. 53.

Atheistic controversy has produced most books. Ibidem.

Athens, moral effects of the plague at, 413, 414.

Attributes op God. Our notion of them, whence derived, 162; inseparable from His essence, 162; not radically one, yet God one without any diversity, 16-3-167 ; some classification of them necessary, 167 ; seven schemes of distribution signalized, all per- vaded by a common vein of thought, 167, 168; the fundamental distinction, what? 169; the terms C'liuiiiimicahh'. and Incom- municable badly clinspn. Kill; Hodge's and Breckinridge's chissifuatinns, 17il, 171, 459-466; the 6im]ilcst divisicm, 172; in- comnlUtli(^■^l>Ip attributes five in number, 189 ; His ludei^endence denies any cause of

Him — uncaused being no more mysterious than caused, 190; He is not properly said to be the cause of Himself, 191 ; His inde- pendence is involved in His very being, 191 ; everywhere presupposed in Scripture, 192 ; pervades every determinate perfection of God, 192 ; His Eternity, abortive efforts to define it, 192, 193 ; all our concejitions negative, yet imply ti"anscendent excel- lence, 193; His Immensity reters to extent of being, and liow it differs from Omni- presence, 194; all mixture with other ob- jects precluded, 195 ; is not the mere vir- tual presence by power, 195; testimony of Scripture full, and proves that Bible is not of man, 195, 196 ; special sense of presence, 196; practical uses of the Iniinensity of God, 197 ; His all-suflHciency contains the plenitude of universe, 198, 199 ; value of this truth, 199 ; His Immutability self-evi- dent, yet set forth in Scripture, 1.99,200; not contradicted by the fact of Creation, nor modified by the Incarnation, nor by any changes in the universe, nor yet af- fected by the anthropomorphic of Scrip- ture, 200, 201 ; is the foundation of all our hopes and of all our fears, 202 ; is immu- table goodness and truth, 202; these at- tributes evince the immeasurable disparity between the most exalted creature and its Creator, 203-205 ; the attributes as treated by Breckinridge, 459—466.

AuDlANS were anthropomorphites, 176.

Augustin on our knowledge of God, 125; first introduced phrase Original Sin, 302 ; his language concerning the effects of the fall criticised, 308; on the perversities of his own childhood, 314 ; on the distinction between privation and negation, 375, 379 ; why so zealous for this distinction, 386; on the characteristic of Sin, 381.

B.

Bacon, comparison of pismires and spiders and bees applied to Romanists, Rationalists and Protestants, 46 ; a philosopher as well as statesman, 447 ; conquests of his phi- losophy, 502.

Baieb on Degrees of Guilt, 427.

Baird, S. J., against Edwards, 517. 518, 560; his work is on Original Sin, 516, 518: his doctrine a modified Realism. 518-521 ; his notion of nature, 522-528 ; ditto of the re- lation between person and nature, 629- 532; ditto of Generation and the Traduc- tion of Souls, 533-539; objections to these grounds on which he explains our interest in the sin of Adam, 539-543; his theory destroys the doctrine of Imputation, 544-

651

652

INDEX.

547 ; it also confounds the natural with the representative headship of Adam, 547- 554; his doctrine not that of the Reform- ers, 555-558 ; only three hypotheses of hereditary guilt, of which the true one is the Bible's, 560-565 ; his view of the cove- nant defective, 665 ; fanciful and unworthy representations respecting the propagative property.in man, 566, 567. BEiNfi OF God, the question of, the most diffi- cult in human inquiry if judged from tlie amount of speculation it has excited, 53 ; the very simplicity of it an occa- sion of perplexity — nearly a self-evident truth, 53, 54 ; belief in, coextensive with race, Iliid. ; doubts of this truth ac- companied by doubts of world and soul, 53, 54, 58 ; testimony of Reason to this truth, 57-64 : dilto of Conscience, 66- 70; ditto of our religious nature, 70, 71; this truth gives one mystery and solves every otlier, 53. 54; it is not a question ex- clusively of Natural Theology, Ibid. ; proved by existence and contingency of the world, 58 ; the proof is by immediate in- ference, 68, 59, 66; the Cosmological argu- ment, 59, 60; the Teleological argument. 60-64; the Ontological proof, 64^66; this truth unknown, we can know nothing, 66; proved by Conscience from its sense of Him as Lawgiver, Judge and All-power- ful Ruler, 67 ; conscience an argument for being of God in our homes and bosoms, 69 ; faith in this truth springs out of man's na- ture, which by an immediate inference leads us to God, 71, 72. Bellarmin upon the ditference between man unfallen and fallen, 229 ; on hereditary de- pravity, 336. Berkeley quoting the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite on the Attributes, 106; on the Scholastic term analoqical as applied to our knowledge of God, liS, 121. Biddle's Catechism taught anthropomor- phism, refuted by Owen, 176. BoETHius on the Eternity of God, 192 ; on

the science of the Infinite, 470. Bracn's Method in Theology, 34; disciple

of Cocceius, 34. Breckinridck on the Attributes. 170, 171 ; a man of thought as well as action, 446; treatment of the argument from final causes, 448, 449 ; the peculiarity of his method, 452-467, 474, 476, 479, 480; illo- gical', with Foster, against the Atheists, 468, 459 ; on the Attributes, 459-466 ; on the knowledge of the infinite and absolute, 468-474; on the paradoxes of the Gospel, 471 ; fails to encounter the question of the psychological possibility of sin to a holy creature, 476,477 ; on hereditary depravity and imputed sin, 476-479; should his pe- culiarities as a theologian be copied? 481-484. Browne, Bishop, on the total Incomprehensi- bility of God, 105, 106, 121. Burmann's Method in Theology — a disciple of Cocceius, 34; on privation and nega- tion, 377, 378. Butler, Bishop, on the psychological possi- bility of sin to a holy being, 241, 242, 477 ; on the distinction betwixt moral and posi- tive duties, 275 ; on the preference to be given to the moral where they collide. 276, 277 ; on constitutional tendencies back of the will, 360; on God as Master and Gov- enor, 603.

c,

Calvin on the technicalities of Theology, 26; on the origin of Idolatry, 94, 95; on the invisible God seen in His works. 111 ; on our relative, partial, analogical knowledge of God, 124; on the possibility of the fall to Adam, 246 ; explanation of Exodus xxiv. 9,10, 179, 180; on true wisdom. 223; use of term Original Sin, .?01 : on Augnstin's idea of the effects of the fall, 3"S ; on Pur- gatory, 424 ; on the uiiiiardonaMi^ sin, 441 ; treats Traduction with contrmiit, 656.

Capital pi'nisiijient, scruples about, a sign of moral degeneracy. 411-413.

Catholic doctrine of Theologians. 124, 125.

Causality, negation and eminence — three ways of ascending to God, 112.

Causation, law of, a fundamental law of be- lief, not a merely regulative principle ; at once a law of thought and a law of exist- ence, 57 ; applied to contingency of the world, it proves the being of God, 58.

Charnock on our relative, partial, analogical knowledge of God. 124, 125.

Christian lands show superior light and also superior morality to heathen countries, 97, 98.

Church, the authority of, is Romish princi- jile nf Thenlop!/, 43, 44 ; degraded and un- dervalued by many Protestants — must be venerated, 45; sphere of, happily defined liy Melancthon, 45.

Cicero, defence of a Stoical paradox. 425.

Cocceius on our relative, partial, analogical kno-n ledge of God, 124; on the etymology of Eioliim. 152; on the etymology of Jah, 166; the founder of Federalists, 34; on Imputation, 658.

Confessional, Romish, srale of sins, 433.

Conscience testifies to being of God, 66-70 ; resolvable into three logical cognitions, 263, 254 ; condemns the righteous for one sin, 265, 256.

Contingency, Posnhility, Liberty and Necessity explained, 250.

CoNTiNOENT being proves necessary being, 58, 69, 66.

Country, Theology of the, 30.

Cousin on argument from contingency of world for the being of God, 59; on the perfect comprehensibility of God, 104, 105, 469, 491, 492.

Covenant of Works introduced important modifications of the general principles of Moral Government, 268 ; in what sense called a Cnrenant, 268,269; it is a condi- tioned promise, and the two essential things are the condition and the promise, 269 ; always God's pnriiose to turn man the servant into a son. 264; this first cove- nant shows God's grace as truly as the second, 266; it limited the period of proba- tion and so introduced a new feature in the Divine economy, viz. — Justification, 266; it also limited the probation as to the persons on trial and so introduced Im- putation, 269, 274; it is the federal not the natural tie which gives rise to imputation, 273, 274, 477-479; the two great principles of Justification and Imputation pervade ever,v dispensation of true religi(m to our race, and they imply a covenant, 274; this covenant not of nature but grace, and im- plies necessarily the intervention of Reve- lation, 274; the condition of the covenant is a positive command, and this brings out

INDEX.

653

another peculiarity of it, incidental to a revealed system, viz. — the distinction of m(iral and positive duties, 27 -l, 275; Butler (Bishop) on this distinction, 275 ; the real differeute, 275 ; Butler (Bishop) on the preference of the moral where the two col- lide, 276; the positive peculiarly fit to be the condition of the covenant, 277, 278 ; the tree of the Icnowledge of good and evil, why so called, 279 ; its effects not physical, 280; this tree not a sacrament, 280 ; the positive cannot supersede the moral — but it was added to the moral, and man placed under a twofold law and the whole law — yet the positive would most speedily and fully test man's allegiance, 281, 282; Scrip- ture expressly teaches that the moral law was enjoined as well as the positive, 282,283; without the moral no force in the positive, 283; the Promise of the covenants — teach- ings of the Scripture respecting it, 284- 290; the tree of life a sacrament, 290; the Penalty of the covenant — Warburtou's and other views considered — and the true view presented, 292-298 ; man's conduct under the covenant, 298, 299; his relations to the covenant since the fall, 299; the first sin, its nature, its possibility, its consequences, 300.

Creation, four hypotheses inconsistent with Theism, but Pantheism only is considered in detail, 206, 207 ; objections to it from that quarter stated and considered, 2(J8- 217 ; consciousness overthrows Pantheism by its testimony (which we must accept) that the world exists, is finite, must have begun, must have had a cause, and that cause is eternal and ilecessary, 217-221 ; that creation is of God alone, a principle vital in Theology, 221, 222.

Critical Theology, 32.

Cross, the only place where man can learn to know God, 98.

Crotchets for principles, 86, 87.

Cure of souls, a burden — but a very peculiar burden, 573.

D.

Damascends, John, 579.

Death, the penalty of the broken covenant, 293-298.

Definitions of God considered, 159-161.

Delitzsch on the use of Elnldm and Jehovah in the Pentateuch, U5-U8.

Depravity. See Sin.

Des Cartes on the argument for the being of God from the contingency of the world, note to p. 59 ; his assumption of necessary being as an original datum of conscious- ness denied, 66 ; his celebrated enthymeme; 74.

Decs, An sit? Quid sit? Qualis sit? 53, 104. 159, 161, 162.

Didactic and Polemic Theology, 32.

DiONTSius the Areopagite (Pseiido) on the Attributes, 106 ; on ascending from the creature to God in the three ways of cau- sality, of negation and of eminence, 112.

Dogmatic and Moral Theology, 32.

Dualism, 207, 208.

E.

Ebionites were Anthropomorphites, 176. Ectypal Theology, 29.

Edwards' theory i>f the Will, how it breaks down, 250; theory of the propagation of

sin, 332 ; on the arbitrary Di^•ine constitu- tion which makes us one with Adam, 350 ; idea of virtue, 381 ; theory of identity, causation and will, 617, 518.

Elenctic Theology, 32.

El, etymology and meaning, 156.

Elohim, sections of Pentateuch, 145, 146.

Elohim, etymology and meaning, 149-152.

Elyon, etymology and meaning, 156.

Eminence, negation and causality — three ways of ascending to God, 112.

Eminent, or virtual and real difference, 164, 165.

Eminently, or virtually and formally all perfections in God, 198.

Eternity of God, 192-194.

F.

Fall, the, of Adam, how it was psychologic- ally possible, 244, 245, 476, 477 ; the doc- trine of Calvin, of our Confession and of Turrettin, 245, 246 ; the Pelagian hypothe- sis of the natural indifference of the will, 240, 246 ; ruinous effects of, 352-354 ; theo- logical importance of the doctrine of, 353.

Federalists in Theology, 34 ; held the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to be a sacrament, 280.

Federal and not natural relations of Adam determined the moral character of the race, 273, 274, 477-479.

Final Causes, argument from, in natural Theology, 448, 449.

Formally and eminently or virtually, all per- fections in God, 198.

Fraser, Professor, on Bishop Browne's and Sir William Hamilton's views respecting the Divine Incomprehensibility, 105-107 ; on the finite revealing the Infinite, 109, 110.

Freedom as necessity of nature the highest perfection of a creature, 244; of the will, how the difBculties of the question have been aggravated, 249; indispensable to moral agency, 250; what points a just ex- position of it must set forth in full, 250, 251 ; defective theories of it, Ibidem.

G.

God, three questions to be solved, 53 ; His being lies very close to us, nearly a self- evident truth — doubts of it accompanied by doubts of world and soul, 54; the knowledge of Him is the contribution of all our faculties, rational, moral, re- ligious, 55, 56; visible in His works, 63; principium cngnoscendi as well as princi- pium essendi, and the point to which all speculations converge, 66; pointed to by conscience as Lawgiver, as Judge, and as All-powerful Ruler, 67 ; is the ground of all moral distinctions, and soul of every social and political institution, 69 ; in what sense the knowledge of God innate — no God-consciousness — the knowledge medi- ate and representative, 72, 73; man made for the knowledge of God, yet does not at- tain to it of himself, 74, 75; man's igno- rance of, from a twofold source— his own depravity and the malignity of Satan, 77 ; perfectly comprehensible according to some pliilosoiilicis. and perfectly incom- prehensible according to others, but the truth in the middle, 104-106, 468-474, 491; His transcendent being cannot be thought.

654

INDEX.

but we may know Him in and through the Suite, 107,111; to be known only at the Cross, 98 ; as Infinite He is revealed in the finite just as substance is revealed in phe- nomena, 109 ; all our ideas of Him derived from tlii^ human soul, 111, 112 ; we ascend from the creature to Him in the three ways of causality, of negation, and of emi- nence, 112, 113 ; our conception of Him has two elements, a positive and a nega- tive, 116 ; how we attribute to God know- ledge, power, goodness, justice, love, 116- 118; the positive element in our concep- tion of God always analogical — this term explained, 118, 119; the negative, a pro- test and of great value, 121, 122 ; our know- ledge of God summed up, 123; objection considered that our relative analogical knowledge of God does not represent Him to us, but something essentially different, 125-129 ; this knowledge both true and adequate, and also adapted to o\ir present condition, contemplated in either of its three aspects, 129-133 ; it also converts our daily life into an argument for devotion, and strengthens all the grounds of worship, 133-136 ; this account of our partial know- ledge of God harmonious with Scripture, 137-139; important consequences from the in-inciple that our knowledge of God is so limited, 139-142 ; His Names unlike proper names among men, for they connote qualities, 143; they are part of His plan of teaching our race, 143; their number diminislies as the Revelation advances, 143; His nature and attributes, 156-172; indefinable, but we can express our finite concejitions of Him, 158, 159; substance and attrilmtes, 159; His sjiirituality, 173- 188; this truth tlie foundation of His wor- ship and also of His attributes, 173 ; Scrip- ture proofs of this truth, 174, 175 ; held by hcatlien philosophers, 175 ; it is both negative and positive, 176; His Nature determines His will, and so the former is the foundalion, the latter the i-ule and measure of religious worship, 174; ancient and modern Aiitl]rii]inmiiriiliiti-s, 170; Ter- tuUian d<'fi-iiclcd fi-cmi tlie chiirge of as- cribing body to Him, 177 ; cxjilanation of Scripture Antliropomor]ihism, 178 ; imma- terial and so not to be figured by images, 179; Scripture testimonies to His imma- teriality, 179, 180; His Spirituality im- plies His Personality, 180 ; His I'crsnnality inconsistent with every form of I'antlicism, 182; His Spirituality implies necessary life and activity, 183, 184; His activity is of thought and will, 184, 185; His spirit- uality implies His unity and simplicity, 185, 186; makes it possible for Him to commune with our spirits, 186. 187 ; shows the folly and danger of idolatry, 187, 188; incommunicabli' attrilmti-s, 189-205; His attributes as discussed by Breckinridge, 459-466; what Massillon siiid of God, 46S ; all His dispensations to our race gracious, 264-266; His Personality denied equally by Pantheism and Positivism, 494 ; what is involved in the notion of a personal God, 495-499 ; inHuence of the belief of God's Personality upon Speculation, 499-502 ; ditto upon Morals, 503-5(16 ; ditto upon Religion, 507-510 ; ditto upon the credi- bility of Revfdation, 511, 512; no science of (ioii, 577 ; the kind of knowledge of God which Theology has iu view, 578.

Gospel an immense blessing even for this world, 99.

Grace in the first covenant as well as in the second, and in all God's dispensations towards our race, 266.

Greek titles of God, 157.

Gregory, Nazianzen, on loving and adoring God, 136.

Quilt, degrees of — Stoical paradox, 425 ; tes- timony of Scripture, 425, 426; Jovinian and Pelagius, 426, 427 ; Reformers, Baier, and Westuiinster Standards, 427, 428 ; two grounds of distinction betwixt sins, 429, 430 ; ignorance sometimes is desperate de- pravity, 420, 432; scale of Romish Confes- sional preposterous, 433 ; three classes of sins, according to their guilt, yet all malig- nant and deadly, 433, 434; pai)al distinc- tion of venial and mortal sins, 434^38 ; very partial adoption of a modified sense of this distinction by Protestants, 438, 439.

H.

Hamilton, Sir William, on the argument for being of God from conscience, 68 ; im the absolute incognoscitiility of God, 106, 107 ; on phenomena revealing substance, and on the two substances, viz.— mind and matter so revealed, 108, 109 ; on the absolute and infinite, 114, 469, 470; on the dualism of consciousness, 181.

Heathenism, a crime or combination of crimes, and the consummation of de- pravity, 99-103.

Hkgf.l on the absolute, 114.

Hencstenberg on inventions in religion, 96.

Heresies, cause of most, 140, 141.

HiERO and Simonides, 53, 49.

HOBBES held to Anthropomorphism, 176.

Hodge on the Attributes, 170, 171.

Holiness, its nature in God .and in man, 367-369; illustrated in the Scriptures by life, 370 ; supreme love to God as the su- preme good, 371 ; it is the right carried up into the good, 372; in sinners these do not correspond, for man has lost the perception of the good, 372 ; how Kant errs, 373 ; re- lation of holiness to the will, 394, 395 ; con- nection between the holy and the beautiful, 400, 401.

Hooker on Purgatory, 423, 424.

Howe on necessary being. 115 ; on the nature of sin, 361 ; on the holiness of God, 367, 368 ; on Spinoza and Pantheism, 607.

HnME's comparison of men of bright fancies.

Idolatry of Israel, in the absence of Moses, sprang out of the restlessness of the flesh without a figment to represent God visibly, 95 ; always a confession that God has de- parted, 95.

Imaffe of God, the term exjilained, 236.

Imagination, mischiefs of a corrupted, 87, 88; key to Polvtheism, 88.

Immensity of God, 194-197.

Immutability of God, 199-203.

Imputation, this great princijjle in the Di- vine economy is introduced by the limita- tion of the probation of man as to persons on trial, 274; see 544-547.

Inability, natural and moral, 394-399.

Independence of God, 190-192.

Infinite and Absolute, these terms explained, 113-116 ; the science of the Infinite, 470.

INDEX.

655

J.

Jehnvah, etymology and meaning of name, 153-155.

Jehovah SecHrms of Pentateuch, 146-148.

Jerome on the ten Hebrew names of God, 144.

Jewish superstition regarding the name Je- hovah, 152.

JoviNiAN and the Stoical paradox of the equality of sins, 426.

Justification, a new feature in the Bivine economy introduced by the Covenant of Works, 266; the central principle of The- ology, 484-488, 560, 561.

K.

Kant on law of causation, 57 ; on the Cosmo- logical argument for the being of God, 59 ; on the Teleological argument, 61, 62 ; on the Outological proof, 64, 65 ; on the argu- ment from conscience, 68 ; on Antemun- dane probation, 341 ; his error regarding the sense of duty, 373 ; on the Infinite and Absolute, 470.

Knowledge, human, has three conditions, 107, 108.

KosMos, the world a, and this conducts us through law of causation up to God, 60-62.

L.

Leibnitz on the Ontological proof of being of God, 64 ; his great work, how disfigured, 381.

Liberty, JVecessily, Contingency and Possi- bilily explained, 249.

Liberty and Truth, when married, 555.

LiMBORCH upon John iv. 24 against Vorstius, 174 ; on hereditary depravity, 337.

Locke, his estimate of Theology, 25 ; on the testimony of consciousness as to our own existence, 181.

Lombard's Sentences, 35 ; on privation and negation, 375, 376, 378 ; on Scholastic The- ology, 579.

Luther's language respecting Original Sin very strong, 304.

M.

Macrovius on our knowledge of God, 125.

Man made for the knowledge of God, yet does not attain to it of himself, 74; his ig- norance precisely stated, 76; the explana- tion of it is from a twofold foreign disturb- ing force, 76, 77; the kind and extent of Satan's power in and over men, his king- dom in the world, and his designs as to God and men, 77-79; the entire credibility of all this, 80 ; a human side also to the case — sin a disease in the soul, 81, 82; depravity has a threefold sphere, 82; in the sphere of the speculative knowledge of God cor- rupt reason shows itself in vanity of mind — a fruitful source of error in our age as of old, 83-85 ; effects of pride upon philos- ophy, 86, 87 ; through a corrujjt imagina- tion speculation has been also pcrvcrticl, and this is the key to polythrisni, ST-SO; in the sphere of moralit;/ also the inHuenco of depravity in man is discovered, espe- cially in regard to his ideas of the nature and cliaracter of God, 89 ; the human soul is both drawn to and repelled from God, 90-92 ; here is the solution of superstition

and will-worship, 93; in the sphere of worship, depravity makes idolatry a neces- sity to man, 94, 95 ; these views confirmed by Paul and by Solomon, 95, 96 ; the pro- founder ignorance of man's heart blinding him to the glory of God, 97 ; advantages from mere speculative knowledge of God, 98; a microcosm, 223 ; his place in the cre- ation, 224 ; he is essentially a person, pos- sesses reason and will, has a soul, and is immortal, 22.5-228 ; his immortality vindi- cated apart from Scripture, 228 ; was he created an infant or in maturity? Pela- gian and Popish theories — in puris natii- ralibus, 228-231, 396 ; the Scriptures indi- rectly teach the maturity of Adam at cre- ation, 232-234 ; they teach nothing ex- plicitly as to his knowledge, but are very explicit as to his holiness, 234-238 ; his holiness natural, but not indefectible, 239 ; the question of the psychological possibility of sin to a holy creature, 239-247, 476. 477 ; what was the defect? a very difficult question ; unsatisfactory solutions of it — Pelagian and Popish, 239-241 ; Bishop Butler's theory stated and criticised, 241- 243; the orthodox solution is from the nature of the will, 244 ; freedom as neces- sity of nature, which is the highest perfec- tion, was to have been the result of freedom deliberately chosen, 244, 245 ; this the doc- trine of the Reformers generally, of Calvin, of our Confession and of Turrettin, and fundamentally different from the Pelagian, 245, 246 ; the end of his creation, 247 ; his relation to God when created that of a servant, 248 ; he was destined to become a son, and how, as sucii, he would be different from a servant, 258, 259 ; his glory when first created as God's servant, 265.

Mansel on the Absolute and Infinite, 113 ; on the objection that our knowledge of God is untrue because imperfect, 128, 129; on the Theology of the Scriptures, 137-139 ; on the dualism of consciousness, 181 ; on the Per- sonality of God, 182.

Marck on Scholastic Theology, 33, 34; on the unpardonable sin, 441.

Maresius on the unpardonable sin, 441.

Massillon, 468.

McCosH on the strange contradictions of the human soul respecting God, 90; on the treatment of their gods by ancient Egyp- tians and Romans in times of severe na- tional distress, 92.

Melancthon on Original Sin, 306.

Moor, Dk, on Scholastic Theology, 33, 34 ; on privation and negation, 376, 377 ; on venial and mortal sins, 438.

Moral Discipline to be carefully distin- guished from Moral Govei-nment, 262, 263.

Moral Distinctions grounded not in God'a will, but in His nature, 36.3, 364.

Moral Government, its two essential prin- ciples, 252, 256, 258 ; representation an ad- missible but not necessary principle of it, 257 ; its principle of distributive justice founded in our primitive sensi; of good and ill desert ; secures favour to the righteous only whilst he obeys; demands perfect obedience and covers the whole of immor- tality, 255-258 ; under it, as pure and com- plete, the creature never safe from fiilling, 258 ; what difference betwixt a servant and a son under it, 258, 259 ; these views sustained by Scripture, 260-262; to be carefully distinguished from Moral Disci-

656

INDEX.

pline, 262, 263; in IILs gracioiisness God purposed to modify it and turn man, the servant, into a son, 26i-266; the adoption though of grace must also be a reward of obedience, 266; a modification of moral government — viz., the limitation of the period of probation — and this introduces Justification, 266; these are free acts of God's bounty and matters of pure revela- tion, 267, 268 ; another modification — the limitation of the persons put on trial — a provision of pure goodness, 269 ; without representation no salvation, 270 ; the limi- tation of probation as to persons introduces the great principle of Imputation as the limitation of the period did Justification, 274 ; Warburton's views of, criticised, 291, 292; nature, possibility and consequences of the first sin, 300.

Moral Theology, 32.

MiJLLER's views of total depravity criticised, 322-326 ; on the question how what is in- herited can be sin, 334-336; on Antemun- dane probation, 341 ; his idea that love ex- hausts the whole of duty, 358 ; on self- affirmation, the subjective determination of sin, 361 ; on the ground of moral dis- tinctions being God's Nature, not His will, 363 ; on the growing opposition to capital punishment a symptom of deadly disease in the national life, 411-413; on sins of ig- norance, 431, 432 ; on the Papal distinction of venial and.mortal sins, 437.

N.

Names of God not like proper names of men, because they cmmote qualities, 143; part of God's plan of teaching man, 143; dimin- ish in number as the Revelation advances, 144 ; Jerome gives ten Hebrew names, 144 ; the two chief names, 145 ; account of their use in the Pentateuch. 145-148 ; Elohim explained, 149-151 ; Jehovah explained, 152 ; superstition of Jews respecting it considered. 1.53, 154; this title not trans- ferable to any creature, 154; full import of it only in Jesus Christ, 155 ; other titles of God, Hebrew and Greek, explained, 155-157.

Natural and Revealed Theology, 31.

Natural and Supernatural Theology, 31, 32.

Necessarj being proved by contingent being, 58, 59, 66.

Necessity, Liberty, Contingency, Possibility, explained, 250.

Negation, causality and eminence — three ways of ascending to God, 112.

New England divines, error about self-love, 360.

0,

Objective Theology, 33.

O.NKELOS on Ex. xxiv. 9, 10., 179.

Orioen on Antomundane probation, 341.

Original Sin, wide and narrow use of the term, 301 ; first introduced by Augustin and his use of it, 302 ; its use in these lec- tures, 303; the doctrine as held by all tlie Reformers stated in four particulars, 304- 309 ; an appalling doctrine — if not true ought to be easy of refutation, 310; a true doctrine doubtless — but is it exaggerated ? 311 ; based on four nniver.sal facts which can be explnincd only by it, 311-314; theories midway between Pelagianism and the Reformed doctrine, 315, 316; the ques-

tion is, if any good in man, and both Scrip- ture and the experience of all renewed men answer there is none, 317, 318 ; the case of the unrenewed man of high moral character considered, and eminent con- scientiousness seen to consist with eminent ungodliness, 318-:J21 ; a passage from Miil- ler against total depravity criticised, 322- 326; in what sense man is capable of re- demption, 326, 327 ; heathenism shows the real tendencies of human nature and man is seen to be dead in tiespasses and sins, 327,328; hereditary guilt, two questions: How sin is propagated? and How that which is inherited can be sin ? 329, 3.30, 560-565; theories of Stapfer, Pictet, Tur- rettin and Edwards considered, and the difficulty shown to be with Imputation, where tliey found none, 330-334 ; the ques- tion. How can what is inherited be sin? stated in all its difficulty by Miiller, 334- 336 ; views of Bellarmin, the Remonstrants, Limborch and Zwingle, 336, 337 ; views of the Reformed divines, and how sustained by Scripture and our own consciences, 337-340; only two suppositions possible as to the way in which we inherit sin, 340, 341 ; Antemundane probation favoured by many deep thinkers, but there are insuper- able objections to it. 341-343, 561: Adam's relation to us the ground of imputation — our natural and our federal head — the agent of us all and his act ours, 344, 345, 477-479, 547-5-54 ; the justice of this federal relation considered as to two grounds of it; the ground of generic unity explained and vindicated, .345-350 ; the ground of a Divine constitution a paradox, 350; the theory of generic unity and the represent- ative principle alone consistent with Scrip- ture and with conscience, 350, 351. See Sin.

Owen on the terms TheoTngy and Theolngians, 27 ; on our partial knowledge of God. 136; refutes Riddle's Anthropomorphism in his " Vindiciai Evangelicpe," 176; on sin's en- mity against God, .391, .392; on guilt, po- tential and actual, 406, 407.

Outlines of Theology, Hodge's, 170.

Pantheism the prevailing tendency of modern philosophy — its fundamental postulate, '207 ; its objections to creation stated and considered, 208-217 ; it is overthrown by the deliverances of consciousness, 217-221 ; equally with Positivism it denies the Per- sonality of God, 494; its influence upon Speculation, Morals, Religion and the credibility of Revelation, 499-512.

Papists, their theology misconceives office and functions of the Church. 44; their theory of man as created, 228-231, 239-241, 306 ; a distinction of theirs ajiproved, but their use of it condemned, 423, 424 ; scale of sins for confessional, 4-33; distinction of mortal and venial sins, 434-438.

Patristic use of term Theology, 28.

Pelagian account of man as created, and how man could sin, 228, 229, 240; hypothesis of the natural indifference of the will, 240, 246; doctrine respecting Original Sin, 315.

Pelagius on the Stoical paradox of the equality of sins, 427.

Peruone's definition of God, 160; on eminent and real difference, 165.

INDEX.

657

Personality of God — wliat the notion of it does and does not involve, 495—499 ; its effects on Speculation, Morals, Religion and the credihility of Revelation, 499-512.

Pherecydes of Syros, the first called Theolo- gian, 27.

Pictet's theory of the propagation of sin, 332.

Plan of these Lectures answering to a three- fold division of Theology, 41, 42.

Plato on the being of Goti, 54 ; three things for which he blessed God, 265 ; represents the Supreme God as Mind, 175 ; on Ante- mundane probation, 341 ; use of term T/tenlrigy, .577.

Plutarch on the spirituality of God, 175.

Polemic Theology, 32.

Pollution. See Sin.

Positive Theology, 33.

Positivism, equally with Pantheism, denies the Personality of God, 494.

Possihilitj/, Contingency, Liberty and Neces- sity explained, 250.

Practical Theology, 32.

Pride, the root of vanity, of speculation and ignorance of God, 85 ; effects of it on phi- losophy in the past, 86 ; puts crotchets for principles, 86, 87.

Priestley held to Anthropomorphism, 176.

Probation limited as to time, and so the new feature of tnural government — Justification — introduced, 266; and, limited as to per- sons, the great principle of Imputation is introduced, 274.

Properties reveal substance, and so the finite the Infinite, 109, 110.

Protkstant principle of Theology is the word of God, the truths of which authenti- cate themselves by their own light, 48, 49.

PuRis Naturalihus, In, 228-231, 396.

Pythagoras on Antemundane probation, 341.

E.

Rationalism, precluding any supernatural Revelation, construes reason into an abso- lute standard, restricts religion to the low sphere of natural relations, and must bean inadequate source of theologic truth, 45- 48.

Real and eminent, or virtual difference, 164, 165.

Reason a source of knowledge in the sphere of necessary moral truth, but not infallible since darkened by sin. Its primitive in- tuitions certain, and no Revelation can contradict them, 49, 50 ; in the sphere of the supernatural it can discern the obliga- tions which flow out of what (?od reveal-s, but never is the ultimate rule of faith ; and cannot decide as to the truth or false- hood of supernatural data upon any inter- nal grounds, 50, 51 ; but it can illustrate the harmony of Divine truth with itself and with all other truth, and run the an- alogy of Nature and Grace ; and it can also partially discern the traces of Divine glnry in Redemption, even when it is unassisted with any special help from above; but when illuminated by the Spirit it can see the glory distinctly, and it falls down and adores, 52 ; testifies to being of God, 57-64 ; mischiefs of corrupted reason, 83-86.

Religion, nature of. 38, 39, 53, 55; two errors to be avoided, 40, 41 ; the highest form of life, and includes all the others, 55; fulfils

Vol. I.— 42

all functions ascribed by Greek philoso- phers to their Wisdom, Ibid. ; amongst men always necessarily conditioned by Revelation, 268.

Remonstrants on hereditary depravity, 337.

Representation a principle necessary to any salvation, and a provision of pure good- ness, and all of grace, 269, 270, 272 ; the ground of it is blood or unity of race, but it is the ground of benefit or injury to us from the success or failure of our head — so that imputation proceeds not from the natural, but from the federal tie, 273, 274.

Revealed Theology, 31.

lio.MisH Confessional, scale of sin, 433.

RoMisn Theology misconceives the oflico and functions of the Church, 44.

Satan, kind and extent of his power over man, 77-79 ; his consolidated emjjire in the world, 79 ; his design as to God and as to men, 79, 80 ; his power over men not at all incredible, 80.

Schelling on Antemundane probation, 341.

Schoolmen. See Scholastics.

Scholastic use of term Theology, 28.

Scholastics find causality, negation and emi- nence in the Scriptures, 113; how the Dutch Scholastics differed from the Rom- ish, 34, 35 ; on Eternity of God, 192 ; ac- count of the perfections of God, 198, 199; term Analogical explained, 119.

ScHWEiZER and Crypto-Pantheism, 387.

Science of God, none, 139, 140, 577.

ScOTUS, John Erigena, 579.

Self-love, error of New England divines, 360.

Semi-Pelagian doctrine respecting Original Si.i, 315, 316.

Seminaries, Theological, 445, 554.

Sensationalists on Original Sin, 315, 316.

Servant, how differs from son, 258, 259; always God's purpose to make man, the servant, a son, 264.

Shaddai, meaning of, 156.

SiMoxiDES, answer of, to Hiero, 53, 491. .

Simon, Jules, on God in His works, 63; state- nn!nt of the Pantheistic argument, 208- 210.

Sin, a disease in the soul extending to all our powers, 81 ; its threefold sphere — speculation, morality, worship, 82, 83 ; in- fluences Speculation through perverted Reason, and so produces vanity of mind, in our own age as of old, 83-86"; the same through perverted imagination, 87-89 ; also Morals, especially in relation to Na- ture and Character of God, through an evil conscience, which draws man to God and then repels him from God, and which, fearing yet hating, must needs misrepre- sent Him, 89-91 ; also Worship, l)y invent- ing a substitute for the God whose know- ledge has been lost, 94, 95 ; influences the heart still more than the mind, and cor- rupts the first principles of duty, and blinds to the glory there is in God, 82. 97, 98 ; the question of the psychological pos- sibility of sin to a holy creature, 239-247, 476, 477; our state of sin a fearfully changed one— that our present is our primitive condition a monstrous hypothe- sis, giving rise to the gravest theological errors, 352-354 ; the question, \Vhat is

658

INDEX.

sin? answored first by three objective, aud secondly by three subjective, deternitna- tions, and the whole analysis results in this, that sin is apostiusy of vfhich self is the centre and end, 35-1-362; its formal nature considered — moral distinctions grounded not in God's will, but in His nature, and are eternal, and they make us like or unlike Him — the right is what consists with God's holiness, 303-367 ; con- sidered from a qualitative point of view, it is the non-right — the Augustinian distinc- tion of privation and negation as applied to sin discussed in full. 374-390; the prin- ciple of unity in its life is enmity against God, 390-394 ; the qiiestion of ability and inability, 394-399; its properties or effects — macula and reaius, its stain or polluting power, 402-406 ; guilt, potential and actual — remorse or sense of guilt has two ingre- dients, 406-410; one sin entails hopeless bondage to sin and involves endless punish- ment, 413, 414 ; sense of guilt intolerable now, but two circumstances in the future will add inconceivably to its terrors; no such thing as forgetting, 415-418 ; Scrip- ture representations of guilt, 419-421 ; the distinction betwixt the stain and the guilt of sin necessary in order to understand Imputation, Justification and Sanctifica- tion, and lies at the foundation of Redemp- tion, 421, 422; a distinction of Papists ap- proved, but their use of it condemned, 423, 424; three classes of sins, 433, 434; venial and mortal sins, 434—138 ; very partial adoption by Protestants of a modi- fication of this distinction, 438 ; one un- pardonable sin, what it is not and what it is, 439-441 ; state of sin of the race deter- mined by the federal, not natural relations of Adam, 477-479, 547-554. See Original Sin.

SociNUS, more than one of his disciples An- thropomorphite, 176.

SociNiANS, modern, have approached nearer than their predecessors to the spiritual Deism of philosophy, 176; no more entitled to be considered Christians than Moham- medans, 434 ; their abuse of Logic, 471.

Socrates on the being of God, 54; on the spirituality of God, 175.

Son, how differs from servant, 258, 259.

SotJL of man filled with contradictions re- specting God, 90.

Spkculative knowledge of God has some in- direct benefits, 98.

Spheres respectively of Reason and Revela- tion, 49-52.

Spirits, how related to space, 194.

Spirituality of God, 173-188.

Stadium, Theology of, 30.

Stael. de, Madame, on Fichte, 502.

Staffer's theory of the propagation of sin, 330.

Stewart, Dugald, on those who ground virtue and vice in God's will and not His nature, 363.

Stoics, the virtue of, 321 ; paradox about sins, 425.

Study, Theology of the, 30.

Subjective and Objective Theology, 33.

Supernatural Theology, 31.

Superstition and Will-worship, true solution of, 93.

Supralapsarian Calvinists make God's will, not His nature, the ground of moral dis- tinctions, 363.

T.

Taylor (Duct. Dub.) on the erring con- science, 432, 433.

Theology, its place as a science, 25 ; estimate of it liy Aristotle and by Locke, 25, 27 ; the term not scriptural, but to be vindi- cated, 26, 27 ; use of it by the ancient Greeks, by the Fathers, and by the School- men, 27, 28 ; see also 576, 677 ; modern use of it, wide and narrow, 28 ; various dis- tinctions of Theology, 28-33 ; true method of, 35; scope of, 36, 576; defined as science of Religion, 36, 577, 578; objections to calling it a science, 37, 578, 579 ; is it a speculative or a practical science? 38 ; God the Object of it, 39 ; divisible into three parts, 42 ; source of our knowledge of it — three views of the question, 43, 561, 562 ; must solve throe questions in relation to God, 53 ; its proper method and central principle, 445-488, 560, 561 ; what kind of knowledge of God Theology has in view, 578 ; theolpgical productions of Middle Ages, what their value, 579.

Theologic principle, 30 ; principle of the Ro- manists, 43-45 ; principle of the Rational- ists, 45-47 ; principle of the Protestants, 48, 49.

Theoreticai and practical Theology, 32.

Traduction of souls, 3-30, 332, 537-539, 556.

Tree of knowledge of good and evil, 279, 280; of life, 290,291.

Trent, Council of, on Purgatory, 424.

Trinity, 163, 189.

True and False Theology, 32.

Truth and Liberty, when married, 555.

Turrettin on the technicalities of Theology, 26; on the possibility of the fall to Adam, 246 ; use of term Original Sin, 301 ; theory of the propagation of sin, 332 ; on the un- pardonable sin, 441.

u.

Union, Theology of, 30. Unitarians, mistake of, 141. Universe, ancient opinions concerning na- ture of, 492, 493. Unpardonable Sin, 439-441.

V.

Vanity of depraved mind illustrated, 83-86;

puts crotchets for principles, 86, 87. Van Mastricht on the attempt to define

God, 159, 160 ; on privation and negation,

376. Virgil on God as Mind, 176. Virtual or eminent and real difference, 164,

165. Virtually or eminently and formally all

perfections in God, 198. A'^ISION, Theology of, 30. A'lTRiNGAS, the, on privation and negation,

380, 383. VOKTius, chief of Dutch Scholastics, 34. VOR.STius, denies the spirituality of God aa

declared in John iv. 24; was Anthropo-

morphite, 176.

w.

Wesselius on privation and negation, 380, 383.

Westminster Assembly — use of the term Oriijinal Sin, 301 ; Cati'cldxm (Larger) on Degrees of Guilt, 428; Catecfdsm, (Shorter,)

INDEX.

659

its definition of God defective, 161 ; Con- fession, tlie answer of religion to freedom, 575 ; on the possibility of the fall to Adam, 246.

Will. See Freedom.

Wisdom, ftinctinns ascribed to it by Greek philosophers, 56.

WiTSius' method in Theology — a disciple of Cocceius, 34.

ZwiNGLE on hereditary depravity, 337.

Cjk oh

THE END

Date Due

^ :. 4(

' m\mi»fj

f

KMmr]

i*^.

Jgglsjjlj

i8p|jr>^ "

|^jgM^«yil^^w«^w,|

Mjl^fiUMHH.'*'^-"

_^mmM

I

,. *^S^®9*^,

iMii»fV^

mm_____

^

1

Discourse I The Ethical System op the Bible

Design of the discussion to determine what there is in the domain of ethics peculiar to revelation, and what is the real nature and extent of our obligations to the Bible. Thus there may be attained a just estimate of secular morality and a proper appreciation of the Gospel. I. As to the simple knowledge of duty there may be on the one hand an exagge- ration of the necessity of revelation, and on the other of the sufficiency of reason. The spheres of revelation and reason distinguished. II. The superior efficiency of the Bible as teaching duty with greater certainty, and enforcing it by motives of greater power. III. The Bible as unfold- ing the scheme of redemption goes still farther : it teaches lessons new and distinctively its own which are unknown to philosophy. 1. It sheds new light upon the doctrine of Happiness. This exemplified by a com- parison of the teaching of the Bible as to the nature of happiness with that of Aristotle. 2. It is singular in its doctrine of Holiness, The nature of holiness. 3. It furnishes the only satisfactory answer to the question. How shall man accomplish the end of his being ? That answer is, The provision of a method by which a double work is supernaturally eflTected : first, a change in man's judicial relations ; secondly, a change in the temper and disposition of his soul Page 453

Discourse II The Love op Truth

The purpose of this discussion, to show that the love of truth as a reg- ulative law of the whole man ought to attach to the processes of the understanding and the formation of opinions. The doctrine of the Scrip- tures is that the domain of morality extends to the whole man, including the understanding. 1. The will has jurisdiction over the whole man. The springs of action directed to the mind, especially curiosity, have an ethical character as coming under the jurisdiction of the will. 2. It is the prerogative of truth alone to invigorate the mind. 3. The intimate connection between tlie moral and intellectual natures renders lubricity of principle a consequent of confusion of the understanding as to truth. The theory discussed that the faculty which distinguishes between truth and falsehood is the same which distinguishes between right and wrong. 4. The love of truth is the general habit of mind, of which honesty, frank- ness, sincerity and faithfulness are only specific manifestations. Examina- tion of the objection to these views that the operations of the mind in the department of speculative truth are exempt from the authority of the will. Mackintosh, Brougham. Men responsible for their opinions, because responsible — 1, For the motives which influence their mental

CONTENTS. 1 1

operations, and 2. For the circumstances which give direction to them. Practical conclusion : the obligation to make truth for its own sake the great end of intellectual effort Page 476

Discourse III,— The Love of Truth.

All men not bound to know all truth. But in the inquiries in which each man is engaged he is bound to seek nothing but truth. Each man is bound to seek that degree of knowledge which is necessary to furnish him for his particular sphere of duty. The design of this discussion is to point out the nature of the love of truth, and some of the prominent difficulties. which hinder the pursuit of truth. Commendation of Locke's view that the mind should be in a state of indifference as to what upon honest inquiry shall prove to be truth. The great and comprehensive law for the conduct of the understanding, that evidence is the measure of assent, expounded. The primary data of consciousness the standard and measure of evidence. The ways in which we are liable to be misled : first, in mistaking other things for these original data ; secondly, in mis- applying these data themselves. In the first, a wrong standard of judg- ment is assumed; in the second, a right standard is improperly used. To these two heads all prejudice ultimately referable. Specimens of these false methods. Importance of the principle that evidence is the measure of assent. Necessity of maintaining to this end liberty of discussion. The right temper of controversy. The danger resulting from tlie influ- ence of vanity upon the pursuit of truth. Similar danger from the influ- ence of the sense of shame Page 496

Discourse IV Sinceritt,

Two leading aspects of truth — speculative and practical. Practical truth includes three things: sincerity, faithfulness, consistency. The matter of veracity twofold — immediate and remote, I. The grounds of the obligation of veracity discussed. Views of Paley and Wliewell criti- cised. The real ground affirmed, II, The modes in wliich tlie law of sincerity is to be applied. 1. Application not to speech alone, but to all the signs of thought. 2. Application of the law in the case of parables, fictions, tales and figurative language. 3. Application of the law to what may be called interrogatories by action. 4. Application of the law to cases of silence, or partial and evasive information. III, Modes in which the law of sincerity is evaded, or deceit practiced, 1, Vain-boasting and self-disparagement, 2, Flattery. 3. Pretensions to a friendship which is not felt, 4, Equivocation, 5. Mental reservations, when what is sup- pressed is not obvious from the circumstances, or is not necessary to pre- vent deception, I\. Tlie question of the justifiableness of lying under any circumstances discussed Page 519

12 CONTENTS.

Discourse V Faithfulness

Definition of the term and the thing. Three heads which embrace Faithfulness — Promises, Pledges, Vows. I. Definition of Promises. De- fective definition criticised. Distinction between apparent and real promises. Elements involved in true definition. 1. Any mode of vol- untary signification, without limitation to any particular class of signs. 2. The signification must be voluntary. 3. The signification must have a known tendency to excite expectation. 4. The signification must be in regard to a matter which is possible and right. II.. The ground of the obligation of promises. 1. The law of sincerity requires a correspond- ence of the signification to the mental purpose. 2. The same law requires a correspondence between words and the reality of things. 3. A promise creates a right to the fulfilment of the expectation it excites. No right created by promises to do unlawful or impossible things. Two questions of casuistry: 1. Are extorted promises binding? 2. Does an unlawful condition invalidate a promise? Paley's and Whewell's views criticised. Concluding remarks as to the promises of the Gospel. Pi^edges. Defi- nition. Honour pawned by the pledge. Guilt and injury involved in the violation of pledges. The sacredness of the pledge can never justify wrong-doing in carrying it out. God's condescension in the use of pledges to man. Cautions in regard to the thoughtless making of promises Page 543

, Discourse VI. — Vows. i

Difierent estimate of vows by Protestants and Romanists. I. The nature of vows. 1. They are of the general nature of promises. 2. They are distinguished from other promises by the party to whom they ai-e made — God. They thus become — (1.) Acts of worship. (2.) Oaths. This determines the nature of their matter and the spirit in which they should be made. Cautions against profaneness drawn from the matter of vows: 1. If they respect an act specifically religious, it must be appointed in God's Word. 2. If they respect an act not specifically religious, it must be either the elicit or imperate one of some virtue. 3. The matter should be in our power either according to nature or grace. II. The utility of vows. The expediency of making them. The whole question dependent upon the spirit in which they are made. 1. If they are made in the spirit of bribes, they are insults to God and injuries to us. 2. If they are regarded as possessing merit, their usefulness is destroyed. 3. Proper vows made in the right spirit are helps to piety. (1.) They strengthen the general bonds of duty. (2.) Tliey increase the sense of union with God. (3.) They contribute to the habit of specific virtues, and so fortify the general principle of integrity. Calvin's four ends of vows. Vows not to be made common. III. The obligation of vows. Paley's view refuted. True ground of their obligation. 1. As promises to God they

CONTENTS. 1 3

are binding on the ground of truth and justice. 2. As oaths, on the prin- ciple of reverence. Magnitude of the sin of vow-breach. Practical reflections suggested by the discussion Page 569

Discourse VII Consistency

Primary import of the term. By a natural accommodation of its primary import consistency embraces three 'things — stability of opinion, harmony of life, and propriety of behaviour. Consistency a virtue only when we have begun well. I. Stability of opinion. 1. This species of consistency not incompatible with all change. The love of truth the reg- ulative principle by which all opinions are to be tested. The cause of fickleness of opinion. 2. Consistency not to be confounded with obstinacy. Distinction between them. Consistency the mean between bigotry and spurious charity. Stability of opinion never the result of direct eflbrt. Necessity of discipline of thought as a guard against that fickleness of opinion which springs from weakness of understanding. Moral and religious culture the antidote to that fickleness which results from dis- honest mptives. II. Harmony of life. 1. Consideration of that species of inconsistency of life which arises from defect of the understanding — fickleness. 2. Consideration of the inconsistency which springs from defect of will — weakness. 3. The inconsistency occasioned by defect of honesty — hypocrisy. The conduct of men as to religion chargeable with inconsistency in all these aspects. III. Propriety of behaviour or deco- rum. The obligation to make our actions correspond to our external cir- cumstances and incidental relations. To this are necessary sensibility to beauty and moral culture. This species of consistency to be maintained in our relaxations and amusements. Appeals to the young to cultivate consistency » Page 594

PREFATORY NOTE.

The fragments which are here brought together seem to be too

valuable to be omitted from this collection ; and they likewise appear

suitable to stand as a sort of Introduction to this Second Volume, into

which are to be gathered all which Dr. Thornwell has left relating to the

Covenant of Grace.

15

Outline of the Covenant of Grace

TESTIMONY TO SUBLAPSARIANISM.

I. Outline of the Covenant of Grace.

IN the original distribution of the topics embraced in Theology they were reduced to three heads :

1 . Those essential principles of moral government which are involved in the relations of a rational, responsible crea- ture to its Creator and Ruler. These lie at the basis of all religion. There can be neither duty, sin, holiness nor wor- ship without them. Under this head we consider man aa he was created, and only in those aspects which belong to his nature as rational and moral, the product of supreme in- telligence and righteousness. Here we discuss the question of his original endowments, his knowledge, righteousness and holiness ; all that is implied in the notion of his being created in the image of God ; the moral law ; the nature of moi'al government, its responsibilities, promises and threat- enings.

2. The second head includes the dispensation under which man was placed after his creation, commonly called the Covenant of Works. This dispensation involved the pur- pose on the part of God to bring man into closer relations with Himself His natural position was that of a servant — God designs to make him a son. In his natural estate, his will was mutable ; his obedience was contingent ; lie was

. Vol. II.— 2 17

18 COVENANT OF GRACE

liable to fall — God designed to establish him in holiness for ever. The means through which this was to be done was a limited probation of the whole race in the person of one man — in other words, the justification of all through one. This purpose introduced several important modifications of moral government. The limitation of probation as to time introduces the idea of justification ; the limitation as to persons introduces the idea of federal representation ; and both together necessitate indefectibility of holiness. This dispensation had a threatening as well as a promise. Hence, to understand it fully, we must know the state to which its breach reduces us, that being the legal state in which the race now exists. Hence, we were led to a full consideration of Sin, its nature, its consequences, its origin in us.

3. The third great department of Theology is that which relates to redemption, and that is the topic on which we are to enter now. The scheme of redemption, otherwise called the Covenant of Grace, is the answer which God gives to the question, How shall a sinner be justified and established in holiness for ever? as the Covenant of Works was an answer to the question. How shall a moral creature be justified and confirmed ? They are both evolutions of the same purpose, the same grace in God. The difference in the provisions is owing to a difference in the condition of the persons affected. The principle on which these provisions are granted is pre- cisely the same — federal representation. But man's different state introduces three peculiarities in its application : (1.) It gives occasion for the exercise of sovereignty on the part of God in discriminating among the members of the human family. All need not be represented. There is a positive desert of punishment which may be respected and ought to be respected. Some must die that it may be clearly seen that all were ruined. (2.) In the next place, man's guilt re- quires a new element in righteousness — satisfaction to the justice of God. The penalty of the law must be borne, and borne as a matter of obedience. (3.) Man's nature

AND SUBLAPSARIANISM. 19

now requires a change in its whole inward state. Hence, the doctrine of sanctification is introduced. The federqj Head must be one who is competent to these exigencies in His person, and in the offices which He undertakes to discharge.

According to this analysis the doctrine of Redemption in- volves the discussion of the following topics :

1. The persons embraced in the Divine purpose; that is, the doctrine of Election. This may also be placed last, as Calvin has done. If we look at the thing in the order of the Divine purpose, it is first ; if in the order of execution, it is last. One advantage of making it first is to show its regula- tive influence upon the atonement. It is not an afterthought to save atonement from being a failure.

2. The nature of a sinner's justification ; what is required in it ; and upon what grounds it is possible.

3. The nature of sanctification, or the whole of that in- ternal work by which holiness is produced and perfected in the heart.

4. The federal Headship of Christ, including the condi- tions to His becoming such ; the qualifications necessary for the office ; the duties He discharges in it ; the work which He actually performed ; His birth. His life. His death. His resurrection and ascension — that is, Christ in His person, His offices, and in both estates of humiliation and ex- altation.

5. The bond of union, the tie betwixt us and Christ, in- volving the office of the Holy Spirit in the application of redemption, and the specific acts on our parts responsive Ut that office ; effectual calling and faith.

6. The means : the Church, the ministry, the ordinances.

7. The actual result of all in the different periods of the soul's history ; the Christian's life now, his condition here- after.

8. The state of those not embraced in the Covenant of

Grace.

This is an outline of the great and glorious topics which

20 COVENANT OF GRACE

fall under the scheme of redemption in their logical rela- tions and dependence.

II. Sub- and Supra-lapsaeians.

1. The distinction between these two partias has been represented as very unimportant, as a mere difference in their mode of viewing the same things. But the question concerning the order of the Divine decrees involves some- thing more than a question of logical method. It is really a question of the highest moral significance. The order of a thing very frequently determines its righteousness and justice. Conviction and hanging are parts of the same process, but it is something more than a question of arrange- ment whether a man shall be hung before he is convicted.

2. It is admitted that the decrees, as they exist in the Divine mind, are not conditioned : this would be to limit the absolute freedom of the Divine will. But the things which those decrees relate to are conditioned, and these con- ditions are regarded in the decrees. The things sustain relations to each other of cause and effect, of antecedent and consequent, of means and end ; they are subordinate or co-ordinate, and all those relations are contemplated and embraced in the decree. The determinations of God in regard to them are determinations about things so and so connected.

3. There are three general opinions as to the order of Divine decrees, founded on the condition in which man, in the purpose of election and reprobation, was contemplated as being.

(1.) There are those who maintain that the end being to glorify God's grace and justice, the destination to death and life was. the first thing in the Divine mind, and creation and the fall were only means ordained for the execution of this purpose. Man is viewed as neither fallen nor cre- ated, but simply as capable of being and as fallible — simply aj8 an instrument that may be made and adapted to the purpose. This is the Supralapsarian hypothesis. It is so

AND SUBLAPSARIANISM. 21

called because in fixing the object of election it ascends beyond creation and the fall.

(2.) Others maintain that election and reprobation are conditioned upon creation and the fall — that is, that the purpose of salvation and grace contemplates man as lost and ruined, and proposes to deliver him out of this state. This is the Sublapsarian hypothesis, so called because in fixing the object of predestination it presupposes creation and the fall.

(3.) Others think that the decree contemplates man not only as created and fallen, but as redeemed by Christ, and as actually believing in Him and persevering in grace.

This scheme we shall discount for the present, and con- sider only the two first.

4. The state of the question betwixt the Supra- and Sub- lapsarians is compendiously expressed by Turrettin. It is not whether creation and the fall enter into the Divine decree — that is confessed on all hands ; but, whether they stand related to salvation and damnation as means to an end — whether in the order of thought God first conceived the purpose of life or death, and then the purpose of giving being and fallibility.

Again, it is not the question whether in predestination sin is taken into the account, for even Supralapsarians admit that sin must precede condemnation ; but the question is, whether sin is in the Divine thought antecedent to condem- nation, the real ground of it, or only a providential means of executing the decree of reprobation formed irrespective of it.

The question, further, is not whether sin is the impulsive cause of predestination. All parties are agreed that the dis- tinction in the final states of men must be referred to the sovereign pleasure of God ; but the question is, whether sin must not be presupposed as a quality in the objects of pre- destination ; whether it is not a state or condition in them, without which predestination could not exist ; whether sin must not be presupposed in order that a being may be ca- pable either of election or reprobation.

22 COVENANT OF GRACE

That the Sublapsarians are right in their answers to these questions is apparent from several considerations :

(1 .) The general impression made by the other scheme is ex- tremely revolting to our moral nature and to our conceptions of the goodness and mercy of God. It represents the universe as a vast clock of complicated machinery, wound up and set to going for no other purpose but to strike throughout Eternity the dismal sounds — Damnation and Glory ! To these ends the hands point upon the dial-plate of creation and Provi- dence, and for these ends alone God has stepped forth from the depths of His own immensity to create, to order and to people worlds.

(2.) The Supralapsarians proceed upon a hypothesis alto- gether groundless : What is last in execution is first in inten- tion. This is true only of things that stand related directly as means and end. The man who constructs a particular kind of plough has first in view the effect to be produced on the soil. But in a co-ordinate series it does not hold. All men were not made for the last man. Now, the works of God are manifold — each has its independent sphere ; and they are all connected by their common relation to the Divine glory. Creation is one work, Redemption another.

(3.) That the creation and fall are not means, but ante- cedent conditions, is plain from the nature of the case. Sin is not in order to damnation, but damnation in order to sin.

(4.) The decree of Election and Reprobation is unmeaning without the presupposition of sin. It is an act without an object.

5. The true order of the Decrees is — (1.) Creation; (2.) The Fall ; (3.) Election ; (4.) Redemption ; (5.) Vocation.

The New School order is— (1.) Creation; (2.) Fall; (3.) Redemption ; (4.) Election ; (5.) Vocation.

III. Testimonies to Sublapsaeianism.

1. The Helvetic Confession, Chapter X. Here the ob- jects of election are said to be, "Sanctos; quos vult salvos facere in ChristoJ'

AND SUBLAPSARIANISM. 23

2. The Gallic Confession, Section XII. The lantniao-e is very explicit: Credimus ex hac corruptione et damnatione universalis in qua omnes homines natura simt submersi, Deum alios quidem eripere, quos videlicet a:terno et immutabili suo consilio sola sua honitate et misericordia, nullo que operum ipsorum respectu, in Jesu Christo elegit; alios vero in ea cor- ruptione et damnatione relinquere, in quihus nimirum juste suo tempore damnandis justitiam suam demonstret, sicut in aliis divitias misericordice suce declarat.

3. The Anglican Confession, Article XVII. They are chosen in Christ and to be delivered from the curse of the Fall.

4. The Scotch Confession, Section 8. The election is in Christ, and to grace and fraternity with Christ.

5. The Confession of Dort, Article XVI.

6. The Synod of Dort, Canons VI. to XL

IV. Predestination as held by Sublapsarians.

Predestination, though sometimes used in a wide sense as synonymous with decrees in general, is, for the most part, restricted to the special decree concerning the final destiny of men and angels. In this aspect it is subdivided accord- ing to the nature of the destiny into Election and Repro- bation. Election secures the everlasting happiness, and Reprobation the everlasting misery of its objects. Leaving angels out of view, we may resume the Scripture doctrine of Predestination in relation to man under the following heads :

1. Man is viewed in the decree as a fallen being. It is a purpose which contemplates him under the character and in the condition of a lost sinner. He could not be capable of election to life nor of reprobation to death unless he Avere in a state Avhich justly exposes him to the Divine displeasure and to death. That cannot be found which is not lost, and that cannot be saved which is in no danger. An election to salvation or to deliverance from guilt and misery as necessarily presupposes guilt and miseiy in its objects as

24 COVENANT OF GRACE

healing implies a disease or cooling implies heat. The opposite theory, which makes the decree respect man not as fiillen nor even as existing, but only as capable of both, makes the decree terminate upon an object which in relation to it is a nonentity. It makes the decree involve a palpable contradiction — a purpose to save what in the light of the decree is not lost, and is therefore not saveable.

Besides, that the Supralapsarians have no object corre- sponding to the nature of the decree, their system is liable to other and insurmountable objections :

(1.) It correlates things as means and end which actu- ally sustain no such relations. Creation and the permis- sion of the fall are made simply means for the execution of the purpose of election and reprobation. They have taken place because of that purpose. The truth is, these are co-ordinate and not subordinate works of God, and have their distinct and separate place in the Divine plan as manifestations of the Divine glory. All God's works are correlated to each as means for the expression of Him- self. They all contain some letters and syllables of His great Name, and it is because of this relation to His glory that they all enter into the Divine decree.

(2.) The Supralapsarians, by their arbitrary reduction of creation and the fall to the category of means, really make sin the consequence of damnation and not its ground. Man is not condemned because he sins, but sins that he may be condemned.

(3.) Providence is the explicit manifestation of God's plan and counsels. Now in Providence we recognize the fact of creation, therefore we say that God decreed to create ; the fact of the fall, therefore that God decreed to permit the fall ; the fact of redemption, therefore that God decreed to redeem. In Providence these are connected not as means and end, but as successive developments, or rather as fur- nishing the occasions and conditions of successive develop- ments of the Divine perfections. Creation glorified God in its sphere; the moral administration under which the fall

AND SUBLAPSARTANISM. 25

occurred glorified Him in still another aspect of His being ; and the fall furnished the occasion upon Avhich a still more illustrious exhibition might be made. Here is a plan, a progressive plan, a plan in which .each part prepares the way for something beyond, but in which each part has its own special and independent significancy.

(4.) The only support of this theory is a logical crotchet which will not bear examination. What is last in the exe- cution is first in the intention. The maxim applies only to things connected as means and ends, but is not applicable to a co-ordinate series, or to a series in which the preceding is only a condition, but not the cause — a eine qua non, but not the ground — of the next.

(5.) The hypothesis is contrary to the Scriptures. They uniformly represent calling as the expression of election — the first articulate proof of it. But calling is from a state of sin and misery. Therefore, election must refer to the same condition. Historically, too, the doctrine has been developed in the Church from the experience of grace, and so connects itself necessarily with the transition from dark- ness to light. In so many words, we are said to be chosen out of the world.

(6.) The most matured Confessions of Faith represent election as presupposing sin and misery. The Galilean, the English, the Belgic, the Synod of Dort, may all be quoted.

This, then, is the first point. Man is contemplated in the decree of predestination as a fallen being.

2. The decree respecting man thus conditioned is abso- lutely sovereign. It is grounded exclusively in the good pleasure of God's will. It is not arbitrary and without reasons, but the reasons are all drawn from God Himself, and not from the creature. He chooses one and passes by another, not because one is better or worse than another, but because such is His sovereign will. Here we encounter the Arminians, who make election depend upon faith, and reprobation upon impenitence among men — that is, men

26 COVENANT OF GRACE

are chosen to life or ordained to death under the formal con- sideration of being believers or unbelievers. The ground of distinction is in the creature and not the sovereign will of God. The Arminiau hypothesis is refuted by all those Scriptures which make faith, repentance and holiness the gifts of God and the results or fruits of election.

3. The election is to everlasting life and all the means of attaining it. It includes grace and glory. It is not an election to external privileges, but to the heavenly inherit- ance. If grace and glory are the end to which election looks, then election is prior in the order of thought to the scheme of redemption, and is the moving cause of its in- stitution. Here we encounter a section of the orthodox, who undertook to conciliate the Arminians by postulating a general purpose of mercy to the whole race, in conse- quence of which Christ was given as the Saviour of the world and made a redemption intended for all under the condition of a true faith. According to this scheme, elec- tion is posterior to the introduction of the Gospel, and in- stead of contemplating man simply as fallen, contemplates him as perverse under the general call. It comes in, not as the impulsive cause of redemption, but as the means of saving redemption from being a failure. This scheme is the one to which all the advocates of general and indefinite atonement are logically driven. But it is contradicted by the whole tenor of Scripture. The elect are said to be given to Christ to he redeemed, not given as redeemed. Christ is distinctly affirmed to be the fruit of election. He is the head of the election of grace. Then again the whole doctrine of atonement must be given up in any just and proper sense of the term.

4. Election is eternal. This is admitted by all but So- cinians. Others dispute about its nature and grounds, but admit that whatever it is, it is an eternal purpose.

5. The order of the Divine decrees according to these views is — (1.) Creation; (2.) Permission of the Fall; (3.) Predestination ; (4.) Redemption ; (5.) Vocation.

AND SUBLAPSARIANISM. 27

According to the Supralapsarians — (1.) Predestination; (2.) Creation; (3.) Fall; (4.) Redemption; (5.) Voca- tion.

According to general atonement Calvinists — (1.) Crea- tion ; (2.) Fall ; (3.) Redemption ; (4.) Predestination ; (5.) Vocation.

Under redemption here must be included the general dispensation of mercy by the proposition of salvation-

PREFATORY NOTE.

The following discussion appeared first in the " Southern Presbyterian

Review" for October, 1859. It should come in here, notwithstanding

that a considerable portion of it would be suitable for the Fourth Vo^

ume of this collection.

29

THEOLOGY AS A LIFE

xs

INDIVIDUALS AND IN THE CHURCH:

BEING A REVIEW OF BRECKINRIDGE'S SUBJECTIVE THEOLOGY.

THAT a second volume, so weighty in matter and so bulky in form, should have been written and prepared for the press within the time that has elapsed since the publication of the first, is a testimony to the diligence and industry of the author which vindicates him from all sus- picion of making his professorship a sinecure. Dr. Breck- inridge measures life by labour and not by years. A man of action, he finds no place for rest, he seeks no repose in this sublunary scene, where the Master's commission is only to work. The truth is, in every state the unimpeded exercise of energy is bliss ; it is not action, but toil, not exertion, but drudgery, which constitutes the bitterness of labour. Soundness of mind is as inconsistent with torpor as sound- ness of body with lethargy. INIotion is the sign of life, and delight in motion an unfailing symptom of health. It is an omen of good that our professors in all our semina- ries seem to be working men. Princeton, year after year, is sending forth volumes of sacred criticism which are not surpassed in genius, scholarship and piety by the produc- tions of any other school in Europe or America. She has taken her place as an authority abroad. Danville, in her infancy, has vindicated her claim to the title of a first-class institution by works which belong to the highest regions of

3]

32 THEOLOGY AS A LIFE

thought. Allegheny is not idle ; every Sunday-school and almost every Presbyterian family bear witness to the quiet and unostentatious labours which are prosecuted within her walls. Our friends at Union are notoriously indefatigable, and we have no doubt that the North-west will not be long in putting her light on a candlestick from which it may be radiated through the whole Church. It is perhaps enough for our humble selves to read what our brethren write ; and if any man thinks that it is no labour to peruse their teem- ing works and occasionally sit in judgment upon them, we would say to him, as a certain minister said to his congrega- tion when upon entering his pulpit he found his head prove truant to his tongue, " If any man thinks it easy to preach, let him come up here and try it." In reading Dr. Breckin- ridge's massive volumes we are reminded of an anecdote of himself when he was a pastor in Baltimore. On a cer- tain Sunday his pulpit had been filled three times by min- isters returning from the General Assembly, and at the close of the day he was asked in our presence by a member of his congregation how he felt. "Oh, very tired — very much exhausted !" " Tired ! How on earth can that be when you have been resting the whole day ?" " Resting ! resting !" said the doctor ; " do you call it rest to listen to such preaching, and then to be compelled to understand it ? Why, sir, I never worked so hard in my life." If, upon going through the six hundred and ninety-seven pages which make up the volume before us, any one should be asked whether he had an easy time of it, he might answer — and if he were a spiritual man he certainly would answer — that he had had a most delightful time of it, most profitable and refreshing, but he would be far from saying that there had been no tax upon his intellectual energies. It is a work which has cost labour, and it exacts labour in order to master it. But the labour is not unrequited. Diligence here, as in the culture of the earth, maketh rich. Dr. Breckin- ridge— to use the beautiful simile of Milton — conducts us to a hillside, laborious indeed at the first ascent, but else so

IN INDIVIDUALS AND IN THE CHURCH. 33

smooth, SO green, so full of goodly prospects and melodious sounds on every side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming.

The book bears the image of its author ; it is a faitliful transcript of his mind. The tendency to seize the abstract in the concrete, to detect the law in the fact ; intensity of energy manifested in a fervour of expression amounting not unfrequently to positive exaggeration ; bursts of passion, often swelling into the highest eloquence, or breaking forth into terrible invective, or subsiding into the tenderest tones of pathos ; sudden alternations from the most opposite ex- tremes, from the gay to the grave, from the lion to the lamb, are as conspicuous in the book as in the man ; and if his name had not been upon the title-page, albeit not gifted with any extraordinary power of guessing, we should have been at no loss in divining the author.

The general design of the book is to trace the history and progress of religion, whether personally considered as mani- fested in the individual or collectively considered as mani- fested in the Church. The first volume discussed Theology as a doctrine ; the second treats it as a life. In the first volume, the science was purely speculative ; in the second, it is wholly practical. In the first, the scheme of redemp- tion and the great truths which it presupposes and involves were merely the object-matter of thought; in the second, they are living springs of energy, subjective laws and powers in the soul of man. The first volume aims simply to de- scribe the theologian ; the second portrays the Christian be- liever. It may, therefore, be regarded as a treatise of ex- perimental religion ; and its special province is to exhibit the work of the Holy Ghost in applying redemption to the hearts of men. The book falls into two general divisions — religion as produced and manifested in the individual, religion as produced and manifested in the Church; for Dr. Breckinridge considers the Church as subsequent in the order of thought to the individual — the outward organic expression of an inward spiritual life. With Vol. II.— 3

34 THEOLOGY AS A LIFE

liini the Church as naturally springs from the common relation of individual believers to Christ, as . the family from the relation of children to the same parent. The following is his own summary of the general contents of the volume :

" The order of the general demonstration may be made intelligible by a brief statement. In the First Book I at- tempt to trace and to prove the manner in which the know- ledge of God unto salvation passes over from being merely objective and becomes subjective. In the Second Book I endeavour to disclose and to demonstrate the whole work of God in man unto his personal salvation. In the Third Book the personal effects and results of this Divine, subjective work are sought to be explicated. This seems to me to ex- haust the subject in its subjective personal aspect. But these individual Christians, by means of their union with Christ and their consequent communion with each other, are organ- ized by God into a visible kingdom, which has a direct and precise relation to the subjective consideration of the know- ledge of God. From this point, therefore, the social and organic aspect of the subject arises, and the Fourth Book is occupied with what is designed to be a demonstration of the Church of the living God. But just as the work of grace in individual men is necessarily followed by the Christian offices, and so the subject of the Third Book necessarily followed the subject of the Second, in like manner the consideration of the gifts of God to His Church, and of all the eifects of these gifts, follows the organization and progress of the visible Church in a peculiar manner. And thus the subject of the Fourth Book leads directly to the subject of the Fifth, in which the life, action and organism of the Church are dis- cussed with reference to the special gifts bestowed on it by God. And here the organic aspect of the knowledge of God unto salvation, subjectively considered, seems to terminate. What remains is the general conclusion of the whole subject, in a very brief attempt to estimate the progress and result of these Divine realities, and to disclose the revealed con-

IN INDIVIDUALS AND IN THE CHURCH. 35

summation of God's works of creation, providence and grace."

Dr. Breckinridge begins with a graphic description of the actual posture of the universe under the condemnation of sin as modified by the introduction of grace. He shows that the scriptural accounts of the fell and of redemption are tl,c only facts which are competent to ex2:)lain the mysteries of our present condition. The world is not what it would have been, and what it must have been, had there been no purpose of deliverance ; it is not what it would have been, and what it must have been, had the deliverance been as universal as the curse. The election of grace modifies everything, so as to produce and to exjjlain the precise dispensation of mingled good and evil which we daily experience. Our race is in ruins, but not hopelessly lost. God has a seed to be collected from it, and the Avhole career of Providence is but the evo- lution of the plan by which He displays His grace in the vessels of mercy, and gloriously vindicates His justice in the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction. We are neither in the incipient state of moral beings, probationers for life under law, nor in the final state of punishment or reward. We have been tried and have failed, but are not yet wholly abandoned to despair. Intermediate between the fall and its final issue is a dispensation of mercy, which looks to the full execution of the sentence or its complete remission, ac- cordingly as the oifered Saviour is received or rejected. In the mean time, the blessing and the curse are marvellously intermingled. Good and evil are in constant and terrible conflict, and the miseries of our lot are made the instruments of a wholesome discipline or the proofs of incorrigible im- penitence.

Dr. Breckinridge next proceeds to unfold the nature and general provisions of that covenant through which this modi- fying grace has found its way into our world. The discus- sion of this topic, without being scholastic or technical, is logically complete. It is more — it is rich and scriptural ; and in the sublime march of the principles which are succes-

36 THEOLOGY AS A LIFE

sively evolved, the petty cavils of petty minds against the supremacy and sovereignty of God are felt to be contempt- ible. One of the most delightful features of this book is the conviction which everywhere pervades it that God's cha- racter needs no apology at the bar of sinners. Dr. Breckin- ridge never shrinks from the oflPensive truths of the Gospel. He brings them out plainly, fully, boldly and confidently. He opens his mouth wide and utters all that God has re- vealed. Election, particular redemption, efficacious grace — he scouts tlie notion of the possibility of salvation without recognizing these elements. Grace with him is real grace, and not an euphemistic name for a result actually dependent upon the will of the creature. Christ is a real Saviour, and not an instrument by which the sinner is enabled to gratify his pride. The Holy Ghost is a real sanctifier, and not an influence by which the energies of men are stimulated, and their better impulses roused into action. The Persons of the glorious Trinity have entered into a real covenant to redeem a Church from the lost multitude of the race, and are not the authors of paltry expedients or abortive efforts to coax men into what they find it impossible directly to effect. The prob- lem of sin is a problem with which, according to Dr. Breck- inridge, God is competent to deal. It is not something un- expected— not something which He could not have prevented, and which fills Him with regret as He looks upon the uni- verse perverted from its end. It did not take Him by sur- prise. In the depths of eternity the fall of angels and of men was distinctly contemplated, and that eternal covenant established which, in its final evolution, was to bring infinite glory to the wisdom, goodness and power of God, from the whole manner in which He has dealt with, and manifested the infinite resources of His beino; in dealincj with, this vast question. Dr. Breckinridge next shows that the provisions of the covenant are not arbitrary or capricious, but exactly adapted to the moral and intellectual nature of man. The plau of salvation is precisely such a plan as the exigencies of sinners demanded. It fits their case as the form of the

IN INDIVIDUALS AND IN THE CHUUCH. 37

key corresponds to the wards of the lock. Man is dealt with as a rational and accountable being, and every element of the constitution which God gave him is minutely respected in the method by which God saves him. And yet the plan, while it disturbs not the freedom of man, is so ordered that salvation is no contingency. The scheme is incapable of failure. So far from being a wonder that the elect are saved, the marvel would be how any of them could be lost. Here is the mystery of infinite wisdom and of infinite grace. How absurd, in the light of such provisions — provisions revealed in the Scriptures and realized in the hearts of thousands and tens of thousands of God's children — to represent sin as something too strong for the Almighty !

The next topics brought before us are the conditions witli respect to the sinner upon which the promises of the covenant are suspended — that is, what God requires of us in order that we may be saved. Here Dr. Breckinridge concurs with that class of the Reformed divines who resolved them into tioo — repentance and faith. The double relation of these graces, as duties in themselves and as the means of other benefits, is carefully noted. They do not save as duties — that would be legalism — but as graces involving a peculiar relation to Christ and to God, Here we think the reduction unscrip- tural and the argument illusive. The term condition, if taken in the general sense of a preliminary requisite, is applicable to every grace which precedes the final result, as well as to faith and repentance. It is applicable to medita- tion, to prayer, to the reading of the Scriptures, to the dili- gent use of all the ordinances of the Gospel, as well as to every internal habit wTOUght by the Spirit preparatory to the great reward. This is only saying that there Ls an order in the communication of God's blessings by v'rtue of which one grace is prior to another. In the narrow sense of that which unites us to Christ and makes us actual ])artakers of redemption, the term condition is, in our judgment, applicable only to faith. It is clear that the ground of all personal interest in the blessings of the covenant is union with Christ.

38 THEOLOGY AS A LIFE

This no one assei'ts more strongly than Dr. Breckinridge. Union with Christ secures justification, adoption, sanctifica- tion and the whole salvation of the Gospel. The condition, and the sole condition, of union with Christ is faith. The man who believes is saved. Now, if we understand Dr. Breckinridge, he seems to maintain that repentance sustains a relation to God analogous to that which faith sustains to the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance he represents as the only means of our deliverance from sin, either outward or inward, either original or actual. " Nothing," he says, " can be more certain than that every benefit we derive from Christ is made to depend in some way on our faith in Him, while all pardon of sin is directly connected with repentance, and all increase in holiness is beyond our power, except as we see and hate sin on one side, and see and strive after holiness on the other." It is true that there is no pardon to tlie impenitent ; but there is no pardon, not because repent- ance is a means of pardon, but because there is no union with Christ and consequently no possibility of being sprinkled with His blood. It is precisely because faith is the exercise of a renewed soul that it is incompetent to those who cherish the love of sin ; true faith includes in it the renunciation of the flesh as well as the reception of the Saviour. The very purpose for which it receives Christ is, that it may be freed as well from the dominion as from the guilt of sin. Salvation, the blessing to be obtained, means nothing, unless it includes holiness. To state the thing in another form : What is the formal ground of pardon ? It is certainly the blood of Christ which cancels our guilt. How is that blood applied to us? Just as certainly by the Holy Spirit. How does the Spirit apply it? By uniting us to Christ. How does He unite us to Christ ? By that process of grace which terminates in the production of saving fiiith. United to Christ, we receive two classes of benefits — inward and out- ward ; the inward all included under the generic name of repentance, and appertaining to the entire destruction of sin and the complete restoration of the image of God ; the out-

IN INDIVIDUALS AND IN THE CHURCH. 89

ward having reference to all those benefits which affect our relations to God as a Ruler and Judge. Both classes of blessings are equally the promise of the covenant. Both are treasured up in "the Lord Jesus Christ. We obtain both by- being in Him, and as we are in Him only by faith, faith must be the exclusive condition of the covenant. There can be no doubt that w^e are justified exclusively by faith, but justification includes pardon; therefore we are pardoned only through faith. It is clear, too, that the Spirit is received only by faith; and yet the Spirit is the Sanctifier, the Author of all penitence and of all real holiness. We think, therefore, that repentance, instead of being represented as a condition of the covenant, should be represented, as Calvin has done, as a compendious expression for one great class of its blessings, while justification and adoption should be re- ferred to another, both classes sustaining the same relation to faith. The blood and the water flowed together from the Saviour's side. To be in Him is to have them both ; and if we are in Him, as Dr. Breckinridge frequently admits, only by faith, then faith is the sole condition of the covenant. This seems to us to be the teaching of the Westminster Con- fession.

" The grace of God is manifested in the second covenant, in that He freely provides and ofFereth to sinners a Mediator, and life and salvation by Him ; and requiring faith as the condition to interest them in Him, promiseth and givcth His Holy Spirit to all His elect, to work in them that faith with all other savino; o-races, and to enable them unto all holv obedience as the evidence of the truth of their faith and thankfulness to God, and as the way which He hath ap- pointed them to salvation." ^

We have but little sympathy with the fears of those theo- logians who have insisted upon repentance as a condition of the covenant in order to screen the Gospel from the imputa- tion of licentiousness. The faith which justifies is no dead faith, but a faith which works by love. It admires the 1 Larg. Cat., Q. 32.

40 THEOLOGY AS A LIFE

beauty of holiness as well as the glory of the Saviour, and contains in it the very seeds of repentance. It never embraces Christ without renouncing sin, and the more lovely and adorable He appears, the more hateful and odious sin becomes. The truth is, Christ cannot be divided, and to receive Him at all is to receive Him in the fullness and integrity of His salvation. Faith, moreover, is the only grace which exactly responds to the nature of the Gosj)el as a com- plement of promises ; therefore faith is the only grace which is suited to be the condition of the covenant. Our design, however, is not to argue the question, but to intimate the general grounds of our dissent from the author's mode of representation.

After the conditions, he next takes up the successive dis- pensations of the covenant, and in this chapter a rich mass of truth is condensed in a very brief compass. He shows conclusively that there never has been but one Gospel, and that though there have been diversities of administrations, and each illustrative of the manifold wisdom of God, there never has been but one Saviour. The first great promise has spanned the arch of time.

These five chapters, briefly recapitulated, constituting the First Book, have all been preliminary to the main design of the treatise — the exhibition of the work of grace upon the human soul. They have briefly illustrated our precise con- dition as under the curse of one covenant and the promise of the other ; they have shown the origin, nature and exact provisions of that promise which compendiously includes all Divine grace ; they have traced its nice and beautiful adap- tations to our nature as men and our case as sinners, and marked the steps by which, to ages and generations past as well as in these latter days, God has revealed it as the ground of all human hope. We are brought at last to the Gospel as it comes to us in the new economy ; and as that is the instrument thi-ough which all salvation is applied, we are now prepared to follow the wondrous path of the Spirit, as He calls the sinner from darkness to liarht, and translates him

IN INDIVIDUALS AND IN THE CHURCH. 41

from Adam to Christ, and from the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of God's dear Son. This ^vork of grace upon 'the soul is contemphited in two distinct but inseparable aspects : First, with reference to the agency of the Holy Ghost, who accomplishes it ; secondly, with reference to the agencv of the new creature which it evokes ; that is, we are first led to consider the graces, and then the offices or duties, of tlie Christian — his life as a habit divinely implanted, and as an energy actively manifested. To the first topic the Second Book is devoted; to the second, the Third. Union with Christ, effectual calling, regeneration, justification, adoption, sanctification and eternal blessedness, together with all the benefits incidentally connected now or hereafter with these august gifts, are the subjects which, under the first head, successively pass before us; while faith, repentance, new obedience, good works, the spiritual warfare — in fine, all the elements of holiness, together with the rule by which fiiith and duty are to be regulated — constitute the topics which exhaust the consideration of the second head. The reader will perceive at once that here is a rich table of contents ; that if these subjects are adequately treated in the experimental relations in which they are contemplated, we have a work upon personal religion of the deepest interest and importance. We are happy to say that Dr. Breckinridge has fulfilled his task nobly and well. No child of God can lay down the book without being grateful to the author for the comfort and edification he has received ; and no minister can take it up without feeling, as he passes through its closely-concate- nated chapters, that Theology, as here exhibited, is not a dead abstraction, but a living reality, and that he is better prepared, by the pregnant discussions of these pages, to deal with the hearts and consciences of his people. Dr. Breckin- ridge has taken the two factors, the truth in the hands of the Spirit and the soul of man, and has shown the wonderful results produced by their joint action. Other qualifications besides learning were required to write such a book. The author must have felt the power which he describes, and l^een

42 THEOLOGY AS A LIFE

conscious of the life he delineates. He must likewise have been familiar with the exercises of others. It is evidently Christian experience, portrayed by a pastor who has con- versed with many a sinner and comforted many a saint. We need not say that the work is thoroughly evangelical, exaggerating nothing to increase the offence of the cross, and extenuating nothing to conciliate the approbation of the carnal heart. The supernatural character of religion, the utter impotence of man, the resistless efficacy of grace, the all-per- vading nature of the change implied in the new birth, — all these and kindred points are brought out with a freshness, an unction and a truth to life that make the book as de- lightful to the Christian as the last new novel to a girl in her teens. It is one instance of a work in these days of sophistical speculation in which there are no compromises with a shallow philosophy. Here are no evasive efforts to reconcile the justice of God's authority with the lielj)lessness of man by distinctions which every converted heart instantly repels, and the only effect of which is to seduce the impeni- tent into the belief of a lie ; no futile attempts, on the one hand, to strip God of His sovereignty under the pretext of saving His character, or to refine away, on the other, the depravity of man under the pretence of saving his responsi- bility. Dr. Breckinridge states the truth, and the whole truth, as God has revealed it, perfectly confident that the Divine glory has nothing to lose, and human guilt nothing to gain, from honest and faithful dealing.

Having in the Second and Third Books despatched the subject of personal religion in its graces and its duties, he next develops the doctrine of the Church as the necessary result of the communion of believers with each other in conse- quence of their union with Christ, Children of the same Father, they must constitute one family. The Church is considered in a twofold aspect, corresponding to the twofold aspect in which the individual believer was surveyed — first, in relation to its idea or essence, its fundamental principles, its aims and ends, and then in relation to the gifts of God

IN INDIVIDUALS AND IN THE CHURCH. 43

to it in the ministry, the AVord and the ordinances. The Fourth Book is devoted to the first, tlie Fii\h to the second aspect of this subject. In the matter of churcli-])()lity, the exposition contained in this volume is the clearest and most scriptural of any with which we are acquainted. It is a disreputable truth that there are many Presbyterijuis, and Presbyterian ministers, who are very imperfectly accjuainted with the characteristic principles of their own system. The ruling elder, even in decisions of the General Assembly, occupies a very anomalous position ; and it is still disputed whether he is the proxy of the congregation, deriving all his rights and authority from a delegation of power on the part of the people, or whether he is an officer divinely ap- pointed, deriving his authority from Christ the Loi'd. It is still disputed whether he belongs to the same order with the minister, or whether the minister alone is the presbyter of Scripture, and the ruling elder a subordinate assistant. It is still disputed ^^'hether he sits in presbytery as the deputy of the brotherhood, or whether he sits there by Divine right as a constituent element of the body ; whether as a member of presbytery he can participate in all presbyterial acts, or is debarred from some by the low nature of his office. That all government is by councils ; that these councils are rep- resentative and deliberative ; that, jure Divino, they are all presbyteries, and as presbyteries comj)osed exclusively of presbyters ; that presbyters, though one in order and the right to rule, are subdivided into two classes ; that all pres- byteries, whether parochial, cla.ssical or synodical, are radi- cally the same ; that the Church in its germ and in its full- est development presents the same elements ; that her whole polity is that of a free commonwealth ; — these j)oints are ably, scripturally, unanswerably established in the work before us. The only topic which Dr. Breckinridge has failed to elabo- rate, is one which all the Reformed theologians have evaded — the precise nature of the visible Church. Is it or is it not specifically a different thing from the communion of saints? Dr. Breckinridge treats it as the body of believers made

44 THEOLOGY AS A LIFE

apparent. He restricts the Church in its proper sense to the congregation of the faithfuL None can be truly mem- bers of it but those who are members of Christ. He accord- ingly maintains with Calvin, with Luther, with Melancthon that hypocrites and unbelievers, though in it, are not of it. They are insolent intruders whom it is the office of disci- pline to expel. We do not say that this representation is not correct ; but supposing it to be correct, we should like to have had it explained upon what principle the official acts of an unconverted minister become valid. Judas was a devil and the son of perdition, but was he not also an apos- tle, and did he not receive his commission directly from the Lord ? Was he a mere intruder into an office to which he was divinely called ? Our Book evidently makes the distinc- tion between the visible Church and the invisible Church to be that in the one the profession, in the other the possession, of faith is the indispensable condition of membership. The two do not, therefore, seem to correspond. The one is not an imperfect exhibition of the other, but a diffijrent though a related institute. Where the sjjecific difference is not the same there can be no identity of species. Then, again, the constitution of the visible Church, through families, many of whose members never become saints, would seem to inti- mate that the visible Church is something more than the communion of saints made apparent. The whole subject is encompassed with difficulties, and we should have been glad if Dr. Breckinridge had devoted to it a larger share of his attention. It is undergoing a warm and vigorous discussion in Germany, and we hope the result will be the clearing up of difficulties which still embarrass many earnest minds.

We cannot express too highly our approbation of those parts of" the work in which Dr. Breckinridge has discussed the relations of the Church to the State, the world and the secular institutions of society. We are confident that the truths which he has had the grace to enunciate upon these topics are the only truths which can secure to the Church in this country the position of influence which she ought

IN INDIVIDUALS AND IN THE CHURCH. 45

to occupy. If she undertakes to meddle with the tilings of Csesar, she must expect to be crushed by the sword of Csesar. If she condescends to put herself upon a level Avith the countless institutes which philanthropy or folly has con- trived for the earthly good of the race, she must expect to share the fiite of human devices and expedients. She is of God, and if she forgets that it is her Divine prerogative to speak in the name and by the authority of God — if she relinquishes the dialect of Canaan, and stoops to babble in the dialects of earth — she must expect to be treated as a bab- bler. Her strength lies in comprehending her spiritual vocation. She is different from all other societies among men. Though as a society she has ethical and political rela- tions in common with the permanent .organizations of tlie Family and the State, yet in her essence, her laws, and her ends she is diverse from every other institute. The ties which bind men together in other societies are only me- diately from God and immediately from man ; she is imme- diately from God and mediately from man. The laws of other societies are the dictates of reason or the instincts of prudence; her laws are express revelations from heaven. Other societies exist for the good of man as a moral, social, political being ; she exists for the glory of God in the sal- vation of sinners. Her ends are supernatural and Divine. She knows man and God only in the awful and profound re- lations implied in the terms guilt, sin, pardon, penitence and eternal life. Existing in Christ, by Christ and for Christ, she has no other law but His will. She can only speak the words which He puts in her mouth. Founded u])on Divine revelation and not in human nature, she has a Divine faith but no human opinion, and the only argument by which she authenticates either her doctrines or her precepts is. Thus saith the Lord. Her province is not to reason, but to testify. These principles, clear in themselves and as vital as they are clear. Dr. Breckinridge has unfoldc^d with sig- nal success; at the same time he has not ovei-lookcd the aspect of opposition in which her testimony must often

43 THEOLOGY AS A LIFE

place her to the institutions and customs of the world. Whenever earthly societies of any sort involve corrupt doc- trines, it is her duty, in the name of God, to witness against the lie ; but she can interfere no farther, except in relation to her own members, than to expose and rebuke the false- hood. When secular institutions involve no corrupt princi- ples her position is one of silence in relation to them. As God has neither commanded nor prohibited them, she leaves them where He has left them — to the discretion of His chil- dren. The simple proposition that all Church-power is ministerial and declarative, consistently carried out, explains her whole duty. The meaning is, that the Church can only execute what God enjoins, and can teach as faith or duty only what God reveals. When, therefore, she is requested to recommend some human contrivance, she has only to ask herself, Has God made it the duty of His people to engage in it? Has He anywhere commanded them to join this, that or the other society? If not, what right has she to require it? If the thing is wrong she has a right to con- demn it ; if liable to no moral objections on the score of principle, she must be silent ; and the reason of the distinc- tion is obvious. All wickedness is contradictory to the law of God, and she has a right to declare that law. In the other case the question is one of the fitness of means and ends, and that is a question of opinion. God has given no revelation about it, and therefore she has nothing to declare. She may say, if she chooses, that the principles involved are not objectionable, but she cannot say that the given ap- plication of the principles is ordained of God. In other words, in the case of evil she has the positive right to con- demn ; in every other she has only the negative right not to disapprove.

It may be said that this conception of the province of the Church has never been adequately realized. This is only saying that she has never fully comprehended the liberty wherewith Christ has made her free. It was a slow process to cleanse off all the slime of the Pajiacy. The

IN INDIVIDUALS AND IN THE CHURCH. 47

purest churches in Europe are still bungling about the question, perfectly simple to us, concerning the relations of the Church to the State. It is not strange that we should be perplexed about problems growing out of her peculiar posture in America as in one aspect a purely voluntary in- stitution. In the mean time, God has been teaehiug us by disastrous examples. We have seen the experiment tried in certain quarters of reducing the Church to the condition of a voluntary society, aiming at the promotion of universal good. We have seen her treated as a contrivance for every species of reform — individual, social, political. We have seen her foremost, under the plea of philanthropy, in every species of moral knight-errantry, from the harmless project of organizing the girls of a township into a ])in-cushion club, to the formation of conspiracies for convulsing gov- ernments to their very centre. The result has been pre- cisely what might have been expected. Christ has been ex- pelled from these pulpits, and almost the only Gospel ^vhich is left them is the gospel of the Age of Reason. Extreme cases prove princi2)les. If we would avoid a similar con- demnation, we must hate even the garments spotted by the flesh ; we must crush the serpent in the egg ; we must rig- idly restrain the Church within her own proper sphere ; and as she refines and exalts the spiritual nature of man, we may expect her to purify the whole moral atmosphere, and indirectly, through the life which she imparts to the soul, to contribute to the prosperity of every human interest. Her power in the secular sphere is that of a sanction and not a rule. As pre-eminently suited to the present time, when this subject is beginning to awaken the interest which its importance deserves, we commend the twentieth and twenty- second chapters of the treatise before us.

The future of the kingdom of God — that is, the dispensa- tions of the covenant of grace beyond the economy of the Gospel under which we live — Dr. Breckinridge has reserved for a few modest and cautious suggestions at the close of the book. He thinks that there are two dispensations yet to

48 THEOLOGY AS A LIFE

come — the dispensation of millennial glory to "be inaugurated by the second advent of the Redeemer, and the dispensation of heavenly blessedness to be inaugurated by the delivery up of the Lamb's Book of Life. We are delighted with the spirit which pervades the exposition of these topics, and equally delighted that though Dr. Breckinridge coincides in some of the leading views of the Millennarians, he repudiates the crudities — we had almost said the monstrosities — which disfigure the publications of that sect. He has no idea of a period in which Christ is to become subordinate to Moses, and in which it shall be the highest glory of the Gentiles to turn Jews. We may diflPer from Dr. Breckinridge as to the competency of the Gospel dispensation, under augmented measures of the Spirit, to subdue the world to Christ, but we are heartily at one with him as to the duty of the Church to preach the Gospel to every creature. We may differ from him as to the state of things preceding and introduced by the second advent of Christ, but we are at one with him as to the necessity of watching and praying and struggling for His coming. It is the great hope of the future, as uni- versal evangelization is the great duty of the present. If the Church could be aroused to a deeper sense of the glory that awaits her, she would enter with a warmer spirit into the struggles that are before her. Hope would inspire ardour. She would even now rise from the dust, and like the eagle plume her pinions for loftier flights than she has yet taken. What she wants, and what every individual Christian wants, is faith — faith in her sublime vocation, in her Divine resources, in the presence and efficacy of the Spirit that dwells in her — faith in the truth, faith in Jesus, and faith in God. With such a faith there would be no need to speculate about the future. That would speedily reveal itself. It is our unfaithfulness, our negligence and unbelief, our low and carnal aims, that retard the chariot of the Redeemer. The Bridegroom cannot come until ihe Bride has made herself ready. Let the Church be in earn- est after greater holiness in her own members, and in faith

IN INDIVIDUALS AND IN THE CHURCH. 49

and love undertake the conquest of the world, and she will soon settle the question whether her resources are competent to change the face of the earth. We are content to await the progress of events. In the mean time, who that has ever reflected upon these great realities, and groaned in spirit at the clouds and darkness which beset them, can withhold his sympathy from the man who writes the fol- lowing lines? —

" In every point of view, therefore, the glory of the INTes- siah seems to be immediately and transcendently involved in His second coming and millennial reign. And His loving and trusting children ought to beware of dishonouring him and deadening their own high and spiritual hopes by low and carnal allegorizing about these sublime mysteries, as well as of deluding themselves by vain and shallow dogma- tizing concerning them, as if they were perfectly simple and elemental. For myself I speak concerning them, after many years of anxious meditation, as one who would prefer not to speak, and who feels assuredly that they who will follow us will get a clearer insight as they draw nearer to them. The grand and leading ideas which belong to the future progress and glorious consummation of God's eternal covenant seem to me to be perfectly clear. Around these are other ideas, carrying with them, apparently, the highest probability . of truth, but not a satisfying assurance that we comprehend them justly. And then around these, in circles perpetually enlarging, are topics vast and numerous, involving God and man and the universe, and questions the most intricate and overwhelming concerning them all, in which a single inspired word misunderstood, or even a shade of thought wrongly conceived, may involve us fiir beyond our scanty knowledge and feeble powers. And how could it be otherwise ? It is the infinite and eternal thought of God, not yet realized in its actual accomplishment, which mortals are striving to pene- trate and disclose." — Page 681.

In the conclusion of the meagre and imperfect sketch which we have attempted to give of the contents of this volume it

Vol. II.— 4

50 TH EULOGY AS A LIFE

only remains to form a general estimate of its merits, and of the place which it is likely to occupy in our religious litera- ture. Accepting Theology as a science of positive truth — that is, of truth which can be certainly and infallibly known — the author has attempted to construct the system in such a manner that each particular proposition sliould not only authenticate itself by its own light, but command conviction by its manifest relation to the whole. The autopistic power of the truth is more prominent in the second than in the first volume. In the first, which is purely speculative, the theory charms by its consistency, clearness and coherence — the tem- ple which is reared is a grand thing to look on and a noble thing to contemplate ; but in the second another element is added, the element of experience. The Holy Ghost bears witness in the human soul, and man is no longer a spectator, but a worshipper, and actually beholds the glory of God as He displays His grace above the mercy-seat. That a work whose aim was to make Divine truth speak for itself, first to the understanding as a matter of speculation and then to the heart as a spiritual power, if executed with even tolerable ability, must be entitled to respectful consideration, is obvious from the nature of the case. That a book on experimental religion, professing to trace it, not in the light of philosophy, but in the light of the written Word — which compares the impression with the stamp, the life with the doctrine — that such a work, if executed by one who has any real insight into the mysteries of grace, must be pre-eminently useful to the children of God, is equally clear. All this might have been said if these books had been written by feebler hands. The second volume we think in all respects superior to the first. It touches a chord which vibrates in every Christian heart, and though specially prepared with reference to the training of ministers of the Gospel, it is equally adapted to the edification and comfort of the humblest child of God. " Tlie penitent and believing followers of the Saviour of sin- ners," "they who fervently desire life after death," will " find light and consolation " in what the author has written.

IN INDIVIDUALS AND IN THE CHURCH. 51

and that which he " has done will live." We have received the most grateful testimonies to its worth. Unsophisticated believers, who knew nothing of Theology except what God had taught them, have spoken of the book to us in terras which showed how much good they had gotten from it ; and we have before us the case of a young minister of more than ordinary promise who professed to have derived more bene- fit from it than from all the treatises he had read. It not only warmed his own heart, but taught him how to warm the hearts of others. We do not say that the book is free from faults — it has faults, faults of method and faults of ex- pression— but they do not seriously impair its sterling merits. We have already intimated that the separation of the objec- tive, subjective, and relative — or, as we should prefer to ex- press it, the speculative, practical, and polemical — strikes us as arbitrary and little suited to the successful culture of the science. Theology is one ; it is either wholly sjjeculative, wholly practical, or mixed. In our judgment the mode of treatment should correspond to its own essence, and should not be successively adapted to the single elements which con- stitute that essence. If Theology is purely speculative, it should be expounded exclusively in the light of theory ; if it is wholly practical, it should be taught with a special refer- ence to the activities it is intended to call into play ; if mixed, it should be treated as a combination in which these elements are jointly and not successively found. For our own part, we dislike the phrase mixed as applied to the manner in which speculation and practice enter into the religious life. There is no mixture, but these phases of our being are blended into the unity of a higher energy. Spiritual energy is one, but it includes every lower intellectual and moral energy. To explain : We have one form of mental energy in the mere assent to truth ; this is the lowest exercise of reason. Then we have another form of mental activity in the perception of the beautiful. Here there is combined with assent a feeling or an emotion. The combination is what we mean by the sense of the beautiful. So- in the

52 THEOLOGY AS A LIFE.

sense of duty or obligation there is also an intellectual and an emotional element, but they constitute one energy. In the religious life we have a combination of the purely intel- lectual, the aesthetic, and the moral into a still higher energy ; and the science of Theology should be treated according to this characteristic of true religion. Hence it leads to a need- less repetition to represent successively what the nature of the thing presents in combination, and we cannot but think that Dr. Breckinridge is occasionally hampered by the restraints of his method. Still, whatever defects the book may have they are only blemishes. Its solid worth is hardly affected at all. He has not written in vain. There are thousands of hearts that bless him, of which he will never know until he meets them before that throne where he and they will better understand and appreciate the infinite grace of a glorious Saviour which he has so lovingly described. His book is a noble testimony to truths which, but for his exertions in concert with those of a congenial band of confessors, would have been almost forgotten in the present generation. It well deserves to be the crowning labour of a life which has been zealously devoted to the vin- dication of the grace of God against fraudulent suppressions on the one hand, and sophistical evasions on the other ; and long, long may he continue to speak through these refreshing pages!

PREFATORY NOTE.

The Necessity and Natxtke of Christianity is taken from the "Southern Presbyterian Keview," for March, 1849. It constituted the substance of a sermon preached to the students of the South Carolina College, its author being Chaplain and Professor of Moral Philosophy and the Evidences of Christianity in that institution.

53

THE NECESSITY

AND

NATURE OF CHRISTIANITY.

THE first public conflict, as Milman properly remarks/ betwixt Christianity and Paganism took place at Athens. The champion on the one side was Paul, the dis- tinguished Apostle of the Gentiles, who had himself been a relentless persecutor of the Gospel, and who had been gra- ciously honoured with supernatural evidence of its truth. He was prepared to speak what he knew and to testify what he had seen. On the other side were certain philoso- phers of the Epicureans and Stoics, impelled partly by curiosity and partly by vanity of contest to encounter one whom their philosophic pride prompted them to stigmatize as a babbler, and their settled indifference to truth to re- ceive as a setter-forth of strange gods.

The loss of Athenian independence had removed tlie checks which, in ancient times, political considerations had arbitrarily imposed upon freedom of debate and liberty of discussion in regard to the popular religion ; and though this renowned city was still the headquarters of the reign- ing superstitions of the world, no philosopher was likely, for the sake of his opinions, however apparently licentious or heretical, to be exposed to the fate of Socrates, Stilpo or Diagoras. In the schools of Atlicns, no subjects were too sacred for discussion, too profound for inquiry, or too sublime and mvsterious to awe the efforts of vain curiosity. The stubborn doctrines of the Stoics, the polite, accommodating

1 History of Christianity, Book II., chap, iii., p. 178. Amer. Ed.

55

/

56 THE NECESSITY AND NATURE

principles of the Epicureans, the sentimental refinements of Plato and the practical methods of the illustrious Stagi- rite, the claims of the popular worship, the superstitions of the mass, and the hidden mysteries disclosed to a chosen few, — were matters of free, open, unrebuked debate. In such a city, the long-chosen abode of philosophy, science and the arts, the literary metropolis of the world, rendered holy to a freeman by the mute memorials of Independence eloquent in ruins, — in such a city, and among such a people, the Apostle of the Gentiles appears the champion of the Gos- pel, against philosophy, science, idolatry, superstition — all the wisdom of this world arrayed in enmity to God. To the eye of sense the odds were fearfully against him. His name and country were identified, among the Pagan na- tions around him, with all that was little, contracted and mean. A Jew by birth, exclusive in his religion, and a reputed bigot in his opinions, he presented, in his national associations, those features of disgust which provoked the satire of Juvenal, the contempt of Gallio and the raillery of Martial. It is true Paul was a scholar skilled in Gre- cian models ; but all his pretensions to refinement and ele- gance were sunk in the fact that he was a Jcio, as the valour and courtly influence of Naaman were nothing to the damn- ing consideration that after all he was a leper. But curi- osity was too strong for either prejudice or contempt. His disputes in the synagogue with his own brethren, his in- structions to those whom he found seriously intent upon the duties of religion, and his public discussions in the market- place with all whom the providence of God threw in his way, had made him the object of attention to the leading sects of philosophy. Then certain philosophers of the Epi- cureans and of the Stoics encountered him}

We may here pause to contemplate the contrast in their

motives and aims and those of the servant of Jesus. He

had come to Athens as a stranger. Driven from Thessalo-

nica by a popular tumult excited by religious bigotry, he

^ Acts xvii. 18.

OF CHRISTIANITY. 67

sought safety and quiet in this mart of learning, elegance and Paganism; and while tarrying for his brethren, his spirit was stirred in him when he saw the eity wholly o-iven to idolatry. He looked not upon its statues and temples, its altars and sacrifices, with the eye of poetry or taste. These ornaments of art, these imposing monuments of genius and skill, however they might adorn the names and perpetuate the memories of Phidias and Praxiteles, were an insult to God ; and, like Elijah, the prophet of another dis- pensation, he was very jealous for the Lord God of Hosts. His imagination could not expatiate in rapture upon scenes which proclaimed too plainly to the ear of faith that the curse of the Almighty was there. What signified the beauty of the work when the end was death ? While he mused and saw, the fire burned ; the love of Christ, an emotion felt for the first time, perhaps, upon that classic soil — zeal for the glory of God, intense desires for the salva- tion of the lost, the terrific sanctions of the law, — all pressed upon him and roused his noble spirit to lift up his voice like a trumpet, to cry aloud and spare not. He was a man of God, and the word of the Lord was like fire in his bones. His position was indeed sublime, and though the object of contempt, ridicule or idle curiosity to others, he was raised by the grandeur of his mission and a Tenant in his heart whom the world knew not yet, above all the petty desires which vanity, pride or ambition could suggest, and like his Divine Master prayed in spirit for those who de- spised him. He had no doubtful disputations to propose, but a message to proclaim in the name of God. He was no dialectician from the Schools, but an ambassador of the skies ; he preached not the wisdom of men, but the wisdom of God in a mystery. He spake with the confidence of one whose feet rested upon the rock of eternal truth, and with the persuasiveness of one Avho was not a lord of the faith, but a helper of the joy of his hearers. The zeal, de- votion and deep convictions which glowed in his soul made him earnest, but neither an enthusiast nor fanatic. His

58 THE NECESSITY AND NATURE

discourse is managed with consummate skill, and while the Word of the Lord is plainly declared, it is studiously framed with a reference to the state, prejudices and opinions of the assembly. Paul had seen, among the monuments of Athens, an altar to the Unknown God. This furnishes the Apostle with a text. He begins with the statement of a general fact, true of all men, but pre-eminently true of the Athenians, that the interests of religion, in some form or other, must and will exact attention. Man is essentially a religious animal. His nature calls for religious worship. He must have a God to pray to, as well as a God to swear by, and while the true God is unknown the heart will be filled with idols in His place. All idolatry consists essen- tially in the false worship of the true, or a superstitious wor- ship of the unknown, God. Having paved his way to the favourable attention of his hearers, Paul proceeds to reca- pitulate the leading doctrines of Natural Religion, to some of which, with more or less modification, the Stoics might assent, and to others the Epicureans.^ The doctrines of providence, of human responsibility, of a moral government, are not only announced, but are pressed as formal arguments against a false worship, and urged as motives for seeking to be ascertained of the truth. The obvious dictates of na- ture, if properly heeded, are sufficient to condemn idolatry. The fall of man, his present depravity, and the necessity of repentance, are briefly and compendiously stated, and then the peculiar doctrines of the Gos^Jel are summarily discussed under the heads of Jesus and the resurrection.

The effects of this sermon are briefly detailed by the his- torian.^ Some of them treated the matter with downright scorn ; others were afraid that it might be true, but were not prepared to make the sacrifices which a full assent would obviously require. Still there were a few, a select and no- ble band, consisting alike of plebeians and philosophers, who clave to the Apostle and believed his doctrines. It is re-

1 Milman's History of Christ, Book II., chap, iii., p. 179. Amer. Ed.

2 Acts xvii. 32-34.

OP CHRISTIANITY. 59

markable that these effects were produced, not by Paul's dis- sertations upon natural religion, upon the being and provi- dence of God, the accountability of man, and the strict moral government which has been established in the world. He seems to have been heard with patience as long as he insisted upon these and kindred topics. Even his denun- ciations of idolatry, though a direct rebuke of their practice, and a tacit imputation upon their understanding or integ- rity, awakened no visible displeasure. But the very mo- ment that the Apostle entered upon the territory of grace, and proceeded to expound those mysteries of the Gospel which eye had not seen nor ear heard, neither had it entered into the heart of man to conceive, the effect was striking and characteristic ; some mocked, others said. We will hear thee again of this matter, and only here and there an auditor received the engrafted Word and lived.

This sermon of Paul at Athens deserves our serious atten- tion, as it sets forth, in brief and pregnant heads, the whole contents of revelation, and the essential doctrines in particu- lar of what is properly and exclusively Christianity. Reve- lation and Christianity are not convertible terms. Every- thing that even the Bible contains is not a part of Chris- tianity. There have been at least three dispensations of this religion, distinguished from each other by outward form and accidental circumstances ; and each of these is de- scribed in the Bible, and the peculiarities of each throw light upon the general scheme to which they all pertain.

Everything in revelation is subsidiary to Christianity, but is not necessarily part and parcel of its being. Some things are presupposed in it — their truth is essential to its arrange- ments ; and other things belong to the age, people and coun- try of its first introduction. All these subsidiary and inci- dental circumstances are to us the subjects of revelation, and therefore to be received with uudoubting faith, but much may be received and the Gospel in its essence not be embraced, and many revealed facts may be unknown and yet the salvation of the Gospel imparted. It is, therefore,

60 THE NECESSITY AND NATURE

a profoundly interesting question, What is Christianity? What are the essential features of that system which Jesus introduced into the world, and which without His interpo- sition would not only have been unknown, but would not and could not have been true ? What are those peculiari- ties which, wherever they have been proclaimed, whether on the Areopagus of Athens, in the seats of modern learn- ing, the halls of science, the church, the market-place or meeting-house, have uniformly made some mock, and stag- gered others, until God by His Spirit gave them a lodg- ment in the heart? The solution of this question is of fun- damental importance. Our lives depend upon it. True, the Gospel is a simple system ; but notwithstanding its sim- plicity multitudes perish with a lie in their right hands, fondly dreaming that they are in the ark, when they are only sheltered by bulrushes. Thousands mistake what Christianity is and die ; they kindle a fire and walk in its light, and receive the punishment at God's hand that they shall lie down in sorrow. Let us, therefore, address our- selves to this question with the solemnity and earnestness the nature of the subject demands.

The course of thought pursued by the Apostle in this cele- brated sermon, the disposition and arrangement of his topics, and the obvious relations which they sustain to each other, will correct many prevalent errors, and conduct us by an easy process to the precise views which ought to be enter- tained. Paul first insists upon the necessity of the Gospel, and then announces its doctrines in their adaptation to the wants they were designed to relieve.

1 . First, then, what is the necessity of Christianity ? What is the call for it in the circumstances of our race? And what end, consequently, was it designed to answer? The necessity of revelation is a point upon which Christian apologists are accustomed to insist as establishing the ante- cedent credibility of the fact ; and though their arguments are, for the most part, conclusive, as showing the likelihood of some interposition to mitigate our ignorance, they fail to

OF CHRISTIANITY. 61

present the peculiar need of such a dispensation as that of the Gospel. It is too frequently taken for granted that " the supposition of sin does not bring in any new religion, but only makes new circumstances and names of old things, and requires new helps and advantages to improve our powers, and to encourage our endeavours ; and thus the law of grace is nothing but a restitution of the law of nature."^ The ground ordinarily assumed is the ignorance of man and the goodness of God ; and this ignorance, which seems to be re- garded as the principal injury of the fall, has reference to the great facts of natural religion, which, if known, would have sufficient efficacy to secure amendment of life and ever- lasting happiness. The controversy has been, in many in- stances, so conducted W'ith the Deists as to convey the im- pression that the doctrines of nature w^ere sufficient to con- stitute the complete religion of a sinner ; the sole point in dispute being the competency of reason to discover these doctrines without supernatural aid.^ We are represented as creatures destined for another life, and needing information in reference to its character and its connection with the present, which cannot be derived from the light of nature. In this view Christianity is no new religion ; it is only a new publication of that which subsisted from the beginning of our race. It is a revelation, strictly and properly so called, and nothing more ; and its whole relation to us is exhausted when we receive and submit to it as a Divine teacher.^ We

1 This extraordinaiy statement is quoted by Halyburton from one who, he says, " wore a mitre." — Nat. Eel. Insuf., chap. 1, p. 279— Works in one volume.

2 This is the impression left by Paley ; and it is clearly the doctrine of Mr. Locke. His Christianity is nothing but Revealed Deism.

3 It is very unfortunate that the distinctions between Christianity and natural religion have been expressed by the terms natural and revealed religion. The idea obviously suggested by this phraseology is that their difference lies in the sources whence we derive our knowledge of them. Nothing, however, has been more clearly proved by Christian writers — among whom we may especially refer to Halyburton and to Norris— than that we are as much indebted to revelation for any adequate know- ledge of natural religion as for the mysteries of the Gospel. They are

62 THE NECESSITY AND NATURE

are ignorant, for example, of a future life ; or if we have, from the operations of conscience or the spontaneous desires of the soul, vague convictions or indistinct impressions of continued existence in another state or among other scenes, the evidence is too feeble and shadowy to furnish the grounds of a steady belief Christianity, accordingly, re- lieves our blindness and brings life and immortality to light. The apprehensions of nature it reduces to realities ; its vague impressions to the certainty of facts. So, again, without revelation we are represented as uncertain whether our con- duct here shall affect our destinies hereafter, or what is the nature of the connection which subsists between the present and the future. Christianity comes to our assistance and teaches us that this present world is a school for eternity ; and that according to our characters and conduct here will be our destiny hereafter. This is the method in which the apologists for Christianity have too often conducted the argument with the Deists. There has been no dispute be- tween them as to what religion is sufficient to secure the hap- piness of a sinner. They are, for the most part, agreed in its nature and principles ; but it has been keenly debated whether reason, since the fall, is capable of discovering this religion without supernatural assistance, or of authenticating it with sufficient evidence to make it of practical importance. We may admit that the argument is conclusive as conducted by the friends of revelation. Natural religion is certainly not the offspring of natural light. In the present condition of our race, whatever may be the evidences which exist within us and around us of the being, perfection and cha- racter of God, of the condition of man, and the relation he sustains to his Creator, his darkened faculties are incompe- tent to gather from them the conceptions which make up the

both revealed. The difference between them is radical and essential, and not accidental or contingent. They are different religions. One is the religion of our nature before the fall ; the other the religion of grace after the fall. The one contemplates God simply as a moral Governor ; the other as a Saviour and Kedeemer.

OF CHRISTIANITY. 63

fabric of natural religion, however he may prove its truth from these sources after the ideas have been suggested to the mind. We confidently believe that if natural religion were the sole religion of a sinner, revelation would still be neces- sary to teach us what it is, to re|niblish it with light and power, to free it from corruption, superstition and abuse, and present it in the symmetry of its parts and the integrity of its combination. But then this, although a revelation, would not be Christianity, It might remove the veil from the eye of ignorance, and unfold realities of tremendous power to alarm the guilty and stimulate the righteous ; but all its truths would be independent of the mission of the Saviour, except in so far as he was the instrument in the hands of Providence to unfold them. That this whole theory is fundamentally wrong — though sustained by the splendid names of Locke and Paley, though the favourite and cherished hypothesis, during the dynasty of the Stuarts, defended alike by mitred prelates and humble curates — that Christianity is something more, immeasurably more than a revelation of truths, which in themselves were independent of the mission of Christ, may be inferred from the order and connection in which Paul has here introduced the mysteries of the Gospel. It is not a little remarkable that every soli- tary element of the system which those who take this view of the subject make it the object of Jesus to communicate, was insisted on by the Apostle before he gets to the Gospel. The great doctrines of natural religion which constituted the faith and the worship of man before the fall, are treated as preliminary to the distinctive peculiarities of Christianity. The creed of Herbert — the most liberal of the Deists, as good a Christian as many who have defended miracles and prophecy — so far as this creed is natural religion, is recapit- ulated by the Apostle as introductory to the Gospel. The unity of God; His absolute independence and universal sovereignty ; the relation in which He stands to men ; the necessity of religious worship,- and the guilt and folly of idolatry ; the perfection of His moral government, and the

64 THE NECESSITY AND NATURE

essential, unchangeable distinctions of right and wrong, — these are all eloquently enforced, but these are not the Gos- pel. We do not say that they are not revealed truths — we do not say that any religion is the offspring of mere natural light ; but we do say, and the method of the Apostle justifies us in saying it, that although these are truths of revelation, and truths which must be recognized in order to understand the Gospel, yet they are not Christianity. We will go a step farther and assert that the natural religion which Paul preached on Mars' Hill contained propositions which unas- sisted reason is utterly, under any circumstances, incompe- tent to discover; and which yet, from the beginning, must have been parts of the primitive religion of the race. He insists upon the Federal Headship of Adam. This is the fundamental truth in nature's system. We are of 07ie blood. There is a mysterious unity in our race, indicated by a com- mon descent and a common nature, in consequence of which we sustain diiferent relations to each other from those which we would have sustained if we had been separate, independ- ent, isolated beings. In our world there is not only society, but kindred — not only similarity, but identity of nature ; and our religion proceeds upon a principle which recognizes this unity, and in its great charter of hope treated with the race in one man. So, also, the doctrine of the Trinity is a doctrine of natural religion. But there might have been imparted to us a knowledge of the object of worship, the great federal dispensation under which our race was created, and the consequent condemnation and ruin of mankind in the first man, who was of the earth, earthy, — and yet not a single doctrine of the Gospel, as connected with the mission of Jesus, be known. Nay, all these things, whether known or not, would have been true had Jesus never been born or never died. Paul's Christianity, therefore, was something more than a republication of natural religion, even in its true form and perfect proportions, as adoring the Trinity and binding the race in a federal compact with a common head. The Apostle virtually admits that in our present

or CHRISTIANITY. 65

state we cannot discover the true system under wliieh we were born, and which attaches to our natures as moral and as human. There was a season of ignorance in wliich all who had no revelation were permitted to walk. But the re- moval of this ignorance is not all that the Gospel proposes ; it is a new dispensation, out of which new duties and new relations to God spontaneously grow. God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because He hath appointed a day in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead. It is plain that Paul regarded Jesus as in- troducing a religion whose distinctive law, so far as it re- spected human conduct and obedience, was the law of re- pentance. We shall not stop to inquire whether repentance is a duty of nature ; but as here unfolded by the A]>ostle it depends upon principles supernatural and Divine. But the argument which we would frame from this passage, against the supposition that the prime necessity of our nature arises from our ignorance, and is therefore to be relieved simply by revelation, is drawn from the importance which the Apostle attaches to the resurrection of Jesus and the conse- quent resurrection of the dead. The religion which Paul preached at Athens, and which the necessities of all men re- quire, is a religion into which this fact must enter. We nnist bear in mind that the resurrection, neither of Jesus nor His followers, is ever treated in the Christian Scriptures as a proof of Christianity ; it is always made a part of it — an es- sential, indispensable element of the scheme. It is not pre- sented to us simply as a miracle, authenticating the Divine mission of Christ, though of course this must be an incidental result, but it is treated as being as really, and truly, and necessarily a component part of the Gospel as the death or incarnation of the Saviour. PauP sums up the whole of Christianity in Jesus and the resurrection : For I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received ; how that 1 Acts xvii. 18; 1 (Dor. xv. 3. Vol. II.— 5

60 THE NECESSITY AND NATURE

Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day, ac- cording to the Scriptures. The death, burial, resurrection of Christ, — tliese were the facts upon which the Gospel de- pended that Paul preached at Athens and Corinth. To represent the resurrection as a mere proof of Christianity, resting upon the same footing with the other miracles of the New Testament, and authenticating Christ's supernatural commission in the same way, is without sanction from the Scriptures. It is never treated simply as a credential — a motive to belief, but not the thing to be believed. On the contrary, Paul affirms that if Jesus be not risen our preach- ing is vain, and your faith is also vain — the Gospel is abso- lutely worthless. This cannot be said of any single miracle of the Saviour or His apostles. They might have wrought more, they might have wrought fewer ; the Gospel would have been the same. But if Jesus had not risen, there would have been no Gospel, and we should have been in our sins.

The passage in Romans which seems to make the resur- rection a proof of the Sonship of Christ has a much wider sweep than interpreters have been accustomed to give to it. The ordinary view is, that as Christ before Plis death liad declared Himself to be the Son of God, and as He was con- demned by the Jewish courts upon the ground of His super- natural pretensions to a Divine generation alone, His resur- rection from the dead was the endorsement by the Father of the veracity of His own testimony. But, according to this view, any other miracle would have answered the same purpose. The darkened heavens, the yawning earth, the cleaving rocks and the rising dead had already proclaimed His Sonship as truly as the resurrection — proclaimed it so loudly and powerfully that the centurion confessed the stu- pendous truth, while all the people that came together to that sight, beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts and returned.^ The impressions of that scene were as awful and convincing as any mere miracles could 1 Luke xxiii. 47-49.

OF CHRISTIANITY. 67

possibly have made. Every previous miracle had as much authenticated the Divine mission of Jesus, and, of course the Divine truth of all that He had uttered, as this final one of His resurrection from the dead. And that (Jod never intended it as a mere proof is evident from the fact that He did not show Himself openly to all the people, but to wit- nesses chosen beforehand.

The whole reasoning of the Apostle goes upon the suppo- sition that His resurrection directly declared His Sonship ; it did not simply declare that he spoke the truth when he affirmed it, but it attested the fact independently of any such connection. The Psalmist, looking to this great event, represents the Almighty as proclaiming by it, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee ; ^ and M'hen He ascended into heaven the joyful acclamation was heard, " God is gone up with a shout, Jehovah with the sound of a tru'n])ct."^

It is, therefore, evident that both the Old Testament and the New represent the resurrection not only as an integral part of Christianity, but as a pregnant proof of the eternal Sonship of Christ, and consequently every scheme must be false in which this great fact is not obviously possessed of this distinction. Whatever the Gospel is, it must be some- thing into which the resurrection essentially enters, and so enters as to establish the Sonship of Jesus ; and as neither the one nor the other can be affirmed of His office as a Prophet, it is very certain that the necessity which Paul contemplated must lie much deeper than the natural igno- rance of man in regard to truths which are independent of the mission of Jesus. It is obvious that whatever the Gos- pel is, its truths must have been created by the mission of Jesus. They would not have existed at all if He had not been born, crucified, buried, and if He had not risen from the dead.

Enough has been said to show that Paul contemplated Christianitv as something more than a revelation. This proposition may strike our readers as hardly worth the 1 Ps. ii. 7 : Acts xiii. 33. = Ps. xlvii. 5.

66 THE NECESSITY AND NATURE

labour we have expended upon it, but those who have been brought most in contact with the educated minds of the country must be sensible that the difficulties which they ex- perience in Christianity are largely owing to this low view.

The principles of natural religion seem so reasonable, when once they are fairly proposed, that it is hard to get quit of the conviction that what so obviously commends itself to the understandings and consciences of men might have been discovered without supernatural light. The pre- sumption against revelation is increased by confining its scope to a department of truths which were certainly the original furniture of reason, and which, when once they are announced, reason, apart from the influence of prejudice and passion, does not hesitate to recognize. To tell us that na- ture and Christianity embrace exactly the same religion, that Christianity is distinguished by nothing but the source from which it springs, that its sole object is to publish with clearness and enforce with authority the doctrines of nature, is to put its necessity on a footing which, however success- fully it may be maintained, will seldom produce that deep and earnest conviction of need which hails the Gospel with joy, and detects in its provisions an adequate reason for the interposition of God. This low view of the subject has not only to encounter the supposed presumption against revela- tion in general, but an additional presumption against that species of revelation which, with an immense apparatus of means, does little more than enlarge the territory of know- ledge and dispel a few floating clouds from the atmosphere of truth. The great bell of the universe is rung to preach a sermon of Avhicli nature was previously in possession of the heads.

Lord Herbert's difficulties with Christianity arose, for the most part, from an utter misconception of its principal design. The question could never be raised concerning the sufficiency of reason i£ the proper end of the Gospel were kept steadily in view. Deism was comparatively unknown in England until a style of preaching was adopted which

OF CHRISTIANITY. 69

confounded morality with holiness, habits with tlie Spirit of God, and faith with a general conviction of truth — which discarding all its distinctive doctrines, reduced Christianity to a frozen system of heathenism, and made the ministers of Jesus little better than the " miserable apes of Epictetus." When the prelate and the curate were equally anxious to have the world believe that their Gospel had exploded the antiquated notions of spirituality and grace, that such un- couth phrases as justification, adoption, regeneration and redemption were stripped of their repulsiveness, and ad- justed as well to the notions as the dialect of fashionable life, it is not to be wondered at that men should stare at the pomp of ])reparation with which such a religion had been announced to the world. The affluence of means and the poverty of result were so conspicuously in contrast that the question seems to have been naturally suggested, whe- ther, if this were all, reason might not have been left to itself. We can symjjathize with such difficulties ; and though we are far from asserting — for we by no means believe — that unassisted reason since the fall would ever have discovered the w hole system of natural religion, yet we are as far from asserting that Christianity is the form in which a revelation designed chiefly to assist reason would have been given. To this inadequate conception of its office, as a mere hand- maid to nature, is owing in some degree the fact tliat the whole current of modern philosophy, under the pretext of great veneration for religion, is fatal in its tendencies to the claim of inspiration. The sufficiency of reason has been defended, not on historical but psychological grounds, and the excellency of Christianity is rej^resentcd as consisting in the distinctness and fullness with which it echoes the voice of nature. This is to betray the Saviour with a kiss. These insidious assaults may indeed be repelled by direct arguments, but we can only reach the source of the evil by placing the necessity of the Gospel on its true basis. The change which sin has introduced in the relations of our race to God, and the glorious provisions of the new covenant,

70 THE NECESSITY AND NATURE

must be set in the light in vvhicli the Scriptures uniformly put them, if we would not judge of Divine revelation by a false standard. To show that ignorance is not the great evil which Christ came to dispel, that the scheme of re- demption is a vast and mighty dispensation of grace, a stu- pendous work which our exigencies demanded and God was glorious in doing, is to remove one of the leading difficul- ties which press upon educated men when they first turn their attention to the subject. They often hesitate because they do not understand the case.

2. Others, unable to escape from the pervading testimony of Scripture that the mission of Jesus contemplated a work to be done as well as truths to be revealed — that Christianity is a grand dispensation of providence and grace, involving a series of supernatural acts directed to the salvation of the sinner, the history of which in their origin, relations and results is the principal instruction it imparts — while they discard the low conceptions of an earth-born philasophy which can detect in the Gospel nothing but a republication of natural religion, fail yet to rise to an adequate apprehen- sion of the real nature of Christ's mediation. AVhether it be owing to a fastidious modesty which perverts a just dread of presumption and a becoming sense of ignorance into a refusal to be wise up to what is written, or whether there be a lurking dislike of the principle upon which a consistent explanation can be given of the method of redemption — whatever be the cause, there are men who admit an appa- rent necessity of the interposition of the Mediator, and yet fail to present in their account of His work any corresjjond- ence discoverable by us to the necessity they acknowledge. They very justly represent natural religion as unsuited to the condition of a sinner; it makes no provision for the pardon of the guilty ; it knows nothing of mercy, noth- ing of restoration to the favour of God. Conducted upon the principle of distributive justice, it promises life to the obedient, denounces death to transgressors, but opens no door of hope to the wretch who has incurred its curse. It mud

OF CHRISTIANITY. 71

render to every man according to his works — " to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life; but unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth, })ut obey unri<rht- eousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first and also of the Gentile." With these representations — not so strongly and emphatically made, we confess, as the nature of the case seems to us to warrant — of tlie necessity of jus- tification to the salvation of a sinner and the hopelessness of any justification by personal obedience, it is not a little I'emarkable that the persons we have in view should miss of the precise nature of redemption in its relations to man, and make it the great purpose of the Saviour to introduce a new principle of government or a new method of admin- istration, which has the eifect of mitigating the severity of law, putting the guilty in a capacity of salvation, and fur- nishing them with facilities for turning to account the ad- vantages of their new condition. This principle is the par- don of sin upon repentance. Jesus has made it possible that God should receive penitent transgressors into favour, and has rendered penitence itself less difficult and arduous than it is found to be under the regular and ordinary course of nature. How this capacity of salvation has been intro- duced by Him the advocates of the system do not pretend to explain ; it is due, in some way mysterious to us and unrevealed in Scriptures, to His humiliation, sufferings and death. It is enough for us to know the fact that repent- ance has the efficacy ascribed to it, without presuming to inquire how it came to be possessed of it.^

^ "Some have endeavoured to explain the efficacy of what Christ has done and suffered for us beyond what the Scripture hath authorized ; others, probably because they could not explain it, have been for taking it away, and confining His office as Redeemer of the world to His in- struction, example and government of the Church ; whereas, the doctrine of the Gospel appears to be, not only that He taught the efficacy of re- pentance, but rendered it of the efficacy which it is by what He did and sufiered for us; that He obtained for us the benefit of having our

72 THE NECESSITY AND NATURE

None can censure more severely than ourselves that arro- gance of understanding which refuses to recognize any dis- pensation as Divine which cannot be adjusted to the measures of human probability. We are too sensible of the ignorance of man and the greatness of God to dream for a moment of making our finite reason the standard of the counsels of in- finite wisdom ; and we sympathize profoundly with the hu- mility of mind, always characteristic of exalted attainments, that shrinks in reverence from the clouds and darkness which surround the throne of the Eternal. It is the glory of God to conceal a thing ; and where He has drawn a veil over the operations of His hand it is presumption in us to pry into His secrets or speculate with confidence on the mysteries He has not thought fit to reveal. But it is neither piety nor modesty — it is unbelief, however speciously disguised — which makes darkness where God has given light ; mystery, where all things are plain. To say that we are left in ignorance as to the method by which the mediation of Christ achieves the salvation of a sinner, is to contradict all those passages of Scripture which directly teach, as well as indirectly imply, that the wisdom of God is conspicuously displayed in the scheme of redemption, and in which it is made the duty of the saints to admire it. " We preach Christ crucified," says the Apostle, " unto the Jews a stumbling-block and unto the Greeks fool- ishness ; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." "Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect." The lowest conception of wisdom involves the idea that the jneans should be adapted to the end, and it is disj)layed only in so far as the correspondence betwixt them is capable of

repentance accepted unto eternal life, not only that He revealed to sin- ners that they were in a capacity of salvation, and how they miglit obtain it, but, moreover, that He put them in this capacity of salvation by wliat He did and suffered for them — put us into a capacity of escaping future punishments and obtaining future happiness. And it is our wis- dom thankfully to accept the benefit by performing conditions upon which it is offered on our part without disputing how it was procured on His." — Butler's Analoijy, Ft. ii., chap, v., § 6.

OF CHRISTIANITY. 73

being discerned. Where the adaptation of means to an end is not perceived, wisdom may indeed exist, but it is absurd to say that it can be an object of admiration. That emotion can be elicited only by an actual contemplation of the fitness upon which the wisdom depends. It is, accordingly, impos- sible that believers should be expected to glorify that at- tribute of God to which, as much as to His power and grace, we are indebted for the economy of redemption, if they are not permitted to see how the mediation of Christ is adaj)ted to effect their salvation. They can no more be filled with admiration at the contemplation of a wisdom which is con- cealed from their understandings than they can be filled with love at the contemplation of a beauty which is hidden from their eyes. We are very far from asserting that we, or any other finite intelligence, can comprehend the Avhole mys- tery of godliness : there are facts in redemption, such as the incarnation, and the subsistence of two natures in one person, and there may be designs in reference to other worlds, and perhaps also in relation to our own, proposed by it in the infinite counsels of God, which shall for ever transcend the capacities of creatures. We do not pretend to know tlie whole case. We hardly presume that we ever shall know it. Throughout the countless cycles of eternity we expect to occupy the anxious position of the angels, who, previous to the advent, are represented as earnestly inquiring into these things. The glories of redemption are as boundless, the depths of its wisdom as fathomless, as the infinite per- fections of the Godhead. But, though there be heights which the loftiest genius cannot climb, and depths which no finite line can sound, still wc maintain that there is a ^visdom which we can discover and a wisdom we are required to adore. In so far as our own personal acceptance is involved we can see the fitness of Jesus for His work and the fitness of His work to the necessities of man. If wc cannot com- prehend all the fullness of meaning in which Christ crucified is the wisdom of God, wc can at least receive that portion of light which irradiates our own salvation ; and we dare not

74 THE NECESSITY AND NATURE

brand as delusion all that joy in Him which flows not simply from the faith that He is a Saviour, but from the felt con- viction that He is a Saviour peculiarly adapted to our wants. We must therefore protest against any hypothesis which dis- cards as presumptuous all efforts to explain how the sacrifice of Christ contributes to our pardon. Whatever other mys- teries surround the cross, this point is not left to the hazard of conjecture or the uncertainty of speculation. It is revealed, or words have lost their meaning, and the Bible is a book of riddles.

But the most serious objection to the theory in question is, that it represents Christ as introducing by His work a new principle in the moral government of God, or a new method of administration, which cannot be conceived witli- out confusion of ideas nor expressed without a contradiction in terms. The patrons of the scheme, studious to ]>ut in its true light the inadequacy of natural religion, are not wanting in proofs that whatever intimations the facts of experience may give of the possibility of mercy under the general gov- ernment of God, they all point to mediation as the channel of compassion, and furnish no ground to suppose that any arbitrary purpose on the part of our Judge, or any penitence or amendment on our part, could have arrested the execution of the curse. Between penitence and pardon they are un- able to trace any natural or necessary connection ; but a me- diator may cause to be instituted, and in the case of Christ has caused to be instituted, a disjjensation of leniency under which repentance may be followed by forgiveness. The de- fect of natural religion to which Christianity is a remedy is not that nature admits of no repentance, but that repentance is incapable of securing pardon. The design of mediation is to establish a connection between them ; not to make one or the other possible or certain, but, supposing them to exist or to be capable of existing, to bind them in a new relation un- known to nature.

Now we take leave to say that Christianity has instituted no connection between penitence and pardon which is not

OF CHRISTIANITY. 75

founded in the very nature of things. Their relation to each other is not contingent, but necessary ; not derived from the interposition of a Mediator, but from their essen- tial relations to God. There never was a case, and there never will be a case in all the history of the universe, of a penitent sinner's being damned. What is repentance in its full development but a restoration to that state of in- tegrity and holiness, of knowledge, righteousness and com- munion with God, from which Adam by transgression fell ? And can we entertain the thought, without horror, that He whose nature is in sympathy with the righteous should banish into outer darkness those who are devoted to His law, who love His name and rejoice in His glory? A penitent sinner is one who has been a transgressor, but is now just ; the laws of God are now put within his mind and written on his heart, and his moral condition is evidently one which renders the supposition of punishment incongruous and contradictory. Such a mau is as unfit for the atmos- phere of hell as an impenitent transgressor is unfit for the atmosphere of heaven. There is obviously, therefore, no principle of reason or nature, as there is unquestionably none of revelation, which teaches that a man may be penitent and perish — that he may be driven into fiiuil banishment with the love of God in his heart and the praise of God upon his tongue. On the contrary, we are expressly taught that " if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die ; all his trans- gressions that he hath committed, they shall not be men- tioned unto him : in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live."^ This seems to be the dictate of right reason. The incongruity is so palpable and revolting of dooming to destruction one who at the time is possessed of every cle- ment of character that puts him in harm(»ny with the [)erfec- tions of God, that writers"^ are by no means wanting who

1 Ezek. xviii. 21, 22.

* Locke and Warburton may be particularly meiuioned. Of course.

76 THE NECESSITY AND NATURE

are as confident in asserting a natural, as those whom we have more immediately in view an instituted, connection be- twixt penitence and pardon. The difficulty of natural re- ligion is, not that it excludes the penitent from hope, but that it precludes the possibility of repentance itself. Upon the hypothesis that the thorough and radical change of heart and character implied in the Scripture doctrine of sanctifica- tion could take place under its administration — that a man could be delivered from his moral degradation and reinstated into that condition of righteousness to which its promises of life are directed — we see no harm in asserting that in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live. The question under the law of nature in regard to such a case is precisely analogous to the question under the law of grace whether an apostate saint can be damned. The true answer is that the case can never occur. Nature shuts us up in despair because it shuts us up in impenitence. The least transgression con- tracts guilt ; guilt calls for punishment ; and this punishment consists in that banishment from God which is attended, in every dependent being, with spiritual death and the unbroken dominion of sin. To be a sinner therefore once, is to be a sinner for ever, unless some agency should be interposed to arrest the natural ^nd ordinary course of justice and law. Hence the office of a Mediator must be, not to make rej)ent- ance efficacious of pardon, but to make repentance possible. It is, accordingly, the great blessing which is promised, as well as the paramount duty enjoined under the dispensation of the Gospel. In other words, it is the great end of Chris- tianity to restore and secure to man the holiness he has lost. The first step, it is obvious, which must be taken in this

however, what they mean by repentance is no real repentance at all. That is a change of heart effected by the power which originally formed it, and a man thus renewed is evidently in a state of salvation already. Holiness is salvation, or there is nothing which deserves the name. But the case is very different in relation to those changes which are wrought in our characters by the law of habit under the influence of convictions and of fear. Such repentance is no preparation for heaven, and such penitents are worthy of death.

OF CHRISTIANITY. 77

work of renovation is the removal of guilt. In the only sense in which it can be conceived that repentance is likely to be acceptable to God, all its appropriate exercises are the results of His favour and of the communication of His grace. If the least degree of sin entails spiritual death, if death must continue as long as guilt abides, and repentance is a resurrection from this state, the guilt, in some way or other, must be effaced before life can be imparted. There must be pardon before there can be that union with God which is the foundation of all holiness as contradistinguished from morality. It is guilt which seals the soul in impotence, and that guilt must cease to be imputed before a renovation of the nature can be effected. To say that an unpardoned sinner can repent, is to affirm that he may be under the curse and in the favour of God at one and the same time — that he is both dead and alive, active and senseless, free and a slave, at the same moment and in the same relations. There is no method of escaping from these palpable contradictions but by making pardon prior in the order of nature to repentance, and resolving both into a state of reconciliation, for which we are indebted to the gracious interference of a Mediator. The same work, whatever it may be, which removes our guilt and propitiates the favour of the Father of our spirits, entitles us to those communications of love which render us meet to enjoy the blessedness of His smile. We must be pardoned that we may live ; and we must live in order to repent ; so that repentance and pardon are indeed indis- solubly connected ; not, however, as cause and effect, nor in the order in which they are too commonly presented, but as the joint results of a common grace arranged in the relation of means to an end, pardon being in order to repentance.^

* In what we have said about the priority of pardon to repentance, we do not mean that the sense of pardon is experienced, or that the thing itself formally takes place, antecedently to regeneration. In the actual communication of grace, the heart must be changed before faith can exist, and faith must be exerted before justification can be had. But the grounds of pardon in the work and intercession of CMirist are pre- supposed in any provisions for the renewal and the sanctification of the

78 THE NECESSITY AND NATURE

That these were the doctrines which Paul preached on the Areopagus at Athens cannot of course be directly col- lected from the brief record of his sermon wdiich has come down to us ; but that he could not have taught any different theory seems to us plain from the nature of the arguments he employed : " And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandetli all men everywhere to repent, be- cause He hath appointed a day in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath or- dained ; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead." The Apostle here makes it the great design of the Gospel, in contradistinction from the law of nature, to inculcate the duty of repentance. As long as men were left to the light of their own eyes, without any adequate revelations of the method of redemp- tion, the doctrine of repentance was not promulgated, be- cause the grace of it was not yet to be imparted. The dead were not commanded to live, because He had not arrived whose voice could penetrate their graves and quicken the pulse of immortality. It Is only in connection with the kingdom of heaven that the Scriptures ever insist upon re- pentance, because it is in that kingdom alone that repentance can possibly exist. Had not Jesus appeared, no eye would ever have wept a tear, no heart ever heaved a sigh of godly sorrow for sin. When we attend to the steps by which Paul reaches the conclusion that God now commandetli all men everywhere to repent — that the generation of holiness and the destruction of sin are the characteristic ends of the Gos- pel— the inference is inevitable that his views of repentance must have been very different from that Avhich makes it the

sinner, and the mission of the Spirit through which he is made a partaker of Christ is in consequence of that mediation which could effect nothing if it did not remove guilt. We mean nothing more in what we have said than the absolution in heaven and the imputation of Christ, of wliich Owen speaks in his Death of Christ and Vindicine Evangelicpe. See also Witsius, Dissert. Ireni. and Halyburton's Inquiry into the Nature of Kegeneration, etc. But see particularly chaps, xi. and xii. of Owen on the Death of Christ.

OF CHRISTIANITY. 79

condition of pardon. It will be recollected that the general judgment is not presented as a motive to amendment, but as a proof that it is commanded. He does not say that men ought to repent because they will be judged, but that they are commanded to do it. He first collects the command from a general judgment in righteousness, and then proves, not that there will be a judgment, but that it will be in right- eousness, because Jesus has been raised from the dead. The sum of his reasoning is briefly this : Men are required to be holy, because God will hereafter deal with them upon the principle of distributive justice; and that this is the method of His government is put beyond doubt by the resurrection of His Son from the dead.

There are two aspects in which this inspired argument is inconsistent with the doctrines we have been combatting. In the first place, if we are ignorant of the nature of the Saviour's mediation, and know not the principles on which it contributes to our pardon, it is impossible to detect any logical connection betwixt His resurrection and ascension and the final judgment of the world in righteousness. If we know not what relations to the law He sustained in His death, we must be incompetent to perceive how His resur- rection secures its supremacy. Paul does not adduce the resurrection as a proof of His Divine mission, and through it a proof of what He had asserted in regard to the pro- ceedings of the last day, but he appeals to it as a fact, which in itself contained an infallible assurance from God that the world should be judged in righteousness. It is a fact which, as soon as it is understood, proclaims this awful truth.

In the next place, if repentance is the appointed precur- sor of pardon, then it is either a principle of natural jus- tice that the penitent should be pardoned, or under the mediation of Christ the government of God is not one of dis- tributive justice. To assert that repentance and pardon are connected as antecedent and consequent, under the dispen- sation of nature, is to set aside all those arguments by which the divines of this school are accustomed to establish the

80 THE NECESSITY AND NATURE

necessity of mediation. To say that under the mediation of Christ the government of God is not strictly and prop- erly just, is to contradict the Apostle, who affirms a general judgment in righteousness, of which this very mediation is the clearest and most convincing proof. Henqe, they must be either inconsistent with themselves or inconsistent with the ajjostle in making it the end of Christianity to put men in a capacity of salvation, by dissolving, through the work of Christ, the natural connection between guilt and punish- ment when a moral change has taken place in ourselves.

3. There is another class of divines possessing many points of resemblance to the one whose opinions we have just been considering. They differ, however, in the circumstance that they profess to understand the principle on which the effi- cacy of what they denominate atonement depends. They are unwilling to assert the absolute necessity of the death of Christ, not from the modesty which shrinks from the pre- sumption of pronouncing with confidence upon what the Almighty might or might not do, but from the principle, plainly avowed and elaborately defended, that public policy is the only necessity to be admitted. Those very considera- tions of expediency by which others have been accustomed to repel objections, and wdiich are in felt disproportion to the importance and magnitude of the event, are received by them as a complete explanation of the case. The great problem to be solved by the death of the Redeemer was the consistency of pardon with the honour of the Divine Name, and the dignity of the Divine administration, and the general prosperity of the universe. It was a terrible tragedy enacted before the eyes of all creatures to display the holiness of God and illustrate the transcendent enormity of sin. It was intended to give emphasis and depth of impression to truths which might have been obscured or undervalued if sin had been absolutely pardoned, or par- doned upon mere repentance. The divines of this school do not hesitate to assert that, according to their scheme, the method of salvation involves an inversion of the principles

OF CHRISTIANITY. 81

of strict retribution. " Neither Christ nor the sinner" — we use the very words of Dr. Wardlaw — " neither Christ nor the sinner has his own due. The guilty who, according to these principles, should suffer, escapes, and the innocent, who should escape, suffers. In no strict and proper sense, then, can distributive justice be satisfied by substitution, when its demands, instead of being adhered to and fulfilled, are, for a special purpose and by an act of Divine sovereignty, sus- pended, superseded, overruled." These men, whatever they may affirm to the contrary, regard the distinctions betwixt right and wrong, not as final and ultimate, but as means to an end. The great purpose of God in the government of His creatures is the production of the largest amount of happiness, and His laws are nothing but the experlients of His prudence and wisdom to accomplish the ends of His benevolence. When, accordingly, the public good can be promoted without these laws, there is nothing in the nature of rectitude, the perfections of the Deity, or the relations of man to his Creator which prevents them from being suspended, superseded or overruled. They are binding be- cause they are necessary to the well-being of the universe ; and when a larger amount of happiness can be produced without them, the same reason which induced the Deity to prescribe them induces Him to set them aside. Policy is superior to right, or rather right is nothing but policy under another name. Experience, however, and the obvious fit- ness of things concur to demonstrate that the principles of morality are, for the most part, the highest expediency ; that truth, justice, benevolence are the surest means of private felicity and public prosperity, and that the interests of the universe accordingly require that all the Divine ])roceedings should be distinguished by the tendency to impress an awful sense of them upon the minds of intelligent creatures. When, therefore, the Divine administration in any degree departs from them, the general result shoidd l)e a stronger commendation of them than if they had been faithfully and punctiliously observed. Whenever God, in other words,

Vol. II.— 6

82 THE NECESSITY AND NATURE

breaks His own law, the design should be to make that law more sacredly and solemnly impressive upon the minds of His subjects. It is seen to be "more honoured in the breach than in the observance."

That we have not misrepresented the theory in question, nor the reasoning by which it is supported, however incon- sistent that reasoning appears in our account of it, will be obvious to any one who will take the trouble to analyze and compare the following statements from a work of confessed ability : " Distributive, or, as others designate it, retributive justice, according to its strict requirements, admits not of substitution. It issues a righteous law with a righteous sanction. It passes its sentence of condemnation against the transgressor of that law. It makes no mention of any possible satisfaction but the punishment of the guilty them- selves, the endurance by them of the penal sanction in their own persons. It is only by the death of the sinner him- self that the proper demand of the law can be fulfilled, that the principles of distributive justice can have their due ap- plication, and that under this aspect of it, consequently, justice, can be satisfied. According to the requisition of justice in its distributive sense, every man personally must have his own due. But in substitution it is otherwise. There is an inversion of the principles of strict retribution. Neither Christ nor the sinner has his own due. The guilty who, according to those principles, should suffer, escapes, and the innocent, wdio should escape, suffers. In no strict and proper sense, then, can distributive justice be satisfied by substitution, when its demands, instead of being adhered to and fulfilled, are for a special purpose and by an act of Divine sovereignty suspended, superseded, overruled. It is well to remark, however, that in another sense it was satisfied, all its ends being virtually and to the full effected by other means. And this leads me to the true end of atonement. It is to public justice, as we have before defined it, that in substitution and propitiation the satisfaction is made. The grand design is to preserve unsullied the glory of the great

OF CHRISTIANITY. 83

principles of eternal rectitude ; to show the impossibility of the claims of equity founded in these principles and essen- tial to the government of the universe being dispensed with ; to settle in the minds of God's intelligent creatures, as the subjects of His moral administration, the paramount obli- gation and immutable permanence of their claims ; to give such a manifestation of the Divine regard to these elements of His immaculate administration as to preclude the possi- bility of any the remotest surmise that in the pardon of sin they have been at all overlooked or placed in abeyance, and thus to render it consistent with Divine propriety, or, in other words, honourable to the whole character as well as to the law and the government of Jehovah, to extend par- doning mercy to the guilty, and to reinstate them in His favour according to the provisions of the Gospel. It is thus that, in so pardoning. His regard to righteousness is as conspicuous as His delight in mercy, and, in the minds of the pardoned, the impression of the claims of the one as deep as that of their obligations to the other. In this view of it the scheme possesses a Divine grandeur. The glory of God and the good of His universal empire, the two great ends of public justice, are with ' all wisdom and prudence' admirably combined in it. It is as essential to the latter of these ends as it is to the former (they can never indeed be separated) that the authority of the Divine government be maintained in its awful and inviolable sacredness ; that the demands of the law be upheld without one jot or tittle of abatement ; that no sin appear as venial ; and that if any sinner is pardoned, the mercy shown to the offender be shown in such way, on such a ground, through such a medium, as shall at once manifest the Divine reprobation of his offences, and, at the same time, secure the restitution of the guilty j)erpetrator of them to the principles, affections and prac- tice of holy allegiance. Such are the purposes and such the effects of the Christian atonement."*

The plain meaning of all this smooth and beautiful decla- 1 Wardlaw on Atonement, pp. 58-60.

84 THE NECESSITY AND NATURE

mation is, that God may do evil that good may come. He may do a thing which confessedly is not just. He may in- vert the principles of strict retribution, suspend, supersede, overrule the operation of His own law, provided in so doing He make His creatures feel the paramount obligation and immutable permanence of the claims that are set aside. Rectitude is essentially eternal and unchangeable,^ but God need not observe it if by occasional departures from its rules He can make the universe more scrupulous and punc- tilious. The death of Christ was, accordingly, a grand expedient by which the Deity in all wisdom and prudence has successfully contrived to impress with commanding em- phasis the eternal principles of truth and justice upon the minds of every other intelligent being, while He Himself, in this awful dispensation, confessedly disregards them. Such is the theory as expounded by one of its ablest advocates.

Our business at present is not with the merits of it, but simply with the question whether the historian has not fur- nished reasons for believing that, wdiether true or false, this was not the scheme of atonement which Paul preached in the metropolis of Paganism. Paul's gospel is compen- diously expressed in Jesus and the resurrection. But so far as we can discover, the resurrection is no necessary part of the Gospel upon this scheme, which resolves the death of Christ into considerations of expediency, and explains its efficacy by the moral impression against sin it is suited to produce. The two great ends of public justice, we are told in the passage just quoted, are the glory of God and the good of His universal empire, and these ends, according to the patrons of the scheme, are adequately secured by a dis- pensation which show^s that God hates while He pardons iniquity. All that would seem to be essential, therefore, is the sufferings and death of the Redeemer. The resurrection is not an element of the work of redemption ; it is simply a necessary fact springing from the divinity of the sufferer,

1 Upon this subject Dr. Wardlaw has expressed himself very strongly, both in his Christian Ethics and his work on Atonement.

OF CHRISTIANITY. 85

and no more conducive to the expiation of our (^ujlt than the eating and drinking which pertained to His humanity, or the alternations of activity and repose which were insep- arable from His sublunary state. As Jesus was God, it was certain that He could not be holden of the bands of death. He had power to lay down His life. He had power to take it up again ; but if we could conceive the possibility of His permanent subjection to the dominion of the grave, the im- pression, for aught that appears, of the transcendent enor- mity of sin, would have been more awful than is likely to be produced by temporary suffering followed by unutter- able glory. To say that such a doom would have been a revolting exhibition of cruelty is either to deny that the principle on which His sufferings were inflicted was just, and then any degree of them would have been a measure of cruelty, or to affirm that there is a point beyond which jus- tice cannot push the punishment of sin, and then it ceases to be the mighty evil they represent it. Upon any view of the case, therefore, the resurrection is an immaterial circum- stance in this scheme of redemption. Suffering, the visible and palpable endurance of it, this is what is required to the manifestation of the righteousness of God — this is what is needed for the purpose of salutary impression.'

It deserves further to be remarked that according to this scheme the resurrection of Christ furnishes no proof that God will judge the world in righteousness. If by righteous- ness we are to understand the principle of distributive jus-

1 " Meanwhile it is enough to remind you how the idea of manifestaliyn is associated with the atonement. There is not only a provision for the exercise of the Divine righteousness in man's salvation, but there is the declaration of that righteousness. Now, in order to this, there is required not suffering merely, but the palpable and visible endurance of it. It would not otherwise have the necessary impression and effect. . . . And without vain and presumptuous speculations we are, every one of us, sen- sible tliat the spectacle of a Saviour </(ms dignified, thus suffering, is enough for the purpose of salutary impression— impression deep, solemn, awful, of the Divine righteousness, and impression amply and delightfully en- couraging of the Divine mercy." — Wardlaw on Atonement, Dis. II., pp. 45, 46.

86 THE NECESSITY AND NATURE

tice — and such, in all similar connections, seems to be its meaning — that, according to this hypothesis, is inverted. Neither man nor the Saviour receives his due. If we are to understand the Public Justice to which so much import- ance is attached, that may be illustrated by the death, but we cannot perceive its relation to the resurrect'ioti, of Christ, which becomes, upon this hypothesis, a necessary adjunct of the person, but no part of the work, of the liedeemer.

There is another objection to this theory suggested by the sermon at Athens, which, if we can make it as clear to our readers as it is to ourselves, will, we apprehend, be conclu- sive against it. The whole discourse seems to have been conducted on the principle that the Gospel is its own wit- ness— that the facts of redemption authenticate themselves; that we can reason from its phenomena as effects to their origin in the mind of God, as we ascend from nature up to nature's Cause. Paul has evidently taken it for granted — for there is no allusion to any external proofs of the Divine mission of Jesus, and no intimation that he himself wrought any miracles at Athens — that as the heavens proclaim the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork, so the death and resurrection of Jesus, when properly a})pre- hended, are their own proofs that He is the power of God to salvation to every one that believeth. The work itself proves its divinity. That work cannot be acknowledged without prompting the confession of Peter, Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe and are sure that Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Now there is one branch of this a posteriori argument which is absolutely im- possible upon the theory of Public Justice. The resurrection furnishes no direct proof of the Deity and Sonship of Christ. There is nothing in the nature of the sufferings which He underwent which requires that the sufferer should be a Di- vine Person. As to their amount, for aught that appears, they might have been endured by a creature ; aiid as to their design, we could not have pronounced beforehand that a very solemn and awful display of the holiness of God and

OF CHRISTIANITY. 87

the malignity of sin, fitted to inspire with a salutary fear the minds of the guilty, might not have been made by one who was less than Jehovah's felloAV.* Hence the mere fact that He died the death which He died, and triumphed over it in His resurrection from the grave, is no necessary proof of what Paul affirms it to demonstrate with power — that He was the true and proper Son of God. He died — He rose. These are the facts. Now, if there be not something in the nature of His death which imperatively demanded that the sufferer should be Divine, there can be nothing in the nature of the resurrection to declare His Deity. If we know be- forehand that He was God, we can account for His resur- rection upon that hypothesis, but there is nothing in the cir- cumstance itself which, independently of any other proofsj demonstrates His eternal Sonship as well as His kindred to man. It deserves further to be remarked that, according to this hypothesis, the connection between the death of Christ and the salvation of His people is a matter of arbitrary ap- pointment, and the entire efficacy of His Avork is resolved into the dignity of His person. In the Epistle to the Corin- thians the Apostle teaches us that there is a species of death which if any one endures in the name and for the sake of others, they shall be acquitted, renewed and sanctified. Because we thus judge, says he, that if one died for all, then all died. The death of the substitute is, in law and justice, the death of the principal; it delivers him from guilt. The effect depends not upon the person dying, but upon the na- ture and relations of the death itself If any other being could have been found who was capable of dying the death which Clirist died, the same glorious results would have followed. His Deity was essential, not to establish the con- nection between His death and the salvation of His people, but to create the possibility of the death itself. There was

1 Dr. Wardlaw admits as much in attempting to prove the necessity of Christ's death from the fact tliat He did die, -;hich, no doubt, is very sound reasoning from cause to effect, but it cannot be reversed. — P. 14. Cf. p. 46.

05 THE NECESSITY AND NATURE

a peculiarity about it which absolutely demanded the strength of Omnipotence to undergo it. None but God could have shed the blood which Jesus poured out. When it is said that the value of Christ's sufferings depends upon His per- son, it is not intended that a fictitious importance is to be attached to something inherently and essentially worthless, in consequence of its association with a Divine being — which is the only sense of the terms consistent with the theory of Public Justice. The meaning is that they were fully and completely the death which the exigencies of the case re- quired, and which they could not possibly have been if the suiferer had been less than Divine. Redemption is glorious, not because God achieves it, but because none but God could achieve it. The death of Jesus was glorious, not because it was His death, but because it could be the death of no other. A creature might as well have undertaken to create as to save a world. The work itself demands the interposition of God ; and any theory which fails to represent the death of Christ as an event which, in its own nature, as clearly proclaims His Divinity as His superintending care and preservation of all things, cannot be the Gospel which Paul preached at Kome, at Corinth, at Athens, and which extorted from Thomas, upon beholding the risen Saviour, the memo- rable confession. My Lord and my God !

4. If the necessity of the Gospel is not founded in the ignorance of man, nor the want of a natural connection be- tween penitence and pardon, nor the policy of government, the question recurs. What is the nature of it and what pecu- liarities must distinguish the provisions that are intended to relieve it ? It is obvious that Paul, in his recapitulation of the great principles of natural religion, designed to produce in the minds of his hearers a deep and pungent conviction that sin had occasioned an emergency in the government of God which rendered salvation, independently of Jesus and the resurrection, hopelessly impossible. These very princi- ples created the difficulty. They represent God as a just judge and a righteous governor; dispensing rewards and

OF CHRISTIANITY. 89

punishments according to the rule of distributive justice ; dealing with every man according to his works. The first great necessity of man, therefore, as a sinner, arises from his guilt — an obligation to punishment which, according to the eternal principles of rectitude, cannot be set aside. The government of the world is not prudential, but moral ; and under a strict and proper moral government the wicked can- not be received into favour ; they must be punished. There can consequently be no hope to a sinner until the problem is solved how God can be just ; not simply wise, discreet or prudent — this is not the difficulty which a sense of guilt presses upon the conscience of a sinner, but how God can be just; can maintain the principle upon which His adminis- tration is conducted, and yet receive transgressors into favour.' There appears to be an impossibility in the pardon of sin under the law of nature. This first and paramount neces- sity, springing from guilt under a righteous government, it is the design of Christianity to relieve. It is accordingly an amazing dispensation of Providence and Grace Avhicli proposes to reconcile the pardon of the guilty with the strictest principles of justice ; which, while it opens a door of hope to the guilty and removes the apprehensions which conscience awakens in the breast of transgressors, demon- strates, at the same time, in the clearest and brightest light, that God will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained. The more clearly the doctrines of natural religion are understood, the more hopeless be- comes the condition of a sinner. The imperfect knowledge of them which can be gathered from the dictates of our own consciousness, the crude and mouldering remains which may yet be detected of the law originally written on the heart, are enough to arouse our fears and fill the mind witli anxiety and suspense as to the possibility of final acceptance upon any terms. As the light increases, and revelation pours in upon us its discoveries of our former state, of our present ruin, of God's immutable holiness and inflexible justice, des- pair thickens upon us. Our hearts condemn us, and God is

90 THE NECESSITY AND NATURE

greater than our hearts and knoweth all things. The anxious question is wrung from us, " Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and boAV before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" Now, guilt is only another name for a conviction of ill desert. It is the response of the human soul to the justice of punishment, and is utterly in- dependent, as all human experience testifies, of all calcula- tions of expediency. The burden upon the conscience is not simply that we shall suffer, for suffering may be a calamity as well as a punishment ; not that the interests of the uni- verse and the safety of God's throne demand our misery ; these are considerations which never enter into the 1)ittcrness of remorse. The burden which presses with intolerable weight upon the soul is the terrible conviction, wrung from the depths of our moral nature, that we have done wrong and deserve to die. It is this feeling that we deserve our doom which kindles the hell within us. If M^e could strip ourselves of the burning consciousness of this fact, no amount of evil could ever be regarded in the light of pun- ishment. Whatever was inflicted for the general good we might nerve ourselves to bear, from lofty considerations of benevolence and self-sacrifice ; and to whatever was inevit- able we might bow with patience, if not with resignation. But energy and resolution avail nothing against a sense of guilt ; the feeling of ill desert drinks up the spirits, and " conscience makes cowards of us all." This, then, is the peculiarity which distinguishes guilt — it is a conviction that punishment is due, that it ought to be inflicted, and that under a righteous government, sooner or later, it ni'ill be in- flicted ; and it is precisely this sense of guilt which the truths of natural religion are adapted to produce within us. It is the echo of our own hearts to the fearful condemnation of a holy God.

OF CHRISTIANITY. 91

If guilt is the response of the soul to the justice of pun- ishment, the only way in which its sting can be extracted is by an arrangement which shall make the punishment cease to be just, and give the sinner a right to escape from the evils which conscience forecasts. By no other conceivable method can peace and tranquillity, in conformity with the principles of eternal rectitude, be imparted to the mind. The source of all its fear is the conviction that it ougld to die, and unless a contrary conviction can be produced that the same justice which doomed to death now exempts from the curse, guilt will continue to agitate the heart with dis- mal forebodings which cannot be dismissed as phantoms, because they are founded in the very nature of the soul. This obligation to punishment, this riyldcousnesa of condem- nation, must cease to press, or the need which guilt creates cannot be relieved. The sinner feels, in other words, that the justice which calls for his blood must be satisfied, or t^hat blood be yielded to its demand. It is, accordingly, the glory of the Gospel that the blood of Christ who, through the eternal Spirit, ofi'ered Himself without spot to God, purges the conscience, dispels all its distracting fears, and imparts peace and serenity where desi)air and guilt had held their troubled reign. Availing itself of a principle which in every dispensation of religion has been fundamental in the Divine dealings with our race, which belongs to natural as well as supernatural religion, and which, in some form or other, has always commended itself to the moral judg- ments of mankind, it reveals to us a work in consequence of which the pardon of sin on the part of God becomes not merely a dictate of mercy, but a matter of right. Jesus, in the name of His people and as their federal head and representative, has endured the curse, and the justice of God is now solemnly pledged to Him to exempt them from personal subjection to its woes. He has died the deatli of the litw, and, upon an obvious principle of justice from the relations in which they stand to Him, His death is their death. If one died for all, tlien all died. Wc are baptized

92 THi: NECESSITY AND NATURE

into His death. I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.

No scheme of atonement that fails to represent Christ as submitting to the proper penalty of the law which the sins of His people had provoked, and in such relations to them that His suiferings can be justly charged as their own, can be regarded as adapted to the exigencies of guilt It does not relieve that condition of the conscience which aj^pre- hends punishment as a matter of right. It does not meet the prime necessity of the sinner. He is still left guilty,^ under obligation to punishment; and if his iniquities are pardoned, law and justice are defrauded of their due. Hence, if the principles of natural religion are imnuitable, there can be no peace to the transgressor until he is placed in a position in which it is no longer right to remember his offences against him. When God can be just and faithful in blotting out his transgressions, then, and not till then, is his conscience sprinkled with clean water and purged from dead works. Christianity must take away our guilt, or it leaves us under the curse of nature. This, we maintain, is precisely what the Gospel achieves. The Lamb of God bore away our guilt. He became a curse for us, sin for us, though He Himself knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, but the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquities of us all. It is in reference to this aspect of the work of Christ as expiating guilt that the eternal covenant which He came to ratify and seal is styled The counsel of peace. The kingdom which He came to establish consists in joy and peace, and the great blessing which He communicates to all who are sprinkled with His blood is that peace which passeth all understand- ing, and which abides unshaken amid the agitations and tumults, the glooms and convulsions of the world. Through ^ This is admitted by Dr. Wardlaw and divines of the same school.

OF CHRISTIANITY. 93

Him God becomes the God of peace, the Gospel the mes- sage of peace, preachers of righteousness the heralds of peace, and the two great results of His work, according to the rapturous song of the angels, are glory to God in the highest and peace on earth. We see no alternative, but an open denial that the Gospel is the religion of a sinner, adapted to those moral necessities of his nature which s})ring from the immutable principles of natural religion, or a cor- dial admission of the fact that Christ by His sufferings and death completely satisfied the justice of God in regard to the sins of His people. They, through Him, either cease to be guilty or they must die ; their consciences are either purged by His blood or they have no peace. They are still under the law and its curse, or they are delivered from its condemnation. It is idle to speak of the ends of pun- ishment being answered by anything but punishment itself, of costly and imposing expedients by which a salutary im- pression is made on the universe, and the righteousness of God illustriously displayed and the malignity of sin un- folded ; this may be true, but all this does not reach the malady within, the plague of the sinner's conscience. That is seized by the strong hand of justice, and until its iron grasp is relaxed, until right as well as policy ceases to de- mand his blood, he cannot be at ease. Hence it is, and must be, an indispensable element in anything which de- serves the name of atonement that it satisfies the justice of God, or lays the foundation of a claim of right to exemp- tion from punishment.^

But guilt is not the only need a sense of which is awak- ened by those truths of nature which Paul proclaimed at Athens. To be delivered from guilt is to be put in the moral position of the innocent without obstructions to the

' " Even the commender and publisher of Grotius' Book of ' Satisfac- tion,' the learned Vossius himself, affirmcth, that Christ by His death purchased for us a double right: First, a ri^lit of escaping punishment, and then a right of obtaining the reward."— CH<en's Death of Christ,

Chapter X 94 THE NECESSITY AND NATURE

free commmiication of Divine flivour, and without a right to any good but the exemption from ill,^ Such persons might be made alive to God, but they could have no claims to His favour, and no security for whatever integrity might be graciously imparted. It is only to the just that the con- firmed state of blessedness which the Scriptures mean by life is inflillibly promised. Obedience to the law, right- eousness, is the indispensable condition of God's everlasting favour. If, therefore, the scheme of redemption had done nothing; more than deliver us from the curse of the law, though it would have conferred an incalculable benefit upon us, an unutterably great salvation, it would not have done all, that the necessities of the case required, to secure the perfec- tion and blessedness of our nature. If it had gone so far as to remove spiritual death and re-establish the communion of the soul with God, the life which it imparted might still have been contingent. It might be forfeited by disobe- dience ; and in the actual circumstances of our race, sur- rounded with temptations, encompassed with infirmities, ensnared alike by the world and the Devil, if our first father under much greater advantages failed when left to himself, it is morally certain that all of us would have come short of the glory of God. A contingent life would have been a cruel mockery of our hopes. Hence, the Gospel proposes not merely to deliver us from the condemnation

^ " The satisfaction of Christ tends, in all that it is, to the honour and reparation of the justice of God. This, then, in its utmost extent and efficacy, cannot give ground to build such a right upon. The ultimate effect of satisfaction may be accomplished, and yet not the least right to any good thing communicated to them for whom this satisfaction is made. The good things attending the death of Christ may be referred unto two heads, the amotion of evil and the collation of good. For the first, the amotion of evil, the taking that from us that it may not grieve us, and subducting us from the power and presence thereof, it is immediately aimed at by satisfaction. That the curse of the law be not executed, that the wrath to come be not poured out, is the utmost reach of the death of Christ considered as satisfactory. . . . For positive good things in grace and glory, by satisfaction alone, they are not at all respected."— Owen's Death of Christ, chap. xi.

OF CHRISTIANITY. 95

of sin, to put US into a state in which it is no longer right to damn us, but to introduce us into a state in which it is right to bless us. It proposes to give us a title to life— a title founded on the same eternal principle of rectitude which Mould have confirmed Adam in holiness and bliss for ever if he had fulfilled the condition of his trial. The Gospel, in other words, proposes to justify, and upon the broad principle of righteousness to open the kingdom of heaven to all believers. This righteousness secures our holiness, secures life, because it secures God's flivour and gives a right, under the constitution of His own govern- ment, to the enjoyment of Him as the supreme portion of the soul. They Avho are justified must be glorified. The very end of justification is to take away the contingency of holiness. If Adam had maintained his integrity during the term of his probation, his justification would have im- parted to him no element of character which he did not previously possess — the image of God was not half drawn upon him ; but it would have put him in a state in which he could never lose his holiness nor be exposed to the risk of condemnation. And so the justification of a sinner intro- duces him into a state in which he can no more be left to the dominion of sin and the possibility of the curee than Christ can lose His glory or God be unfaithful to His promises and oath. " For whom He did foreknow He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren; moreover, whom He did predestinate them He also called, and whom He called them He also justified, and whom He justified them He also glorified."

Such, we apprehend, is the substance of that doctrine which Paul preached in his first open conflict with Paganism. The religion he proclaimed was pre-eminently that of a sinner — adapted, in all its provisions, to the spiritual necessities of a fallen being under the righteous government of God. The altars around him were dumb, yet pregnant, witnesses that the wants which the Gospel undertook to relieve were not

96 THE NECESSITY AND NATURE

the fictions of fancy nor the creatures of superstition, but the urgent demands of the soul. Under the imperfect light of heathenism there were still cases in which conscience asserted its supremacy, and summoned the guilty to the tribunal of the unknown God. The uncertainty which invested the doctrine of a future life was suited to quicken the appre- hensions of guilt, while the utter darkness, into which the spirit seemed to retire, invited a disturbed imagination to people its shades with ministers of vengeance and execu- tioners of justice. Amid all the ignorance of God and vagueness of conjecture which pertained to the condition of a thoughtful Pagan, the terrible impression would cleave to him that he was under a curse. It would haunt his dreams like the ghost of the murdered, embitter his waking hours, turn life itself into a burden, and make him long, yet dread, to die. He might endeavour to lay the flattering unction to his soul that the great TJnknown in whose hands he was, and to whom he was resjDonsible, was good and kind, and would be tender to his infirmities and failures; but the scenes of wretchedness around hiin, the frightful ravages of disease, pestilence and death ; the stern and relentless judg- ments which scourge entire generations and in their pro- gress sweep away nations ; the cry of weeping, lamentation and woe which bursts from the smitten bosoms of the whole family of man ; the portentous fact, written in blazing cha- racters around him, stamped upon the cheek of the dying, the brow of the living, and even upon inanimate nature itself, that God has a controversy with men, and that though He is good He yet deals out to the trembling tribes of earth the vials of a fierce indignation, — considerations like these would thicken the blackness with which conscience had covered the future, and shroud the soul in the deepest night of despair. If the siren voice of hope should attempt to whisper that there yet might be peace, the monitor of God within would proclaim, in tones of thunder, There is no peace to the wicked. If there should still be an eifort to prop the sinking spirit upon the mercy of its Author, Nature would

OF CHRISTIANITY. 97

cry aloud from her thousand chambers of suffering and an- guish, Woe, woe, w^oe to the inhabitants of earth ! Where could comfort be found ? Where could peace be sought, ex- cept in that desperate hardihood of spirit which would sternly banish thought, and, like the beasts that perish, catch only the passing moment as it flies ? And what is the religion which such a sinner, grappling with despair, burdened with life and afraid to die, — what is the religion which the neces- sities of his soul demand ? Is it more of light in relation to God, His law. His justice and the stern retributions of eternity, when what he knows already presses on his con- science like a night-mare, and peoples the land of darkness with all that is awful in mysterious power, with all that is dreadful in insulted justice? Ah, no ! He needs not light, but life — not philosophy and science, not new discoveries in heaven and earth, but a Saviour — a Saviour m'Iio can pluck him from the wrath to come, arrest the avenger of blood, seize the sword of justice, put it up into its scabbard, bid it rest and be still. The glory of Christianity is its Saviour, and His power to save is in the blood by which he extin- guislied the fires of the curse, and the righteousness by which He bought life for all His followers. Jesus made our curse, Jesus made our righteousness, this, this is the Gospel ! All else is philosophy and vain deceit. This it is which gives Christianity its power. By this, and this alone, it sub- dues the ferocity of passion, disarms temptation of its vio- lence, disrobes the world of its charms, changes the tiger into the lamb, and makes the lion eat straw like the ox. This constitutes the grand difference between the religion of Mohammed and the religion of Jesus, between the Koran and the Bible.

Upon this scheme, and this scheme alone, as it seems to us, the preaching of Paul at Athens can be reduced to consist- ency and method. It accounts for the importance which he attached to the doctrines of nature. He would actpiaint the patient with his malady before he explained the cliaracter and application of the remedy, especially wIumi it \\'as lilcely Vol. II.— 7

98 THE NECESSITY AND NATURE

to be sought just in the degree in which it was felt to be needed.

In the next place, it makes the resurrection an integral part of Christianity. That resurrection was the justification of Jesus as the Head of the Church, the discharge of the prisoner upon the satisfaction of the debt, as well as the pas- sage of our great High Priest into the holiest of all. If Christ had remained under the power of death, the curse of the law could not have been removed from us ; we should have died in our sins. He was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. '

Upon this view we may add, further, that the resurrection of Christ becomes what Paul affirms it to be, a signal proof of His eternal Sonship, if by His eternal Sonship we un- derstand that spirit of holiness according to which He is truly and properly God. None but Jehovah's fellow could have received the stroke of Jehovah's justice in His bosom and survived the blow. The penalty of the law was no vulgar ill, to be appeased by a few groans and tears, by agony, sweat and blood. It was the ■^^Tath of the infinite God, which, when it falls upon a creature, crushes him under the burden of eternal death. It is a blackness of darknesg through which no ray of light or hope can ever penetrate the soul of a finite being ; to all such it must be the blackness of darkness for ever. But Jesus endured it, Jesus satisfied it, Jesus bowed beneath that death which the law demanded, and which sinks angels and men to everlasting ruin, and came victorious from the conflict. If He had been a crea- ture, He would have been crushed, sunk, lost ; if He had been less than God, the bitterness of death could not have been passed ; never, never could He have emerged from that thick darkness into which He entered when He made His soul an offering for sin. The morning of the third day — and a more glorious morn never dawned upon our earth — for ever settled, to all who understood the event, the Deity of Jesus. It was the crisis of all human hope. "When our great Substitute had given up the ghost for us and descended

OF CHRISTIANITY. 99

into hell, the j)ossibility of His return to us depended on His ability to meet the infinite wrath of the Infinite God. AVhen the terrific cup was administered and He drank it and died, His slumbers in Joseph's tomb could never have been broken unless He could thunder with a voice like God, and bear the burden of infinite woe. The third day, which pro- claimed His triumph, declared Him to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by His resur- rection from the dead. He had died a death which none could die but one who was Almighty.

But Paul teaches us that the resurrection is not only a proof of the Deity of Christ, but a proof, at the same time, that God will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained ; that His government, in other words, is conducted on the principle of distributive justice. This is an obvious inference from that representation of Christianity which makes the sufferings of Jesus a full and perfect satisfaction of the penalty of the law, and His life of spotless obedience the ground to all claim of everlasting bliss. No other scheme harmonizes the salvation of a sin- ner with the immutable principles of natural religion. This is its characteristic excellence ; it rears the fabric of grace, not upon the ruins, but the fulfilment, of the law. God is never seen to be more gloriously just, nor the law more awfully sacred, than when He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. The impression which this event makes is indeed solemn, awful, sublime. It was a wonder in heaven, a terror in hell, and is the grand instru- ment through which the rebellion of earth is subdued and tlie stout-hearted made to melt at the remembrance of sin. Upon the cross it is written in characters of blood that none can ever be pardoned who have not died, in their substitute, the death of the law — that none can ever be admitted into heaven who cannot present that obedience to which life is promised. Justice has its full demands upon the represen- tative of the sinner, while grace abounds to the sinner him- self. It may be said, however, that the admission of a sub-

100 THE NECESSITY AND NATURE

stitute is itself a compromise of the strictness of justice. Without entering into the abstract question, it is sufficient for our present purpose to observe that God never contem- plated any other justification of our race than through the obedience of a federal head. This was the fundamental principle of the covenant which contains the substance of natural religion. If Adam had stood, we should all have been justified by his obedience ; as having fallen, we sinned in him, and fell with him in his first transgression. No promise of life has ever been made to man upon any other basis than that of imputed righteousness. It is nature's method, as well as the method of grace, and as natural law is admitted to be just, there is no concession nor com- promise of the eternal principles of right in laying upon Christ the iniquities of us all.

From the exposition given of this noble monument of eloquence which inspiration has transmitted to us, it may be seen what constitutes the essence of the Gospel. It is Jesus and the resurrection — Jesus dying for our sins and raised again for our justification. Where these elements are want- ing, whatever else may be found, there is no Christianity. A penal death and a perfect righteousness imputed, the one for pardon and the other for acceptance — these are things which make the Gospel glad tidings of great joy. To deny these is to deny Christ.

We may here see also that the most successful method of preaching is that which aims at thorough and radical con- victions of sin. The law must be applied with power to the conscience, or the preciousness of grace will be very inade- quately known. The superficial piety of the present day is owing, in a large degree, to feeble impressions of the malig- nity of sin. That complete breaking up of the fallow ground of the heart, that groaning under bondage, that deep sense of weakness and nothingness, which character- ized the experience of the past generation, are unsuite<l to the haste and bustle of this stirring age. The transi- tion from absolute indifference to cordial reliance upon

OF CHRISTIANITY. 101

Christ must now be made in an instant. One gush of sorrow, one leap of joy, and the work must be done. Such converts can know little of the law, little of Christ, and less of themselves. Men must be soundly iiistrp.oted by Moses if they would know the sweetness of the liberty in Christ.

PREFATORY NOTE.

In 1840, Dr. Thornwell undertook to issue at Columbia a series of tracts on the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel, being impressed with the conviction that the errors opposed to those doctrines were then " prop- agated with an industry and zeal worthy of a better cause." One of the series was Traill's " Vindication of the Protestant Doctrine of Justifica- tion, and of its Preachers and Professors, from the unjust charge of Anti- nomianism," published first in 1692 — to which he added an appendix, which appears in this collection.

Another of this series was the following discussion, from his own pen, of the Doctrines of Election and Eeprobation. He was at that time about twenty-eight years old. His treatment of these subjects is vigorous and thorough, although it may not have the majestic sweep of his later pro- ductions. It manifests, however, very strikingly his critical acumen and sound judgment in expounding Scripture — talents which he undoubtedly possessed in an extraordinary degi'ee. His subsequent studies not leading him to any special cultivation of these powers, his possession of them was

not generally known.

103

ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

WHATSOEVER the Scriptures contain was designed by the Holy Spirit for our careful study and devout meditation, and we are required to search them habitually and prayerfully, since they contain the " words of eternal life." The doctrines of the Bible cannot prove hurtful unless they are perverted by ignorance or wrested by abuse. In examining, however, the more mysterious features of revealed truth, there are two extremes widely different, but perhaps equally dangerous, into which there is hazard of running — presumptuous curiosity on the one hand, and squeamish timidity on the other. Men of inquisitive and speculative minds are apt to forget that there are limits set to human investigation and research, beyond which it is impossible to pass with safety or satisfaction. To intrude with confidence into the unrevealed secrets of God's wisdom and purpose manifests an arrogance and haughtiness of intellect which cannot fail to incur the marked disapproba- tion of Heaven, and should always meet the prompt repro- bation of the pious. Whatsoever is useful to be known God has kindly and graciously revealed, and it argues no less ingratitude than presumption to attempt to be "wise above what is written." Theology has already sufifcred greatly from the pride of hmnan intellect. Men, anxious to know more than God has thought proper to communi- cate, or secretly dissatisfied with the form in which state- ments of Divine truth are made in the Bible, have recurred to philosophy and science to improve or to explain the doc-

105

106 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

trines of revelation. Sometimes the Scriptures stop too short, and then metaphysics and logic must be called in to trace their disclosures to the secret recesses of the Eternal mind. Sometimes the Scriptures and philosophy, " falsely so called," come into collision, and then the former must go through an exegetical transformation, so as to wear the sha]3e which the latter would impress on them. All this is a wide departure from that simplicity of faith with which the Word of God should always be received. " All Scrip- ture is given by inspiration of God," and to quarrel with it, or to attempt to push our investigations beyond it, is just to quarrel with the wisdom and goodness of the Deity Himself. It is tacitly charging the Holy Sjiirit with keep- ing back from men what it is important to their happiness to know. A deep conviction of the fullness and sufficiency of the Scriptures, combined with a hearty regard for their disclosures, is the only effectual check to this presumptuous pride of intellect.

But while some thus madly attempt to overleap the bound- aries which God has set to their knowledge, others, through excessive caution, are afraid to know what the Lord has actually revealed. This squeamish timidity is no less dis- honouring to God, as it supposes that He has communicated some truths, in a moment of unlucky forgetfulness, which it would have been better to conceal, and flatly and palpa- bly contradicts the assertion of Paul that all Scripture is " profitable." If we suffer ourselves to be deterred from a fearless exposition of Divine truth by the cavils and per- versions of profane minds, we may just surrender all that constitutes the Gospel a peculiar system, and make up our minds to be content with the flimsy disclosures of Deism or the cheerless darkness of Atheism. The doctrines of the Trinity, of the incarnation of the Son, of the covenants, of imputation, etc., are all made the scoff of the impudent and the jest of the vain. Paul's doctrines were perverted to unholy purposes by the false apostles, but all their defama- tion and reproach could not make Paul ashamed of the

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 107

truth, nor afraid to preach it. " One hoof of Divine truth," says the venerable Erskine, " is not to be kept back, though a whole reprobate world should break their necks on it." " The Scripture," says Calvin, " is the school of the Holy Spirit, in which, as nothing useful or necessary to be known is omitted, so nothing is taught which it is not beneficial to know." While, then, a presumptuous curiosity, on the one hand, may not be allowed to carry us beyond the Scriptures, let not a sickly timidity, on the other, induce us to fall below them. " Let the Christian man," as Calvin again says, "open his heart and his ears to all the discourses addressed to him by God, only with this moderation, that as soon as the Lord closes His sacred mouth he also shall desist from further inquiry. This will be the best barrier of sobriety, if in learning we not only follow the leadings of God, but as soon as He ceases to teach we give up our desire of learning. It is a celebrated observation of Solo- mon, ' that it is the glory of God to conceal a thing.' But as both piety and common sense suggest that this is not to be understood generally of everything, we must seek for the proper distinction, lest we content ourselves with brutish ignorance under the pretext of modesty and sobriety. Now, this distinction is clearly expressed in a few words by Moses : ' The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children, that we may do all the words of this law.' Deut. xxix. 29. For we see how he enforces on the peo- ple attention to the doctrine of the law, only by the celes- tial decree, because it pleased God to promulgate it; and restrains the same people within those limits with this sin- gle reason, that it is not lawful for mortals to intrude into the secrets of God."

These preliminaiy remarks will not be taken ami.ss by any who are even tolerably acquainted with the state of opinion in the theological world on the great doctrine of predestination. Instead of attending to the Scriptures as a rule of infallible truth, and receiving the instructions

108 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

derived from them with implicit faith, we find some men boldly scrutinizing those secrets of infinite wisdom which God has concealed in Himself; while others of less adven- turous dispositions seem to be filled with apprehension lest the Holy Spirit has spoken indiscreetly and inculcated absolutely what should be received, only with cautions and limitations. We readily assent to the proposition in words, but the unsanctified heart makes no small opposition to it, that the Word of God is truth, and that we are bound to receive all that it contains on the authority of its Author, independently of all other considerations. We are neither to question nor to doubt, but simply to interpret and be- lieve. Philosojihy and prejudice and everything else are to yield to the voice of God speaking in His Word. It is owing to a neglect of this simple but obvious principle that views so contradictory have been held and published of the doctrine of predestination, and the necessary consequence of such inconsistency of oj)inion has been to involve the discussion of the subject in no little difiiculty and perplex- ity. In maintaining the true doctrines of the Bible, as set forth in orthodox standards, we have not only to encounter the violent, unmitigated opposition of Pelagians and Armin- ians, but the no less unwarrantable excesses of the Supra- lapsarians and Hopkinsians. While the former explain the decrees of God in such a way as to amount to a down- right denial of their certainty and sovereignty, the latter have pushed their inquiries with a censurable boldness into the hidden things which belong only to the Lord, and in their explanations of what is actually revealed have departed widely from the simplicity of the Bible. The Westminster Confession of Faith has happily avoided both these extremes of squeamish timidity and presumptuous boldness, and has exhibited, with its usual clearness and precision, the true doctrine of the Scriptures. The limits of a single tract will not allow me to enter into the broad and extensive field of the Divine decrees generally, and therefore I shall confine myself to the single feature of this

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 109

great subject presented in the inseparable doctrines of Elec- tion and Reprobation. The fixing of the eternal destiny of men and angels is but a single link in the golden chain of " God's eternal purpose, by which, according to tlie coun- sel of His own will, He freely and unchangeably ordains whatsoever comes to pass." In the discussion of this sub- ject I shall first endeavour to state clearly what the doc- trines of Election and Reprobation are, as set forth in the Standards of the Presbyterian Church. I shall next attempt to vindicate these doctrines by a candid reference to the Word of God. I shall, in the third place, refute the cavils of those who reject them, and conclude the whole with a few practical inferences.

I. From the account given in the third chapter of the Confession of Faith we deduce the following propositions, M^hich will be recognized at once as a correct statement of orthodox views: 1. Election is personal. "By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death. These men and angels thus predestinated and foreordained are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished." Sec. 3, 4. Hence, it is not an election of nations and com- munities to external privileges, but of men " particularly and unchangeably designed," and that to everlasting life, as we shall soon see more fully. 2. Man, in the decree of Election, is regarded as a fallen being. " Wherefore, they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ," etc. Sec. 6. That this is the settled opinion of the orthodox will appear yet more clearly from tlio decision of the Synod of Dort on this very point : " Election is the unchangeable purpose of God by which, before the founda- tion of the world. He did from the Avhole human race, fdlen by their oivn fault from original righteousness into a state of sin and misery, elect to salvation in Christ, according to the good pleasure of His own will, out of His mere free grace,

110 ELECTION AND EEPROBATION.

a certain number of individuals, neither better than others nor more worthy of His favour, but involved with others in a common ruin."^ This was likewise the opinion of Calvin and Turrettin and the leading divines of the Seces- sion Church of Scotland, such as the Erskines and Fisher and Boston. 3. It is an election to everlasting life, and includes all the means which the Scriptures lay down for accomplishing this glorious end. " As God has appointed the elect unto glory, so hath He, by the eternal and most free purpose of His will, foreordained all the means there- unto. Wherefore, they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ ; are effectually called unto faith in Christ by His Spirit working in due season ; are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by His power through faith unto salvation." Sec. 6. 4. This election of individuals of Adam's fallen race to everlasting life was made from eter- nity. In proof of this there needs no appeal to any particular portion of the chapter, for it is either definitely stated or clearly implied from the first section to the last. 5. It is absolute or wholly irrespective of works, having no other originating or impulsive cause than the mere good pleasure of God's will. " Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, hath chosen in Christ, unto everlasting glory, out of His mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions or causes moving Him thereunto; and all to the praise of His glorious grace." Sec. 5. In regard to Reprobation, the Confession teaches the following particulars: 1. The individuals reprobated are guilty and polluted, "being by nature the children of wrath." This follows from the fact that the reprobate, equally with the elect, "are fallen in Adam;" and in Section 7th, God is said to " pass by and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath ^ Article vii.

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. HI

for their sin." 2. God passes them by or refuses to elect them, and leaves them in that state of misery and ruin into which, by their own fault, they had plunged themselves. 3. He dooms them to the deserved punishment of their sins in the world to come by a righteous act of vindicatory justice. 4. In the decree of reprobation God acts absolutely. He passes by one and elects another only from His own good pleasure ; but in inflicting and pronouncing the sentence of death, He acts as a righteous Judge in consigning the wicked to deserved punishment. In other words, none but a sinner can be a suitable subject of reprobation, and men are repro- bated only as sinners ; but one man is passed by and another elected, not because one was a greater sinner than the other, but because God saw fit to do so. All these points are em- braced in Section 7. "The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of His own will, whereby He extendeth or withholdeth mercy as He pleaseth, for the glory of His sovereign power over His creatures, to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath for their sin, to the praise of His glorious justice."

Of this tremendous doctrine, therefore, which has been the prolific subject of so much vituperation and abuse — which has supplied a theme of ranting declamation to many a strip- ling theologian, who, when all other subjects filled him, could fill out his allotted time and entertain his hearers by running a tilt against Calvin's ghost — which has made the knees of many a strong man shake and blanched the cheek of many an ignorant zealot with terror, — of this tremendous, this "horrible" doctrine, wdiich has been rei^resented as so revolting to every thing like reason. Scripture or common sense, this then is the sum: Man, having by wilful and deliberate transgression sinned against God, justly fell under His wrath and curse. All men, regularly descended from Adam, became " children of wrath, alienated from tlie life of God," and utterly destitute of original righteousness. The consequence was that sentence of condemnation actually passed upon all men. Unless we are prepared to (piestion

112 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

or impugn the stainless justice of God, we must admit that this sentence, thus solemnly passed upon the race, was a righteous sentence. Out of this race of guilty and polluted sinners, thus justly condemned, God graciously and eternally elected some to life and happiness and glory, while He left the rest in their state of wretchedness and ruin, and determined to inflict upon them the punishment which they justly deserved. The reason why He elected some and passed by others, when all were equally undeserving, is to be referred wholly to Himself — to the counsel of His own will or to His mere good pleasure.

I have been thus particular in deducing a plain statement of this doctrine from the Standards of the Church, because it is so difficult to meet with any fair or consistent account of it from writers who oppose it. They indulge too freely in the merest caricatures, or deduce their whole views from dis- located and disjointed expressions of Calvin! stic divines. It M^ould be no hard matter to show, by quotations from Calvin and Turrettin and the published Confessions of the Reformed Churches, that the statement just given is a fair exposition of the views which have usually been regarded as orthodox from the period of the Reformation until now. That there have been men who have overleaped the bounds of sobriety and modesty, and have consequently lost themselves in the mists of Supralapsarian and Hopkinsian error, need not and will not be denied ; but then their excesses are no more to be regarded as the genuine doctrines of Calvinistic churches than the wild speculations of Clarke on the Sonship of Clirist and the omniscience of God as the genuine doctrines of the Wesleyan Methodists. In ascertaining the doctrines of a Church, we must appeal to her standards ; and having done so in this instance, and given, in the words of the Confession, the precise position of the Presbyterian Church, I proceed to show that her views are scriptural.

II. Widely as men may differ in their views of predesti- nation, it is generally conceded by all who profess any rever- ence for the Word of God that there is an election, of some

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 113

sort, to eternal life made known in the Scriptures. But there is much violent and bitter opposition to that account of it which j^laces a crown of absolute sovereignty on the head of Jehovah, and prostrates man in entire de[)endence upon His will. In deducing the scriptural argument, I shall endeavour to arrange the texts under the several heads, or rather upon the separate points, made out in the explana- tion or statement of the doctrine from the Confession of Faith.

1. First, then, election is i^ersonal; that is, it is a choice of individuals, from the corrupt mass of our fallen race, to everlasting life. I am far from intending to insinuate that in every instance in which words expressive of election are used in the Scriptures a personal election to eternal life must of course be understood. On the contrary, it is freely ad- mitted that the Scriptures speak of the choice of nations to peculiar privileges, of the choice of individuals to particular offices, and of the choice of Christ to the mediatorial work. All this is fully conceded, but yet there are passages which cannot, wdthout unwarrantable violence, be interpreted in any other way than as teaching the doctrine of personal election to eternal life. " According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love." Eph. i. 4. Here election is expressly said to be personal — " hath chosen us," that is, Paul himself and the Christians at Ephesus, The epistle is directed to " the saints which are at Ephesus, and the faithful in Christ Jesus." i. 1. Here then is not an election of nations or communities to external privileges, but an election of individuals to everlasting life. In verses 5, 6, 7, 11 we have a more particular view of the blessing which they received in consequence of their election, and which cannot, by any ingenuity of criticism, be plausibly distorted into national advantages. " Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by JTesus Christ, to Him- self," etc. ; and again, " In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to tli- Vol. II.— 8

114 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

riches of His grace." Those, therefore, to whom Paul was writing were "saiuts, faithful in Christ Jesus, adopted to be sons, redeemed and forgiven," and all these privileges he traced to the election of which he was speaking. Are there any so blind as not to see that these are saving bless- ings, and that those who were addressed as possessing them were indlolduaU and not communities or nations ? But it lias been said that Paul could not know that the whole Church at Ephesus were elect. To this it may be readily replied that Paul does not say so. He sufficiently desig- nates the individuals of whom 'he was speaking by the characteristics noticed above. Macknight, always anxious to fritter away the peculiar features of the Gospel, tells us in his note on the fourth verse tliat the election here spoken of is "that election which before tlie foundation of the world God made of holy persons of all nations to be His children and people, and to enjoy the blessing promised to such." Upon this singular note it is enough for my pres- ent purpose to remark — (1.) That it sufficiently admits the fact that the election here spoken of is personal. But (2.) that it was not, however, an election of " holy persons," but an election to be holy, " that we might be holy and without blame before Him in love." (3.) That these Ephe- sians, previously to their acceptance of the Gospel, were " dead in trespasses and sins, walked according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience," etc. ii. 1-3. They could not possibly, therefore, have been elected as "holy persons," seeing that they were utterly destitute of all pretensions to holiness.

I might here refer to the cases of Ishmael and Isaac and of Esau and Jacob adduced by the Apostle in the ninth chapter of Pomans as examples, respectively, of personal election and righteous reprobation. These cases are conclusive on the point. The attempts of Socinian and Arminian writers to pervert that celebrated chapter from its natural and obvious

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 115

meaning will be considered sufficiently in another part of this discussion.

2. The second point to be proved is, that man in the decree of election was regarded as a fallen bemg. Three opinions have been maintained by divines as to the light in which he was looked upon in this decree. The first is that of the Supralapsarians ; the second, that of our Standards ; and the third, that of the Arrainians and Remonstrants at the Synod of Dort. The Supralapsarians take their name from the fact that in the decree of election and reprobation they suppose that God regarded man not even as yet created, or only as created and not as fallen. They, consequently, look upon the creation and fall as only intermediate steps through which man was to pass in accomplishing this great decree. To this scheme there are insuperable objections — (1.) The very ideas of election and reprobation suppose man to be involved already in a state of sin and misery. While in a state of holiness in their covenant head all men were regarded as equally righteous, and equally shared in their Maker's approbation. The fall, therefore, must take place before such a distinction could be made as this doctrine supposes ; I mean that God in the counsels of eternity must have looked upon man as lost and ruined, since otherwise a determination to save some, and to leave others in their wretchedness and ruin, could not be expressed without a " solecism in language," and much less " conceived without confusion of thought." The very idea of salvation implies misery, and a determination to save implies a view or knowledge of that misery. It is plain, then, that sin and misery, in the individuals elected and reprobated, is an indispensable prerequisite. It might be objected here that in the case of the angels who stood election did not sup- pose a fall ; but I would answer that the cases are not par- allel. It was not a decree to save the angels from sin, but from sinning, and therefore they could be regarded only as liable to fall. But in the case immediately before us there is a decree to save men from a state of guilt and ruiu, and

116 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

yet they are not involved in guilt and ruin ! (2.) If it be maintained that man is not even regarded as created, we are thrown into still more perplexing absurdity. It is hard to conceive how a being not yet created can become the subject of such a decree at all. The decree of creation must be first in order of nature, or election and reprobation will be concerned not about men, but nonentities. (3.) What is said of this doctrine in the Scriptures is usually referred to the mercy and justice of God. The elect are monuments erected to the " praise of the glory of His grace," and the reprobate are "vessels of wrath," or of righteous and just displeasure ; but how this could be said Avhen man had not yet become obnoxious to God's justice, nor had yet been in a situation of wretchedness to require His mercy, it is hard to conceive. Sin is that alone which renders man a proper object of reprobation, and misery is the proper object of mercy. For these reasons — and many others might be adduced — I am led to regard the Supralapsarian scheme as untenable and false. The whole current of Scripture testimony is in favour of the doctrine of our Standards, commonly called Sublapsarianism. " I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." John xv. 19. The elect here are the objects of the Divine choice while belonging to the Avorld, and the world means corrupt and fallen man, as is plain from its hating the righteous and godly. We are said to be " chosen in Christ" — that is, to be redeemed and saved by Him — which implies that when chosen we are guilty and polluted. Again : " Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour?" Rom. ix. 21. That the lump here rep- resents corrupt and ruined human nature is plain from the following considerations which I translate from Turrettin : "1. It is the lump from which vessels of mercy and wrath are formed — one for honour, the other for dishonour, but wrath and mercy necessarily suppose sin and misery. 2. It is the same lumjD from which Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 117

and Esau are taken, who are brought forward, respectively, as examples of gratuitous election and of righteous and free reprobation. This must be the corrupt mass of human nature, because the Apostle speaks of Jacob and Esau as twins conceived in the womb, and therefore as sinners." It is no valid objection that the children are represented as having done neither good nor evil, for this is manifestly to be understood comparatively. Jacob had done no good and Esau no evil which caused the one to be preferred and the other rejected. It was not Jacob's being better than Esau, nor Esau's being worse than Jacob, whicli induced God to elect the one and reject the other.

The " vessels of wrath" (Rom. ix. 23) are represented as being " fitted for destruction" during the time that (rod bears with them in great patience and long-suffering, which seems to be inconsistent with the idea that they could have been " vessels of wTath" before they yet became " fitted for destruction" by sin and depravity. But, probably, the most pointed and remarkable passage on this subject is Ezek. xvi. 6 : " But when I passed by thee, and saw thee pol- luted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood. Live ; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood. Live." Here the elect, of whom Jerusalem was a symbol, are represented bj^ the figure of a filthy and out- cast infant, finding from none either sympathy or aid, but so loathsome in its person as to be abandoned in the " open field" the very cla}^ on which it was born. Verses 4, 5. The Lord represents Himself as looking upon this wretched infant thus polluted in its blood with an eye of compassion, and commanding it to " live." Ver. 6. Effectual calling cannot be intended by the word " live" here, because in effectual calling the soul is married to Christ, but in tliis passage the elect are represented as not yet of a marriage- able age. Therefore the word must denote only God's xnir- pose to save, and the passage thus interpreted slunvs conclu- sively in what light the elect are regarded in the decree of election. This interpretation will probably be confirmed by

118 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

considering this verse in connection with the two following. In verse 7, God describes the growth of this miserable infant until it became a marriageable woman. " 1 have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field ; thou hast increased and waxen great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments ; thy breasts are fashioned, and thine hair is grown, w'hereas thou wast naked and bare." The infant, having thus become a young woman and of marriageable age, the marriage or the union of the elect with Christ in effectual calling is celebrated in verse 8 : " Now Avhen I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold thy time was the time of love, and I spread my skirt over thee, and cov- ered thy nakedness ; yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saitli the Lord God, and thou becamest mine." Here, then, we have much the same view of the inseparable connection between election and vocation which Paul gives us in the 8th of Romans, and here it is clearly demonstrated that men are elected in that state from which they are called, which is a state of sin, condemnation and misery. The views of the Arminians, who suppose that man is regarded as believing or unbelieving in the decree of election and reprobation, will be refuted in another part of this discussion.

3. It is an election to everlasting life or salvation. " But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, breth- ren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the begin- ning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." 2 Thess. ii. 13. " For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Thess. v. 9. In both these texts the word salvation is probably used in reference to the state of glory beyond the grave. The first text is peculiarly forcible. The Apostle had been giving a graphic and appall- ing account of the revelation of the "man of sin," through whose seductive influence many souls would be led to reject the truth and be given over to judicial blindness, and finally be damned. Such statements as these were well calculated to

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 119

alarm the faithful, esi^ecially weak believers. The Apostlf therefore shows in the text cited that there is no ground of apprehension to the real children of God ; they are chosen to salvation, and therefore cannot come short of it. In order that the Thessalonian Christians might be able to receive the comfort of this truth, that the elect are abso- lutely safe, he points out the marks of election or the evi- dences of it — " sanctification oi" the Spirit and belief of the truth." The second text is equally clear. The Apostle is exhorting the Thessalonians to a diligent discharge of Chris- tian duty. He had urged the unexpectedness of the Lord's coming as one motive, and presents another in the text 1 have quoted, and that is the certainty of success. Tiu; Lord has destined us to salvation ; we can therefore dis- charge our Christian duties in confidence and hope. The election of God is a sufficient security against disappoint- ment. The word salvation, however, is not always used in this sense when applied to the elect. In fact, it is a word of extensive signification, including in the language of Scripture what we commonly mean by grace and glory. Many of the absurd consequences which have been rashly and intemperately charged upon the doctrine of election would vanish at once before a correct apprehension of the true nature of eternal life. It is a common but erroneous opinion that the ha]i]iiness of heaven is tliat alone which the Scriptures designate by this phrase, and those who enter- tain this error generally have crude conceptions of what constitutes the blessedness of glory. A slight acquaintance with the Bible, however, will show us that all believers even in this world are in actual and irreversible possession of eternal life. " My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and I give unto them eternal life.'' "He that hath the Son hath life:' That life which is implanted in the soul in regeneration, which is developed in sanctification and completed in glory, is what the Scriptures call eternal life-, and it is called eternal because l)y the grace of God it is absolutely imperishable. There are not wanting passages

120 ELECTION AND flEPROBATION.

of Scripture in which the word life is used in its full lati- tude of meaning : " I am the living bread which came down from heaven ; if any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever." John vi. 51, 57.

The scriptural meaning of salvation is deliverance from the curse, power and love of sin. The word in general implies deliverance from evil, but it is always, in the Bible, positive as well as negative, and imports the bestowment of a corresponding good. The blind, when healed by our Saviour, are said to be saved — that is, they are delivered from the evil of blindness, and receive the corresponding blessing of sight. So sinners are said to be saved by Christ, because through "the faith of Him" they are delivered from the evils of their natural state, and receive the bless- ings of a gracious state. Were it possible that a man who had obtained the forgiveness of sin should afterw^ard fail of the blessedne&s of heaven, there is no assignable sense in which it could be said that he was saved. If there be any difference in the spiritual import of the words salvation and life, it would seem to be this, that the former has a more pointed reference to the evils from which we are delivered by grace, and the latter to the benefits of which we become partakers. It is true that these words are not always used in their fullest latitude, but are sometimes confined to one and sometimes to another feature of the general meaning. This, however, is a strong j^roof of the inseparable connec- tion between grace and glory. In accordance with these remarks it may be observed — (1.) That salvation implies pardon and gratuitous acceptance. Luke i, 77: "To give knowledge of salvation unto His people by the remission of their sins." The original is, " in the remission of their sins" — that is, when our sins are pardoned we become par- takers of salvation. Luke xix. 9 : " This day is salvation (•(mie to this house." Whatever else the word may mean here, pardon of sin must be one of the blessings which Jesus conferred on Zaccharus. The curse of the law is what the

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 121

Scriptures mean by the " wrath to come," and uo one can doubt that deliverance from this forms an important cle- ment of salvation. But we are delivered from the curse and covenant claims of the law in our gratuitous justifica- tion and pardon. (2.) Salvation implies regeneration and progressive sanctification, or the production and development of the new nature. Titus iii. 5 : " Not by works of right- eousness Avhich ^^'e have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost." Here the washing or cleansing of regeneration, which is explained to be the renewing of the Holy Ghost, is in so many words stated to be an element of salvation. Jesus received His name by the express and solemn appointment of God, because He should " save His people from their sins." The spiritual life which the Holy Spirit communicates in regeneration, and fosters and strengthens in sanctification, is of the same nature, though different in degree and the circumstances of its exercise, with the life of glory at God's right hand. The one is represented as an earnest of the other, and an earnest must be of the same kind with that of which it is an earnest. If, then, eternal blessedness is a part of our salvation, tlie new nature here necessarily must be. All, therefore, who are elected to salvation are elected to sanctification in the full scriptural extent of that word. Hence, the Apostle says that we are chosen, " that we might be holy and without blame before Him in love." Eph. i. 4. Hence, the Thessa- lonians are said to be " chosen to salvation through sancti- fication of the Spirit and belief of the truth ;" and hence, it is said, " We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." Eph. ii. 10. (3.) Salvation implies the blessedness of heaven. This is such a common and familiar use of the term that we need not waste time in adducing texts.

From this short examination of the scriptural meaning of two words in very common use, we have seen that the

122 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

Standards of the Church have adhered closely to the Word of God in resolving election to salvation into election to all the privileges of redemption in this world as ^vell as the world to come. Salvation is one great whole, and Avherever it begins to exist it takes hold upon eternity. The blessed- ness of heaven is the result of election ; so is personal holi- ness on earth — the grand preparative for glory ; so is faith in the Lord Jesus — the great shield by which sin and Satan are effectually subdued. It would be a monstrous conception to suppose that men were elected to salvation, and yet not elected to a certain employment of the means by which alone salvation is secured. The Scriptures shqw conclu- sively— (1.) That effectual calling is the fruit of election. 2 Tim. i. 9 : " Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." Kom. viii. 30 : " More- over, whom He did predestinate them He also called." (2.) As a matter of course, faith is the fruit of election. Eph. ii. 8: It is called the "gift of God." Phil. i. 29: " Unto you it is given to believe on Christ." Col. ii. 12 : "Buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God who hath raised Him from the dead." Heb. xii. 2 : Jesus is regarded as " the Author and Finisher of our faith." 1 Cor. xii. 9 : " To another, faith by the same Sj^irit," and saving faith is spoken of distinctively as the faith of " God's elect." (3.) But perhaps the most conclusive scriptural authoritv that all the blessings of redemption are included in election to eternal life is to be found in Romans viii. 29, 30 : " For whom He did foreknow He also did predestinate to be con- formed to the image of His Son, that he might be the first- born among many brethren. Moreover, whom He did pre- destinate, them He also called, and whom He called, them He also justified, and whom He justified, them He also glo- rified." In these verses we have — 1st, the election of God or His determination to save a chosen number : " AVhom

ELECTION AND EEPEOBATION. 123

He did foreknow." The couiiection of this verse with the preceding, and of this clause with the succeeding;, sufficiently determines the meaning of the word " foreknow." Those who are said to be called in verse 29 are called accordinji; to God's " purpose/' and in this verse their calling is coupled with God's foreknowledge. To foreknow, there- fore, is to purpose or determine, or, what in this connection is just the same, to choose. This is a common and familiar meaning of the word. Horn. ii. 2 ; 1 Pet. i. 20. 2dly. -We have the purpose of God to render them holy : " He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son," etc. Those whom He elected He determined to sanctify, to make holy even as Christ was holy. 3dly. We have the steps of the actual accomplishment of this decree : " Whom He did predestinate, them He also called ;" that is, by the word of the Gospel, and the efficacious operation of the Spirit, He brings them into saving union with Christ, that so they may be conformed to His image. This is the com- mon and familiar acceptation of the word in the writings of Paul. 1 Cor. i. 9, 24, etc. 4thly. We have the justifi- cation and final and complete salvation of those who were foreknown: "Whom He called, them He also justified, and whom He justified, them He also glorified." Being united to Christ in their effectual calling, they become partakers of His righteousness and grace, by which their justification, sanctification and glorification are infallibly secured. From this celebrated passage we see that " election, calling, justi- fication and salvation are indissolubly united."

4. Election to everlasting life or salvation is eternal. Whatsoever purposes God now has, or ever will have, in regard to the destiny of men, He always has had. It Avould be a serious and dangerous detraction from the glory of the Divine unchangeableness to suppose that exigencies can arise in the government of the world calling for a change of the Divine purposes, or for a new and unexpected course of Providence. " Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world." Acts xv. 18. His all-seeing

124 ELECTION AND REPROBATION. '

eye brings all possible events within the light of a present and infallible omniscience. What He is now He was from all eternity, and will continnc to be the same everlastingly. Succession of time can only be applied to Him in accom- modation to our weak capacities, since all things past and future are " naked and opened to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." But while, owang to the simplicity and eternity of the Divine nature, there cannot be con- cei-^d in God a succession of time, nor consequently various and successive decrees, yet we may justly speak of His decrees as prior or posterior in point of nature. Though they all constitute but one eternal act of the Divine will, the objects about which they are concerned are connected with each other by various relations, and the decrees them- selves may be spoken of in a language accommodated to these diversified relations. In ordinary life we often see effects and causes coexistent in point of time, yet since a cause is prior to an effect in the order of nature, we usually speak of it as prior in point of time. Upon the same prin- ciple w^e speak of God's decrees in language borrowed from the relations which the objects of the decrees sustain to each other, though to His mind all things are "naked" and present. Hence, all the decrees of God are absolutely eter- nal, but the Scriptures speak of the eternity of election with marked and pointed emphasis : " According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world," etc. Eph. i. 4, " According to His own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." 2 Tim. i. 9. " Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world." Acts xv. 18.

5. The next point in the statement is the sovereignty of election, and here we enter upon that peculiar view of the doctrine which renders it so unpalatable to the carnal heart. There is, in all unrenewed minds, a scarcely acknowledged but secretly felt persuasion that God can be conciliated or brought under obligations to be propitious by their own legal perform- ances. Men are unwilling to admit that their case is hope-

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 125

less without the intervention of sovereign mercy ; tlioy will not believe until persuaded to it by the Holy Spirit that they neither do nor can have any claims upon God, that they are just " vessels of wrath fitted for destruction," in themselves considered, and that the only ground of Divine favour is in the Divine Being Himself. But all our leo-al bias and propensities must be carefully dismissed while we attend with impartial ears to the testimony of Inspiration. What say the Scriptures ? for ^vhatever they say must bo the truth. But before entering directly upon the Scripture testimony, it may be well to give a brief view of the senti- ments of the Arminians, who, as Turrettin too justly remarks, "recall Popery and Pelagiauism by the back door." They suspend the decree of personal election upon a foresight of faith and perseverance in holiness, and resolve both of these, in great measure, into a good use of the sin- ner's free will. " They make," says Turrettin, " the decree of election twofold : the first is general, being God's purpose to save all believers ; the second is special, being His purpose to save such and such individuals who. He foresaw, M'oidd believe. The first they resolve entirely into the will of God ; the second, though founded in the Divine will, attiichcs so much importance to faith as to make it the reason why one is elected and another not." The question between us and the Arminians respects simply the cause of election in the Divine mind — whether the decree is wholly uncondi- tional, depending upon the mere good pleasure of God's will, or whether it is suspended upon a foresight of fiiith and perseverance in the creature. We do not deny that the decree of election includes the instrumentality of means in its accomplishment, and that faith and good works are indis- pensably necessary to its execution or fulfilment, but we do deny that faith, perseverance, good works, or any other thing in the creature, was the cause or reason why God elected one and passed by another; and we confidently appeal to the Scriptures of eternal truth to bear us out in our positions. (1.) Faith is uniformly represented in the Bible as the

126 ELECTION AND REPROBATION,

fruit or effect of election, and therefore cannot possibly be the cause of it. This point has already been fully estab- lished in the previous discussion of the nature of eternal life or salvation. It was there shown that a decree to save must mean a decree to bestow all the blessings of redemp- tion, from the implantation of a new nature in regeneration to its full development in a state of glory. Having, then, already anticipated this point, I shall now dismiss it with only a few additional texts : " As many as were ordained to eternal life believed." Acts xiii. 48. It is the merest quibbling to interpret the ordination here of a disposition to believe, and it would probably puzzle those who do so to tell us whence the disj^osition arose. The word generally means " ordained or apjjointed," and accordingly these indi- viduals are said to have believed because they were appointed to salvation. This is the natural and obvious meaning of the passage. ■ " All that the Father giveth me shall come to me." John vi. 37. To come to Christ means to believe on Him, and faith is in this passage attributed by the Saviour Himself to election. Others did not believe because they were not of Christ's sheep ; those who do believe must trace their faith to the sovereign goodness of God. The passage teaches us, moreover, that all who are given to Christ certainly shall believe, thus evidently throwing election farther back than faith. The truth then plainly is, that election is the cause of faith, and not faith of election.

(2.) This scheme, which suspends election upon foreseen faith and perseverance, amounts to a downright denial of the doctrine altogether, or, if there be any choice in the case at all, it is the sinner choosing God, and not God the sinner. Arminians represent faith and perseverance as prescribed conditions of salvation. The man, therefore, who complies with the conditions obtains the blessing promised upon a principle very different from that of election. It is an abuse of language to say that an individual under these circum- stances is chosen to receive the blessing. The executive of

ELECTI(3N AND REPHOBATION. 127

the country issues a proclamation in wliich he offers a great reward to any individual who shall apprehend a notorious malefactor fleeing from justice. Some citizens do appre- hend him and claim the reward. Is there any propriety in saying that they were elected to the reward? Nor would it affect the principle involved in the case at all to suppose that the executive knew beforehand precisely what indi- viduals would apprehend the* criminal. The Arminians, therefore, charge the Apostles and our Saviour Himself with an outrageous abuse and perversion of language when they represent them as using plain and familiar words in an acceptation which they cannot bear. There is much weight in the following remark of Turrettin : " If election depend upon foreseen faith, God cannot elect man, but man chooses God, and so predestination should rather be called post- destination — the first cause becomes the second, and God becomes dependent upon man, which is false and contrary to the nature of things, and Christ Himself testifies, 'ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.'" John xv. 16.

(3.) The Scriptures in so many words refer the cause of election to the sovereign pleasure of God, independently of any considerations derived from the creature. Eph. i. 5, 11 : " Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will; in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own loilV^ 2 Tim. i. 9 : " Who hath saved us and called us with an holy call- ing, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." Titus iii. 5 : " Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us," etc. These Scriptures require no com- ment; they are so plain and unambiguous that he who runs may read.

But the ninth chapter of tlie Epistle to the Romans is in a great measure a professed exposition of the absolute sove-

128 ELECTION AND EEPROBATION.

reignty of God in selecting the objects of His favour. Pelagians and Arminians have laboured diligently but unsuccessfully to neutralize tlie testimony of the Apostle in that chapter, and they have been somewhat encouraged by the partial concurrence of a few Calvinistic commentators in their views. They maintain that the Apostle is not speaking of a personal election to eternal life, but merely of a national election to external privileges — not of Jacob and Esau as individuals, but of their respective descendants as communities or nations. This interpretation rests princi- pally upon the quotations from the Old Testament which Paul applies to the discussion, aud upon a gratuitous assump- tion that Esau did not serve Jacob. The first passage of any great importance in the discussion is talvcn from Gene- sis XXV. 23 : " Two nations are within thy womb, and the one people shall be stronger than the other people, and the elder shall serve the younger." Macknight, in his second note on Romans ix. 11, remarks: "The Apostle, according to his manner, cites only a few words of the passage on which his argument is founded, but I have inserted the whole in the commentary, to show that Jacob and Esau are not spoken of as individuals, but as representing the two nations springing from them — ' Two nations are in thy womb,' etc. — and that the election of which the Apostle speaks is not an election of Jacob to eternal life, but of his posterity to be the visible Church and people of God on earth, and heirs of the promises in their first and literal meaning, agreeably to what Moses declared. Dent. vii. 6, 7, 8, and Paul preached, Acts. xiii. 17. That this is the election here spoken of appears from the following circum- stances : 1. It is neither said, nor is it true of Jacob and Esau personally, that the elder served the younger. This is only true of their posterity. 2. Though Esau had served Jacob personally, and had been inferior to him in worldly great- ness, it would have been no proof at all of Jacob's election to eternal life, nor of Esau's reprobation. As little was the subjection of the Edomites to the Israelites in David's days

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 129

a proof of the election and reprobation of their prot>;enitors. 3. The apostle's professed purpose in this discourse being to show that an election being bestowed on Jacob's posterity by God's free gift might either be taken from them, or others might be admitted to share therein with them, it is evidently not an election to eternal life, which is never taken away, but an election to external privileges only. 4. This being an election of the whole posterity of Jacob, and a reprobation of the whole descendants of Esau, it can only mean that the nation which was to spring from Esau should be subdued by the nation which was to spring from Jacob, and that it should not, like the nation springing from Jacob, be the Church and people of God, nor be entitled to the possession of Canaan, nor give birth to the Seed in whom all the families of the earth were to be blessed. 5. The circumstance of Esau's being older than Jacob was very properly taken notice of, to show that Jacob's election was contrary to the right of primogeniture, because this circum- stance proved it to be from pure favour. But if his elec- tion had been to eternal life, the circumstance of his age ought not to have been mentioned, because it had no rela- tion to that matter whatever." The next leading passage which Paul quotes is taken from Exodus xxxiii. 19 : "And He said I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee, and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy to whom I will show mercy." " Here," says Macknight, " mercy is not an eternal pardon granted to individuals, but the receiving of a nation into favour after being displeased with it ; for these words were sjsoken to Moses after God had laid aside His purpose of consuming tlie Israelites for their sin in making and worshipping the golden calf" " It is a notorious fact," says Bishop Sumner,' "though often overlooked in argument, that the very passage, ' I \\ill have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have com- passion on whom I will have compassion,' which is almost 1 Apostolic Preaching, p. 36. Vol. II.— 9

130 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

the only support claimed from St. Paul to the system of absolute decrees, is quoted from Exodus, autl forms the assurance revealed by God Himself to Moses that He had separated the Hebrew nation from all the people on the face of the earth." The next quotation is from Exodus ix. 16 : " And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to show in thee mv power, and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth. In reference to this, Macknight observes : " Though Pharaoh alone was spoken to, it is evi- dent that this and everything else spoken to him in the affair of the plague was designed for the Egyptian nation in gene- ral, as we learn from Exodus iv. 22 : * Say unto Pharaoh, thus saith the Lord,' Israel is my son, even my first-born/ 23 : ' And I say unto thee, let my son go that he may serve me, and if thou refusest to let him go, behold I will slay thy son, even thy first-born.' For, as Israel here signi- fies the nation of the Israelites, so Pharaoh signifies the na- tion of the Egyptians, and Pharaoh's son, even his first-born, is the first-born of Pharaoh and of the Egyptians. In like manner, Exodus ix. 15: 'I will stretch out my hand that I may smite thee and thy people with pestilence, and thou shalt be cut oflP from the earth ;' that is, thou and thy peo- ple shall be cut off, for the pestilence was to fall on the peo- ple as well as on Pharaoh. Then follow the words quoted by the apostle, verse 16: 'And in very deed,' etc. Now, as no person can suppose that the power of God was to be shown in the destruction of Pharaoh singly, but in the destruction of him and his people, this that was spoken to Pharaoh was spoken to him and to the nation of which he was the head."

I have thus given above, and mostly in the words of Macknight, the very marrow and pith of the Arminian argument. The notes which I have quoted contain the sum and substance of the more expanded observations of Sumner and Adam Clarke, who have laboured in the per- version of this celebrated chapter with a diligence and zeal worthy of a better cause. It will be seen at once that the

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 131

principle upon wliich their reasoning proceeds Is wholly gratuitous and false. They settle what they suppose to be the meaning of a passage in the Old Testament, and then determine that it cannot be used in any other sense in the New. Let the principle be tested by a reference to Matt, ii. 15, where Jaseph is said to have departed into Egypt, *' that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son." This last clause is clearly a quotation from Hosoa xi. 1, where it has a manifest allusion to the children of Israel as a people or nation : " When Israel was a child then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt^" Upon the princi- ple of interpretation on which Macknight proceeds the 1 5th verse of the second chapter of Matthew cannot refer to the Lord Jesus Christ, because the passage in Hosea will not bear that meaning ; but every one sees from the context that it must and does refer to Christ, no matter what may be the meaning of the original passage in the Prophet, And so, if the scope and drift of the Epistle to the Romans shoAV that Paul is discussing the question of a personal election to eternal life, no matter what may be the meaning of the original passages in Genesis and Exodus, the Apostle applies them to the subject before him. It is true that where an appeal is made to the Old Testament to confinn a truth delivered by an Evangelist or an Apostle, the words cannot be accommodated, but must be quoted in their original sense ; but it is equally true that the language of the Old Testa- ment is often used by the writers of the Xew, just as we use the language of writers who have gone before us in the way of illustration and ornament. In such cases we may warrantably employ the language in a sense different from that in which it was originally used. It is certainly incumbent upon the Arminians therefore to show not only that the original passages quoted by Paul have reference to nations and not to individuals, but also to show that Paul has actually applied the passages in the identical sense of Moses. Their point is not gained by proving the first proposition with-

132 ELECTION AND EEPROBATIOX,

out also proving the last. Besides all this, they must show that these passages are not referred to as containing unde- niable proofs of a principle which was suited to the point in hand. So far from attempting to show this, Arminian com- mentators universally concede that God is sovereiLfn in the distribution of national privileges; in other words, they admit the principle that God does distribute some blessings with- out respect to the character or works of individuals. May not Paul have been quoting the passages from the Old Testa- ment merely because they teach this principle so peculiarly appropriate to the subject in hand ? May not his reasoning have been something like this ? — " We see that there is no injustice in God's bestowing peculiar blessings on some and rejecting others, because from His word that appears to be a principle of His government — a well-settled and established principle. He declares that He is not influenced by the merit of individuals, but by His own will. If this prin- ciple extend to the distribution of favours upon earth, there is no reason why it should not extend to the bestowment of eternal blessings. There are the same objections to the principle in the one case as in the other ; and yet if God declares that He does act upon it in the one case, we infer from His unchangeablencss that He must act upon it in the other. The difficulty lies, not against the character of the blessings bestowed, but against the sovereign nature of the choice." I can easily conceive that Paul might have applied the quotations from the Old Testament to the case of per- sonal election, merely because they contain the principle, and the whole principle, upon which personal election depends. It is obvious, then, that even upon the supposition that the passages from Genesis and Exodus are correctly interpreted, it is not proved that Paul is not speaking in the ninth of Romans of personal election to eternal life. The point which Paul has in hand must be gathered, not from the writings of Moses, but from the scope and design of his own Epistle, and it only shoAvs how hardly pressed the Arminians are when they overlook one of the simplest and

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 133

most obvious rules of interpretation in order to avoid the truths which Paul so clearly teaches.

[1.] I am not prepared, however, to admit, though I believe Arminians would gain nothing by the admission, that the passages in the Old Testament refer exclusively to nations. On the contrary, I think that they manifestly teach a distinction between individuals as the ground of the dis- tinction between nations. A careful examination of Genesis XXV. 23 will put this matter beyond all reasonable doubt. Rebecca, while pregnant, and probably somewhat adv^anced in pregnancy, seems to have felt a strange and unusual agita- tion in her womb, arising from the violent conflict of the twins, and, perplexed with a very natural anxiety, she con- sulted the Lord for instruction and relief. It is obvious that the contest of the brothers in the womb was altogetlier an extraordinary event, and was the certain presage of tlie future animosity which should distract and divide their descendants. The distinction between the nations, then, seems to have commenced in the womb. The answer of the Lord to Rebecca is decisive on this point : " Two nations are within thy womb;" that is, the children which are in thy womb shall become each the father of a nation. " And two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels ; " that is, two distinct and separate nations shall spring from the twins. Now, here the separation is said to take place from Rebecca's " bowels ; " that is, from the children which were then in her womb. This teaches as plainly as language can teach that the distinction between the Edomites and Israelites supposed a previous distinction between Jacob and Esau as individuals. This again is confirmed by the unam- biguous and pointed testimony of Malachi, who represents (iod's love to the Israelites as originating with God's love to Jacob as an individual. Besides, it is common in the Scriptures to trace the grace of God toward the Jews to His love for their fathers : " as touching the election, they are beloved for their fathers' sake." Rom. xi. 25. There is no violence, therefore, in applying this passage of Genesis to a

134 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

distinction between Jacob and Esau as individuals; for it docs teach such a distinction, and it is in this sense alone that Pavil has quoted it : " For the children, being not yet born/' etc. v. 11. Here is nothing about nations, but chil- dren. But we are tokl that Esau never did serve Jacob, and therefore the passage cannot possibly apply to them as individuals. It may be answered that Jacob did obtain the birth-right, Avhich was the blessing promised, and that Esau did upon several occasions acknowledge his inferiority to his brother. This was the spirit of the prophecy in regard to the individuals, though it had a fuller accomplishment in their respective descendants. But it is contended that if the prophecy did have a reference to the brothers as individuals, it would not follow that the distinction was that one was elected to eternal life, and the other rej^robated and left to the sentence of eternal death. But if Paul is speaking of the brothers as individuals, it Avill follow that the ninth chap- ter of Romans has no reference to an election of nations' to external privileges; it will overthrow the Arminian if it does not establish the Calvinistic interpretation. There are, however, good reasons for sup^wsing that the birth-right was a type of spiritual blessings, as Canaan was a type of a hea- venly country. Many of the events and pers<^)nages of the Old Testament are certainly typical, and the Jewish people were constantly taught sj)i ritual truths in the strong, impres- sive language of types. When we consider how little per- sonal advantage Jacob gained in this world from obtaining the birth-right, it is natural to suppose that God's promise had reference to other and higher blessings. In fact, the election of the Jewish j)eople themselves was a standing symbol of another and a nobler election. All the prominent transactions of God in reference to Canaan shadow forth the spiritual principles by Avhich His Church is regulated and governed. The Exodus from Egypt, the Paschal Lamb, the journeyings in the wilderness, the crossing of Jordan, the settlement in Canaan and the expulsion of the Canaan- ites and surrounding tribes, are all typical of solemn and

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 135

important spiritual events connected with the redemption of sinners by the Lord Jesus Christ. There is nothin<>- unrea- sonable, therefore, in supposing that Jacob, under the type of the birth-right, did receive the gratuitous promise of eter- nal life, and that Esau was passed by and rejected. This certainly is the sense, as we shall presently see more fully, in which Paul quotes the passage, " the elder shall serve the younger." Macknight's third argument, in the first note quoted, is a mere begging of the question. He takes for granted what the Apostle's express design is, and then argues, from his own gratuitous assumption, against personal election to eternal life. The same is true of his fourth. In regard to the fifth, it may be remarked that the age of Jacob is mentioned to show how entirely free the election was — how completely independent of all considerations derived from the creature.

As to the passage in Exodus xxxiii. 19, it is wholly gra- tuitous to suppose that this was spoken in refei-ence exclu- sively to the Jewish people. It is true that God spake these words after He had laid aside His purpose of consuming Israel for their idolatry, but this does not prove that the truth obtains only in ])articular circumstances. The imme- diate occasion of the words was the request of an individual. Moses said unto the Lord, " I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory." The 19th verse, which seems to be an answer to Moses' request, is a statement of the character of God con- sidered in Himself: "I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee." This cannot mean God's goodness to Israel, but the goodness of the Divine character generally. It is not spoken to the nation, but to an individual, and that in answer to a particular request. The words are to be taken in their general sense, then, as expressive of Divine attributes. In fact, the whole verse is designed to state a proposition in reo-ard to God which is always and universally true — that God is good and sovereign. God was showing IMoses the "back parts" of His "glory," and it is all forced interpre-

136 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

tation to confine the declarations to a particular form of the Divine goodness, as Macknight and Bishop Sumner have done. This is limiting what God has left absolute. There is no foundation for Sumner's remark, that this verse forms " the assurance revealed by God Himself to Moses that He had separated the Hebrew nation from all the people on the face of the earth ; " for there is not a syllable about such a separation in the passage itself or in the immediate context. The next quotation from Exodus (ix. 16) affords just as little ground for a national interpretation. It is manifest that the words themselves regard Pharaoh only as an indi- vidual : " And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up for to show in thee my power," etc. It was Pharaoh's heart that was hardened, and the destruction of the Egyp- tians is represented as a punishment to Pharaoh himself. It was Pharaoh alone that could let Israel go, and Pharaoh is answerable for keeping them in bondage. Pharaoh is rejected from no national privileges ; he is brought forward as a gross and flagitious sinner, stiffening his neck against God and setting at naught His authority. The whole trans- action has not the remotest tendency to show that God (ilected Israel and passed by Egypt. God did not design to illustrate this principle in His dealings with Pharaoh, but to show tlis power and justice in casting down the proud and pvuiishing the guilty ; and for this purpos* the case of this monarch is frequently alluded to in the sacred writings. True, Pharaoh was the head of his nation, and his guilt seriously affected his subjects ; but how does this prove that God deals with him only as the representative of his people ? The private sins of kings and emperors at the present day often involve their respective nations in sufferings and war, and yet their sins are personal and individual. Upon the Nvhole, then, a correct view of the passages in the Old Testa- ment does not bind us to believe that they have any neces- sary reference to the dealings of God with nations in respect to external privileges. Some necessarily apply to individuals, and all may be safely Interpreted of them. The only possi-

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 137

ble foundation, therefore, on which a national interpretation of this chapter can rest is, to say the least, precarious and doubtful.

[2.] But should it be admitted that an election to tiie blessings or privileges of the external theocracy is all that is meant, the difficulty is by no means removed. " A choice," as Professor Hodge justly remarks, " to the blessings of the theocracy, that is, of a knowledge and worship of the true God, involved in a multitude of cases, at least, a choice to eternal life, as a choice to the means is a choice to the end. And it is only so far as these advantages were a means to this end that their value was worth considering." And again : '' Is there any more objection to God's choosing men to a great than a small blessing on the ground of His own good pleasure ? The foundation of the objection is not the character of the blessings we are chosen to inherit, but the sovereign nature of the choice. Of course it is not met by making these blessings greater or less."

[3.] The whole scope of the Epistle goes to show that the Apostle is not speaking of a choice to external privileges. The first eight chapters are occupied in the doctrinal discus- sion of justification — the guilt and depravity which it sup- poses in our race, and the glorious blessings which are inse])- arably connected with it. These blessings are not mere out- ward privileges, but are saving graces — purity, holiness, peace with God and the certain hope of eternal life. These blessings are not bestowed on nations, but on individuals. It had, however, been a favourite prejudice of the Jewish nation that all the blessings of the Messiah's kingdom were to be exclusively confined to them, in virtue of God's covenant with Abraham. The Apostle, therefore, in the ninth (•ha[)tei-, begins the discussion of the question, Who are to be the sub- jects of Christ's kingdom? Who are to be partakers of that "pardon, peace, and eternal life" whicli are f()uiid only in Jesus? All the previous parts of the E[)istle have been speaking of only one kind of privileges, and that tlu; saving blessings of the Gospel. It is a violent presumption

138 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

to suppose that Paul here drops all consideration of them, and begins a discussion about national advantages which have no conceivable connection M'ith the scope and design of the Epistle. Unconnected as Paul is thought by many to be in his -writings, such a transition would be altogether unpardonable. The question plainly before him was, Who shall be saved ? Who shall be recipients of the hopes of the Gospel? This question is very naturally and obviously connected with the previous discussion. As in the solution of this question he was about to announce a very unwelcome truth to his brethren, he commences the chapter with cordial professions of attachment and love, manifested by the deep interest which he took in their spiritual v/elfare. He then delicately approaches the main point by anticipating an ob- jection, verse 6 : " Not as though the AVord of God had taken none effect." That is, God -s\'as not bound by His promises to Abraham to bestow the blessings of the Gospel on the Jews, considered merely as natural descendants of the patriarch. Why? "They are not all Israel which are of Israel ; " that is, the promises were made only to the spiritual seed, but all the natural descendants of Israel are not the spiritual seed. He then proves that natural descent did not entitle to the saving blessings of the Gospel, by a reference to the cases of Ishmael and Isaac, and of Esau and Jacob. The question then recurs. Who are the recipients of the prom- ises? The answer is given in verse 8, which amounts to this : " Those who are born by a special interj^osition of God are the true individuals to whom the promises are effectual." But are these individuals confined to any particular nation, or found among any particular people ? No. Ver. 24 : They are those " whom He hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles." And here he begins the full dis- closure of the solemn fiict that many of his own countrymen, in spite of their privileges, would fail of eternal life, while many of the Gentiles w^ould be admitted to the blessings of Messiah's kingdom. The observation of the Apostle in verse 24 is utterlv inconsistent with the idea of a national election

ELECTION AND EEPROBATION. 139

to external privileges, for he pointedly declares that the blessings of which he was then speaking are confined to no nation, but are extended to called or chosen ones in every nation : " Those whom He hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles" — those -persons or individuah in every nation whom He hath chosen to eternal life. The Apostle here, as elsewhere, tells us that " there is no diffei'- ence," no distinction in Christ's kingdom, of Jew and Greek — that " neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncir- cumcision, but a new creature." To illustrate this great principle, that the recipients of the blessings of the Gospel are just those whom God chooses in His sovereign pleasni-e, is the design of the ninth chapter and the two following. In applying it to the Jews, he was obliged to reveal the rejec- tion of many of his countrymen, and to establish, contrary to their prejudices, the calling and conversion of the Gentiles. To any candid reader of this Epistle the evidence is cumu- lative that Paul does not refer to the choice of nations to peculiar privileges. In verse 3 he says : " For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh." Now could the " heavi- ness" of Paul's heart on account of his brethren have been so great as to j)rompt such language as this, if his brethren after all were losing nothing but the privilege of being the exclusive people of God ? Would Paul grieve so seriously and deeply because the Gentiles were admitted to equal priv- ileges with the Jews ? Can it be supposed for a moment that such language was or could have been penned by the inspired Apostle, when the whole grievance was that the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile was broken down, and that God was dispensing His Gospel to the ends of the earth ? No ! Paul saw a cloud filled with wrath — a black cloud of vindicatory justice aifcx;ting the eternal interests of his countrymen — ready to bui-st upon their heads ; he saw many of them sealed up under the ter- rible judgment of judicial blindness, and in spite of their privileges going down io liell ; and this it was which racked

140 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

his heart with agony, and drew forth his thrilling expressions of sympathy and grief. He envied not the Gentiles ; on the contrary, he makes their calling and conversion matters of solemn doxology and thanksgiving to God ; but he did lament, deeply and sorely lament, that so many of his coun- trymen were cut oif from the hopes of eternal life.

" The choice, moreover, is between vessels of mercy and vessels of wrath — vessels of mercy chosen unto 'glory,'' not unto church privileges, and vessels of wrath who were made the example of God's displeasure against sin."

In verses 30, 31, Paul states definitely the privileges which this election respected — justification by. faith and its attendant blessings. " What shall we say then ? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. But Israel, which followed after the law of right- eousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness." It would certainly be a gross abuse of language to apply the phrases " righteousness which is of faith, law of right- eousness," to mere external privileges ; these phrases mani- festly refer to the saving blessings of the Gospel, and yet it is this righteousness which a majority of the Jews forfeited, and which the Gentiles obtained by election.

The tenth chapter shows that the rejection of the Jews implied the loss of saving privileges. Paul commences it with a prayer that they " might be saved " — not that their national privileges might be retained, but that they might receive the gift of eternal life. He shows that they lose justification, not church privileges, by rejecting Christ and clinging to their own righteousness. Much of the chapter is taken up in discussing the j^lan of salvation and the nature and grounds of saving faith, but not a word concerns national privileges. The eleventh chapter bears a plain tes- timony to the fact that Paul was discussing matters of eter- nal life and eternal death. I shall just refer to the first verse. Here Paul denies that God has rejected the whole Jewish nation, and brings himself forward as an instance

EI.ECTJOX AND REPROBATION. 141

of a Jew wlio was not rejected. If tlie question resiiccted only national j)rivileges, an argument drawn from the case of an individual would be sheer nonsense. How could Paul possess national privileges ? But Paul means to say that some of the Jews Avill be saved, or that all will not be lost, and in proof of this proposition he brings himself for- ward as an example of a converted Jew. That this is his meaning will appear from a comparison of verses 5 and 6, in which he asserts that there is a chosen remnant who will be saved, wdiile the great majority of the nation was blinded. And in the conclusion of this protracted discussion, I would only observe that the interpretation for which I contend derives no small support from the objections which the Apostle considers against his own doctrines. They are those which in all ages have been urged against personal election to eternal life, but I do not know that they have ever been applied to the cases of nations or communities blessed above others with peculiar privileges.

These considerations are sufficient, it would seem, to sat- isfy any candid mind that in the ninth of Romans the Apostle is treating of a personal election to eternal life, and if so the texts are in point, and render it absolutely certain that election is wholly unconditional and sovereign. In fact, Arminians are aware of this, and therefore labour so strenu- ously to distort these Scriptures from their obvious applica- tion. In verse 11 it is said: "For the children being not yet born, ^either having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calleth, it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger." If language has any mean- ing at all, these verses teach that there is no other founda- tion of election than the mere mercy and goodness of God, which embrace whom He chooses of Adam's ruined race, without paying the least regard to works. Again, verse 15, it is said : " I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I Avill have compassion on whom I will have compas- sion." "God," says Calvin, "proved by this very declara-

142 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

tion that He is debtor to none; that every blessing bestowed upon the elect flows from gratuitous kindness, and is freely- granted to whom He pleases ; that no cause which is supe- rior to His own wdll can be conceived or devised why He entertains kind feelings or manifests kind actions to some of the children of Adam and not to all." " So, then, it is not of him that willcth nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy." Verse 16. "These words," says Professor Hodge, " are not intended to teach that the efforts of men for the attainment of salvation are useless, much less do they teach that such efforts should not be made. They simply declare that the result is not to be attributed to them — that the reason why one man secures the blessiuff and another does not is not to be found in the greater ardour of desire or intensity of effort in the one than in the other, but the reason is in God."

The last passage which I shall quote to sustain the gra- tuitous election of God is found in Komans xi. 5-7 : " Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace then it is no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace ; otherwise work is no more work. What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for, but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded." In order to avoid the force of this passage an interpretation has been devised utterly at war with all the principlas of language. The gratuitous election here spoken of has been twisted to mean an election of faith as the condition of salvation rather than works. Out of all the possible plans wdiich God might have adopted. He has selected that which makes faith in Christ the medium of justification, and this choice of faith is entirely gratuitous, faith having no more claims upon God's favour than works. " Risnm teneatis amici f It is suf- ficiently plain that the Apostle is not discussing the election of a principle, but of men ; '' the election" — that is, the elect or chosen ones — " have obtained it, and the rest were

ELECTIOxV AND REPEOBATION. 143

blinded." Can lie mean that all the other possible schemes of salvation which God might have laid down instead of faith were blinded ? And what strange jargon is it to talk of electing a principle ! These pitiful subterfuges show how- hard it is to close the eyes against a truth which Paul so plainly teaches — the solemn truth that God is free and sovereign in the distribution of His favours.

The separate points in the doctrine of election having been thus discussed, it may be well to make a few remarks on the inseparable doctrine of reprobation. The very fact that all men were not elected shows that some Avere passed by. This passing them by, or refusing to elect them, and leaving them under a righteous sentence of condemnation, constitutes reprobation. If election is personal, eternal and absolute, reprobation must possess these qualities also. There is this difference between them, however : election finds the objects of mercy unfit for eternal life, and puts forth a positive agency in preparing them for glory ; repro- bation finds the objects of wrath already fitted for destruc- tion, and only M-ithholds that influence which alone can transform them. It is not intended to deny here that cases of judicial blindness occur in which the sinner's heart is hardened. The example of Pharaoh is a case in point. But judicial blindness is a punishment inflicted in which God acts as a righteous Judge dealing with men for their obstinacy; whereas reprobation is strictly an act of sove- reignty in which God refuses to save, and leaves the sin- ner to the free course of law. Our Standards afford no sort of shelter to the Hopkinsian error that the decree of reprobation consists in God's determining to fit a certain number of mankind for eternal damnation, and that the Divine agency is as positively employed in men's bad voli- tions and actions as in their good. These doctrines, we know, have been frequently charged upon us with no little violence and acrimony, but we have always adhered to the position of the Bible, that God is not the author of evil ; and we believe that there is no inconsistency in supposing that

144 ELECTION AXD REPROBA TIOX.

God may determine an action as a natural event, and yet be unstained with its sin and pollution. That the Scriptures teach the doctrine of reprobation, as depending on the sove- reignty and good pleasure of God, is manifest from the following passages — Matt. xi. 25 : " At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." Here our blessed Saviour addresses the Father by a word highly expressive of sovereignty, and refers the illumination of some and the blindness of others to His Father's will alone : " Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight." Rom. ix. 18 : "Therefore hath He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth." If it be said that this refers to the judicial blindness with which Pharaoh was struck, let it be remembered that no punish- ment of any sort would or could be inflicted on the wicked, if they were not left under the sentence of condemnation originally pronounced upon the race. The fact of their reprobation leaves them in that state to which punishment was justly due, and the argument of Paul is that some are left in that state and others not by the sovereign j)leasure of God. Verse 21 : " Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour anc' another to dishonour ?" Jude 4 : " For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation — ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ." In fact, every passage of Scrip- ture which teaches that any will be finally lost, teaches at the same time, by necessary implication, if the doctrine of election be true, that they were eternally reprobated or left out of the number of the elect. The two doctrines stand or fall together.

Independently of the direct and immediate testimony ■which the Scriptures bear in support of eternal and uncon- ditional election and reprobation, there is an indirect teach-

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 145

ing of them by the inculcation of doctrines in which they are necessarily involved — such as the foreknowledge, provi- dence and independence of God, and the total depravity of man. There is no way in which these truths can be recon- ciled with the Arminian or Semi-Pelagian scheme. Fore- knowledge of a future event means, if it mean anything, that the event is regarded as absolutely certain in the Divine mind, and that it cannot possibly happen otherwise than as God foresees it will hap^ien. How the absolute certainty of events is consistent with contingency, which necessarily im- plies uncertainty, I leave it to the advocates of that strange hypothesis to determine. The Scripture account of fore- knowledge is simple and consistent : God foreknows all things because He decrees them, and hence the terms are frequently interchanged. Peter says that Christ was deliv- ered to death " by the determinate counsel and foreknow- ledge of God ; " that is, by the purpose and appointment of God. The doctrine of providence, by which God is repre- sented as acting upon a plan of which He knew the end from the beginning, cannot be conceived at all if we deny the existence of a fixed and definite purpose in the Divine mind. In fact, the denial of an eternal purpose is a virtual dethronement of God in His own dominions ; and the voice of reason remonstrates, as loudly as the voice of revelation, against the ruinous results to which such a denial must lead. The will of God becomes fearfully dependent upon the will of man, and the counsel of God must be formed and modelled upon the wisdom of the creature. The truth is, Arminian- ism declares an open war upon the essential attributes of God, and, if carried out into all its necessary consequences, it would lead at once to blank and cheerless Atheism.

The account which the Bible gives us of human corrup- tion and depravity is utterly inconsistent with the scheme which makes election, in any measure, dependent upon the faith or perseverance of man. Sinners, in their natural state, are said to be " dead in trespasses and sins." " Every imagination of man's heart is only evil, and that continu-

VOL. II. — 10

146 ELECTION AND REPEOBATION.

ally." The necessary consequence of depravity Is an utter inability to think a good thought or to perform a good action. The understanding is darkened, the affections alienated, the will bent on evil ; in short, the man is dead, spiritually dead, and therefore cannot believe or do any holy action until quickened and renewed by the supernatural grace of God. Hence our Saviour says, " No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him." If this, then, be the true state of the case, all who believe are drawn by the Father, being utterly unable to do it of themselves. Why does God draw one and not another? — for it is mani- fest that all are not believers. Every Christian will promptly ascribe his calling and conversion to the mere grace of God, and this is election. The man who rejects election is bound to reject the scriptural account of human depravity if he would maintain consistency of opinion. He may resort to the superficial theory of common grace, but that will not relieve him of his difficulty. The Scriptures attribute every good disposition to God, and so the disposition not to resist common grace must after all be referred to sj)ecial grace. No Christian would ever have dreamed of Armin- ianism if he had been guided only by his own experience ; hence, when the love of system is laid aside, we find all pious Arminians sober and honest-hearted Calvinists, as their earnest prayers for grace and assistance unequiv- ocally declare.

Another source of argument on this subject is the whole course of Divine Providence, which shows that God is abso- lutely sovereign in the distribution of His favours. The Lord does not deal with all men alike. The election of the Jews to church privileges, and to their relation to God as His peculiar people, was founded solely on His gratuitous mercy. Moses again and again admonishes them that their exaltation was due to God's unmerited love, and the more effectually to check their pride and humble their hearts, " he reproaches them with having deserved no favour, but as being a stiff-necked aud rebellious people." At this day

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 147

millions of our fellow-men, no worse by nature than we, and no more unworthy of Divine compassion, are sunk in idolatry, degi'adation and ruin, while we enjoy the light of the Gospel and the privileges of the sanctuary. Why is this ? It can only be resolved into the sovereign pleasure of God. Even amongst us some are born to affluence, honour and distinc- tion, while others by the sweat of their brow can hardly procure a scanty subsistence for themselves and their families. Some are endowed with extraordinary powers of intellect, while others exhibit the melancholy spectacle of drivelling idiotcy. Why these distinctions among men whose moral characters are naturally the same ? No other answer can be given but the sovereign pleasure of God. The Divine sove- reignty in the distribution of favours is written in broad and palpable characters upon all His dealings with men and nations in the present course of His providence, and shall it be thought a thing incredible that the same principle should extend to their eternal interests ? Has God the right to bestow or withhold temporal blessings, and not the right to bestow eternal blessings ? The very same objections which may be raised against an election to life lie with all their force against "the inequalities of Providence. The very same arguments which are adduced to prove that one man cannot be chosen to spiritual privileges while another is rejected, apply just as strongly to the point that one man cannot be born rich and another poor. The objections are raised to the nature of the choice, and not to the character of the blessings bestowed or withheld.

There is no other scheme which can be reconciled with the doctrine of salvation by free grace. If anything be left for the sinner to do, no matter how slight or insignificant the work may be, the blessing ceases to be the gift of God and becomes a matter of pactional debt. The Apostle testifies, however, that eternal life is the gift of God through the righteousness of Christ. Arminians endeavour to avoid the difficulty by maintaining that the intrinsic value of salvation far exceeds the merit of our works, so that the latter cannot

148 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

be regarded as deserving the former ; and inasmuch as our faith and repentance are not a strict equivalent for the bless- ings of life, in a comparative sense our works are not merit- orious. But suppose a man should expose for sale an article worth a thousand dollars at the small price of one cent ; the man who pays the one cent becomes entitled to the article on the score of debt just as completely as though he had paid the full value. The principle of debt is just this : a reward in consideration of something done. It matters not how slight that something may be. Now, w^lien salvation is said to be by grace in opposition to works or debt, it excludes everything in the sinner himself as the ground of his title to it, and leaves it to the mere disposal of God, so that it shall not be of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy; and this is the very principle upon which election turns.

III. When the doctrines of absolute and unconditional election and reprobation are proclaimed, the perverse and rebellious hearts of the children of men are ready to conjure up a thousand objections against them. There is seldom any attempt made to overthrow the mass of positive, direct testimony in their favour, drawn alike from the Scriptures of truth, the character of God, the experience of the Chris- tian and the uniform course of Divine Providence, because this is felt to be absolutely impossible. A less ingenuous method is resorted to. The prejudices of the carnal heart against the truth are diligently fostered ; horrible conse- quences, revolting alike to reason and common sense, are perversely deduced ; hobgoblin terrors are excited ; bold and reckless assertion is substituted for argument ; and all this miserable artifice is passed off as a refutation of Calvinism. Take away from many Arminian writers their gross misrep- resentations and disgraceful personal abuse, their pompous rhodomontade against tlie " horrible decree," and their fiery declamaticii against consequences which exist nowhere but in their own brains, and what is left will be but a small portion compared with the whole. It seems to be forgotten

ELECTION AND REPUOBATION, 149

that mere objections, which constitute at best but a negative testimony, cannot destroy positive evidence. If the truth is to be sacrificed to difficulties, what will become of the doc- trines of the Trinity, of the incarnation of the Son, and of the residence of the Spirit in the hearts of believers ? A thousand objections have been raised against these glorious truths just as plausible and fully as forcible as the objections of the Arminians against the doctrine of election ; and yet no Christian would think of doubting them, because, though encumbered with difficulties, they are sustained by adequate testimony and confirmed by positive evidence.

The great source of error in regard to Divine things is ignorance. We are ignorant of God as He is in Himself, and ignorant of the full economy of His government. " Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God," was the reply of our Saviour to the captious Sadducees when they brought forward what they conceived to be an unan- swerable argument against the resurrection of the dead. The same reply may be justly given to those who are rebel- lious against the sovereignty of God, and it ought to be sufficient. If the Scriptures teach the doctrine, we may rest satisfied that all our difficulties arise from our ignorance ; not from the subject itself in its own intrinsic nature, but from our limited faculties and still more limited knowledge. With this general observation the whole subject might be dismissed ; but as a mode so summary of treating objections might have a tendency to magnify them in the minds of some beyond their just importance, it will probably be well to give the more prominent and common ones a fuller dis- cussion. Let it not be supposed, however, that objections lie exclusively against the Calvinistic system. Men make but a poor exchange in the way of difficulties when they renounce the good old doctrines of the Reformation for the superficial schemes which depend essentially upon the sin- ner's free will. Arminians talk as confidently of the diffi- culties of Calvinism as if their own system were perfectly disencumbered of all objection, when the truth is that it has

150 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

many difficulties in common with Calvinism, besides others peculiar to itself.

The leading objections to the doctrine of election are drawn from the moral character of God and from the moral agency of man. We shall consider them in order.

First. The attributes of God which are supposed to l.»e injured by this doctrine are, His justice, His impuiikdity, and His truth. It is enough to make the blood run cold to read the terras of shocking and revolting blasphemy in which these objections are sometimes brought forward ; and, I must believe, in many instances only for effi?ct.

1. It is a standing theme of Arminian declamation that election and reprobation are utterly inconsistent with the justice of God ; in other words, that God cannot be sovereign in fixing the destinies of men without ceasing to be just. It seems to be forgotten that tliere are two recorded notices in Scripture of this very objection : (1.) " What shall we say then ? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid." Rom. ix. 14. Paul had, as we have already seen, been asserting in unlimited terms the very doctrine for which we are contending, and here, in verse 14, notices an objection which he was sure the flesh would bring up: "Is there unrighteousness with God?" " How prodigious," says Calvin, " is the frenzy of the human mind, which rather accuses God of injustice than convicts itself of being influenced by blindness!" It is observable that Paul, in answering this objection, simply appeals to the Scriptures of eternal truth. He shows that God, in so many words, claimed to be sovereign in the dis- tribution of His favours, and appeals to a celebrated instance in which that sovereignty, in the withholding of favours, was actually exercised. He talces it for granted that the Scriptures are true, and that Avhatever God does must neces- sarily be right. No matter in what difficulties or obscurity the Divine dispensations may seem to be involved, yet God is essentially just, and therefore cannot do an unrighteous act. Now, the Scriptures do declare that God " hatli mercy

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 151

on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hard- eneth ; " therefore such a procedure cannot possibly be unjust. God does it, and on that account it must be right. This is the sum and substance of Paul's answer to the objection, and it ought to be satisfactory to every pious mind. "The thought," as Calvin well observes in explaining the answer of Paul, " deserves the utmost execration which believes injustice to exist in the Fountain of all righteousness." And again : " The apology produced by Paul to show that God was not unjust, because He is merciful to whom He thinks fit, might appear cold ; but because God's own authority, as it requires the aid and support of no other, is abundantly sufficient of itself, Paul was content to leave the Judge of quick and dead to avenge His own right." I cannot forbear to notice here how conclusively this objection evinces that Paul's doctrine and ours are precisely the same. "It clearly proves that the cause of God's rejecting some and electing others is to be sought for merely in His will and purpose ; for if the difference between these two characters depended upon a regard to their works, Paul Avould have discussed the question concerning God's injustice in a very unnecessary manner, since no suspicion could possibly arise against the perfect justice of the Disposer of all things if He treats every son and daughter of Adam according to their works." If the Scriptures do really teach this doctrine, it cannot injure the justice of God, for the same Scriptures as clearly teach that God is just. If we have any regard for the authority of inspiration, we are bound to believe both truths. Suppose we cannot reconcile them or understand how they are recon- ciled, what then ? It only follows that we are blind and short-sighted, and "cannot see afar otf." The objection, then, according to the showing of an inspired Apostle, is good for nothing. But (2.) we have another authority on this sub- ject. The Son of God Himself has condescended to notice this objection, and, in effect, to pronounce it utterly worthless. He put forth a parable, recorded in the twentieth chapter of Matthew, for the purpose of showing that God might dis-

152 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

tribute peculiar and special favours to some, without being guilty of any sort of injustice to others.

The scope of this whole parable is definitely stated in the sixteenth verse : " So the last shall be first, and the first last; for many be called, but few chosen." The terms first and lad, in a spiritual sense, are applied to those who, in the judgment of men, would naturally be expected to be first or last in receiving the blessings of the Gospel. The "firsi^^ are those who, in consequence of peculiar endow- ments or adventitious circumstances, would seem to have the fairest claims upon the Divine clemency. They are sober, intelligent, respectable moral men. The " last'' are those who notoriously have no shadow of claim, even in the carnal judgment of men, upon the compassion of God. They are decidedly and openly wicked. The moral and scrupulous but yet self-righteous Jews may be taken as a fair specimen of those whom our Saviour meant by the " first ;" the abandoned publicans and harlots may be regarded as appropriate examples of those whom He intended by the " last." We should have expected a priori that the rigid descendants of Abraham would give a more ready and welcome reception to the Gospel than the j^rofli- gate publicans or abandoned harlots ; but yet facts, and the positive assertion of the Saviour, show that the last were first, and the first last. The same general truth is taught by Paul, 1 Cor. i. 26, 27 : " For ye see your calling, breth- ren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called ; but God has chosen the foolish things of the v.orld to confound the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty," etc. Here Paul's wise men after the flesh, his noble and mighty, are the same with our Saviour's first, while his foolish and weak are the same with our Saviour's last. What is the reason that the first are last and the last first? "Many are called, but few chosen." " God hath chosen,''' etc., says Paul. The meaning, then, of verse 16, which contains the scope of the whole parable, is

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 163

simply this : While all are freely invited to partake of the blessings of the Gospel, yet the sovereign choice of God applies them effectually, not to those who, according to the carnal judgment of men, would seem to have the greatest claim on the Divine mercy, but to those whose utter desti- tution of all shadow of claim would render God's grace the more remarkably conspicuous. To illustrate this principle, which has been frequently exemplified in the history of the Church, and to show that it is by no means inconsistent with the Divine justice, seems to be the special purpose of the parable. Our Saviour begins : " For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard." Ver. 1. That is, the principle on which the saving blessings of the Gospel are conferred on men may be illustrated by the case of a householder in employing and rewarding labourers in his vineyard. " And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the market-place, and said unto them. Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatso- ever is right I will give you ; and they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing idle, and saith unto them. Why stand ye here all the day idle ? They say unto him. Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them. Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right that shall ye receive." Verses 2-7. The circumstances of standing in the market- place and hiring labourers are merely ornamental, being designed to give life and costume to the narrative, but they have no immediate connection with itd scope. It is idle, therefore, to attempt to seek, in our spiritual relations to God, anything to correspond with these minute particulars. The general truth designed to be conveyed is that the Lord is our common Master, and that we have no claims whatever upon Him except those to which He gives rise by His own

154 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

gratuitous promise. The labourers had no claim to the patronage and bounty of the householder, and after he had employed them they had no right to expect a liberality from him beyond the terms of their engagement. Their rela- tions to him required on his part nothing more than sheer justice. This was all they could ask. It may be asked here, What is meant by labouring in the vineyard? I answer that our Saviour by this meant simply to designate the relations in which men stand to God. These are two- fold— legal or gracious, according to the covenant under which men are. As the labourers in the vineyard were dealt with on the principles of justice or mercy, according to the light or relationship in which the householder chose to regard them, so men are dealt with by God upon the same principles, according to the relations in which they stand to Him. The labouring in the vineyard is a cir- cumstance in the narrative designed to teach only a rela- tionship, without specifying precisely what it is, or at all intimating that it was the same in all. This is most ol)vious from the sequel of the narrative. Suffice it to say, that we all stand to God in the general relationship of subjects to a sovereign, without having any right or title to clemency and grace. " So when the even was come, the Lord of the vine- yard said unto his steward. Call the labourers and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first. And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first came they supposed that they should have received more, but they likewise received every man a penny." Verses 8-10. Here the point of resemblance between the kingdom of heaven and the householder is introduced, and here the principle on which the destinies of men are determined is clearly developed. That principle is simply this : God does injustice to none, while He is peculiarly merciful to some. The householder gave the labourers first employed their due. He was just to them, he wnthheld nothing to which they had any claim. So God will eventually give repro-

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 155

bate sinners their due; "the wages of sin is death;" they virtually agreed for this, for they knew the necessary conse- quence of guilt, and therefore God does them no injustice. On the other hand, the labourers last employed, who repre- sent the elect, are treated far beyond their deserts ; tliey are dealt with on a principle of mercy, and through grace receive what they have no personal right to expect. It will be observed here that the labourers first employed answer, in the spiritual sense of the narrative, to those who seem to have some claims to the clemency and grace of God, while the labourers last employed answer to those who are noto- riously destitute of all shadow of claim. It will be fur- ther observed that the penny simply denotes the idea of wages, for that was the customary hire of a day-labourer. From the fact that all received a penny Ave are simply to understand that all w^ere fairly and honourably reckoned with. Some were dealt with on the principle of justice, receiving the stipulated wages of day-labourers ; others on the principle of mercy, receiving what they had no right to expect. In a sjiiritual sense the penny in one case would be death, the stipulated wages of sin ; in the other, eternal life, the stipulated reward of grace. " And when they had received it, they murmured against the good man of the house, saying. These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, Avhich have borne the burden and heat of the day." Verses 11, 12. The force of this objection is this : We have greater claims upon your kindness than the others; Ave have been moral, upright men, and in many cases had a zeal for God, Avhile these others haA^e in too many instances been mere publicans and harlots, the ignorant and abandoned of society. Our claim is as much greater than theirs as the claim of labourers who have " borne the burden and heat of the day" is greater than the claim of idlers avIio have laboured only one hour. They no more compare Avith us in the qualifications suited to recommend them to God than such an idler can compare Avith such a labourer.

156 P^LEOTION AND REPROBATION.

The men, it will be observed, who had laboured longest in the vineyard were literally first, and so had, it would seem, the fairest claim on the favour of the householder, but he judged differently, and consequently made the last first : " But he answered one of them and said, Friend, I do thee no Avrong. Didst rhou not agree with me for a penny ? Take that thine is and go thy way. I will give unto this last even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own ? Is thine eye evil because I am good ? So the last shall be first, and the first last; for many be called, but few chosen." Verses 13-16. Here the proposition is flatly maintained that goodness to one implies no injustice to another in the case supposed. The reasons are — (1.) Because God is absolutely sovereign, and can do as He pleases in perfect consistency with justice. (2.) Because sinners have no claims upon God whatever. (3.) Because they are actually dealt with according to the demands of justice — just as much so as if they had stipu- lated with God for the punishment which they will ulti- mately receive.

To say nothing of the first, the two last points of our Saviour's answer contain a triumphant refutation of this vaunting objection, and therefore we shall consider them a little more particularly. The ^rs/ position is that sinners have no sort of claim upon the Divine clemency. It has been already shown sufficiently that men in the decree of election and reprobation were regarded as fallen in Adam. The fall, being a breach of the covenant of law, brought the whole race under the sentence of condemnation and death. " By the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation." Eom. v. 18. " And were by nature the children of wrath even as others." Eph. ii. 3. The only question of any importance here is. Was this a righteous sentence ? The fact that God pronounced it is a sufficient answer. Now if the whole race were righteously condemned in the first instance, there could be no injustice in leaving them under the sentence and in actually inflicting the curse.

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 157

If the sentence itself was right, the execution of it cannot be wrong. God might, then, most justly and righteously have left every son and daughter of Adam to the terrible course of law, and if He could have left all indiscrimi- nately, surely He can leave some, and yet be just and right- eous still. But the sinner is not only legally and right- eously condemned, but he is also desperately corrupt. His heart is deceitful above all things, being wholly alienated from God, and holiness, and heaven. He is absolutely ^f by native depravity for nothing but banishment and eter- nal separation from his Maker. His mind is enmify against God, and therefore if introduced into heaven without a moral renovation he would be supremely miserable. His deep and malignant depravity is an object of abhorrence to God and to all holy beings, and the fact that he has destroyed himself cuts him oflP from all claim to the sym- pathy and compassion of the Being whom he has so griev- ously offended. The following remarks of Calvin deserve a serious and attentive consideration, and they are purposely introduced because that great and good man has been egre- giously calumniated on this point : " Therefore, if any one attack us with such an inquiry as this. Why God has from the beginning predestinated some men to death who, not yet being brought into existence, could not yet deserve the sen- tence of death, we will reply by asking them in return, What they suppose God owes to man if He chooses to judge of him from his own nature ? As we are all corrupted by sin, we must necessarily be odious to God, and that not from tyrannical cruelty, but in the most equitable estimation of justice. If all whom the Lord predestinates to death are in their natural condition liable to the sentence of death, what injustice do they complain of receiving from him? Let all the sons of Adam come forward ; let them all con- tend and dispute with their Creator because by His eternal providence they were previously to their birth adjudged to endless misery. What murmur will they be able to raise against this vindication when God, on the other hand, shall

158 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

call them to a review of themselves? If they have all been taken from a corrupt mass, it is no wonder that they are subject to condemnation. Let them not, therefore, accuse God of injustice if His eternal decree has destined them to death, to which they feel themselves, whatever be their desire or aversion, spontaneously led forward by their own nature. Hence appears the perverseness of their disposi- tion to murmur, because they intentionally suppress the cause of condemnation which they are constrained to acknow- ledge in themselves, hoping to excuse themselves by charg- ing it upon God." These two facts — that sinners are by nature odious and loathsome to God, and are under a right- eous sentence of condemnation and death — establish beyond all doubt the position of the Saviour that none have any claims upon the Divine clemency or mercy. The second position is, that reprobate sinners are actually dealt with according to the demands of justice. God withholds noth- ing from them to which they have any claim, and He inflicts a punishment no more severe than they had every reason to expect. They are doomed to hell, but is not that the righteous allotment of the wicked? They are banished everlastingly from the presence of God, but did they not despise His authority, and were they not alienated in heart and affection from Him ? Where is or can be the injustice of punishing the wdcked? It is true that God withholds from them saving grace, because they have no right to expect it and He is under no obligation to bestow it. There is no injustice here — no more than there is injustice in my withholding alms from a beggar who despises me and calumniates my family.

Such seem to be the sentiments contained in the reply of our adorable Redeemer. But it may be said that justice is violated in the case of the elect, because they do not receive the punishment which is due to them. The answer is ob- vious : their glorious Substitute and Surety became a curse for them in order to redeem them from the curse of the law. Jesus suffered in their name and stead, and completely sat-

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 159

isfied the demands of justice, so that God can be just and yet the justifier of all who believe on His Son. In neither case, then, is the justice of God violated. Upon the repro- bate it has free course, and they endure in their own proper persons the tremendous penalty of the law. Upon the elect it has free course in the person of their adorable Head, and He endured the unutterable curse of the law. May we not, therefore, triumphantly ask with Paul, " Is there unright- eousness with God ■? God forbid."

I know that there are caricatures of Calvinism which represent God as having made man for the specific purpose of damnation, and as putting forth a positive agency in fit- ting him for hell. The reprobate are represented as poor, helpless, dependent creatures in the hands of a bloodthirsty tyrant, who, in the first instance, makes them sinners con- trary to their own will, absolutely forcing them into trans- gression, and then, in spite of all their efforts, drives them to hell, that he may delight himself with their torments ; and in such caricatures the reprobate are often represented as most amiable and lovely creatures, suited by their excellen- cies to soften a heart of stone ; but yet the cruel God of the Calvinists frowns upon them and sends them down to hell. These gross and slanderous caricatures might pass unnoticed if they were not palmed off upon the ignorant and unthinking as the genuine doctrines of Presbyte- rianism. And the worst part of the whole is, that when Presbyterians disavow them, instead of being believed or regarded as fair judges of their own principles, they are only charged with disgraceful cowardice, or taunted with being ashamed of their doctrines. If it is to such carica- tures that the charge of injustice is so confidently brought up, I have no motive to attempt an answer. It is enough that the charge cannot be sustained against the genuine doc- trines of the Church.

2. Another very common but groundless objection to Cal- vinism is, that it imputes partiality to God, or makes Him a respecter of persons, while the Scriptures, on the other hand,

160 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

declare that God is " no respecter of persons." Now, there is no inconsistency at all in God's appointing some to life and others to death of His own sovereign will, and at the same time being " no respecter of persons," in the scriptural sense of the phrase. " By the word person the Scripture signifies not a man, but those things in a man which, being conspicu- ous to the eyes, usually conciliate favour, honour and dignity, or attract hatred, contempt and disgrace. Such are riches, wealth, power, nobility, magistracy, country, elegance of form, on the one hand ; and on the other hand, poverty, necessity, ignoble birth, slovenliness, contempt and the like. Thus Peter and Paul declare that God is not a respecter of persons, because He makes no difterence between the Jew and the Greek, to reject one and receive the other merely on account of his nation. So James uses the same language when he means to assert that God in His judgment pays no regard to riches. And Paul, in another place, declares that, in judging, God has no respect to liberty or bondage." Ac- cording to this definition or explanation of the phrase, God cannot be regarded as a respecter of persons, unless His choice of some and rejection of others turn upon something in the individuals themselves. But we have already seen that God in this matter is wholly uninfluenced by anything in man — He acts according to His oivn will. The motives to favour arc derived solely from His mere mercy. If the motives of Divine action are derived entirely from the Divine Being Himself, He has manifestly no respect to persons, but only to His own will. The Scriptures declare that God loved Jacob and hated Esau, but they declare at the same time that there was nothing in Jacob to conciliate Divine favour more than in his brother. Now, if God were deter- mined in bestowing His favours by the birth, or blood, or rank, or respectability, or station of men. He would be a respecter of persons ; but we have already seen that not many wise or noble or honourable are called. So far is His favour from being regulated by respect to persons. But it may be asked. Why does He not treat all alike ? I would

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 161

answer this question by asking a few others. Has not God an unquestionable right to manifest His mercy? or is mercy wholly denied to Him? Has He not an equal right to exercise His justice ? or is that attribute also denied to Him ? If He has a right to exercise both attributes, may He not do it upon any subjects that in their own nature are fit to dis- play them ? If man is guilty, may not God exercise His justice in punishing? if miserable, may not God exercise His mercy in saving ? If man is a fit subject for the display of both attributes, may not God choose some men for the manifestation of His mercy, and others for the manifestation of His justice? An affirmative answer cannot be withheld without denying one of the following propositions : Man is not a fit subject either of wrath or mercy ; or, God cannot manifest His justice and grace. Men must take one horn of this dilemma, or confess that the Lord's ways are equal, even though He has mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth. Calvin, with his usual ability, observes : " The Lord, therefore, may give grace to whom He will, because He is merciful ; and yet not give it to all, because He is a just Judge ; may manifest His free grace by giving to some what they never deserve, while by not ffivino; to all He declares the demerit of all."

3. The doctrine of election is supposed to be inconsistent with the sincerity of God in the general invitations and call of the Gospel, and with His professions of willingness that all should be saved. It is true that this doctrine is wholly irreconcilable with the idea of a fixed determination on the part of God to save, indiscriminately, the whole human race. The plain doctrine of the Presbyterian Church is that God has no purpose of salvation for all, and that He has not decreed that faith, repentance and holiness, and the eternal blessings of the Gospel, should be efficaciously applied to all. The necessary consequence of such a decree would be universal salvation. The Scriptures, which are supposed to prove that God sent His Son into the world with the specific intention of saving all without exception or limitation, it Ls Vol. II.— 11

162 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

confidently believed, teach, when correctly interpreted, no such doctrine. It is often forgotten that love is ascribed to God under two or three different aspects. Sometimes it expresses the complacency and approbation with which He views the graces which His own Spirit has produced in the hearts of His children ; and in this sense it is plain that God can be said to love only the saints. It is probably in this sense that the terra love is to be understood in Jude's exhor- tation : " Keep yourselves in the love of God." Sometimes God's benevolence or general mercy is intended, such as He bestows upon the just and the unjust, the evil and the good, as in Psalms cxlv. 9 : " The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all Plis works." The common bounties of Providence may be referred to this head. Some- times it expresses that peculiar and distinguishing favour with which He regarded His elect from all eternity. In this sense, the love of God is always connected with the pur- pose of salvation. Again, the word sometimes denotes nothing; more than God's willins-ness to be reconciled to sin- ners in and through Christ. In regard to the love of com- placency or approbation, it is manifest at once that uncon- verted sinners have no lot nor part in it. God is angry with them every day ; " He hateth all workers of iniquity." The special love of God is confined exclusively to the elect. The general benevolence of God is common, but it implies no purpose of salvation at all ; and therefore, in that sense, God may be said to love the reprobate and disobedient. Even the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction are borne with in much long-suffering and patience. In reference to the last, it is plain that God may be heartily willing to save sinners in and through Christ — may determine to save all, in other words, who receive the Saviour — without positively decreeing to create in all men the necessary faith. In this sense, therefore, God may be said to love sinners, for whom, however, He has no purpose of salvation. Having estab- lished an inseparable connection between faith and salvation, He will infallibly save all that believe ; but it by no means

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 163

follows that He will certainly bestow faith on all to whom the Gospel is preached. Hence, another important distinc- tion, to be borne in mind, is between what is technically called by divines the thapzazia of God and His sudoxca. By the first is meant that which God commands and is agree- able to His precept — in other words, what He requires His creatures to do ; by the other is meant His own fixed pur- pose or decree, or what He actually intends to do Himself The distinction is sometimes expressed by the terms precep- tive and decretive, applied to the will of God. It was the preceptive will of God that the Jews should not crucify the Lord Jesus Christ. They acted in this matter contrary to God's command, and were therefore guilty ; still, it was His decretive will that the Saviour should be crucified, for the Jews and Roman soldiers did only what " His hand and His counsel determined before to be done." The preceptive will of God is the rule of duty to us ; the decretive will, the plan of operations to Himself. The distinction is plainly just, natural and scriptural.

The preceptive will of God is sometimes called His revealed will, and His decretive called His secret will. This distinc- tion does not suppose that the will of God in itself is com- pound or divisible 5 on the contrary, it is one and most sim- ple, and comprehends all things in one simple act. But as this most simple will of God is employed about a variety of objects, we are obliged, in accommodation to our weak capacities, to recur to distinctions which exist not in the will itself, but in the objects of volition. It is therefore an ob- jective and not a subjective distinction, which we have already stated. I said that the distinction was scriptural. This appears from the fact that both decrees and precepts are called the will of God. Thus the precept is called God's will in Psalm cxliii. 10 : " Teach me to do Thy will" — that is, to obey Thy precept. The decree is called God's will in Rom. ix. IP: "Who hath resisted His ^^^ll?"— that is. Who has frustrated His decree? "Though the precept," says Turrettin, " may fall under the decree, as to the propo-

164 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

sition or prescribing of it, yet it does not fall under it as to the fulfilment or execution" — that is, to give or prescribe the precept is a part of God's decree, but to secure obedience forms no necessary part of it at all. " Hence," continues Turrettin, ''the distinction is a just one — the decretive will being that which determines the certainty of events ; and the preceptive will, that which simply prescribes duty to men. If this distinction be just, God may, Avithout contradiction, be said to will preceptively, or in the way of command, what He docs not will dccretively, or purpose to effect." " Thus it was His preceptive will that Pharaoh should let the Is- raelites go, that Abraham should sacrifice his son, and that Peter should not deny Christ ; " but yet none of these things were decreed. It was not the efficient purpose of God to cause them be done, as is plain from the event. Yet we are not to suppose that there is any contrariety in these wills, if I may so speak. They are different, being employed about different objects, but are not therefore contrary.

God cannot be said without absurdity to will and not will the same thing in the same sense ; but God may be said to command a thing which He does not decree shall be done. He decrees to give the command and to prescribe the rule of duty, but He does not decree to give or secure obedience. There is no contradiction here. God commanded Abraham to offer up his son Isaac: this is God's preceptive will. He wills to give this precept as a trial of Abraham's faith. But God decreed that Isaac should not be offered up, as the event manifestly proved : this is God's decretive will. Is there any contradiction botAvcen them ? Is there any inconsistency in supposing that God should will to try Abraham's faith by such a command, and yet will at the same time that Isaac should not be slain? I Avould just remark, in concluding this point, that the preceptive will is the sole rule of duty to man, as its name shows ; and fearful guilt is always incurred when the commands of God are disregarded or despised. It is not my business to inquire whether God has a secret de- cree— that I shall or shall not, in point of fact, comply with

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 165

His injunctions ; it is enough that I am bound to do so, and am justly held punishable if I do not obey. Whatever rule of operations He may prescribe to Himself, the one which He has given to me is plain and intelligible, and His unre- vealed purposes will afford me no shelter if I neglect or dis- regard it.

Another important truth, which is necessary in this dis- cussion, is, that man is now just as much under the author- ity of God as he was previously to his fall. He is just as much the subject of command and law as ever he was, and is consequently as much bound to render perfect and entire obedience to all the Divine precepts. It would be prepos- terous to suppose that his own wilful sin had cancelled moral obligation. If, then, God still continues to be man's rightful sovereign, and man God's lawful subject, if the Lord still possesses the power to command, and man is still under obligation to obey, it should not be thought strange that God deals with man according to this relation, and actually enjoins upon him an obedience to law which He has no determinate purpose to give. This can be regarded as nothing more than the rightful exercise of lawful author- ity on the part of God ; and to deny that He can consist- ently do this without giving man the necessary grace to obey, is just flatly to deny that God is a sovereign or that man is a subject.

Let these few preliminary remarks be distinctly borne in mind — (1.) That there are various senses in which love, or similar affections, are attributable to God ; (2.) that there is a just, natural and scriptural distinction of the will of God into preceptive and decretive; (3.) that the relation of sovereign and subject still remains unchanged between God and man — and I apprehend that there will be very lit- tle difficulty in refuting the Arminian hypothesis, that God actually wills or seriously intends the salvation of all men. The passages to which they most confidently appeal for sup- port may be ranged under two classes : First, those which contain statements of general love or mercy; secondly,

166 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

those in which they suppose an unlimited purjjose of salva- tion is actually revealed.

In regard to the passages of the first class, it is manifest that where the universal epithets are to be taken in their full latitude — which, however, is not always the case — noth- ing more can be fairly deduced than God's benevolence, which leads Him to bestow blessings upon all men. There is nothing specific about the character or nature of the blessings, or whenever anything specific is stated it is found to be only the common bounties of Providence that the sacred writer had immediately in vicAV. Plow preposter- ous, therefore, from such texts to deduce a purpose of uni- versal salvation, as though God could not send rain upon the wicked and unjust without designing to save them ! It is vain to allege that such general goodness is never referred to God's love. The Saviour settles the point in Matthew v. 44, 45. There He commands Plis disciples to love their enemies, to bless them that curse them, to do good to them that hate them, etc. Why? " That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven ; for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." Here the disciples are com- manded to love their enemies, that they might be Ukc God. But how does it appear that God loves His enemies ? " He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust;" in other words, from the common bounties of Providence. With such a plain illustration of the fact that God can be said to love without intending to save, it is amazing that such jiassages as the following should ever have been adduced to prove a pur- pose of universal salvation : " The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works." I would as soon think of appealing to Romans ix. 22, because God is there said to have endured the vessels of Avrath fitted to destruction with much long-suffering.

The second class of j)assages wdll be found to involve no more difficulty than the first. We shall consider the most

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 167

forcible, or those to which Arminians most frequently appeal. The first which I shall notice is found in 2 Peter iii. 9 : " Not •willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." I think it exceedingly doubtful whether the words any and all have an indiscriminate application in this passage. The context would seem to confine them within the limits of the " us" spoken of just above. This will appear by taking the whole verse in its connection : " The Lord is not slack concerning His prom- ise"— that is, the promise of His second coming — "as some men count slackness, but is long-suffering to us ward." To whom? We cannot refer the "us" to any but thoso who in the eighth verse are addressed as ^^ beloved.'" It Avould seem, then, to designate only God's elect. Now, why is God long-suffering to His elect? Because He is " not w'illing that any" — that is, any of them — " should per- ish," but that all — that is, all of them — " should come to repentance." In other words, Christ delays His second coming, and will continue to delay it, until all His elect are savingly gathered into His kingdom and His mystical body completed. This, I confess, appears to me to be the most natural and obvious interpretation of the passage. It cer- tainly is grammatical, and harmonizes well with the con- text. I am aware that Calvin and other respectable writers have given a different interpretation. They make the latter clause epexegetical of the first, and resolve the willingness of God into His precept. The force of the passage in this view would be, " God has commanded men everyM'here to repent." This interpretation does no violence to the words of the passage, for they will certainly bear this meaning, but it seems to me to violate the grammatical connection. The next passage occurs in 1 Timothy ii. 4: "Who will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledgfe of the truth." It is difficult to conceive how this passage can be supposed to prove a purpose of universal salvation. It expresses simply the inseparable connection between sal- vation and the knowledge of the truth, together with the

168 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

solemn fact that God enjoins it upon all to receive the truth. It is manifestly God's preceptive will as revealed in the offers and invitations of the Gospel which is here meant ; there is not a syllable about any purpose or decree to save all men. Notice the expression : it is, " who will have ;" it expresses Avhat God is willing or commands that men should do, not what he intends to do Hiinself. If the latter had been the meaning, the passage would be, " who will save all men," not " who will have all men to be saved." The sim- ple distinction of the will of God into preceptive and decre- tive divests this passage of all its difficulty.

The next which I shall notice is Ezek. xxxiii. 11 : "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his ways and live ; turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways, for why will ye die, O house of Israel ? " The remarks of Turrettin on this passage are so just and appropriate that I cannot forbear to translate them : " Although God here j^rotests that He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked should turn from his ways and live, it does not fol- low that God willed or intended, upon any condition, the cxjuversion and life of each and every man. For, besides that conversion cannot be conditional, it being the condition of life itself, it is certain that the prophet is here speaking of God's preceptive and not His decretive will. The word ]'?ri, which is here used, always denotes conij)lacency or delight. The passage then simply teaches that God is pleased with, or approves, the conversion and life of the sin- ner, as a thing in itself grateful to Him and suited to His merciful nature. God is pleased with this rather than the death of the sinner, and therefore enjoins it as a duty that men be converted if they expect to be saved. But although God takes no delight in the death of the sinner, considered merely as the destruction of the creature, it does not follow that He does not will and intend it as an exercise of His own justice and as an occasion of manifesting His glory. A pious magistrate takes no delight in the death of the

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 169

guilty, but still he justly decrees the punishment demanded by tliB- laws. The interrogatory, 'Why will ye die?' is added because God would show to them in these words how death was to be avoided, and that they, by voluntary impen- itence, were the sole authors of their own ruin."

The passages, however, which are most confidently relied on as teaching a purpose of universal salvation are those which relate to the atonement of Christ, and which seem to give it an unlimited extent. It is freely admitted that the doctrine of election falls to the ground if an universal atone- ment— that is, a full satisfaction to law and justice for all the sins of every individual — can be fairly demonstrated. There are multiplied passages of Scripture in which the atonement is confined to the elect. Christ, the Good Shepherd, lays down His life only for the sheep. The song of the redeemed in glory seems to proceed upon no other supposition but that of a limited redemption : " Thou wast slain and hast re- deemed us unto God by thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation." The general current of Scripture appears to represent the incarnation and death of the Redeemer as the grand means by which the great pur- pose of electing love was gloriously accomplished. Hence we are said to be " chosen in Christ." The texts which are supposed to favour the doctrine of universal atonement admit an explanation which does no violence to the laws of language or the analogy of faith. Many of the passages adduced to prove an unlimited design to save each and every individual prove nothing more than an universal offer. No one doubts that the Gospel olFer is indiscriminate and general, but this only supposes an all-sufficiency in Christ, without at all implying that Christ actually intends to save all to whom the Gospel is preached. The universal epithets in other passages must be restricted by the immediate connection or scope of the passage. Having made these preliminary remarks, I proceed to examine the most prominent passages. 1 Tim. ii. 6 : " Who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time." The common and familiar appli-

170 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

cation of the word gave to the Gospel offer sufficiently determines the meaning of this passage. It teaches only that Christ is offered to the whole world as an abundant and all-sufficient Saviour. The word testified, which has a manifest allusion to the proclamation of the Gospel or the public and indiscriminate exhibition of Christ as the Saviour of sinners, who in " due time " should be preached to " every creature," seems to me to confirm this interpretation. Not a word does this passage then contain about the design of Christ to satisfy for the sins of each and every individual. 1 John ii. 2 : " He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." A reference to Romans iii. 25 explains sufficiently the meaning of John : " Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation," etc. That is, Christ is held up to the acceptance of sinners indiscriminately as the only medium of reconciliation with God. He is " set forth," placed before them as " the way, the truth, and the life." Here then is nothing but the in- discriminate offer again. Hebrews ii. 9 : " That He by the grace of God should taste death for every man." The phrase here is limited by the context. In the next verse they are called " many sons," wliom Christ intended to bring to glory; and in the eleventh verse they are spoken of as one with Him, and therefore " He is not ashamed to call them brethren." " Every man," therefore, must mean each of these " many sons and brethren," of whose salvation Christ is "the Captain." Such a limitation of the word ewr?/ is common in the Scriptures ; compare Gen. vii. 21 , Luke iv. 37, Psalms cxix. 101 ; Prov. vii. 12. In all these passages — and multitudes of others might be mentioned — the word every is limited by the context or the necessity of the case. In Romans v. 18, Christ and Adam are spoken of as covenant heads. The Apostle is estal)lishing the principle of imputation, and illusti'ates our justification on account of Christ's merits by our condemnation on account of Adam's sin. The principle in both cases was the same — they were both federal representatives. The "all men," then, in one

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 171

case means all who were represented by Adam in the cove- nant of works ; in the other, all who were represented by- Christ in the covenant of grace. The same may be said of 1 Cor. XV. 22.

The next passage may be found in 2 Cor. v. 14, 15 : '' For the love of Christ constraineth us ; because we thus judge that if one died for all, then were all dead ; and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose again." To a candid mind this passage can present no serious difficulty. Two facts are stateel which serve mutually to explain and interpret each other — 1. Christ died for " all." 2. The "all" for whom He died do not "henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose again." The result or end of Christ's death, as stated in the last verse, actually determines the meaning of the "all" in the fourteenth. Even Doddridge, one of the most cautious and timid interpreters of contested passages, has given substantially this interpretation in his paraphrase upon these verses : " For the love of Christ, so illustriously displayed in that redemption He hath wrought, constraineth us ; it bears us away like a strong and resistless torrent, while we thus judge, and in our calmest and most rational moments draw it as a certain consequence, from the import- ant principles which we assuredly know to be true, that if one, even Christ, died for tlie redemption and salvation of all who should sincerely believe in liini and obey Him, then were all dead. And now we know that He died for all, that they who live only in consequence of His dying love should not henceforth from this remarkable period and end of their lives, whatever they have formerly done, live to themselves, but that they should all agree that they will live to the honour, glory and interest of Him who died for them, and when He rose again from the dead retained the same affec- tion for them, and is continually improving Plis recovered life for their security and happiness." I have quoted this long paraphrase merely to show the mutual connection

172 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

and dependence of the different parts of the passage, which require that the universal epithet sliould necessarily be limited/

The nineteenth verse of this same chapter is frequently pressed into the service of an unlimited atonement, but by a dreadful distortion of its real meaning. " God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation." Two circumstances in the context show that the Apostle is here speaking only of the Gospel offer, or the grant of Christ to sinners indefinitely as an all- sufficient Saviour. The phrase, " God was in Christ," etc., means that God, /or tlie sake of Christ, is willing to pardon all who appropriate the Saviour's merits. In other words, all who come to God in Christ — that is, by receiving Jesus as their mediator and intercessor — will find God a recon- ciled Father. This is the substance of the Gospel offer. Now, that this is the meaning of the Apostle appears plainly from the connection of this verse with the preceding, in which it is said that God " hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation — to wit, that God was in Christ," etc. The ministry of reconciliation, then, or the mere preaching of the Gospel, or the offer of salvation in and through Christ, is the Apostle's own explanation of the passage in question. This appears still more evident from tlie latter part of the nine- teenth verse itself: " And hath committed unto us the loord of reconciliation^ Hence the Apostle in the twentieth verse presses the Gospel invitation. The whole difficulty of the passage Avill disappear by simply recollecting that God is never a God in Christ to any but a believing sinner. To apprehend Him as a God in Christ is to apprehend Him by savino; faith in the merits of His Son. Hence God in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, can mean noth-

^ [Note by Editor. — In the discussion on the Necessity and Nature of Christianity immediately preceding the present, there may be found (pp. 87, 91) a fuller explanation by the author of this passage.]

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 173

ing but God urging it upon sinners to believe. This j^as- sage, therefore, lends no support whatever to the dogma of universal atonement. It states only the universality of the external call of the Word, and the solemn duty of sinners to obey it.

The next and last passage which I shall consider is John iii. 16 : "For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever belie veth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." The idea whicli our Saviour here intended to convey is, that the indefinite offer of salvation in the Gospel is a testimony to the whole world of God's amazing love or grace. The offer of Christ and salvation in Him is often expressed by words which convey the general idea of an unconditional gift or grant.^ " My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven" — that is, sets before you and invites you to partake. " I will also give Thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mavest be mv salvation unto the ends of the earth." " I will give Thee for a covenant of the people." Both of these passages seem to* refer to the universal publication of the Gospel. The offer of Christ is called a gift, because it conveys to sinners a fair, revealed right to receive and rest upon Him for all the purposes of salvation. Such an offer of a Saviour is a standing testimony to the whole world of God's unmer- ited grace. But there is not a word in this passage about a purpose or decree to save all indefinitely. On the contrary, the limitation of salvation in the close of the verse to believers only is a striking proof that God did not intend to save all. That the giving spoken of in the verse relates only to the Gospel offer is manifest from its being held out as the ground and warrant of faith ; the object of the gift is, "that whosoever believeth should not perish, but have eternal life." Now, as saving faith receives Christ " as lie

^ [Note by Editor. — Dr. Thornwell, in after life, expressly condemned the view of the "Marrow men," that God the Father makes a "grant" of Christ as by a "deed of gift" to all men. Justice to him, therefore, might warrant the excision of this sentence.]

174 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

is offerecV^ in the Gospel, it is manifest that this gift and the Gospel offer must be the same.

The examination which has just been made of the favour- ite texts of the Arminian writers is sufficient, it is believed, to refute the dogma that God has any purpose, either con- ditional or unconditional, of saving all men indiscriminately. There is no revelation of any such intention in the Bible, so that it becomes frivolous and absurd to oppose election with any arguments whatever derived from this source.

The next point in the objection is, that if God has no purpose of salvation toward all men, the invitations of the Gospel become only a mockery. God cannot possibly be sincere in the indiscriminate offer of salvation if He does not intend to bestow it upon each and every individual. This specious objection proceeds upon a gratuitous assump- tion that the external call of the Word conveys to every sinner to whom it is directed a specific intimation that God designs his own salvation in particular. But this is far from the truth. The Gospel oifer is not an expression of GofVs purposes or decrees, but a plain and intelligible ground of duty to man. It comes to no one and says, " You indi- vidually and particularly are included in God's purpose of saving mercy." If this were the nature of it, none could pretend to reconcile its acknowledged universality with the doctrines of election and reprobation. But this is so far from being the case that it simply gives to sinners a inght to believe ; it gives them an adequate foundation, a warrant- able ground for the exercise of faith. In other words, it is such a general, indefinite, unconditional grant of Christ in all His plenitude of grace as conveys to each and every sin- ner who hears the joyful sound an unquestionable right to appropriate and apply the Saviour in all His fullness to his own individual case without presumption or blasphemy. God, in the Gospel, holds up a Saviour in all respects suited to the fallen condition of man, and abundantly able to heal the diseases and relieve the miseries of every son and daugh- ter of Adam. The Divine nature of the adorable Redeemer

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 175

stamps an infinite value upon His doings and sufferings, so that there can be no possible limitation of the all-sufficiency of Christ. Holding up this Saviour to sinners in the out- ward dispensation of the Gospel, God conveys to all indis- criminately a plain right to appropriate Christ for all the purposes of salvation, and at the same time solemnly assures men that all who do appropriate Him shall infallibly be saved. From all this the general object of the Gospel offer is sufficiently obvious : it is to afford a lawful ground for faith. Saving faith is measured by the offer of Christ in the Gospel, and no man could possibly be required to believe if he had no law^ful right to believe. The command of God is positive tliat all men should believe ; the Gospel offer comes in as a handmaid to the command, and g-ives all men adequate authority for believing. Now, in all this God may be perfectly sincere, while He has no purpose of actual salvation for all. He is sincere in oivino; the sinner a warrant to believe on Clirist, and God may certainly give such a warrant witliout giving the sinner a disposition to make use of it. God is sincere in all the promises of the Gospel, because He will assuredly fulfil them to all who scripturally embrace them — that is, embrace them as yea and amen in Christ, the great Trustee of the Covenant, for no promise is made separate and apart from Him. God is sincere in His invitations and entreaties, because He is only urging the sinner to the faithful discharge of solemn and imperative duty. And surely God as a Sovereign may require of man and urge upon him the performance of duty without duplicity or deceit, and yet withhold that strength which man has basely forfeited, and is now guilty for need- ing. If God gave sinners a right to believe on Christ, and then by creating a positive inability should debar them from believing, the Gospel offer would clearly be a mockery. But this is not the case. God makes no man an unbeliever. He commands and urges it upon all to believe, and debars none from an access to the throne of grace. They wickedly debar themselves, and the decree of reprobation leaves them

176 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

to walk in the sight of their own eyes and the pride of tlieir own hearts. The Gospel oifer, combined with the positive command of God, renders the duty of believing imperative upon all, and therefore leaves every unbeliever utterly with- out excuse in the sight of God. An all-sufficient Saviour has been held up before him, abundantly able to save all that were ever invited to come ; a door of access has been opened to the throne of grace, so that he might have gone with boldness and sought for the mercy which he needed, with the certain prospect of obtaining it. His duty was plainly declared and solemnly enforced, and God put forth no influence ujion him to hold him from Christ, had he felt a disposition to go. He is therefore without excuse. But yet the doctrine of reprobation remains unaffected. God withheld grace which He was under no obligation to bestow, and left the sinner to perish in his sins. He opened the eyes of others to see the Saviour in His glory, and to read their own right to receive and appropriate Him in the rec- ord of the Word. Thus is election equally unaffected by the nature and design of the Gospel offer.

Let it be borne in mind that the external call of the Gos- pel simply points out a ground of duty, and all difficulty is removed. This call merely represents God as a sovereign Legislator and man a dependent subject — a truth with which the doctrines of election and reprobation by no means interfere. This external call says not a syllable about the purposes of God in giving or withholding the grace of faith. But when the call is proclaimed among men indefinitely, then comes in election and persuades some to receive and obey it, while others are left utterly without excuse for refus- ing to do what they had a plain and unquestionable right to do, and were moreover solemnly bound to do.

Secondly. The next leading class of objections to the sove- reignty of God comprehends those which are derived from the moral agency of man. They may be reduced to the fol- lowing heads : 1. Election is inconsistent with liberty, and consequently with accountability. 2. It destroys all solici-

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 177

tude about personal holiness. 3. It renders the means of grace entirely nugatory. These, I believe, are the most prominent ; at least, they are more frequently reiterated than any others of this class. I will answer them in order.

1. Election is inconsistent with the moral agency and accountability of man. It will be remembered that this is one of the objections which the Apostle Paul notices in the ninth of Romans : " Thou wilt then say unto me. Why doth He yet find fault ? for who hath resisted His will ?" Ver. 19.

That the decrees of God do render events absolutely cer- tain is beyond all doubt, but that they change the nature of second causes can never be made out. All that is necessary to constitute moral agency is to be a rational, intelligent being ; to possess the faculties and affections which invari- ably belong to spirit, and without which it would cease to be spirit. Now, election or Divine sovereignty, in its full- est extent, does not destroy the spiritual or intelligent nature of man, and consequently does not destroy what alone is essential to moral agency. Again, the decree of God does not force men to act contrary to their wills. They are con- scious of pursuing the bent of their own thoughts and of prosecuting their own plans. No man is dragged or reluc- tantly driven by the purpose of God into a course of con- duct which he does not choose to pursue. How then does the Divine decree make man a mere machine ? It is wholly a gratuitous assumption that the nature of second causes is at all changed by the purposes of God. Events are certain, the concurrence of causes in producing them is certain ; these things are determined, they must take place, there is no possibility of failure, but man still continues to be man notwithstanding the decree.

In relation to the reprobate it is constantly denied by Calvinists that God puts forth a positive agency in creating their sinfulness. He does not make them sinners. He does not infuse into their hearts that moral turpitude and carnal enmity from which their actual rebellion proceeds. He ordains their actions as natural events by decreeing to

Vol. II.— 12

178 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

permit them, or by positively appointing them, but He does not originate the sinner's malignity and desperate aversion to holiness. He finds them in the decree of reprobation under the curse of a righteous law, and determines to leave them in their ruin and depravity. He finds them sinners and He leaves them sinners, with the settled purpose of inflicting upon them the merited penalty of death. Where is there any violence offered to their wills ? There is mani- festly none. They have all the freedom which their corrup- tion and depravity will permit them to possess. They walk in the " sight of their own eyes." " They kindle a fire and walk in the light of their own sj)arks." They love sin, and freely indulge in it because they love it.

In reference to the elect, it is freely admitted that God by a positive and direct influence is the author of every holy aifection in their hearts. It is freely admitted that they are passive in effectual calling until being quickened by His grace they are enabled and inclined to answer the call. But still it is denied that any violence whatever is offered to their wills. This will appear by considering the separate elements of effectual calling.' (1.) "The minds of the elect are enlightened spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God." But surely the infusion of light into the soul does not destroy its nature, does not make that a slave which was free before. A new discernment of things does not affect the accountability of man which grows necessarily out of his relations to God. There is no reason why spirit- ual knowledge, any more than natural knowledge, should affect man's moral agency considered in its own intrinsic nature. Light in no sense can alter the spiritual constitu- tion of the subject enlightened. How preposterous, then, the idea that because man has spiritual light he ceases to be a moral agent !

(2.) The next element of effectual calling is, "taking away their heart of stone, and giving them a heart of flesh." This sentiment in Scripture is variously expressed, but the influence w^hich the Holy Spirit here puts forth is a creating

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 179

influence. A new heart is created. Holy susceptibilities are originated which did not exist before. But surely crea- tion involves no contradiction to moral agency, otherwise no created being could be a moral agent. If the mere fact of creation destroyed moral agency, it would be impossible for God to make a moral agent. Besides, the new heart does not change the essence of the soul.

(3.) The third element is " renewing their wills, and by His Almighty power determining them to that which is good." Nor is man's liberty at all infringed in this. Pre- viously to the operations of the Spirit man could Mali nothing but sin ; but his will is now renewed by an Almighty power, and determined to that which is good. Does the fact that man is inclined to good by a power which he has no disposi- tion to resist prove that he is not an accountable and moral being? If man were reluctantly driven to the choice of good, he would cease to act freely — that is, in conformity with existing dispositions ; but when man delights in what is good, no matter from what cause this delight may have originated, he acts freely in choosing it.

(4.) The last element is, " eifectually drawing them to Jesus Christ, yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by His grace." To this no objection can be raised, as it flatly asserts man's freeness and willingness in receiving Christ. I apj)rehend that the cause of difficulty with many lies in an oversight of the fact that man is passive in regen- eration, though active in believing. He is the subject of a Divine influence ; and therefore it is no more reasonable to suppose that his essential constitution is changed by being acted upon by God than in any other case of external influ- ence. It is true that the influence which God puts forth is efficient ; it secures the intended result, but it is just as true that man acts freely and spontaneously, since the result intended was to determine the will to good. Previously to the operations of the Spirit, the man \vas dead; he could perform no spiritual action at all. God infuses into him spiritual life. Now this implies no violence. In conse-

180 ELECTION AND REPEOBATTON.

quence of this life being infused into his soul, he now freely chooses and embraces that which is good. And here there is no violence. AVhere, then, is the inconsistency between Divine influence and moral agency ?

There is a sense in which moral agency is attributed to man which, I freely confess, is irreconcilable with election. It consists in making man's will the sole originating cause of his actions, without any regard to existing dispositions or extraneous influences. The theory is, that the will can and does determine itself; that the only reason why man adopts one mode of action and not another is that his will, in con- sequence of its own inherent power, so determined itself. There is no such thing on this scheme as choice, deliberation, disposition ; the will is arbitrary and sovereign, and submits to no influence out of itself. To this theory there are insu- perable objections : 1st. It makes man Avholly independent of God. The Supreme Being has no more control over the actions of His creatures, according to this system, than if He did not exist. The only dependence which they can feel upon Him is simply for preservation. 2dly. It is incon- sistent with accountability. As well might a weather-cock be held responsible for its lawless motions as a being whose arbitrary, uncontrollable will is his only law. What can the man account for? His actions have arisen from no moral considerations whatever ; he acted because he acted ; and this is the only account he can give. 3dly. It makes man the author of his own spiritual renovation. Divine grace, on this scheme, is not efficient ; it does nothing. Everything depends upon the sinner's arbitrary will. God may expostulate, and warn, and send His Spirit to operate on the heart, but all in vain unless the sinner's will should determine itself to Christ and salvation ; in other words, unless the sinner should convert himself. These are a speci- men of the difficulties involved in this absurd theory of moral agency, which strictly implies only that man is not a fit subject for a government of laws.

The S(Tiptures are explicit in stating the unconditional

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 181

decrees of God in connection with the responsibility and moral agency of" men. There was a plain decree in regard to the death and sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet under that decree the agency of man was exerted in deeds of darkness. So far was this decree from annulling human responsibility that fearful guilt was incurred by the Jews, and tremendous sufferings inflicted upon them. " Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." Acts ii. 23. " For, of a truth, against Thy holy child Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and peo- ple of Israel, were gathered together for to do whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel determined before to be done." Acts iv. 27, 28. ^ow here it is expressly said that the enemies of our Lord acted only " according to the determi- nate counsel and foreknowledge of God," and did only what His " hand and His counsel determined before to be done," and yet they are charged with guilt and wickedness : " ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain," Hence, the Apostle was clearly of opinion that the absolute and sovereign predestination of God did not take away responsibility from man or remove the guilt of his transgres- sions. All the difficulties involved in the doctrine, or that have ever been charged upon it, are involved in, and with equal propriety may be charged upon, this particular case. Election to grace is no stronger a feature of the absolute predestination of God than the death and sufferings of Christ ; and if all the circumstances connected with the one could be positively decreed and rendered absolutely certain, consistently with the liberty of moral and rational agents, then all the circumstances connected with the other may also be determined without the destruction or infringement of the agency of man.

If efficient Divine influence is inconsistent with moral agency, then men can never be confirmed in holiness beyond the grave without ceasing to be moral agents. God cannot

182 EI.ECTION AND EEPROBATION.

secure their holiness in heaven consistently with their Hberty, any more than He can determine their actions here. The difficulty grows out of the sinner's own mind — his own liberty of moral action ; and so long as that liberty continues, the same difficulty must continue. Upon the Arminian hypothesis, then, it is a possible, if not a probable, case, that a soul may have basked for myriads and myriads of years in the rays of eternal glory, and then fall, and fall like Lucifer, never to rise again — suddenly exchanging its shouts cf praise and alleluia for the wail of the damned, and dropping the song of redeeming love for the gnashing of teeth and the fiend- like yell of despair. These monstrous results necessarily grow out of the position that election and moral agency are incompatible, and carry along with them so complete a denial of many promises of Scripture as at once to over- throw the fundamental position on which they depend. What then ? We are compelled to receive election with its inevitable concomitant, moral necessity, or resort to wild and revolting theories of free-will with their cumbrous train of absurdity and nonsense. We are compelled to receive a moral agency which is consistent with a moral necessity, or adopt a hypothesis which destroys accountability at once. I cannot forbear to mention here that the difficulty presses just as hard in another form against the Arminians. They deny the Divine decrees, but admit the essential omnis- cience of God. Events, therefore, are certain ; they must happen just as God knows that they will happen ; they can- not possibly happen otherwise. Here, tlien, is a moral neces- sity just as strong as the moral necessity of the Calvinists. But they reply that God does not produce the events. It is a question of no manner of importance how the events are pro- duced ; the difficulty lies in this, that they are necessarily pro- duced. Arminians cannot evade it ; their system involves moral necessity as much as ours ; and it is as much their business as ours to reconcile this necessity with moral agency. 2. The next objection of this class is that election destroys all solicitude about personal holiness. It reduces men to a

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 183

system of such stern necessity that there is no reason at all why they should be concerned about their personal salva- tion. It will be seen that this difficulty grows out of the former. I shall make but two or three remarks upon it — (1.) As the nature of second causes is not at all changed by the Divine decree, the duties of man to God are just the same that they would be if there were no election in the case. Man's relations to his Maker are the same; he is still a creature and a subject. The connection of obedience and life is the same, and all the motives to activity and dili- gence remain unchanged. With none of these things do the decrees of God interfere. How then can election destroy solicitude about personal salvation? It cannot justly do it without destroying the inseparable connection between holi- ness and happiness, and the duty of man to obey his sove- reign. Exhortations are useful and proper, because man ought to obey, and will be abundantly rewarded if he does. (2.) It would contradict the very nature and design of elec- tion if it made men careless and indifferent. The end con- templated by election is holiness. The decree is that the chosen ones shall believe, repent, be humble and exemplary in their walk and conversation, and yet this has a tendency to make them stupid, unconcerned and indifferent ! Because it is decreed that a man shall believe, therefore he will not believe ; because it is decreed that he shall be holy, therefore he will be profligate and abandoned. What absurdity ! So long as holiness continues to be an indispensable element of salvation, the election to grace cannot be an election to sin. Election as much involves the certainty of personal holiness as it does the certainty of heaven. (3.) My third remark is, that it has directly a contrary tendency, and that in several respects. It is an acknowledged principle of human nature that when great interests are at stake deep solicitude is felt by men, if there is only a bare possibilit}' that they may be personally concerned. If the means of knowing whether or not they are in fact concerned be within their power, they will resort to them with eager avidity.

184 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

This is a plain principle of human nature. Apply this to the case in hand. Here are solemn and commanding- into- rests at stake. Heaven or hell will infallibly be the lot of every child of Adam. Here are the means of knowing, in the inspired volume, with certainty whether I am predesti- nated to eternal life. If I really believed all this, I would shake heaven and earth in the great commotion ; I would give no sleep to my eyes nor slumber to my eyelids till I had settled this solemn point. Just let me realize the cei'- tainty that heaven or hell is my portion, and I could no more fold my arms under the bare possibility of going to hell, while there was a prospect of escape, than I could take my ease on a burning volcano. The certainty of one doom, but the uncertainty in regard to wliich^ has a natural tendency to rouse the soul into vigorous efforts to throw off the pangs of suspense.

If the Scriptures pointed out by name and surname the individuals elected and reprobated, there would be some foundation for the objection, but they do no such thing. They simply tell men that they belong to one class or the other, and add as an encouragement to effort that those who comply with the prescribed plan of salvation are certainly elected. Hence they call upon us to make our "calling and election sure" by receiving the Saviour and walking in the way of His commandments. None know that they are reprobates, and therefore none can know that their efforts will be useless. I am fully satisfied that if men had a deeper and more impressive sense of the truth of this doc- trine, there would be more earnest inquiry and serious alarm among the careless and impenitent. But the misfortune is that they do not Jeel the astounding certainty that heaven or hell is theirs. They are radically Arminians ; they have the keys of both kingdoms in the pocket of their own free- will, and rest satisfied under the full but delusive impres- sion that they can determine the matter just when they please.

In reference to those who know that they are elected, it cannot be maintained that election has a tendency to lull

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 185

them into carnal security, unless it is also maintained that a deej) and clear sense of God's love to us has a tendency to call forth only hatred to Him. This would be to make a Christian not only depraved, but unnatural in consequence of conversion. The biography of the saints furnishes a run- ning commentary upon the happy moral influence of Cal- vinism in quickening and invigorating the graces of the Spirit, and some Arminians have been candid enough to confess that the charge of licentiousness is the offspring of ignorance. It is obvious, in fact, that there are some graces of the Christian character which a cordial belief of elec- tion is wonderfully suited to cherish.

(1.) " We love Him because He first loved us." " With- out the doctrine of predestination," says Zanchius, " we can- not enjoy a lively sight and experience of God's special love and mercy towards us in Christ Jesus. Blessings not pecu- liar, but conferred indiscriminately on every man without distinction or exception, would neither be a proof of pecu- liar love in the donor, nor calculated to excite peculiar won- der and gratitude in the receiver. For instance, rain from heaven, though an invaluable benefit, is not considered as an argument of God's special and peculiar favour to some indi- viduals above others, because it falls on all alike, as much on the rude wilderness and the barren rock as on tlie culti- vated garden and fruitful field. But the blessing of elec- tion, somewhat like the Sibylline books, rises in value pro- portionably to the fewness of its objects. From a sense of God's peculiar, eternal and unchangeable love to His peo- ple their hearts are inflamed to love Him in return. Slen- der indeed will be my motives to the love of God on the supposition that my love to Hhn is beforehand with His to me, and that the very continuance of His favour is sus- i)endcd on the weather-cock of my variable will, or on the flimsy thread of my imperfect afl*ection. Such a precarious, dependent love were unworthy of God, and fitted to pro- duce but scanty and cold reciprocation of love from man. Would you know what it is to love God as your Father,

186 ELECTION AJSTD REPROBATION.

Friend and Saviour, you must fall down before His electing mercy. Till then you are only hovering about in quest of true felicity. But you will never find the door, much less can you enter into rest, till you are enabled to love Him because He hath first loved you." It is manifest that a doctrine so friendly to the love of God cannot be unfriendly to universal obedience, "for love is the fulfilling of tlie Law." The man who sincerely loves God, as a matter of course, will desire conformity to His image, and as " electing good- ness is the very life and soul of love to God, good works must flourish or decline in proportion as election is glori- fied or obscured."

(2.) This doctrine is peculiarly favourable to the cultiva- tion of humility, and that in two respects. 1st. It lays the axe at the root of all human merit, and ascribes to sovereign, unmerited grace the whole glory of our salvation. It is found from experience that the legality of the heart presents a formidable barrier to the reception of the Gospel. Men's performances are so essential to their own self-complacency that it is hard to persuade them that all their righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and that salvation is not the reward of debt, but the gift of grace. This very natural pride of the carnal heart can be humbled or removed by no truth so eifectually as the doctrine of election. When this is brought home upon their minds, men can then understand that " it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy." It strips them of all pretensions to merit, shows them their deep and loathsome unworthiiiess, and prostrates their souls in the very dust of self-abasement. The following remarks of Zanchius are forcible and appro- priate : " Conversion and salvation must, in the very nature of the things, be wrought and effected either by ourselves alone, or by ourselves and God together, or solely by God Himself. Pelagians were for the first, the Arminians are for the second, true believers are for the last, because the last hypothesis, and that only, is built on the strongest evi- dence of reason, Sci-ipture, and experience. It most effect-

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 187

ually hides pride from man, and sets the crown of undivided praise upon the head — or, rather, casts it at the feet — of that glorious Triune God ' who worketh all in all.' But this is a crown which no sinners ever yet cast before the throne of God who were not first led into the transporting views of His gracious decree to save freely, and of His own will, the people of His eternal love." 2dlY. This doctrine is not oidy favourable to humility by counteracting a legal spirit, but it is the very soul of dependence on Divine influence. The importance which the Scriptures attach to an uniform, habitual dependence on the grace of God sufficiently appears from the frequent and earnest exhortations to cultivate such a disposition ; and if indeed it be so that the Holy Spirit is the source of all pious and devout affections, this dependent temper is the only one which is consistent with a Christian's true condition or his relations to God. Emptied as we are by election of all that cannot abide the scrutiny of heaven, we are pointed to inexhaustible treasures at God's right hand, which are bestow^ed only upon those who habitually depend upon His grace. Blind, naked and miserable in ourselves, we take the counsel of the Holy Sj^irit and lean upon the Lord for all that we need. Self-annihilation, as Luther calls it, is the mainspring of uniform dependence upon grace ; and whatever has a tendency to drive us out of ourselves has likewise a tendency to drive us to God.

(3.) The doctrine of election affords great encouragement to prayer. 1st. Because prayer is the natural expression of dependence upon Divine influences. 2dly. Because election represents the grace of God as efficient. There would be no motive to pray for spiritual blessings if our groA\i;h in grace depended upon our own free wills and not upon the Spirit of God. If Divine grace exerted no invincible efficacy in sub- duing sin, mortifying lust and invigorating the principles of piety, it would be hard to determine why the life of a Christian should be a life of habitual, unceasing prayer. 3dly. Elec- tion is favourable to prayer, because it represents it as a gift of God, and as the appointed medium of receiving Divino

188 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

blessings. When God decrees to bestow a blessing upon His people, He decrees also to give them the Spirit of prayer and supplication, so that when they find this Spirit poured out upon them they have every encouragement from the usual order of Divine providence to " ask in faith, nothing doubting."

(4.) This doctrine is the sole foundation of a full assur- ance of faith. It is the duty and privilege of Christians not only to be assured of their present acceptance with God, but also of their future, everlasting salvation. But this assurance they never could possess if j ustification, sanctifi- cation and glorification were not inseparably connected in the Divine decree. That such an assurance is in the high- est degree friendly to piety is manifest from the fact that faith itself, even in its lowest exercises, works by love and purifies the heart.

Such are some of the obvious tendencies of election. I have said nothing of the support which it yields in afflic- tion and distress, the patience and submission with which it inspires the soul in the gloomiest hours of adversity, and the strong consolation it administers to the dying saint when struggling in the pangs of death. Enough has been said, however, to show that its tendencies are all in favour of godliness, and I regard it as no proof of the spirituality of the present age that amid our bustle and excitement so little is said of this precious doctrine of the Gospel.

That wicked and profiine persons have perverted it to tlieir own eternal undoing I have no disposition to deny. So has every doctrine of the Gospel been perverted. The difficulty is not in the doctrine, but in the heart ; swine will trample on a jewel be it ever so precious.

3. The last objection under this head is that election ren- ders the means of grace perfectly nugatory. If the elect are to be' saved they will- be saved, let them do what they will ; if the reprobate arc to be damned they will be damned, let them do what they may. This objection involves a con- tradiction. Salvation implies faith, and repentance, and

ELECTION AXD REPROBATION. 189

holiness, and it is perfect nonsense to say that men may believe and repent let them be as skeptical and profligate as they may. Faith necessarily supposes the Word, which is the only ground of faith, and the Word is usually dispensed by preaching, and hence the indispensable necessity of an instituted ministry. God's decrees are accomplished through the medium of second causes, and the means of grace are the appointed channels through which He dispenses the blessings of the Gospel. They are a necessary part of the decree. When God determines to save He determines to send His Word and ordinances, and to render them effi- cacious by the mighty operation of His Spirit. There is no inconsistency in this. God decrees to send rain upon the earth, but He first collects the vapours into clouds. A caviller might say, if it is to rain it will rain, whether there be any clouds or not.

The means of grace in themselves have no efficiency. They cannot convert a single soul ; all their efficacy is derived from God and from His electing grace. They are valuable only because He has decreed them as the medium of His blessings. But yet it would seem as if the objectors supposed that the means of grace possess in themselves an inherent efficacy, for how else can election be opposed to them ? I shall conclude this head with two extracts from Zanchius : " They who are predestinated to life are like- wise predestinated to all those means which are indispens- ably necessary in order to their meetness for entrance upon and enjoyment of that life, such as repentance, faith, sancti- fication and perseverance in these to the end. Now, though faith and holiness are not represented as the cause wherefore the elect are saved, yet these are constantly represented as the means through which they are saved, or as the appointed way wherein God leads His elect to glory, these blessings being always bestowed previously to that. Agreeable to all which is that of Austin : ' Whatsoever persons are, through the riches of Divine grace, exempted from the original sentence of condemnation are undoubtedly brought

190 ELECTION AND EEPROBATION.

to hear the Gospel, and when heard, they are canscd to believe.'" The next extract is more to the point: " Tliat absohite predestination does not set aside nor render suj)er- fluous the use of preaching, exhortation, etc., Ave prove from the examples of Christ Himself and His apostles, who all taught and insisted upon the article of predestination, and yet took every opportunity of preaching to sinners, and enforced their ministry with proper rebukes, invitations and exhortations as occasion required. Though they showed unanswerably that salvation is the free gift of God and lies entirely at His sovereign disposal, that men can of them- selves do nothing spiritually good, and that it is God who of His own pleasure works in them both to will and to do, yet they did not neglect to address their auditors as being possessed of reason and conscience, nor omit to remind them of their duties as such. Our Saviour Himself expressly and in terminis assures us that no man can come to Him except the Father draw him, and yet He says, Come unto me, all ye that labour. St. Paul declares it is not of him that will- eth nor of him that runneth, and yet exhorts the Corinth- ians so to run as to obtain the prize. He assures us that we know not what to pray for as we ought, and yet directs us to pray without ceasing. St. James, in like manner, says that every good and perfect gift cometh down from above, and exhorts those who want wisdom to ask it of God. So, then, all these being means whereby the elect are frequently enlightened into the knowledge of Christ, and by which they are, after they have believed through grace, bnilt up in Him, and being means of their perseverance in grace to the end, they are so far from being vain and insignificant that they are highly useful and necessary, and answer many valuable and important ends without in the least shaking the doctrine of predestination in particular or the analogy of faith in general."

We have now given what was promised at the outset : 1. A plain statement of the doctrine of Election as held by the Presbyterian Church. 2. A vindication of its truth by

ELECTION AND EEPROBATION. 191

an appeal to the Scriptures. And, 3. We have answered, as we hope satisfactorily, the leading and prominent objections of those who are opposed to Calvinism. The Essay must now stand or fall by its own merits. If it maintains the doctrines of the Bible, it is a comfort to think that God will take care of His own truth, whatever may become of this feeble effort to defend it ; if the doctrines here advanced are false, the sooner they fall to the ground the better. Noth- ing now remains to complete our design but the deduction of a few obvious inferences.

1. This doctrine pre-eminently glorifies God, and that in several respects. (1.) It glorifies the independence and omnipotence of the Divine will. Every other scheme ren- ders the plans and purposes of God in some measure dejjend- ent upon the conduct and determinations of his creatures, and Arminians have no hesitation' in avowing that the designs of God are susceptible of failure, although He solemnly declares, " INIy counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure." It is the will of God, we are told, that each and every man should be saved. The fact that all are not, and will not be, saved, shows one of two things — either that God could not accomplish His own design, or that the Divine will is dependent on the will of the creature. Hence God either has no settled purpose of His own, or is unable to carry it out as He would wish. This is the necessary and unavoidable consequence of conditional decrees ; they virtually dethrone God by making the volitions of man of equal importance in the government of the world with His own. They destroy at once His independence and omnipo- tence. But the doctrine of predestination ascribes to God that which unquestionably belongs to Him, the supreme disposal of all events " according to the counsel of His own will." " Our God is in the heavens. He hath done what- soever He hath pleased. There is none that can stay His hand or say unto him. What doest Thou ?" Creation and Providence are nothing but the actual evolutions in time of the secret purpose which lay in the bosom of God from

192 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

all eternity. There is nothing fortuitous, nothing apciden- tal, nothing unexpected, because nothing does or can take place M^hich has not been previously determined by " the counsel and foreknowledge of God." While God as yet existed alone, supremely glorious in Himself, before one particle of matter had been called into being or a solitary soul was found to adore and reverence the perfection of Deity, He scanned in the light of an infallible omniscience and fixed by the power of an immutable decree all objects and events, whether small or great, whether grand or minute. He simply wills, and emptiness and desolation become peopled with a thousand inhabitants of a thousand ranks and gradations of being, the wheels of Providence begin to roll, and every creature, whether small or great, organic or inorganic, material or intelligent, walks in the track which an eternal purpose had settled and arranged. "According, therefore, to the Scripture representation," says Toplady, " Providence neither acts vaguely and at random, like a blind archer who shoots uncertainly in the dark as well as he can, nor yet pro re nata, or as the unfore- seen exigence of aifairs may require ; like some blundering statesman who plunges, it may be, his country and himself into difficulties, and then is forced to unravel his cobweb and reverse his plan of operations as the best remedy for those disasters M^hich the court-spider had not the wisdom to foresee. But shall we say this of God ? 'Twere blasphemy ! He that dwelleth in the heavens laugheth all these mise- rable afterthoughts to scorn. God who can neither be overreached nor overpowered has all these post-expedients in derision. He is incapable of mistake. He knows no levity of will. He cannot be surprised with any unforeseen inconveniences. ' His throne is in heaven, and His king- dom ruleth over all.' Whatever, therefore, comes to pass, comes to pass as a part of the original plan, and is the off- spring of that prolific series of causes and effects which owes its birth to the ordaining and permissive will of Him in whom ' we all live, and move, and have our bein^.'

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 193

Providence in time is the hand that delivers God's purpose of those beings and events with which that purpose was pregnant from everlasting." All events hang upon the nod of Jehovah, while His purposes and plans are dependent upon nothing but the " unsearcha])le counsel of His own will." He is the mighty Ruler of the universe, and His ivill, His eternal purpose, is supreme and irresistible through all the boundless ranges of existence. Amid the seeming- irregularity and confusion which distract the Avorld, amid all the fiiilures in human schemes and calculations wliich are daily taking place, amid the horrors of war, the fall of kingdoms and the ruins of empire, there is one grand, unchangeable purpose which never fails, but which meets its accomplishment alike in the frustration or success of all other purposes. Every event in nature or in grace is simply an evolution of that grand purpose ; and could the thread of this purpose be traced by the limited intellect of man in all its bearings and relations, chaos would exhibit regularity, and order and harmony would rise from confusion. In fact, the glory of the Divine independence and omnipotence is so inseparably connected with predestination that even Unita- rians when describing the Divine majesty forget their sys- tem and substantially acknowledge the fundamental princi- ples of Calvinism. They cannot portray the majesty of God without it. Hence the following extract from Buck- minster's Sermon on Providence need not surprise us : " How inexpressibly great is that Being who penetrates at once the recesses and circumscribes within Himself the boundless ranges of Creation ; who pierces into the profound meditations of the most sublime intelligence above with the same ease that He discerns the wayward projects of the child ; who knows equally the abortive imaginations and tlie wisest plans of every creature that ever has thought or ever will think throughout the realms of intellect ! How wonderful is that power which wields with equal ease the mightiest and the feeblest agents, directs the resistless thunder-bolt, or wafts a feather through the air ; bursts out in the im- VoL. II.— 13

194 ELECTION AND PvEPROBATION.

prisoned lava, or rests on the peaceful bosom of the lake ; rides on the rapid whirlwind, or whispers in the evening air ! Think, I pray you, of that wisdom which conducts at the same moment the innumerable purposes of all His crea- tures, and whose own grand purpose is equally accomplished by the failure or success of all the plans of all His creatures. Think of Him under whom all agents operate, because by Him all beings exist. Think of Him who has but to will it, and all moving Nature pauses in her course, chaos suc- ceeds to the liarmony of innumerable spheres and eternal darkness overwhelms this universe of light. Yet in the midst of darkness His throne is stable and all is light about the seat of God ! " It is really amazing that any one who has correct apprehensions of the moral character of God should be at all opposed to the supremacy and independence of His righteous will. Supremely just, and wise, and holy, it ought to be a matter of thanksgiving and joy that such a Being controls the armies of heaven and the hosts of earth, and all should join the shout of the redeemed in glory, " Hallelujah, the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth !"

(2.) This doctrine not only glorifies the omnipotence and independence of God's will, but furnishes an illustrious dis- play of His grace. The Scriptures represent the grace and mercy of God as the only sources from which all our bless- ings are derived, and particularly the saving blessings of the Gospel. We are everywhere described in the Bible as having no claim upon God, but as being justly exposed to His wrath and curse. Polluted and defiled by nature, we are under a righteous sentence of condemnation, and all holy beings would approve the severity of the Divine judg- ment, if we, like the devils, were eternally cut oif from all hope of pardon or acceptance. This is the natural state of every soul of man, and this is the light in which God saw us when the purpose of salvation went forth in favour of His elect. He saw them in their blood, and when nothing could have been justly expected but vengeance and death. He said unto them, " Live.'" Here was ^race — pure, unmer-

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 195

ited favour — breaking through all the barriers of their depravity and guilt, and yearning toward them with an amazing purpose of redemption and life. But the ques- tions might well have been asked, "How shall I put thee among the children ?" " How shall I reconcile the con- flicting claims of grace and justice and prepare my elect for an inheritance among them that are holy?" Here grcwe becomes still more wonderful. It pitches upon the eternal Son, the second person of the adorable Trinity, and enters into a solemn covenant transaction with Him to redeem, and sanctify, and save. He undertakes, as the Substitute and Surety of the elect, in the fullness of time to become their kinsman by being born of a woman ; to humble Himself by being found in fashion as a man ; to obey the law as a covenant in their name, and to bring in an everlasting righteousness ; to redeem them from its awful curse by being made a curse for them ; and to satisfy completely in their behalf all the claims of justice and of law, so that God consistently with His adorable perfections could regard them with an eye of favour and acceptance. The next step in this glorious economy of grace is the mission of the Holy Spirit to apply the purchased redemption to the hearts of the elect by His efficient, almighty operations. Here, then, is an astonishing display of grace, such as can consist with no other doctrine but that of election. Here is a chain of Divine love reaching from the great decree of salvation in the counsels of eternity to its full accomplishment in the regions of glory. Not one link of this golden chain hangs upon human merit — all, all from first to last is pure, unmer- ited grace. No wonder that the Apostle, in speaking of election, breaks forth into doxologies, for that doctrine erects an eternal monument to the glory of God's grace. It brings down every lofty imagination, abases every high thought that exalts itself against God, and issues forth the solemn and peremptory edict that " no flesh shall glory in His presence." " But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sane-

196 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

tification, and redemption, that according as it is written, he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord." "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved." This grace becomes remarkably conspicuous, because it is confined to the elect. Such a limitation of its objects shows in the light of undeniable reality its utter undeservedness. Had it been promiscuously extended to all, its freeness could not have been so remarkably displayed, but by being with- held from some the demerit of all is unanswerably estab- lished, and just in proportion as that is established the free- ness of Divine grace is exalted. It is a flimsy cavil that grace to be infinite must include every possible object ; then, verily, the devils would be saved. The plain truth is that the Divine attributes are all infinite only as they exist in God, and not in relation to the number or extent of the objects on which they are exercised.

(3.) This doctrine glorifies God's justice. " But what if God, willing to show His wa^ath and to make His power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction?" Romans ix. 22. "The two objects," says Professor Hodge, " which Paul here specifies as designed to be answered by the punishment of the wicked, are the manifestation of the wrath of God and the exhibition of His power. The word wj^ath is used here as in chapter i. 18, for the Divine displeasure against sin, the calm and holy disapprobation of evil, joined with the determination to punish those who commit it. Though the inherent ill desert of sin must ever be regarded as the primary ground of the infliction of punishment — a ground which would remain in full force were no beneficial results anticipated from the misery of the wicked — yet God has so ordered His govern- ment that the evils which sinners incur shall result in the manifestation of His character, and the consequent promo-

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 197

tion of the holiness and happiness of His intelligent creatures throughout eternity." I would only add that if sin be an infinite evil, the Divine displeasure against it must be signal and consjiicuous ; but if God had included the whole human race in His gracious purpose of salvation, it might be a ques- tion whether mercy had not eclipsed justice. But by gra- ciously electing some and passing by others the Divine jus- tice is doubly manifested : First, in the sufferings and death of Christ as the Substitute of the elect ; and, secondly, in the persons of the reprobate themselves. But be this as it may, the punishment of the wicked can never be regarded as otherwise than just; and so long as God continues to be supremely holy and opposed to sin, it cannot be thought strange that the terrors of His wrath should overtake the guilty.

I have now shown, in these few and simple observations, that the doctrine of Election glorifies God, particularly His independence, omnipotence, grace and justice. But I do not mean to insinuate that God elected one and rejected another for the purjiose of merely displaying His character. This is the natural and obvious result, but it by no means follows that this was the cause. On the contrary, it is the plain and undeniable doctrine of the Scriptures that " His counsels are unsearchable, and His ways past finding out." The reasons of the Divine procedure are the secret things which are known only to Himself We know facts, and in many cases we can trace results ; but we " know not the mind of the Lord," and cannot, without arrogance and presumption, un- dertake to inquire into the why and the wherefore of the Divine administration. He simply declares that He " work- etli all things according to the counsel of His own will." This is all that He has revealed, and it is all that Ave are able to ascertain. When we reach the will of God we must stop ; we can go no farther. Why He wills so and so is a question which we are utterly unable to solve, and it is dark- ening counsel by words without knowledge when we pre- sume to prate about the general good of the universe and

198 ELECTION AND REPEOBATION.

the greatest happiness of the greatest number. No doubt God has reasons for the conduct of His government, but we know them not; His will is law to us and the utmost boundary of our knowledge. Manifestly, the efficient cause of election and reprobation, in the Scriptures, is referred only to the sovereign will of Jehovah, as has been proved already at considerable length. But we should by no means con- found this with the final cause or natural result which is certainly the manifestation of His glory ; or, as the Confes- sion of Faith expresses it, election is " to the praise of His glorious grace," and reprobation " to the praise of His glo- rious justice." By observing this necessary distinction between efficient and final causes we shall sail clear of the dangerous quicksands of Hopkinsian error.

2. The second inference which I would deduce from this doctrine is the infallible perseverance of the saints. This results necessarily from the immutability of God. His counsel shall stand — His will cannot be defeated, and there- fore all the objects of His special love must necessarily be saved. The certainty of election is the ground of Paul's triumphant assurance in the eighth of Romans : " Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than con- querors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

3. The next inference which may safely be drawn is the doctrine of limited atonement. We have seen that God has no purpose of salvation to all — that He has no design what- ever of saving the whole human race ; and, therefore, it is preposterous to suppose that the satisfaction of His Son was specifically intended for each and every individual. No doubt it is sufficient, because, in consequence of the union of

ELECTION AND REPROBATION. 199

the two natures in the person of Christ, His sufferings pos- sess an infinite value. No one denies the abundant sufficiency of Christ's merits to save this world and ten thousand others ; but the question is, whether or not the satisfaction of the Saviour was designed for any but His own elect — whether it was rendered in the name of any others, or was intended to be available to their salvation? Now, if the doctrine of election and reprobation be true, such an unlimited design would appear to be impossible. How can God intend to save those toward whom He has no purpose of salvation ? The two doctrines are wholly irreconcilable, — if election and rep- robation be true, universal atonement must fall to the ground ; if universal atonement be true, then election must be blotted from the pages of the Bible. As a matter of course, I speak of the work of Christ in the light of a satisfaction to Divine justice — the only light in which it is regarded in the word of God. As to that refined system of error which makes the atonement of Christ nothing but a pompous pageant, to amaze and astonish a gazing universe, this is not the place to refute its vapouring pretensions. It is at best a mere creature of the fancy, and entitled to no more respect than the mad ravings of a sick man's dream. Now, if the atonement of Christ is a strict satisfaction to the law and justice of God, in the name and place of every sinner, it is impossible to conceive how God, without manifest injustice, can j^ass any by and doom them to punishment in their own proper per- sons. They have already satisfied the law in the person of Christ. How can they then be possibly condemned ? Does justice require two satisfactions ? We may safely say, then, that universal atonement is not only inconsistent with the doctrine of election, but absolutely incompatible with the ultimate damnation of a single sinner ; it is, in other words, when legitimately carried out, nothing but the plain, unvar- nished doctrine of universal salvation. It is not necessary, in order to give a warrant of faith and to render it the duty of every sinner to believe on Christ. The offer of the Saviour in the Gospel, which has no reference on its face to the secret

200 ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

designs of God, is the only legitimate ground of faith, and the command of God would render it binding upon every soul to believe on the Saviour, even though He had died for only one solitary sinner. The right of men to receive and rest upon Christ depends not upon the unrevealed purposes of God in regard to His death, but upon the broad and un- limited grant which is contained in the Gospel record, with its cheering invitations and pressing injunctions. In other words, faith fastens on the preceptive and not the decretive will of God. It would certainly imply a defect of some sort in the economy of grace to suppose that Christ died indis- criminately for all men ; that is, with the specific design of saving each and every individual, when, in point of fact, it is generally conceded that all men will not be saved. It is much more honourable to the Divine character to limit the design to the number that will actually be redeemed, and to maintain with the advocates of this scheme that the all- sufficiency of the atonement is an adequate ground of a general offer, and the sovereign authority of God an ade- quate ground of a general obligation to believe.

I have now completed my original design. It is unneces- sary to say that consequences of momentous importance, in- volving the fundamental principles of the Gospel, hang upon the reception or rejection of this doctrine. To the humble Christian, who has been taught it by the Spirit of God — who has been emptied of self in every form and shape, and brought in deep prostration of soul to bow at the footstool of sovereign mercy — it is inexpressibly precious; and he knows something of the spirit in which that song, so often in his mouth, was dictated : " Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy Name give the glory." In this precious doctrine he finds constant food for humilitv, gratitude and love; and when tempted to flag in his Christian course, nothing affords a stronger stimulant to duty than a deep sense of God's eternal, unmerited grace — " Lo, I have loved thee with an everlasting love." This doctrine is emphatically children's bread. They are often supported by the nourish-

ELECTION AND REPKOBATION. 201

ment it contains, and strengthened for the race set before them, when they can give no connected, metaphysical account of their experiences or feelings. It is eminently devotional in its tendencies ; and it is to be regretted that we are so often compelled to chastise the feelings which it naturally excites, in order to enter the lists of cold-blood argument with those who would rob us of this jewel which our Master has given us. We are often compelled to reason when the heart M'ould prompt us to adore. It is a scriptural duty to contend, and contend earnestly, for the faith once delivered to the saints. " Now, unto the King, eternal, immortal, invisi- ble, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen."

PEEFATOEY NOTE

This treatise on the " Necessity of the Atonement " was delivered as a sermon in the chapel of the South Carolina College on the first day of December, 1844, the text being Eomans i. 16. The author waa requested to give it to the press^ and it was published in 1845 by Samuel Weir, at Columbia.

203

THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

IIST the introductory portion of the Epistle to the Romans the Apostle expresses himself as being not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, because it was the power of God unto salvation to every believer of it. The exultation and tri- umph with which he was accustomed to contemplate the provisions of the Gospel show that to his mind the scheme of redemption unfolded the perfections of the Divine cha- racter in an aspect of benignity to sinners equally unex- pected and glorious. The freshness of interest and inten- sity of enthusiasm with which he habitually dwelt upon the cross were such as are wont to be elicited by a combina- tion, in objects, of novelty and importance. From it he had received full satisfaction upon questions which had awa- kened a deep curiosity and baffled the resources of his wis- dom to resolve. A light had been reflected from the Person and Offices of Christ which dissipated doubts that had painfully perplexed him, and revealed a prospect which might well endear to him a crucified Redeemer and change the current of his life. Discarding the refined system of licentiousness which renders the happiness of man a more important object than the moral government of God, and makes the distinctions between right and wrong mutable and arbitrary to save the guilty from despair, he assumes, in the masterly exposition which in that Epistle he gives us of the economy of grace, for the fundamental principle of his whole argument, the inseparable connection between punishment and guilt. " The wrath of God," he informs us, " is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men," " who will render to every man

205

206 THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

according to his deeds ; unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguisli upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first and also of the Gentile."

If sin be in every instance the object of Divine indigna- tion— and such we perceive is the statement of the Apostle — it would seem to be impossible even for God consistently with the perfections of His own nature to save the guilty from its doom. If every man must receive according to his deeds, and the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, the universality of guilt would seem to close the door upon every prospect of hope. Nature, at least, left to the resources of her own strength, must always entertain distressing apprehensions that perfection of government and the power of pardon are mutually destructive of each other, and that whatever con- sequently might be the mercy of God, He could hardly be expected to yield to its impulse at the exjiense of justice, holiness and truth. To the mind which has been impressed with the magnitude of sin, the purity of God and the stern inflexibility of the Divine law, the possibility of jaardon is a question fraught with the profoundest interest and veiled in impenetrable gloom. It is the glory of the Gospel to remove the perplexities of unaided reason, and to explain the method by which God can be just and at the same time justify those who are ungodly. On this account it is styled by the Apostle the power of God unto salvation. This expression he seems to have employed as an exact defini- tion of the scheme of redemption. The Gospel is not to be regarded as a simple revelation of the mercy of God and His ability to pardon ; it is itself His power as a Saviour. The implication is irresistible that by the rich provisions of its grace, and by them alone, can the Lord deliver from going down to the pit ; that apart from the righteousness revealed to faith, Jehovah Himself has not the poioer to receive the guilty into favour ; that the mediation of Christ was the wonderful device of infinite wisdom to enable the Almighty

THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 207

in consistency witli justice to save the lost. The j^lirase- ology of the text is a favourite mode in which the Apostle describes the mystery of the cross. " For the preaching of the cross/' he declares in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, " is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the poioer of God. The Jews require a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ cruci- fied, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness ; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the 'power of God and the wisdom of God." To the same purport is a passage in Isaiah, in which Jeho- vah Himself solemnly refers to the grace of the Gospel as constituting His strength to save from death. The disobe- dient and unprofitable, addressed under the symbol of briers and thorns, are exhorted to make their peace with God, and, what is remarkable, they are directed to do so by taking hold of " His strength." Now as faith in the Divine Redeeme^r is the only means to tranquillity of conscience, as there is no peace to those who are strangers to the blood of the cove- nant, Jehovah's strength is evidently the same as the atone- ment of His Son. There lay His power to save, and inde- pendently of that He could only be as a devouring flame to briers and thorns. " Who would set the briers and thorns against me in battle ? I would go through them, I would burn them together ; or let him take hold of my strength that he may make peace with me, and he shall make peace with me."

The Apostle, in his Epistle to the Galatians, seems to me directly to assert that no scheme could have been devised, independently of the work of the Son of God, by which salvation could have been effected : " If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law, but the Scripture hath con- cluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe." No method, in other words, could have been adopted, even in the pleni- tude of infinite power, by which God could acquit the guilty

208 THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMEN'J'.

M'ithout the righteousness which His law demands ; and as such a righteousness is wholly impossible to human obe- dience, it must be secured by the mediation of a substitute. God cannot dispense with the claims of justice. His power to save is moral in its nature, and cannot be exerted — can- not, in truth, be said to exist — while the law pronounces the sentence of death. The reasoning here is precisely analo- gous to that which succeeds the declaration of the text. The Gospel he pronounces to be the power of God unto salvation, because " therein the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written. The just shall live by faith."

Such language must appear strange and enigmatical to those who view Christianity as little l^etter than a republi- cation of Natural Religion. Unaccustomed to the awful convictions of the malignity of sin and the holiness of God which the enlightened understanding, through the pressure of conscience, is driven to adopt, they can perceive no dif- ficulty in absolute forgiveness, and cannot consequently com- prehend the mystery that restraints should be taken from the power of God by the incarnation and death of the Redeemer. The necessity of atonement, as assumed by the Apostle, is to them inexplicable jargon. The low views in which they indulge themselves of the whole work and offices of the Saviour are to be ascribed to imperfect appre- hensions of the government of God. Their fundamental error consists in denying the owed of satisfaction — in contem- plating the Gospel in any other light than as " the power of God unto salvation." It is but a single step more, and the atonement itself is either formally discarded or else frittered away through the subtle distinctions of philosophy and vain deceit. To appreciate aright the death and suf- ferings of Christ we must have a proper if not an adequate conception of the "needs be" into which He Himself resolved His undertaking — a " needs be" which extended much farther than the fulfilment of prophecy — which had itself given rise to the predictions in having given rise in the depths of eternity to the " counsel of peace." We must

THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 209

enter into the meaning of the great Apostle when lie meas- ures the ability of God as a Saviour by His power to pro- vide a justifying righteousness.

The two great principles on which the doctrine of atone- ment rests are — the inseparable connection between punish- ment and guilt, and the admissibility under proper restric- tions of a surety to endure the curse of the law. The unpardonable nature of sin, the practicability of legal sub- stitution, these are the pillars of the Christian fabric. In the first we acknowledge the indispensable necessity, in the other the glorious possibility, of an atoning Priest. In the first we are taught the wages of sin, in the other that they need not be reaped by ourselves. If the first were true to the exclusion of the second, eternal darkness would settle on the minds of the guilty ; it is the second which opened the door of hope and furnished a field, magnificent and ample, in which God might display the resources of His wisdom and unfold the riches of His grace — be at once a just God and a Saviour.

The contemptuous confidence with which sophists and skeptics have denied the propriety of vicarious punish- ment has evidently proceeded from the foolish apprehen- sion that God, like ourselves, is bound to forgive upon a confession of the fiiult. If these arrogant disputers of this world could be brought to feel the truth and severity of the first great principle on which the atonement has been stated to rest, they would cling to the second as the only anchor of hope ; and instead of expending ingenuity in abortive efforts to undermine its strength, they would prob- ably lay their learning under tribute to defend its fitness, while they permitted their hearts to rejoice in its benignant aspect on the family of man. Let the position be firmly established that God can by no means clear the guilty, that sin must necessarily be punished, and all objections to the doctrine of suretysliip would be given to the winds. To cling to them under such circumstances would be with deliberate malice "to despise our own mercies." The Vol. II.— 14

210 THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

expectation of an easy pardon, secretly cherished if not openly avowed, is the real source of pretended difficulties with " the righteousness of faith." Hence, in discussing the doctrine of atonement the foundations should be deeply and securely laid in developing the scriptural account of its necessity. Clear apprehensions upon this point would serve at once to define its nature, determine its extent and put an end to cavils against its reality and truth.

The necessity of the atonement, it may be well to remark, is only the necessity of a means to an end. The end itself, the salvation of the sinner, is in no sense necessary ; that is the free and spontaneous purpose of Divine grace. Had all the tribes of men been permitted to sink into hopeless perdition, no violence would have been done to the nature of God, no breach been made in the integrity of His gov- ernment. But the end having been determined, the death and obedience of Christ were indispensably necessary to carry it into execution. God could not receive the guilty into favour while the demands of His law were unsatisfied against them.

That the design of the atonement was to generate mercy in the Divine Being, to beget the purpose as well as the power to save, is the gratuitous caricature of those who have assailed the work, in order to deny the Divinity, of the Redeemer. As well might it be pretended that the chan- nel which the torrent forces for itself among the rocks and declivities of the mountain is itself the source of the impet- uous current it conducts, or that the air which daily trans- mits to us light and heat from the sun is therefore the parent of these invaluable gifts. The mediation of Christ and the mercy of God are related to each other as cause and effect, but in an inverse order from that which is stated by Socinians ; it is mercy that gives rise to atonement, and not atonement that gives rise to mercy. The scriptural statement is : " God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." " God commendeth

THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 211

His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." " In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only-begotten Son into tlie world, tliat we might live through Him. Hei-ein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." It w^as not, therefore, the design of the atonement to 7nakc God merciful — He was merciful before ; it ^vas not to gene- rate the jyurpose of salvation — that had existed in the bosom of Deity from all eternity. It was to render the exercise of mercy consistent with righteousness, to maintain the stability of the Divine throne and preserve the integrity of the Divine government, while outlaws and rebels were saved from the fate which their transgressions deserved. It is not in the nature of God to take pleasure in the death of the wicked ; it is equally remote from His nature to disregard the distinctions of moral conduct and treat the wicked as the righteous. The atonement, therefore, was necessary — not, as Socinians slanderously report that we affirm, to touch the Divine mind with compassion for the miserable, but, supposing the compassion to exist, to prepare the way by which it might be freely indulged with honour to God and safety to His law, as well as blessedness to man. The Gospel springs from mercy, and all its mys- terious arrangements are only the contrivances of infinite wisdom, incited by infinite grace, to acquire the power to save.

It is no impeachment of the perfections of Jehovah to deny the possibility of unconditional remission. On the contrary, a full inv^estigation of the whole subject will con- duct, I apprehend, to the firm conviction that under all circumstances of the ease it is infinitely more glorious not to be able to forgive without a satisfaction than to relax the severity of law. The power of God is only an expression for the will of God, and to say that there are things which cannot be the objects of Divine volition may, in one view, be as much to His honour as in another it would detract

212 THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

from His supremacy. The purposes of Deity are not law- less and arbitrary. His will is determined by the perfec- tions of His nature. To say, therefore, that there are things which He cannot do is simply to affirm that He cannot vnll them, and to say that He cannot will them is just to assert that they are inconsistent with the perfections of His being. In such cases, consequently, we do not limit, we only define, the power of God ; all things are possible which He wills. His will is the measure of Plis power, but as moral excel- lence is the measure of His will, it is only to vindicate His character from the charge of weakness and ascribe to Him the highest conceivable praise to deny that He can will what comes into collision with justice, holiness, wisdom or truth. When we speak of impossibilities in reference to God, the impression is likely to be made upon the minds of the thoughtless that there is a limit to what may be called physical omnipotence — that there are purposes which God may desire to accomplish, and yet find Himself unable to effect them. This, however, is a gross mistake. He can do whatsoever He pleases in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth. His pleasure is nothing different from His might. His volitions are always fol- lowed by corresponding operations of His hands. So inseparable is the idea of power from the will of the Almighty that it may, without extravagance, be asserted that the only efficient cause which exists in the universe is the fiat of the Deity. All other phenomena are produced — they are strictly and properly effects ; this alone produces, speaks and it is done, commands and it stands fast. Phys- ical causes are only dependent events in the great chain of contingencies fastened to the throne of God, and differ from the appearances which are usually described as their effects in nothing but the order of time. Both alike are destitute of power, and we can never detect the presence of that mysterious and undefinable agent until we ascend to the throne of the Eternal. His will is the spring of

THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 213

universal motion, the cause of every eifect.' If he should will the unconditional pardon of a sinner, the pardon would not only be possible, but would most certainly and infalli- bly take place. Whatever He can will is possible — what- ever He does will is fact. His will is power.

When it is affirmed, consequently, that God cannot receive the sinner into favour without satisfaction to His justice, the meaning is that He will not ; that, however true it is that He hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked, there are qualities of His being, moral perfections of His nature, which make it as incongruous that He should will an unconditional pardon as that He should deny Himself or forfeit His veracity. The impossibility is of the same sort as that which is asserted when it is declared that " He cannot lie."

The proof, therefore, of the necessity of atonement must consist in showing that the glory of God, especially the in- tegrity of His moral character, indispensably demands that sin should be punished. To make it appear that any essen- tial attribute of Deity would be seriously, or even at all, infringed by remitting the penalty, apart from the righteous- ness of the law, is to furnish a complete demonstration that arbitrary pardon can never be the object of the Divine voli- tion ; that whatever purposes of salvation may be cherished in the bosom of God include the design of exacting the de- mands of justice from the person of a substitute ; and that any other course, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, would involve as gross a contradiction as that the Strength of Israel should repent or lay aside His supremacy.

The common delusion that the power of arresting the sentence of a judge is an essential element of sovereignty has arisen, perhaps, from the deceptive analogy of human institutions. The chief magistrate of every nation possesses the prerogative, in a certain department of cases, to commute,

' [This should be understood in consistency with those views which elsewhere the author has expressed of the spontaneity and responsibil- ity of the human will. See particularly the addendum to Lecture X., Vol. I. — Editor.]

214 THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

relax, or at discretion dispense with, the punishment which the laws of the land have pronounced. This feature of human governments is nothing more than a contrivance to mitigate the evils which, under peculiar circumstances that may often happen, and yet that could not be defined in the terms of a statute, might result from the inflexible operation of general rules. To foresee the countless contingencies which control human conduct, to adjust the law to all the modifications of which crime is susceptible, to estimate before- hand the varieties of motives, of palliating and aggravating circumstances which determine the malignity of guilt, is evidently a task which, however important for the strict administration of justice, it is beyond the compass of human sagacity to achieve. The laws of men must consequently be general and extensive, grouping crimes by compendious descriptions into large classes, and affixing the same penalty to each separate species, without respect to the individual differences that must necessarily obtain among them. Human legislation, for the most part, must confine its view to the external expressions, and not to the real character, of motives themselves. The outward acts being the same, but little allowance can be made for constitutional infirmities, violence of temptation, and the delicate shades of feeling in the inner man which may impart very different degrees of malignity to the same action as perpetrated by different individuals. The consequence is, that civil punishments must sometimes transcend the sense of justice and the conviction of expedi- ency which should regulate the severity of the penal code. The imperfection, too, of human tribunals may sometimes pervert the law through prejudice, weakness or corruption, and involve the innocent in the doom of the guilty. To correct these evils, arising from the necessary defect of human legislation, the power of pardon, as it is commonly denomi- nated, though it is more properly a check upon injustice, is generally lodged with the chief executive officer of the state. It does not belong to him as a prerogative of sovereignty, but simply as he is the guardian of the laws, who is bound

THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 215

to enforce them according to the letter, with an occasional discretion according to their spirit when the letter would kill and the spirit would spare. The object is not that he may pardon at discretion, but that, under circumstances which could not have been foreseen by any human legisla- ture, and which, in the moral sense of the community, essentially modify the crime, he might prevent a result M^hich was never really intended, but which, from the general terms of the law, seems to have been eontemj^lated. If human governments were perfect, if rules could be framed with an exact adjustment to all the varieties of individual cases that could possibly come under them, if those appointed to administer them could be exempted from prejudice, par- tiality, weakness and corruption, no injustice could ever exist to be corrected. The dispensing power would be felt to be an evil, the moral sentiments of the community would in every case sustain the law, nothing could plead for mercy — if indeed that can be called mercy which, in the disguise of pity to an individual, is often the bitterest cruelty to the State — nothing could plead for mercy but a squeamish ten- derness, which it is effeminate to cherish and to which it would be wicked to yield. As the probabilities of occasional iiijiistice under the inflexible operation of general rules con- sfitutc the true ground of arrangements for pardon in the KStiite, no argument can be drawn from analogy in favour of a similar provision in the moral government of God. There, error, mistake, partiality and corruption can have no place ; there, every case is determined upon its own individual merits, and each man is rewarded or puiiished according to his conduct under laws adapted to all the varieties of motive and temptation. Such, in fact, is the consummate perfection of the Divine administration that actions are never tried in the mass, but estimated according to their minutest details.

The checks and balances which experience has suggested to adjust the inequalities of human constitutions are more than supplied, the need of them is completely obviated, by the knowledge, wisdom, integrity and foresight 'ivliicli belong

216 THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

in infinite and unchanging proportions to the great Monarch of the universe. The very reason, that justice may be done or injustice prevented, whicli mitigates the sternness of hu- man law, renders ifc equally important that the decisions of the Almighty should stand. Our laws are flexible, because we are liable to error ; God's laws are inflexible, because, as Judge of all the earth, He must infallibly and always do right. The power of dispensing with the law is no part of the conception of sovereignty. To rule by arbitrary will without reference to a fixed standard of moral distinctions ; to change the law or its sanctions at pleasure, according to the dictates of caprice, prejudice, partiality or expediency ; to infuse uncertainty into the administration of justice, ex- citing expectations to-day which shall be mocked to-morrow, and awakening imaginary fears only in sport, — is the descrip- tion of a despotism and not of a government ; and he who sits supreme at the head of such a moral chaos or anarchy is not a sovereign, but a tyrant. The true idea of sovereignty is that of power which is responsible to none — whose decisions must stand on the simple ground that there is no tribunal to reverse them. God is sovereign, not because He rules with- out laAV or can set it aside at discretion, but because He is supreme and irresponsible, giving none account of His mat- .ters to any above Him. In the fact that He accomplishes His pleasure among the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of earth — that none can say unto Him, What doest Thou? or demand the reasons of any of His dispensations — lies the true ground of His sovereignty. His counsel must stand ; from His decrees there is no appeal. He sits supreme at the head of the universe, and therefore is truly and properly a Sove- reign. To say that the power of pardon — that is, the power of changing the operation of the law — is an essential element of such a supremacy, is equivalent to saying that He cannot be sovereign without being fickle ; it is, in other words, to degrade His perfections in order to make Him the Disposer of events. The error has arisen from partial attention to the fact that the prerogative of mercy in human institutions is

THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 217

generally comniitteJ to the representative of sovereignty. The ground, however, of this arrangement is convenience and despatch. There is no reason in the nature of things why it might not be entrusted to an officer selected for the sole ]3urpose of possessing it. To the chief magistrate it belongs, not in virtue of his office as a ruler, but as it is a solemn trust from the community, which, for obvious i"ea- sons, can be more available in his hands than in any other depository.

The doctrine of the atonement has been defended upon principles which, according to my apprehensions — and I would speak with profound respect of the opinions of such men as Grotius, Rutherford, Twiss and Magee — arc not strictly applicable to Divine institutions. They have repre- sented satisfaction as demanded, not so much by the justice of God as the wisdom of the measure, and have made it a matter rather of expediency than imperative necessity.'

1 The following extract from the Lectures of Hill, who has professedly followed Grotius, may be taken as a fair specimen of the sentiments of all those divines who are mentioned in the text:

" The first principle upon which a fair statement of the doctrine of the atonement proceeds is this, that sin is a violation of law, and that the Almighty, in requiring an atonement in order to the pardon of sin,

acts as the supreme lawgiver If the Almighty, tlien, is

to be regarded as a lawgiver, we must endeavour to I'ise to tlie most exalted conceptions which we are able to form of the plan of Plis moral government; and for this purpose it is necessary that we should abstract from it every kind of weakness which is incident to the administration of human governments, and lay hold of those principles and maxims which reason and experience teach us to consider as essential to a good govern- ment, and without which it does not appear to us that that expression has any meaning. Now, it is the first principle of every good government that laws are enacted for the benefit of the community. Tlie happiness of the whole body depends upon their being observed, for tliey would not have been enacted if the observance of tliem had been a matter of indif- ference to the public. Hence, every person who violates the laws, besides the disrespect which he shows to that authority by which they were enacted, besides the hurt which individuals may sustain by his action, does an injury to the public, because he disturbs that order and security which the laws establish. It is therefore essential to the excellence of government that there succeeds, immediately after disobedience, wliat is

218 THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

They taritlj assume, if they do not positively assert, as the basis of their argument, the cardinal principle of modern politics, that the ultimate end of government is the good of the governed, and that the primary design of punishment is to inspire a salutary fear in the breasts of the subjects. It is, in other words, a moral expedient to save the law from contempt. To pardon the guilty upon a profession of re- pentance, however sincere, would be to destroy the dignity of government, to weaken the bands of authority and afford a premium to crime. As a measure of impolicy, therefore, likely to be dangerous to the interests of virtue, no wise ruler would resort to it. The efficacy of law depends s > much upon the certainty of its sanctions, that no considcra-

called guilt — i. e., the desert of punishment, an obligation to suffer tliat which the law prescribes. Accordingly, in the code of laws of many northern nations, who were accustomed to estimate all crimes at certain rates, a murderer not only paid a sum to the relations of the deceased as a compensation for their loss, but he paid a sum to tlie king for the breach of the peace. And in all countries that which is properly called punish- ment does not mean the putting the rights of a jjrivate party, who may have been immediately injured, in the same state in which they were before the trespass was committed, but it means the reparation made to the public by the suffering of the criminal for the disorder arising from his breach of the laws. The law generally defines what the measure of tliis suffering shall be, and it is applied to particular cases by criminal judges, Avho, being only interpreters of the law, have no power to remit the punishment. It is true that in most human governments a j^ower is lodged somewhere of granting pardon, because, from the imperfection wliich necessarily adheres to them, it may often be inexpedient or even unjust that a person who has been legally condemned should suffer ; and there are times when the legislature sees meet to pass acts of indemnity. But it is only in very particular circumstances that the safety of the state admits the escape of a criminal ; and in most cases the sujDreme authority proceeds, not with wrath, but from a calm and fixed regard to the essen- tial interests of the community, to deter other subjects from violating the laws, by exhibiting to their view punishment as the consequence of trans- gression. If we apply these maxims and principles, which appear to us implied in the very nature of good government, we sliall find it impos- sible to conceive of God as a lawgiver, without thinking it essential to His character to punish transgression ; and the perfection of His govern- ment, far from superseding this exercise of that character, seems to render it the more becoming and the more indispensable." — Lectures, Book iv., c. iii., sec. 1.

THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT, 219

tions which can occur in the government of God should be permitted to arrest its operation. Severity to individuals is a public benefit. The character of the Ruler, too, might suffer in the eyes of his subjects from the appearance of vacil- lation, inconsistencv and weakness, which a ne";lect to exe- cute his threatenings, would perhaps [iresent. To maintain, therefore, the stability of government, to prevejit rebellion, and to preserve respect for tlie person of the Lawgiver, it is highly proper that unconditional pardons should never be admitted. This is an outline of the argument by which vicarious satisfaction has been commonly defended.

To say nothing here of what will afterward appear, that every single proposition in this chain of reasoning is false, it is evident that if the whole were true, the atonement is placed upon a basis too feeble to support so solid a fabric. Its necessity is not made out by showing that it is conducive to the ends of government. Government itself may be con- tingent and arbitrary, susceptible of change, relaxation or amendment. Unless the law be immutable and necessary, unconditional pardon, however inexpedient, would conflict with no principle of moral rectitude. It might be unwise, but would not be unjust — unsafe, but not essentially wrong. There are, besides, serious objections to resting the atone- ment on the basis of expediency.

If it is to be resolved into reasons of State, and treated as an expedient to prevent the evils of absolute forgive- ness, then it produces no direct effect upon the mind of God, but reaches the Ruler through the medium of the subject. If its leading object is to render it possible to pardon with safety, then its operation is primarily upon the objects of favour, and not upon the Author. Though it is a satisfac- tion, yet its value depends not immediately upon its rela- tion to the law, but upon its tendency to deter from disobe- dience and to check the contagion of evil example. Just in proportion as it creates the conviction that transgression is dangerous and obedience safe, does it answer its primary end. Its being a satisfaction to justice is not necessary on

220 THE XECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

the score of justice itself, but on account of the moral im- pression which as a satisfaction it is suited to enstamp. Now, if the production of such an impression were the grand result which God intended to achieve by the sufferings and death of His Son, the question naturally arises whether it could not have been compassed by a less expensive and im- posing arrangement. Expediency opens a boundless field of possibilities from which the wisdom of God might have chosen other contrivances suited to signalize His hatred of sin and to deter from rebellion, without subjecting the inno- cent to the shame and agony of an awful crucifixion. It might indeed be a question, if the government of God depends upon no higher principles than those of expe- diency, whether any considerations of policy could justify an act so extraordinary in its character as the humiliation and death of God's eternal Son. The obvious impression under such circumstances would seem to be that the happi- ness of man was a more important end than the glory and blessedness of the Second Person in the adorable Godhead. Expediency holds the scales ; it is settled that the law can- not be sacrificed, and the real question is, whether on the score of public advantage it is better that the guilty should suffer or that the Son should die. Accordingly, we find that those who have been most deeply imbued with utilita- I'ian views of the Divine government have not scrupled to deny the reality of the penal sufferings of our Lord.^ , They

1 " Thus far we have been examining and attempting to ascertain pre- cisely the nature of the difficulty which it was the business of the atone- ment to remove. The difficulty, it appears, consists wholly in the second ground of punishment — that is, in the necessity of distributive justice to the well-being of the universe. To remove this difficulty, or to enable God righteously to pardon the repenting sinner, the atonement must give the same support to law, or must display as impressively the perfect holi- ness and justice of God, as the execution of the law on transgressors would. It must be something diiferent from the execution of the law itself, because it is to be a substitute for it, something which will render it safe and proper to suspend the regular course of distributive justice. If such an expedient can be found, then an adequate atonement is possi- ble, otherwise it is not. Now such an expedient the text represents the

THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 221

deny that He made a satisfaction to justice, since the moral impression which according to this scheme constitutes the end of the atonement could be as easily effected by a sym-

sacrifice of Christ to be. It is ' a declaration of the righteousness of God, so that he might be just,' might secure the objects of distributive justice as it becomes a righteous moral governor to do, 'and yet miglit justify,' or acquit and exempt from punishment, him that believeth in Jesus. It was, in the nature of it, an exhibition or proof of the righteousness of God. It did not consist in an execution of the law on any being what- ever, for it was a substitute for an execution of it. It did not annihilate the guilt of transgressors, or cause them to be either really or apparently innocent, for this was impossible ; it rather proclaimed the atrocity of the guilt. It did not fulfil the law, or satisfy its demands on transgres- sors, for then their acquittal would have been an act of justice, not of grace, and the atonement would have been but another mode of execut- ing the law itself, not a substitute for it. Its immediate influence was not on the characters and relations of men as transgressors, nor on the claims of the law upon them. Its direct operation was on the feelings and the apprehensions of the beings at large who are under the moral government of God. In two respects it coincided precisely with a public execution of the law itself; its immediate influence was on the same per- sons, and that influence was produced in the same way, by means of a public exhibition. For what is a public execution of the law on culprits but a public exhibition ? and an exhibition which is intended to aflfect the feelings and the apprehensions of the community, to impress them all with high respect and reverence for the law, that stern guardian of the public weal ? The atonement, to be a proper substitute for the execution of the law, ought to be a public exhibition, and such an exhibition as would impress all the creatures of God with a deep and awful sense of the majesty and sanctity of His law, of the criminality of disobedience to it, and of the holy, unbending rectitude of God as a moral governor. And such, according to the text, the atonement really was. It was an exhibition or manifestation of the righteousness of God, and an exhibi- tion of such a nature as must strike every intelligent beholder with aston- ishment. It was a transaction without a parallel in the history of the Divine government. The Son of God, the Lord of glory. Himself descended to this, lower world. He veiled His Godhead in a human body, and humbled Himself to dwell with men. He toiled and bore reproach, and suffered from pain and weariness and hunger. He conde- scended to instruct men, to be their PJiysician, their Friend, their very Servant; He washed His disciples' feot. He was obedient to every ordi- nance of God and man ; He fulfilled all righteousness. He suffl'red Him- self to be reviled and persecuted, to be arraigned, condemned and cruci- fied. He expired amidst the mockery of Jews and the insults of a Roman soldiery. That this was an astonishing exhibition— an exhibition

222 THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

bolical display. The sentiments of Murdock and those of Grotius diverge at this point. The Hopkinsian divine dis- cards satisfaction, because he supposes that the ends of

calculated to fill the mind with wonder and amazement — every one feels instantly. The only difficulty is to understand how this exhibition was a display of the righteousness of God. To solve it, some have resorted to the supposition that the Son of God became our sponsor, and satisfied the demands of the law on us by snfFering in our stead. But to this hypothe- sis there are strong objections. To suppose that Christ was really and truly our sponsor, and that He suffered in this character, would involve such a transfer of legal obligations and liabilities and merits as is inadmissible, and to suppose anything short of this will not explain the difficulty. For if, while we call Him a sponsor, we deny that He was legally holden or responsible for us, and liable in eqnity to suffer in our stead, we assign no intelligible reason why His sufferings should avail anything for our benefit, or display at ail the righteousness of God. Besides, this hypothe- sis, like all the others which suppose the Son of God to have first entered into a close, legal connection with sinful men, and afterward to have redeemed them, would make the atonement to be a legal satisfaction for sin, and then the acquittal of the sinner would be no pardon at all, but would follow in the regular course of law. We must, therefore, resort to some other solution. And what is more simple and at the same time sat- isfactory than that which is suggested by the text ? The atonement was an exhibition or display — that is, it was a symbolical transaction. It was a transaction in which God and His Son were the actors, and they acted in perfect harmony, though performing different parts in the august drama. The Son in particular passed voluntarily through various scenes of humiliation and sorrow and suffering, while the Father looked on with all that tenderness and deep concern which He, and none but He, could feel. The object of both in this affecting tragedy was to make an impression on the minds of rational beings everywhere and to the end of time. And the impression to be made was that God is a holy and righteous God, that while inclined to mercy He cannot forget the de- mands of justice, and the danger to His kingdom from the pardon of the guilty — that He must show Plis feelings on this subject, and show them so clearly and fully that all His rational creatures shall feel that he honours His law while suspending its operation as much as He would by the exe- cution of it. But how, it may be asked, are these things expressed or represented by this transaction? The answer is, symbolically. The Son of God came down to our world to do and to suffer what He did, not merely for the sake of doing those acts and enduring those sorrows, but for the sake of the impression to be made on the minds of all beholders by His labouring and suffering in this manner. In this sense it was a symbolical transaction. And the import or meaning of it, as of everv

THE NECE-^SITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 223

goverument could be accomplished without it; the Seini- socinian admits satisfaction, because he felt that vicarious suffering was the only basis for the desired impression. They reason upon the same general principle, although their conclusions are flatly contradictory. The Hopkinsian, to my mind, has the advantage in the argument. ^Ve can evidently see no wisdom in an arrangement in which the means are vastly disproportioned to the end. Even to finite creatures like ourselves it is possible to conceive of other plans beside the penal death of the Redeemer, by which sin might have been rebuked and the government of God maintained, if the only purpose had been to devise a scheme for dispensing mercy with safety. The strong lan- guage of the Apostle, however, which represents this as the only means by which God could accomplish the end He had in view, is utterly inexplicable if the atonement Avere noth- ing but a stroke of policy ; and those who adopt this view, it deserves to be remarked, are not willing to assert that the mediation of Christ was in such a sense necessary as that God could not, consistently with His glory, pardon without it. They speak of it as wise, fit and proper, but not as absolutely necessary.^ The difficulty of pardon, according to

other symbol, is to be learned either from the circumstances and occasion of it, or from the explanation that accompanies it." — Murdock's Sermon on Nature of the Atonement, pp. 20, 24.

1 " When, therefore, Grotins, Stillingfleet and Clarke are charged (as they are in H. Taylor's B. Mord., Let. 5) with contending for ' the necessity of a vindication of God's honour, either by the suffering of the offenders or by that of Christ in their room,' they are by no means to be considered as contending that it was impossible for God to have established such a dispensation as might enable Him to forgive the sinner withont some sat- isfaction to his justice (which is the sense forcibly put upon their words), but that, according to the method and dispensation which God's wisdom has chosen, there results a moral necessity of such vindication founded in the wisdom and prudence of a Being who has announced Himself to man- kind as an upright Governor, resolved to maintain the observance of His laws. That by tlie necesdfy spoken of is meant but a moral necessity, or, in other words, a fitness and propriety, Dr. Clarke himself informs us, for he tells us (Sermon 137, vol. ii., p. 142, fol. ed.), that 'when the honour of God's laws had been diminished by sin, it was reasonable and necessary,

224 THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

their view, does not spring from the essential attributes of God, but from the views of His government likely to be taken by His subjects, and the result of the Saviour's sacri- fice has been, not that God might be just, though that is true, but that He might be safe in justifying those who believe on Jesus. The fundamental error of this whole scheme is an inadequate conception of the origin and nature of the Divine government, and of the principal end of Divine punishments. Correct apprehensions u])on these points will furnish a triumphant vindication of the indis-

in respect of God's ivisdom in governinc/ the world, tliat there shonki be a vindication,' etc. And again, (Sermon 138, vol. ii., p. 150), in answer to the qnestion, ' Could not God, if He had pleased, absolutely and of His supi-eme authority, without any sufferings at all, have pardoned the sins of those whose repentance He thought fit to accept?' he says, 'It becomes not us to presume to say He had not power so to do,' but that there seems a fitness in His testifying His indignation against sin, and ' the death of Christ was necessary to make the pardon of sin reconcilable, not perhaps absolutely with strict justice (for we cannot presume to say that God might not consistently with mere jiistice have remitted as much of His own right a.s He pleased), but it is necessary, at least in this respect, to make the par- don of sin consistent with the ivisdom of God in His good government of the world, and to be a proper attestation of His irreconcilable hatred against all unrighteousness.' That the word necessary is imprudently used by Dr. Clarke and others, I readily admit, as it is liable to be misunderstood, and furnishes matter of cavil to those who would misrepresent the whole of the doctrine. But it is evident from the passages I have cited that so far from considering the sacrifice of Christ as a debt paid to, because rigor- ously exacted by, the Divine justice, it is represented by Dr. Clarke, and generally understood, merely as a fit expedient, demanded by the wisdom of God, whereby mercy might be safely administered to sinful man. Now, it is curious to remark, that H. Taylor, who so warmly objects to this notion of a necessity of vindicating God's honour, as maintained by Dr. Clarke, etc., when he comes to reply to the Deist in defence of the scheme of Christ's mediation, uses a mode of reasoning that seems exactly similar: 'God (B. Mord., Let. 5) was not made placable by intercession, but was ready and willing to forgive before as well as after, and only waited to do it in such a manner as might best show His regard to righteous- ness? Is not this, in other words, saying there was a fitness, and conse- quently a moral necessity, that God should forgive sins through the inter- cession and meritorious obedience of Christ, for the purpose of vindicating His glory as a righteous Governor f" — Magees Discourses, vol. i., p. 187.

THE NECESSITY OF THE ATOXEMEXT. 225

pensable necessity of vicarious satisfaction in order to the exercise of grace.

Plausible and common as the doctrine is, it seems to me to be unquestionably false that the primary design of the Divine government is the good of the subjects. This is to confound the ultimate end with an incidental advantage, the final cause M'ith a collateral effect. Happiness, having no separate and independent existence of its own, can never be made a separate and independent object of pursuit ; it is a state of mind resulting from the possession of that which is suited to extinguish pain and to gratify desire. As there is no philosopher's stone for transmuting vulgar materials into gold, and for supplying men with wealth without diligence, activity and industry in the lucrative pursuits of life, so there are no means of imparting to them happiness, without imparting to them the objects which, from their relations to the state and affections of the heart, are usually denominated good. The highest felicity, it is true, accrues to the creature from uniform obedience to the law of God ; but the law was not established on account of its tendencies to promote the enjoyment of the subject ; these tendencies, on the other hand, result from the adaptation of the subject to the law. The government of God was not adjusted with reference to man, but man was constituted with reference to it. To make the creature an end to the Creator, and not the Creator an end to the creature, is to reverse the natural order, making that supreme which is only subordinate, and that subordinate which is truly supreme. From the nice and beautiful pro- portions which exist, in an unfallen state, between the moral capacities of the creature and the circumstances in which he is placed, he finds, with the Psalmist, that the statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart, and that perfect jicace is the inheritance of those who love the testimonies of God. The affections of the subject, while yet a stranger to sin, move in such perfect harmony with the wheels of govern- ment that the rarest beatitude is the inseparable fruit of obedience. Still, the production of happiness was not the

Vol. II.— 15

226 THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

end which God proposed in the promulgation of His law ; it was contemplated as an effect, a subordinate and incidental eifect, which would infallibly take place upon the accom- plishment of the nobler purposes which determined the decisions of His will. The true end of the Divine govern- ment, as of all the institutions of the Almighty, must be sought, not in the good of the creature, however certainly promoted, but in the glory of God. This is the only object which is worth the attention of the Eternal Mind, and as it includes in itself all that is exalted in excellence, illus- trious in truth, charming in beauty and delightful in good- ness, the steady ])rosecution of it is an unfailing pledge of the ultimate prosperity and triumph of whatever can adorn, dig- nify or please. No danger can be apprehended to the uni- verse while He, who sits supreme at its head, is the Father of truth, the fountain of purity and the patron of right. It is His glory to be what He is. The possession of infinite perfections and the enjoyment within Himself of unchanging blessedness, independence and self-sufficiency, are character- istics of the Deity which render it impossible that His mani- fold works should spring from any other motive but the counsel of His own will. To reveal Himself, to declare what He is, to make known the properties of His being, to mani- fest His glory by inscribing His character uj)on the achieve- ments of His hand, is the great design with which He spread the heavens above us, adorned the earth beneath us, and peopled it with plants, animals and men. What are called the natural or physical attributes of God are displayed by His works, as passive recipients of the impressions of knowledge, power and wisdom which He has enstamped upon them. The heavens declare God's glory and the firma- ment showeth His handiwork, not because they are conscious themselves of the high destiny they fulfil but because the intelligent beholder traces the Divine providence, wisdom and power in their being, harmony and motions.

The moral perfections of God, which constitute pre-emi- nently His glory, cannot be pcissively disjilayed. Traces of

THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 227

justice, fidelity and truth cannot be detected in inanimate objects nor impressed upon involuntary agents. If the Deity should blot from existence every moral creature and suffer every other jjortion of His works to stand, there would not, in all the compass of the universe, be a single object to reflect the beauty of His holiness ! Nature would be dumb in reference to the very characteristics of the Godhead which render it supremely and ineffably blessed. It is hard to conceive that a creation destitute of moral intelligences, in- capable of love, gratitude or truth, could be an ol)ject of complacent contemjilation to God. His own blessedness is unquestionably derived from the moral perfections of His being. Wisdom, knowledge and power possess no inherent and essential glory apart from their subserviency to the interests of holiness. Invest a being with unlimited might, sagacity and knowledge, and deprive him at the same time of integrity of character, and you make him an object of detestation to others and a burden to himself. Severed from goodness, knowledge is craft, power is violence, and sagacity is fraud. Taking life as a compendious expression for all the elements which constitute felicity, it may be truly said that the life of God is His holiness.

We are accustomed to take quite too limited a view of the material universe of God. In its relations to us, it may perhaps be true that it rises no higher in the scale of dignity than to reveal the natural perfections of its Author. But the ground of the complacency with which He beholds it, and on which He pronounced it very good, is probably the part which it is appointed to play in that grand and comprehen- sive economy of things whose final scope is to manifest His glory as a Being of eternal rectitude. No donl)t unity of purpose pervades all the works of the Almighty. The scheme of His government is one; and though there be wheels within wheels, plans within plans, all move on in unbroken harmony and tend to a common result. There is a subordination of parts,— the inanimate to the living, the material to the spiritual, the spiritual to the moral, and all

228 THE NECESSITY OP THE ATONEMENT.

to the glory of God ; and when He casts the eye of His omniscience upon any portion of His works, He delights not in it as an isolated fragment, however perfect in its kind or however clearly displaying any single perfection of His nature, but as a means tending, in its proper place, to the development of the great result which the whole was designed to accomplish. The columns, arches and canopy of the tem- ple are not admired upon their own account, but on account of their relations to the magnificent structure which they support, cement and adorn.

Such being the pre-eminence of moral distinctions, it is evidently no extravagance to assert that the subordination of its parts to a moral end is the probable cause of the crea- tion of the universe and the measure of God's complacency in it. But as His moral perfections cannot be passively dis- played— as they are essentially active, and require active elements to receive the impressions of them — there must be creatures endowed with understanding, conscience, affections and will, capable of bearing the image of His holiness, of appreciating the distinctions of right and wrong, and of feel- ing the supremacy of moral truth. While the habitations to which they are assigned display the natural perfections of Deity, they themselves, in their moral constitution, are mir- rors to reflect His rectitude. Such creatures God not only can contemplate with pleasure, as He does every other por- tion of His works — He can even enter into communion with them; a foundation is laid for sympathy of affection and reciprocity of love.

To such beings God must sustain the relation of a Ruler. It is through His law that a permanent and faithful exhibi- tion is made of the eternal principles of holiness which belong to the essence of the Godhead. His government is not a matter of expediency ; it is indispensably necessary — springs spontaneously from the bosom of God, and can only cease with the cessation of His being.

Where the elements which constitute the adequate idea of government — competent authority, a rule of action and a

THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT, 229

suitable sanction — all arise from necessary relations, it can- not be a question whether the regiment itself is a contino-ent result, due to the dictates of benevolence and policy, or a natural event, the offspring of unchanging truth and morality.

In the present case the authority which prescribes the law is an inalienable right. The relation in which the Creator stands to His creatures makes them, in the strictest sense, His property. It is a settled principle of political philosophy that labour, in some form, either intellectual or pliysical, producing new combinations or changing existing materials, is the ultimate foundation among men of the right to appro- priate. The product of one's own industry and skill sustains a relation to himself which it bears to no other being ; and as they are his own, part and parcel of his own existence, that on which they have been expended becomes, in some sense, a portion of himself and subject to the control of his will. But the production of value by the application of labour is a feeble image of the power of creation ; and if society in- stinctively recognizes the claims of its members to the opera- tions of their hands, how much higher and more absolute is the right of the Almighty to appropriate, control and govern the offspring of His own omnipotence and will ! " In Him we live and move and have our being." " It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves ; we ai-e His people and the sheep of His pasture." The Psalmist accordingly traces the supremacy of God to the dependence of all things upon Him for their original existence. " For the Lord is a gi-eat God, and a great King above all gods. In His hand are the deep places of the earth : the strength of the hills is His also. The sea is His, and He made it: and His hands formed the dry land. O come, let us worship and bow down : let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker. For He is our God ; and we are the people of His pastuw, and the sheep of His hand." But if creation vests in the Almighty an absolute right to the disposal of His creatures, His con- stant preservation of man and beast is a continual augmon-

230 THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

tation of His title. To keep in being is no less a stretch of power than to create out of nothing. To God as a creator we are all indebted for original existence ; to God as a pre- server we are equally indebted for present existence ; and therefore preservation, from its uniformity and constancy, gives a perfect title to each successive moment in the history of every individual. It is, indeed, a question whether pres- ervation be anything distinct from a continued creation — whether the tendency to nothing which the one resists does not require the exercise of the same power, in the same de- gree, as the original nihility which the other destroys.

If, then, upon the solid basis of creation and preservation, God possesses an unquestionable propriety in all His crea- tures, they are under a corresj)onding obligation to acknow- ledge His dominion. Their dependence upon Him for past, present and continued existence makes it a matter of imper- ative duty to submit to His authority. The very confession that they are His property is a confession that His will is their law. Shall the thing formed say to Him that forme<l it, Why hast Thou made me thus? The right to govern, therefore, is not a contingent and accidental privilege, but a necessary result of the mutual relations of creature and Creator.

The dependence of the creature and the independence of" God give rise to a radical and important difference in the sources respectively of their moral actions. God's holiness, justice, fidelity and truth spring from necessity of nature. He is under no obligation to do right, because He acknow- ledges no superior whose will can be law to Him : still. He can never fail to do right, because the perfections of His nature are more certain and necessary in producing unchang- ing rectitude of conduct than the operation of a law. He does right, in other words, because such is His nature that He cannot do wrong ; not because He is bound to give account of any of His matters to any tribunal above Him. Now, the authority of God stands to the actions of a creature in the same relation which necessity of nature sustains to

THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONE>fENT. 231

His own. Hence, a moral creature is necessarily the subject of obligation. It must seek the law of its being beyond itself; the reasons, the ultimate standard of its conduct, must be found in a superior will to which it is responsible. The fundamental principle in the moral code of all created intelligences is, and must be, that the authority of their Creator is absolute, final and complete. Hence, tlic will of God, in whatever way expressed, is to them the sole standard of moral obligation. To deny this principle would be to make the creature independent. The confirmation in holi- ness, which is a large ingredient in the blessedness of angels and of saints, does not imply holiness by absolute necessity of nature, but such a continued communication of the grace of God as cherishes in their hearts an uniform conviction of dependence, and an uniform regard to the glory and will of the Creator. The perfection of the just is, in no proper sense, a law to them ; it does not constitute their standard of conduct ; they cannot make it the measure of their actions. It is the prerogative of God alone to be a law of rectitude to Himself; and the most exalted spirits must ever continue to venerate His Mall as the source of their duty, the fountain of their blessedness, and the medium of sympathy with His goodness.

As the relationship which subsists between God and His creatures is such as to invest Him with an absolute right to exact obedience from them, the question upon which the necessity of government must turn is, whether or not it is a matter of arbitrary discretion to prescribe a law. It would seem to be impossible but that a rule of some sort, either formally or \nrtually expressed, must be im])arted. As dependence is the very condition of its being, the creature would possess no authority to move, to exert a single faculty- or to love a single quality without some manifestation of the Divine pleasure. There must be some indication, direct or indirect, negative or positive, of the will of God, or the powers of a moral agent could be no more emi)loyed nor its susceptibilities developed than a stock or a stone be set in

232 THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

motion without the impression of an external force. Tlie creature is the absokite property of its Maker, and has no right to think its own thoughts or indulge its OAvn inclina- tions. To say that the constitution of its nature would necessarily impel it to some form of action is only to assert that the will of God, to which the peculiar tendencies of its constitution must be ultimately traced, has been indirectly communicated. Any expression of the Divine will is law. It is not the mode of expressing it that determines the obli- gation of the creature ; it is the reality of the fact. That mode may be by extraordinary signs, by written communi- cations, by an authorized ambassador, or by the constitution of the mind. But the will of the Creator, once known, is law to the creature. When, therefore, we inquire into the necessity of government, the single question is whether or not God possesses any will at all in regard to the conduct of intelligent agents. If He possesses any, be it of what cha- racter it may, that will is their rule, and necessarily places them under a government. To assert that He is totally destitute of any will in relation to their conduct involves a palpable contradiction. To express no will by external signs is to leave them to their own discretion, making it right for them to do what under other circumstances would be grossly censurable. To mai'k out no j)articular line of conduct by positive commandment is to commit them to the desires, aifections and impulses of their own nature ; it is indirectly to declare that the will of their Maker accords with the propensities and bias of their own minds, xVccording to the very terms of the hypothesis they are agents, they must act. I^ow, if the will of God is indifferent to the course of conduct to be jjursued, that is equivalent to saying that it is His will that they should act precisely as they pleased. To follow nature, the old Stoical maxim, would be, under such circumstances, as truly the law of their being as it was the expression of the Divine will in the original constitution of their minds. It is true that in such a condition they could do no wrong, because

THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 233

the will of God is supposed to tolerate everything without distinction of qualities. Government, then, iu some form or other, must exist. A creature has no more right to act than it has power to be, without the consent of the Almighty. Dependence, absolute, complete, inalienable, is the law of its existence. Whatever it performs must be in the way of obedience ; there can be no obedience without an indication of the will of a ruler, and no such indication without a government. It is, therefore, undeniably necessary that to justify a creature in acting at all there must be some expres- sion, more or less distinct, direct or indirect, of the will of its Creator. As, then, the Almighty, from the very neces- sity of the case, must will to establish some rule, we are prepared to inquire what kind of government the perfec- tions of His nature would impel Him to institute.

It should not be forgotten that the great end in all His works, and especially in the creation and support of intelligent agents, is to declare the glory of His name — to manifest par- ticularly the moral attributes which adorn and exalt His character. The specific end for which conscience, under- standing and will were imparted to them was that they might love, venerate and praise the ineffable holiness of their Maker, and exemplify in the state of their own minds the moral perfections of the Deity. It was the purpose of their being that they might be " imitators of God as dear children." To suppose that the object of their existence should be disregarded by Himself, that He would abandon the end which he proposed to achieve in the noblest speci- mens of His power, or adopt no efficient measures to secure it, is to attribute an inconsistency, weakness and folly to the Supreme Disposer of events which would disgrace the hum- blest subject of His law. The immutability of His counsel is a firm guarantee that He would institute a government and prescribe a rule which should stand as a memorial to all generations of those eternal principles of rectitude which spring from His essence and regulate all the decisions of His will. The nature of the Divine Being as imperatively

234 THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

demands that the law of His dominions should be moral as the dependence of the creature requires that a law should exist. That the distinctions between right and wrong are not the arbitrary creatures of the Divine will, but essential emanations from the holiness of God, is a proposition M^hich lies at the basis of immutable morality. To say that God is the author of virtue, in such a sense as to deny to it a standard apart from the decisions of the Divine will, is vir- tually to affirm that His own perfections are the contingent acquisitions of choice, and not the unchangeable properties of His being. How God could be pre-eminently glorious on account of His holiness, when holiness itself was only an accidental accomplishment and no essential element of a just definition of the Deity, it is impossible for us to comprehend. That moral distinctions are eternal, necessary and immu- table, results, beyond a possibility of doubt, from what we are taught in the Scriptures concerning the Divine existence. If the unity of God imj)lied unity of Person, it would be hard, perhaps impossible, to conceive how He could have been a moral being when as yet there existed no object but Himself on which His affections might be placed. The terms which, in every language, are expressive of moral per- fections seem to point us to the existence of society as the only theatre in which they can be developed or expanded. Truth, justice, benevolence, fidelity and love are as obviously social aflFections as they are moral accomjjlishments ; and if there was ever a period when God was a solitary Being in the depths of eternity, how could benevolence, fidelity or love have existed in Him except as susceptibilities dormant in His nature, ready to be unfolded whenever an opportu- nity should offer ? Where was the field for the unceasing activity of His high and glorious perfections? I confess that, to my mind, absolute solitude of Being is wholly incom- patible with the actual exercise of moral qualities. Society is the element of virtue, and hence I turn with delight to those representations of the Scriptures in which it is implied that God is necessarily social as well as holy — that such is

THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 235

tlie nature of His essence that while absolutely one it exists eternally in a threefold distinction of Persons. The social relations of the Trinity — the mysterious intercourse of the Father, the Son and the Spirit — springing from the inscru- table nature of the Godhead, involve the existence of moral accomplishments on a magnificent and splendid scale. Whe- ther, however, the personal distinctions of the Godhead are the foundation of its moral perfections or not, it is certain that its social relations must have been the source of eternal confusion and disorder, unless they had been marked by the strictest integrity, fidelity and truth.

If we are not permitted to assert that God is holy because He is social, and necessarily holy because necessarily social, we may yet with confidence maintain that being social He must be holy, since to deny to Him moral distinctions would be to attribute to His nature elements destructive of society. It may be disputed whether moral relations presuppose social relations as the necessary condition of their existence, but it cannot be denied that social relations imperatively demand the exercise of moral perfections in order to har- mony, perpetuity and peace. If then, as the Scriptures assert, God is by necessity of nature a social Being, tlie con- clusion inevitably follows that He is by the same necessity a moral Being. The expressions of His will must, there- fore, be in conformity with the holiness of His essence. The law which He prescribes as the standard of duty to His creatures must be a transcript of those perfections which He cannot disregard Avithout ceasing to be God. The necessity of His nature determines the decisions of His will, and as He Himself is holy the law must be holy, just and good.

The confusion of the grounds of obligation and the nature of virtue has involved the discussion of the immutal)ility of moral distinctions in no little perplexity. There is no doubt, from the necessary dependence of its being, that the creature is bound to be holy because its Creator commands it. The Divine will is the only standard of moral obliga-

236 THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

tion. But there must be reiisons for the command Itself. To attribute a self-determining i)ower to the will of the Almighty when it is acknowledged to be an imperfection among men ; to suppose that His approbation of virtue is the result of choice, and that Pie might be indiiferent or ev^en opposed to it, would contradict our most exalted con- ceptions of His character. The motives, whatever they arc, which operate on the mind of the Eternal in 2)rescribing the command determine the nature of virtue. The reasons of His making it a duty define its essence. Still, that it is a duty is owing exclusively to the expression of His will. Our obligation does not depend upon abstract speculations on its origin, qualities or fitness ; be its nature what it may, it is law to us, because the Creator, who possesses an abso- lute propriety in us, has marked it out as the rule of our conduct. Hence we by no means, as some have supposed, derogate from the authority of the Divine will as the stand- ard of obligation when we go beyond it and attempt to dis- cover in the essential perfections of the Deity the grounds of it. These, in a modified sense, are a law to Himself, the standard of His own decrees, the ultimate source of His purposes and acts.

Two principal elements of government — competent au- thority on the part of the governor, and a rule of life for the guidance of the governed — having been shown to spring necessarily from the mutual relations of God and the creature ; the character of the law as moral, reflecting the beauty of the Divine perfections, in opposition to a system of arbitrary precepts, having been also evinced ; it remains to be inquired whether the third and last element — the penal sanction — is likewise necessary, or is merely the dictate of public policy.

If the most important object of punishment, as civilians generally assert, is the prevention of crime, the question is settled. It becojiies, then, a choice of expedients, and no reasons exist in the nature of things why this particular method should be adopted in preference to any other scheme promising equal success. If it be nothing but a means to an

THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 2,37

end, it falls within the province of wisdom, to be settled by considerations of fitness and expediency, and is therefore not to be discussed upon those eternal principles of rectitude which constitute the glory of God. According to this view, punishment is the demand, not of justice, but of public good, was instituted by polic}' and not by right — a conclusion so abhorrent to the instinctive sentimeuLS of man that the premises, however plausible, must be false from which it is deduced.

Even in human governments, which contemplate the injury rather than the wickedness of actions, penal laws cannot be sustained upon the sole basis of expediencv. Nothing can be punished as hurtful which is not felt to be vicious. The moral sympathies of the people must be in harmony with the considerations of policy which determine the objects and severity of punishment, or the government will come to be regarded as an odious and intolerable tyranny. It is a strong proof of God's disapprobation of sin that it carries stamj^ed upon its face a character of mischief to the State which leagues society against it as a common nuisance, and makes its expulsion or restraint a public^ benefit as well as the satisfaction of a moral impulse. Such is the inseparable connection of social and moral order that whatever is hurtful to the one is prejudicial to the other; and as it is the purpose of God that men should live in a condition of society. He has made interest exactly to coincide with duty, so that the patronage of virtue is the surest safe- guard of public prosperity; and as nothing can be really pernicious Mdiich is not also morally wrong. He has so tem- pered the social constitution that all punishments must be founded in moral principles. It is the viciousness of actions that renders them punishable. Expediency may regulate the measure and extent of the pmiishmcnt, but something higher must settle the preliminary question whether they shall be punished at all or not.

The principle, therefore, is not true, even in reference to human institutions, that the penalty of the law is the mci-e

238 THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

creature of expediency. Punishment in the State always presupposes crime as well as injury, and though the State chiefly aims to prevent the injury, yet it is the crime which justifies the remedy to the moral sense of the community. Hence the origin of penal laws must ultimately be traced to convictions of justice, and not to calculations of policy.

That this is pre-eminently true of the Divine administra- tion is obvious from the fact that punishments are inflicted, and that with the intensest severity, when no motives of ex- pediency could be conceived to operate. Where will be the need when the just shall be exempt from the contingency of rebellion, when angels shall be confirmed in holiness, and when both together, united under a common Head, shall enjoy the security of grace, — where will be the need of stimu- lating diligence by the terrors of example, of torturing the guilty for the good of the innocent ? What are the motives of expediency that shall then doom the disobedient to the regions of despair, and expose them a prey to the undying worm and the fire that shall never be quenched ?

The perpetuity of its torments long after it has ceased to inspire a salutary fear, the continuance of its horrors when none are in danger of transgression — when absolute security prevails in every loyal province of God's empire, when the grace of the Redeemer has for ever placed angels and just men beyond the possibility of temptation and of sin — is a conclusive proof that the fires of hell were never kindled by the breath of expediency, that its shame and agony and anguish are owing to principles eternal as its own darkness, immutable as its ow^n despair. That the eternity of future punishment, by operating as a perpetual motive upon the minds of the saints, is subservient to their stability, may pos- sibly be true ; but to say that this is the only account which can be given of it, or that the only reason of the second death is to preserve the living from its woe, is to shock every generous impulse of humanity. That would indeed be a terrible administration which purchased an incidental good at so transcendent a sacrifice of individual felicity. It would

THE NECESSITY OP THE ATONEMENT. 239

be an awful exhibition of benevolence to promote happiness by the spectacle of miseries which human language is incom- petent to express and the human understanding unable to conceive ; a strange doctrine, that hell was reared to display God's mercy, and that the groans of the damned and the wailings of the pit are songs of praise to the goodness of God!

It is no trivial objection to the doctrine that the primar)- end of punishment is the public good — that upon tlie sui)po- sition of the existence of only a single moral agent no i)ro- vision is made for punishment as distinct from discipline. The eternal banishment of such an individual from God would be wholly inexplicable ; and yet the Scriptures un- questionably inculcate the doctrine that all unrighteousness of every transgressor, apart from his relations to other moral creatures, is-the object of God's abhorrence and the everlast- ing visitations of His wrath. Extreme cases, however im- probable, are a test of the accuracy of principles.

As the government of God is founded in His right to exact obedience from His creatures, and as His laAV expresses the eternal rectitude of His nature, the characteristic end of punishment must evidently be, not the promotion of the public good — this, though a certain, is only an incidental result — but to enforce the authority of the Ruler and to illus- trate the estimate He puts upon His law, or tlie light in which He regards disobedience. As the primary design of all His institutions is to glorify Himself, we must seek for the object of each of the elements which characterize His law in its relations to the peculiar perfections of His own nature, and not to the interests of man. Taking our departure from this point, it is easy to show that in the government of God penal sanctions are indispensably necessary. Without them a sense of obligation cannot be produced, and God's hatred of sin cannot be expressed. The moral conduct of a creature must be regulated with a specific reference to the authority of its Maker ; there must be a distinct recognition of His right to command. Whatever may be the matter of its

240 THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

actions, their form must be derived from a sense of obliga- tion corresponding to the right which exists to rule. They must be done specifically as something due. Now there can be no such sense of obligation when a law is not enforced by a penal sanction. In that case the obedience of the creature must be the result, not of authority, but of persuasion. A precept without a penalty is only advice, or, in the strongest view, is simply a reqliest ; rewards without punishments are nothing but inducements ; and a dispensation conducted upon such principles is evidently a system of persuasion and not of authoritative government. Obedience is, in that case, compliance with the impulse of our own minds, and not sub- mission to the rightful demands of another ; we act right to please ourselves, and not to please the Almighty. We recog- nize not His will, but our own gratification. Such absolute sovereignty of the creature, even in doing what is materially right, is inconsistent with its dependence. The essential principle of all its morality must be compliance with the will of God, not because it is grateful to our nature or adapted to our impulses, but because it is His will. It belongs to the Deity alone to follow nature ; all the creatures of His power are creatures of obligation. The constitution of our minds may be a medium through which the will of the Al- mighty is revealed, but we are required to yield to its pro- pensities, not because we are so constituted, but because our Creator demands it. In all instances in which the frame and temper of our minds are inconsistent with the precepts of His mouth we are to crucify nature and follow God. His will, however communicated, is our only law. Now, in order that it may be felt as law and produce a corresponding sense of obligation, it must be enforced by a penal sanction. This upholds and supports the authority of the Creator; it keeps prominently in view the dependence of the creature, and contrasts the just supremacy of the one with the proper subordination of the other. It is remarkable that in all languages the term which expresses a conviction of duty is drawn from the analogy of physical violence ; showing the

THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 241

universal sentiment of the race that moral obligation is a species of force, a sort of bondage or constraint — a necessity- laid upon the subject which he '^ares not resist. If I may be allowed to repeat what I have formerly uttered from this desk, the least attention to our moral emotions, and the language by which the universal consent of the race has uniformly described them, must convince us that conscience is a prospective principle — that its decisions are by no means final, but only the preludes of a higher sentence to be pro- nounced by a higher court. It derives all its authority from anticipations of the future. It brings before us the dread tribunal of eternal justice and almighty power; it summons us to the awful presence of God ; it wields His thunder and wears His smiles. When a man of principle braves calumny, reproach and persecution, when he stands unshaken in the discharge of duty amid public opposition and private treachery, when no machinations of malice or seductions of flattery can cause him to bend from the path of integrity, — that must be a powerful support through which he can bid defiance to the " storms of fate." He must feel that a strong arm is underneath him ; and though the eye of sense can perceive nothing in his circumstances but terror, confusion and dismay, he sees his mountain surrounded by "chariots of fire and horses of fire," which sustain his soul in unbroken tranquillity. In the approbation of his conscience there is lifted up the light of the Divine countenance upon him, and he feels the strongest assurance that all things shall work together for his ultimate good. Conscience anticipates the rewards of the just, and in the conviction which it in- spires of Divine protection lays the foundation of heroic fortitude. When, on the contrary, the remembrance of some fatal crime rankles in the breast, the sinner's dreams are disturbed by invisible ministers of vengeance and tlie fall of a leaf can strike him with horror ; in every shadow he sees a ghost, in every tread he hears an avenger of blood, and in every sound the trump of doom. What is it that invests his conscience with such terrible power to torment ? Is there Vol. II.— 16

242 THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

nothing here but the natural operation of a simple and original instinct ? Who does not see that " wickedness, con- demned by her own witness, and being pressed with con- science, always forecasteth grievous things?" — that the alarm and agitation and fearful forebodings of the sinner arise from the terrors of an offended Judge and insulted Lawgiver ? An approving conscience is the consciousness of right, of having done what has been commanded, and of being now entitled to the favour of the Judge. Remorse is the sense of ill desert. The criminal does not feel that his present pangs are his punishment ; it is the future, the unknown and por- tentous future, that fills him with consternation. He deserves ill, and the dread of receiving it makes him tremble.

To remove the penalty from the Divine law is to wrest the sceptre from the hands of the Deity, to pluck from His brow the crown which adorns it, to deprive Plim of the essential dignity of His character, and to present Him before His creatures in the debasing posture of a suppliant at their feet. He ceases to be the august and glorious Monarch of the skies, doing His pleasure among the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of earth ; disrobed of His majesty. He no longer thunders with a voice at which nature shakes and the guilty tremble, but dwindles down into a feeble petitioner, whose prayers and entreaties may be despised with impunity. Such degradation of the Supreme Being cannot be tolerated even in thought. He must be able to enforce His will or He ceases to be God. He must speak with a voice of authority ; resistless ]:>ower must stand ready to support His commands. They must be uttered in a tone which impresses the conviction that they must be obeyed — that dis- obedience is certain and infallible destruction. They must, in other words, oblige.

But Avhether a penal sanction be necessary to create a sense of obligation or not, it is the inevitable result of the Divine disapprobation of sin. God is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. Such is the transcendent purity of His nature that even the heavens are not clean in His sight, and

THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 243

He charges His angels with folly. The umittcrable bless- edness which accrues to the Persons of the Trinity from their mysterious communion with each other is to be ascribed to the confidence, harmony and love, the immaculate holi- ness and truth, which belong e&sentially to the nature of the Godhead. As the essential beatitude of the Deity is the result, the necessary result, of His moral perfections — as it is the prerogative of holiness alone to be surrounded with light and to be the parent of joy — an indissoluble connccv tion must subsist between wretchedness and guilt. The favour of God is the only source of enjoyment to the crea- ture. Whatever is beautiful or attractive in subordinate objects, whatever can adorn, dignify or please, the embel- lishments of life and the charms of friendship, arc but fee- ble emanations from Him who concentrates in Himself all these scattered perfections, and without whose permission they would in vain be sought to adminster comfort to the heart. God has reserved it to Himself as His distinguish- ing privilege to be the satisfying portion of the soul, and apart from Him all sublunary materials will prove as dust and ashes to the wretch who is famishing for food. Now, if the essential holiness of God is such that He cannot tole- rate iniquity nor look upon transgression without the utmost abhorrence, it is evident that the " ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous." The least taint of impurity must debar its victim from communion with Him, expel it from the source of all joy and felicity, and doom it consequently to solitude and sorrow as the ancient leper was banished from the society of men. To be driven from the presence of God is to be rendered miserable. The negation of delight in an active creature is, in its effects, a positive and bitter calamity. It is a penal evil, the legitimate consequence of transgres- sion. Hence a penalty is necCvSsarily connected with a vio- lation of the law. Every step in this reasoning is intui- tively evident. God is essentially holy ; communion with Him is the fountain of happiness ; none can enjoy it but

244 THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

those who are holy ; therefore the disobedient cannot bo happy ; and, as to an active being there is no condition of absohitc indifference, the negation of happiness is equiva- lent to the infliction of misery.

There is another view of the subject, which shows that something more awful than negative ills ought to be ex- pected as the wages of sin. The light in which God looks upon rebellion it is exceedingly proper, for the glory of His name, to make known unto His creatures. His holi- ness is declared by banishing the guilty from His presence — His hatred of sin by pouring out upon them the vials of His wrath. The extent to which He disapproves of trans- gression cannot be revealed by negative penalties. It is not enough to dry up the fountain of felicity, to say to the rebel that he shall have no more to do with peace ; the waters of bitterness and death must also be let loose to desolate his soul ; Tophet must be ordained, the pile thereof juniper and much wood, while the breath of the Lord as a stream of brimstone doth kindle it for ever and ever. In the penal fires of hell we contemplate the inextinguishable hatred of God to all the forms of iniquity. They result from the purity of infinite holiness in terrible collision with guilt.^

This brief discussion of tlie elements of government has

* The same view of the subject is taken by Owen in his Treatise of Divine .Justice and in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews. The following extract may serve as a specimen of his reasoning :

" It will be granted by some that there is such a natural property in God as that wliich we contend for, but it doth not thence follow, they say, that it is necessary that Go(\ should punish all sin, but He doth it and may do it by an absolute and free act of His will. There is, therefore, no cogent argument to be taken from the consideration hereof for the necessity of the suffering of Christ. The heads of some few arguments, to the contrary, shall put a close to this whole discourse. Fii-st, God hatetli sin. He hateth every sin ; He cannot otherwise do. Let any man assert the contrary— namely, that God doth not hate sin, or that it is not necessary to Him on account of His own nature that He should hate sin — and the consequence thereof will quickly be discerned. For to say that God may not hate sin is at once to take away all natural and necessary difl'er- ence between moral good and evil. For if He may not hate U, He may

THE NECESSITY OF THE ATOXEMEXT, 245

beeu sufficient, I apprehend, to establish its necessity and to correct prevailing errors in relation to its origin. While it is true that the highest felicity accrues to the creature from

love it. The mere act.s of God's will wliichare not regulated by anything in His nature, but only wisdom and liberty, are not determined to this or ilmt object, but He may so will anything, or the contrary. And then if God may love sin, He may approve it, and if He approve sin, it is not a sin, which is a plain contradiction. That God hateth sin, see Ps. v. 4, 5 ; xi. 5; xiv. 1; liii. 2; Lev. xxvi. 30; Deut. xvi. 22; 1 Kings xxi. 2G; Prov. XV. 5 ; Hab. i. 13. And this hatred of sin in God can be nothing but the displicency in, or contrariety of. His nature to it, with an iranuitable will of punishing it thence arising. For to have a natural displicency against sin, and not an immutable will of punishing it, is unworthy of God, for it must arise from impotency. To punish sin therefore according to its demerit is necessary to Him. Secondly, God with respect unto sin and shi- ners is called a consuming fire. Heb. xii. 19 ; Deut. iv. 24 ; Isa. xxxiii. 15 • and V. 24, and xiii. 14. Something we are taught by the allusion in this expression. This is not the manner of God's operation. God worketli freely, the fire burns necessarily. God, I say, always worketh freely with a freedom accompanying His operation, though in some cases, on some suppositions, it is necessary that He should work as He doth. It is free to Him to speak unto us or not, but on supposition that He will do so it is necessary that He speak truly, for God cannot lie. Fire, therefore, acts by brute inclination according to its form and prmciple ; God acts b_y His understanding and will with a freedom accompanying all His opera- tions. This, tlierefore, we are not taught by this allusion. The compari- son, therefore, must hold with respect unto the eveiif, or we are deceived, not instructed by it. As, therefore, the fire necessarily burnetii and con- sumeth all combustible things whereunto it is applied, iu its way of ope- ration which is natural, so doth God necessarily punish sin when it lies before Him in judgment, in His way of operation which is free and intel- lectual. Thirdly, it is necessary that God should do everything that is requisite unto His own glory. This the perfection of His nature and existence do require. So He doth all thmgs for Himself. It is neces- sary, therefore, that nothing fall out in the universe which should ab.-<o- lutely impeach the glory of God or contradict the design of its manifes- tation. Now suppose that God would and should let sin go unpunished, where would be the glory of His righteousness as He is the Supreme Ruler over all? For to omit what justice requireth is no less a dispar- agement unto it than to do what it forbids. Prov. xvii. 15. .\nd where would be the glory of His holiness, supposing the description given of it, Hab. i. 13? Where would be that fear and reverence which is due unto Him? Where thatsen.se of His terribleness ? Where that secret awe of Him which ought to be in the hearts and thoughts of men, if once He were looked on as such a God, as such a Governor, as unto whom it is a

246 THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

uniform obedience to the law of its Creator, it is in no sense true that tl^e design of government in reference to God is to secure the happiness of His subjects. It is intended, as we have seen, to express His supremacy, and springs from the relations He sustains to His creatures. Punishment in the Divine administration is not an expedient to prevent the progress of rebellion, but a necessary emanation from the holiness of God and a just expression of His hatred to iniquity. The inflexibility of the law does not result from

matter of mere freedom, choice and liberty whether He will punish sin or not, as being not concerned in point of righteousness or holiness so to do? Nothing can tend more than such a persuasion to ingenerate an apprehension in men that God is such an One as themselves, and that He is so little concerned in their sins that they need not themselves be much concerned in them.

" Such thoughts they are apt to conceive if He do but hold His peace for a season, and not reprove them in their sins. Ps. 1. 21. And if their hearts are fully set in them to do evil, because in some signal instances judgment is not speedily executed (Eccles. viii. 11), how much more will such pernicious consequents ensue if they are persuaded that it may be God will never punish them for their sins, seeing it is absolutely at His pleasure whether He will do so or not ; neither His righteousness nor His holiness nor His glory require any such thing at His hands. This is not the language of the law — no, nor yet of the consciences of men unless they are debauched. Is it not with most Christians certain that eventually God lets no sinner go unpunished ? Do they not believe that all who are not interested by faith in the sufferings of Christ, or at least that are not Saved on the account of His undergoing the punishment due to sin, must perish eternally ? And if this be the absolute rule of God's proceeding toward sinners, if He never went out of the way of it in any one instance, whence should it proceed but from what His nature doth require ? Lastly, God is, as we have shown, the righteous Judge of all the world. What law is unto another judge who is to jiroceed by it, that is the infinite rectitude of His own nature unto Him. And it is necessary to a judge to punish where the law requires him so to do, and if he do not he is not just. And because God is righteous by an essential righteous- ness, it is necessary for Him to punish sin as it is contrary thereunto, and not to acquit the guilty. And what is sin cannot but be sin, neither can God order it otherwise. For what is contrary to His nature cannot by any act of His will be rendered otherwise. And if sin be sin necessarily, because of its contrariety to the nature of God, on the supposition of the order of all things by Himself created, the punishment of it is on the same ground necessary also.'* — Hebrews, vol, i., p. 504, Tegrjs Edition.

THE NECESSITY ^.i- THE ATONEMENT. 247

a desire to promote the safety of the governed, but from it.s own essential character as founded in the immutable dis- tinctions of morality, as arising from the essential perfec- tions of the Godhead, and as holy, just and good. The glory of God is the ultimate end, and the perfections of God the primary source, of all the arrangements of His govern- ment ; they rest upon principles grand as His nature, endur- ing as truth and immutable as holiness. He is the great centre at which, wherever they begin, all our inquiries must terminate. " For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory for ever. Amen."

If, then, the government of God is founded in princij)le.s of immutable necessity, it is perfectly preposterous to dream of the unconditional pardon of sin. Its punishment is fixed as immovably as the law, and the law is as jjermanent as those perfections of the Deity of which it is a transcript. Until the Deity can be subject to change, or holiness made a contingent acquisition, the wages of sin must, in every in- stance, be death.

There is no principle on which unconditional remission can be justified. If the Deity should yield to the impulse of compassion and retract the penalty of His OAvn law. He would evidently manifest a higher regard for the interests of a sinner than for the glory of His own name. He would receive a being into favour with whom His holiness pre- cludes communion, and would, consequently, veil His moral perfections to compass a subordinate end. This would be to debase the dignity of moral distinctions, to degrade the majesty of virtue, to cast a reproach upon the goodness of law, in order to save the guilty from a doom to which justice has consigned them. It would be, in short, to resolve gov- ernment into motives of expediency, and to deny its necessity as an enduring; memorial of the moral character of God.

When the punishment of sin is affirmed to be necessary and therefore inevitable, it is not intended to inculcate the idea that it takes place according to the analogy of physical laws. While the essential holiness of God renders it abso-

248 THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

lutely certain that it must take place, there is yet a liberty in God as to the mode, time and measure of its infliction. He is not restrained to a single method or a single period. He is free to regulate severity by the dictates of wisdom — to administer justice according to the counsel of His will. All that is fixed and immutable is, that He should not forego the glory of His character, disregard His right to the alle- giance of the creature, and suffer the rebel to escape from His hands. He cannot change the law any more than He can change His perfections, nor remit its penalty any more than He can relax His opposition to sin. The princii^les of His government are fixed, immutable and eternal ; the details of its admin isti-ation belong to His sovereign discretion, and are to be settled by the decisions of His will. In the selec- tion, adjustment and arrangement of them there is full liberty ; but all else is founded in His nature, and is certain, uniform, unvarying as fate.

The incongruity is so obvious between the character of God and communion with a sinner, that the most extravagant advocates of the right to pardon without a satisfaction have not scrupled to insist upon the need of repentance as an essential condition for procuring absolution. By repentance they maintain that the moral qualities of the transgressor are changed ; and though he is substantially the same being, vet in regard t(j the condition of his heart, for which alone he was deserving of punishment, he is essentially different from wliat he was when he drank in iniquity like water. It has been usual to reply to reasoning of this sort by argu- ments drawn from the analogy of nature or considerations of expediency,^ but the true answer is that repentance is impossible. If the government of God be necessary, the first act of transgression effects a separation between God and the creature ; the spiritual life of the sinner is destroyed, and he can no more restore himself to his original position than the dead can return from the darkness of the tomb. The

^ For specimens of such arguments see Butler's Analogy, Pt. ii., c. 5.^ Magee's 1st Discourse, p. 5.

THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 249

union of the creature with God, which, in an unfallen state, depends upon uniform obedience to the law, is tlie source of its purity, happiness and strength. The very nionieiit in which it fails to recognize its absolute dependence and tlie consequent supremacy of the Divine will, it breaks the tie which binds it to its Maker, is treated at once as an alien and an outcast, passes under the condemnation of the law, and becomes for ever estranged from good. The slightest sin, like a puncture of the heart, is attended with death. The penalty is incurred by the first act of disobedience. Now that penalty, in its mildest and lowest form, implies banishment from God. But repentance involves a restora- tion to holiness and communion with God, from which the transgressor is debarred. Repentance and the curse are con- sequently contradictory ; and hence to suppose that a con- demned sinner can repent is to suppose that, at the same time, he can be and not be under the curse. The condem- nation of the sinner, therefore, for ever precludes the possi- bility of repentance ; it places him beyond the pale of com- munion with his Maker and consigns him to everlasting despair. The one transgression of the one man undid the race. To suppose that apostasy from God is a result accom- plished by a course of disobedience is as unphilosophical as it is unscriptural. The separation from God is instantaneous ; the entire disruption of the moral constitution, the total desolation of the character, may, however, be slow and pro- gressive. Life may be suddenly extinguished, but the decay of the lifeless body may be the work of years.

Repentance, consequently, without a satisfliction would involve the same difficulties with absolute remission. It would be to the same extent an impeachment of the essential perfections of God ; it implies pardon as its basis, and can never take place where a satisfaction has not been previously rendered. It is an inseparable element of the curse that the sinner cannot repent. All the affections and moral exercises which it includes presuppose that the exile is recalled from banishment ; that the anger of God is removed ; that a re-

250 THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

union with his Maker has taken place ; and that the cui-se of the law is revoked.

By repentance is intended a thorough and radical cliange of the moral character of the sinner — all that is involved in the Christian doctrines of the new birth and sanctification. Remorse, shame, anguish and despair, the agony and horror of great darkness, which were experienced by such men as Cain and Judas, are not the ingredients of true repentance ; these terrors of conscience reign with unbroken dominion in hell — they are the constant companions of devils and lost men, and arc rather the belchings of guilt than expressions of sorrow for sin. They who are most keenly tortured by them, so far from reforming or even attempting to reform, blaspheme the God of heaven with increased malignity, and cherish a deeper hate to all that is holy, pure and good. Such repentance is, indeed, possible to the most abandoned fiend, but it is as worthless as it is easy.

As the true amendment of the heart and life is beyond the capacity of the sinner, so it is equally above his strength to render a full satisfaction to the violated law. The penalty' must necessarily be infinite. It is the measure of God's authority, of the holiness of His nature and of His hatred to sin ; it is designed to show the wrath of the Deity and to make His power known. It is a conspicuous exhibition of the extent to which the Divine nature is opposed to transgression. It is a ruinous mistake that the malignity of guilt is de- termined by a standard drawn from the resources and capaci- ties of the rebel. Though finite himself, he may yet perpe- trate an evil of such desperate enormity as to involve, upon the strictest principles of justice, everlasting consequences; as a feeble impulse may set a ball in motion which the hand that impressed the original force shall find it impossible to resist. The true view of the subject is that, as the perfections of God are the ultimate standard of rectitude, and His will, supported by His power, the ultimate standard of obligation, so the discrepancy between Him and sin is the exact measure of its demerit, and the resources of His might the only limit

THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 251

to the actual severity of punishment. His glory is the true criterion of all that is good, venerable or lovely; and a just definition of virtue fixes necessarily an accurate conception of vice. We know the one by its repugnance to the other. Hence every sin — God being infinitely holy and cherishing an infinite detestation of all that is wrong — every sin entails after it the terrible necessity of eternal punishment ; it fast- ens upon its victim a worm which can never die, and kindles around him a fire which can never be quenched.^

' The following argument of that great man, President Edwards, deserves to be seriously pondered by those who are disposed to make a mock of sin :

" I shall briefly show that it is not inconsistent with the justice of God to inflict an eternal punishment. To evince this, I shall use only one argument — viz. : that sin is heinous enough to deserve such a punishment, and such a punishment is no more tlian proportionable to the evil or demerit of sin. If the evil of sin be infinite, as the punishment is, then it is manifest that the punishment is no more than proportionable to the sin punished, and is no more than sin deserves. And if the obligation to love, honour and obey God be infinite, then sin, which is the violation of this obligation, is a violation of infinite obligation, and so is an infinite evil. Again, if God be infinitely worthy of love, honour and obedience, then our obligation to love, honour and obey Him is infinitely great. So that God being infinitely glorious, or infinitely worthy of our love, honour and obedience, our obligation to love, honour and obey Him, and so to avoid all sin, is infinitely great. Again, our obligation to love, honour and obey God being infinitely great, sin is the violation of infinite obliga- tion, and so is an infinite evil. Once more, sin, being an infinite evil, de- serves an infinite punishment — an infinite punishment is no more than it deserves : Therefore such punishment is just, which was the thing to be proved. There is no evading the force of this reasoning, but by denying that God, the Sovereign of the universe, is infinitely glorious, which T pre- sume none of my hearers will venture to do.

"This appears as it is not only not unsuitable that sin slu)uld be thus punished, but it is positively suitable, decent and proper. If this be made to appear, that it is positively suitable that sin should be thus punished, then it will follow that tlie perfections of God require it, for certainly the perfections of God require what is proper to be done. The perfection and excellency of God require that to take place which is perfect, excellent and proper in its own nature. But that sin should be punished eternally is such a thing, which ajipears by the following considerations : 1. It is suitable that God should infinitely hate sin and be an infinite enemy to it. Sin, as I have before shown, is an infinite evil, and therefore is infinitely odious and detestable. It is proper that God should hate every evil, and

252 THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

Annihilation, at any period of his woe, would be as grossly inconsistent with the claims of justice as to assist a culprit in escaping from his prison in order to screen him from the shame of the ffil^bet. It would be a violent arrestincr of the course of the law. Justice could as nmch tolerate that the sinner should be taken to heaven, as that he should be totally de- stroyed ; in either case it would lose its victim. An infinite penalty can only be inflicted upon a finite creature by eter- nity of torment. Whatever freedom there may be in the Supreme Ruler to delay, modify or adjust the ingredients of anguish which constitute the cup of trembling adminis- tered to the lips of the damned, the unchanging principles of rectitude imperatively demand that eternity should be the measure of their woe ; that the darkness to which they are consigned should be the blackness of darkness for ever ; that the smoke of their torment should ascend for ever and ever. The severest penances, the most painful privations, the cost- liest oblations and the richest sacrifices are incompetent to remove the sentence or to cancel the handwriting of ordi- nances against them. What proportions can the tortures of the body — the keenest agonies of which it is susceptible, inflicted and endured in this sublunary state — bear to the in- finite load of wretchedness which is due to the smallest sin ? What can haircloth and rags avail — laceration of the flesh,

hate it according to its odious and detestable nature. And sin being inii- nitely evil and odious, it is proper that God should hate it infinitely. 2. If infinite hatred of sin be suitable to the Divine character, then the expressions of such hatred are also suitable to His character. Because that which is suitable to be is suitable to be expressed : that which is lovely in itself is lovely when it appears. If it be suitable that God should be an infinite enemy to sin, or that He should hate it infinitely, then it is suitable that He should act as such an enemy. If it be suitable that He should hate and have enmity against sin, then it is suitable for Him to express that hatred and enmity in that to which hatred and enmity by its own nature tends. But certainly hatred in its own nature tends to oppo- sition, and to set itself against that which is hated, and to procure its evil and not its good ; and that in proportion to the hatred. Great hatred naturally tends to the great evil, and infinite hatred to the infinite evil of its object." — Sermon on the Eternity of Hell Torments, Works, vol. vii., pp. 467-470.

THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 253

penury and want, voluntary exile from home and friends, needless exposure to scorching suns or withering cold, — what signify ull the devices of superstition and fear, when the real doom incurred is the wrath of God, and the just measure of its severity tlic omnipotence of His arm ? Vain here is the help of man. To come before the Lord with thousands of rams and ten thousands of rivers of oil, to bring to His altar the fruit of the body for the sin of the soul, to mourn in bitterness and weep tears of blood, would be but a poor substitute for that eternity of horror, that endless night of despair, that hopeless banishment from God, which is the legitimate consequence of sin. The insulted justice of God is terrible beyond the power of mortal expression or of mortal thouo-ht. The collision of eternal rectitude with human guilt, the conflict of boundless power with the object of its inextinguishable hate, it belongs to eternity alone to disclose, since eternity alone is the theatre of the strife. But to dream of satisfying, by tears, penances and mortal blood, the awful justice of such an immaculately holy Being as God is to suppose that eternity can be swallowed up in time — the infinite lost in the finite.

Is there, then, no hope? Must the whole race of man perish beneath the frown of the Almighty ? Shall none be found to ransom or to save ?

To answer this question apart from Revelation is beyond the compass of created wisdom. The essential rectitude of God precludes the possibility of unconditional pardon ; the principles of His government, springing necessarily from the perfections of His nature and His relations to the creature, are fixed, immutable, eternal. The glory of His own great Name is deeply and critically involved in the vindication of His justice, holiness and truth. He can by no means clear the guilty. The analogy of nature might indeed sug- gest the possibility of deliverance, as we find in the ordi- nary dispensations of Providence that the consequences of folly are not unfrequently averted by the agency of others. But w^here shall. a fit mediator be found? It is certain as

254 THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

the immutability of God that no substitute could achieve our redemption who was not competent to bear the load of our guilt, to satisfy the insulted justice of our Ruler, to drain the cup of trembling to its dregs. The doctrine of substitution is unquestionably an ultimate principle in the moral government of God. Mediation pervades the arrange- ments of Providence as well as the economy of grace. But the grand difficulty is to find a representative who, without the entire destruction of himself, could exhaust the curse of the law^

Whatever glimmering of hope the doctrine of substitu- tion might impart, it would seem, must be instantly extin- euished when we call to mind the severe and arduous con- ditions under which alone it could be rendered available to sinners. The justice of God is too formidable to be encoun- tered by created strength ; it hangs like a dark cloud over the prospects of man and mocks his most anxious efforts to secure a Redeemer. Whither shall the sinner turn fof help ? Shall he look to his own brethren, the descendants of Adam's race ? As each successive generation comes into being it passes under the curse ; every man has iniquities of his own to bear, and none can by any means redeem his brother nor give to God a ransom for his soul. Shall he invoke the assistance of the angels above ? The law might fitly turn aside from their proffered substitution, as it was man who had sinned and man who must die. Even if this difficulty were vanquished, and an angel should become incarnate, where is its power to contend with the justice of God ? What created arm could meet the thunder of insulted holiness, and endure the storm of eternal wrath ? Who can stand when Omnipotence wields the sword and sin provokes the blow ? From the single element of substitution to work out the problem of human redemption is beyond the skill of angels and the archangel, of cherubim and seraphim. We might climb the loftiest heights and explore the utmost bounds of this widespread universe, every creature might be summoned in review before us, and heaven, earth and hell

TPIE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 255

be laid under tri})ute, and still not a single being could be found able to endure the curse of the law ; and yet this is the only conceivable condition on which salvation could be given. God cannot absolutely pardon. He can only trans- fer the punishment. He cannot set aside the sanction of His law, but only can give it a different direction. Who, then, can save from going down to the pit ? It was reserved for the wisdom of the Eternal to answer this solemn ques- tion. Tlie sublime idea of the incarnation and death of the Son could only have originated in the mind of Him who is wonderful in counsel and unsearchable in His judgments. In Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, we behold a kinsman, who, through the eternal Spirit, is able to endure the wrath of God — a man who can satisfy justice and yet recover from the stroke — a Being who could die and in dying conquer death. Great indeed is the mystery of god- liness, but it is no less glorious than great. Through the infinite wisdom of God a suitable substitute is found who takes the place of the guilty, assumes their burden, and bears it away to a land uninhabited. In the scheme of redemption God visits the transgressions of sinners in the person of the Son, the law is executed in its utmost rigours, and God is just, perfectly and gloriously just, in justifying those who believe. Their sins have been as truly punished as if they themselves had been consigned to the darkness of hell.

Delightful and interesting as it might be to prosecute an inquiry into the precise nature of the atonement, and to define the limitations and restrictions under which substi- tution is admissible, my limits warn me that such a discus- sion cannot be undertaken now. It is enough for my pres- ent purpose to have indicated the ground upon which, as I conceive, the necessity of the atonement should be made to depend. If I have succeeded in proving that the govern- ment of God is not the dictate of policy nor the creature of contingency, but a necessary emanation from the Divine perfections and the relations Avhich He sustains to His crea-

256 THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

tures ; that some rule must, from tlie nature of the case, be prescribed, and that none can possibly proceed from God but one which is holy and just and good ; and that a penal sanc- tion is an essential element of moral law ; if I have succeeded in establishing these propositions, it certainly follows, as an inevitable consequence, that God cannot, without denying Himself, any more dispense with the penalty than He can with the precept itself. The unconditional pardon of sin would be morally wrong — in open and flagrant collision with the eternal principles of right. Punitive justice is as truly essential to God as veracity or honour, and He can no more remit the punishment of the guilty without a satis- faction than He can utter a falsehood or break a promise.

Upon the broad basis, therefore, of the inviolable sanc- tity which attaches to the penalty of the Divine law, I place the necessity of vicarious atonement. It is not merely fit, proper and highly expedient, a stroke of infinite policy, a masterly evolution of Divine tactics ; it is absolutely indispensable upon the supposition of mercy. Without it remission could not exist ; and as it is the burden of the Gospel, it is therefore the power of God unto salvation, — the alternatives, and the only alternatives, being atonement

or ETERNAL DEATH.

It would be easy to show that this is the only hypothesis upon which the scriptural account of a satisfaction to jus- tice can be consistently maintained, and that the majority of those who adopt utilitarian views of government, while they profess to believe in the penal sufferings of our Lord, do in reality make them a substitute for the proper curse of the law. They represent the death of the Redeemer as a grand moral expedient, by which the same impression is pro- duced in regard to the character of God as would have been produced by the everlasting ruin of the guilty. It is some- thing in place of the literal infliction of the penalty of the law, which secures the same viltimate result. Such perver- sions of the truth will be effectually prevented by just con- ceptions of the moral government of God, its origin, nature

THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 257

and ends ; and such views I have chosen to exhibit rather than combat systems of error in detail.

At the close ^ of my ministerial labours among you as members of this institution, I have brought this subject before you on account of its immense importance in relation to the glory of God, and its vital connection with the dear- est interests of our race. The cross of Christ is the centre of the Christian system. From it we are instructed in the character of our Judge, the malignity of sin, our present condition and the prospects which await us beyond the grave. The scheme of redemption is a bright and glorious page in the history of God's administrations — a new book sealed with seven seals, containing lessons of surpassing inte- rest, treating of Jehovah in loftier strains than the seraph's heart had ever reached or the seraph's tongue had ever uttered until the Lion of the Tribe of Judah prevailed to unloose the seals, to reveal the mysteries, and invited the nations to behold their God. His glory is here displayed with a lustre in comparison with which all other manifesta- tions of His name are as the feeble light of the stars.- Creation proclaimed His power, Providence His goodness, Conscience His justice, and Hell His vengeance. These were so many stars, differing from each other in glory, in which we might see all that could be known of God ; but when Jesus came the Sun of Righteousness arose, darkness was scattered, and the light of God's glory, reflected from the face of His Son, darted its rays through heaven, earth and hell. The Cross became the centre of universal attrac- tion, displayed the perfections of Deity in singular and rare combination, and was the source at once of rapture to angels, of terror to the lost and of hope to men. The death of Christ is without doubt the sublimest event in the annals of time or the records of eternity. And in what a light does it present the malignity of sin ! What a commentary upon its intrinsic demerit and turpitude is furnished in the

* This address was delivered to the class, the members of which were graduated the next day. Vol.. II.— 17

258 THE I^'ECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

groans, agony and anguish of the Son of God ! In the Cross it is proclaimed, in living characters, to be the abomina- ble thing which God hates ; and if God spared not His own dear Son — holy, harmless and undefiled as He was — when He occupied the legal position of the guilty, we may be as fully assured as if it were written in letters of fire upon the blue vault of heaven that the soul that sinneth it shall die. In the blood of the Lamb, my brethren, and not in the deceitful reasonings of a corrupt heart, learn the esti- mate to be put upon Sin. There, stripped of her blandish- ments, unmasked in her treachery, exposed in her seduc- tions, she stands revealed in the hideous deformity of her nature, odious to God and deadly to man. Her steps lead down to death, and her feet take hold on hell.

You are soon, my friends, to enter upon the active duties of life. The responsibilities of manhood are gathering around you, and you will shortly go forth, no longer subject to the authority of tutors and guardians, but your own masters.

Let me impress it upon you that the first, the indispensable element of success in your future career must be sought in the favour of God. If there is a Being who presides over the destinies of men and accomplishes His pleasure among the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of earth ; wliose favour is life and whose loving-kindness is better than life ; whose indignation none can withstand, the fierceness of Avhose anger none can abide ; who compasses us behind and before, and understands all our ways ; upon whom we are absolutely dependent for all that we have or are, — it is surely the consummation of folly to look for prosperity in His dominions without His favour. Can you expect endur- ing happiness when the curse of the Almighty hangs over you, when the awful leprosy of sin is wasting your soul, and the edict has gone forth dooming you to solitude and ban- ishment from God ? What prospect is before you when, at every step, you are surrounded by a power which you cannot resist, provoked to vengeance by your negligence and con-

THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 259

tempt ? No doubt, my brethren, your bosoms are bounding with hope, the future seems fall of promise, and you are eager to enter upon the scenes of manly life. But be assured that the first care which should demand your attention is the salvation of the soul. What you first need, most pressingly need, is to have your conscience purged from dead works by the blood of Him who, through the Eternal Spirit, oflFered Himself without spot unto God.

It is no time to settle the subordinate concerns of this life when your souls are in jeopardy every hour — when the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against you, a burning hell is beneath you, and a terrible eternity before you. Be exhorted to seek first the kingdom of God and His right- eousness. Secure your immortal interests, and your mortal will not be disregarded. The great subject of solicitude with me is the salvation of your souls. I am fully assured that if you begin your career under the favour of God, His blessing will attend you at every step ; and though His way may often be in the whirlwind of adversity or the deep waters of affliction, He will eventually make all things work together for your good. I shall feel that you are committed to the guidance of a Friend who will never leave you nor forsake you, who knows your interests and is able to pro- vide for them. But my feelings will be very different in regard to those who know not God and obey not the Gospel of His Son. To such there is no safety. At home or abroad, awake or asleep, in sickness or in health, poverty or afflu- ence, the curse of God attends you ; from His hands there is no escape; and, earnestly as I could wish that all may be well with you, I must constantly feel that nothing is well, that nothing can be well, until you are sprinkled with the blood of atonement. I am afraid to trust you in the world, for the Prince of darkness has a fearful ascendency in it, and may make it the instrument of rendering you still more obdurate in sin. I shall dread to hear of your death, lest your dying hours should fill your friends with gloom, and be too sad an earnest of the awful destiny which follows ;

260 THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT.

and above all, my feelings are insupportable when I remem- ber that I must meet you at the bar of God and be a swift witness against you.

Suffer, therefore, the word of exhortation while I embrace this last opportunity of urging it upon you with affection, earnestness and solemnity, to seek the Lord while He, may be found, to call upon Him while He is near.

The point at which you have arrived is eminently critical. You are now forming your plans for life, and if religion is excluded, it is but too likely that you will never find the convenient season for attending to its claims. If, at this solemn period, when you so much need the blessing of the Almighty — this important juncture of your lives, which is to give shape and character to your subsequent pursuits — you rely upon your own wisdom and trust to your own under- standings, there is too much ground to fear that you may be left to yourselves and abandoned to your self-sufficiency and folly. Can there be a more favourable period than the present for attending to the interests of your souls ? You are young, and special promises are made to youth. You have reached a critical position. One step now may determine your destiny for ever. How important that you should act wisely and take that step in the fear of God ! The cares of life will soon leave little time for the claims of religion ; and if you find a strong reluctance to consider them now, that reluctance will increase with the growing power of a worldly spirit and the increasing dominion of inbred depravity. You are now free from those outward annoyances and petty vexations which the business of life always entails upon us, and which just as effectually close the heart against the calls of God as the heavier calamities of our lot. In every re- spect, then, your present situation is favourable ; more so, perhaps, than it will ever be again. Do you mean to let this golden opportunity pass unimproved? Do you mean that gray hairs shall find you veteran sinners against God ? Have you any excuse, any plausible pretext, which even your consciences will receive, for refusing at once to attend

THE NECESSITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 261

*

to the one thing needful ? You cannot surely deny that if Christianity be anything, it must be everything — if true at all, it is, as Leslie expresses it, "tremendously true." All other matters dwindle into nothing in comparison with the interests of the soul. AVhat signify the applause of the world, the distinctions of society, the force of genius and the charm of letters, if after all your shortlived honours you are doomed at last to lie down in hell ?

Finally, brethren, my ministry now closes with you ; the result of my labours and of your attention will not be known till the day of final accounts. Whatever may have been my imperfections — and I feel that they have been both numer- ous and great — I have always cherished, and shall always continue to cherish, the liveliest interest in your welfare. I have endeavoured to lead you to the fountain of life ; I have preached the Gospel with whatever ability God has given me ; and if any of you have been brought to serious reflection on the subject of salvation, it is a matter of devout thanksgiving to God. But it oppresses me to think that some of you, at least, will leave these walls as careless as you entered them. If now, at the eleventh hour, I could break your carnal slumber and rouse your attention to the things that belong to your peace, I would gladly employ any lawful expedient to do so. But no voice but the voice of God can reach you. I tremble to see you entering upon life unprepared for its close ; but I have faithfully warned you; I call heaven and earth to record against you this day ; and if you perish in your sins, your own consciences will tell you that life and death were before you. You have died wilfully. Would that I could utter with as much hope as affection the only word which remains to be pronounced — Farewell !

PREFATORY NOTE

This discourse on the Priesthood of Christ was preached as a Com • mencement Sermon at the South Carolina College on the second day of December, 1849, the text being Hebrews v. 5, 6. It was published in part in the " Southern Presbyterian Review " for April, 1850. It may be considered the complement of the preceding treatise, where was dis- cussed the work of Christ as a legal substitute — the question of the Epistle to the Romans. Herein is discussed the priestly character of Christ — the question of the Epistle to the Hebrews.

263

THE PEIESTHOOD OF CHRIST.

THE mediation of Christ is represented in the Scrip- tures as consisting in the discharge of three principal offices — those of a Prophet, a Priest, and a King. That God should instruct and govern us through the agency and instrumentality of another is so perfectly in keeping with the whole analogy of nature that none who pretend to any reve- rence for the Scriptures, who even admit the historical reality of Jesus, are disposed to deny that He is, in some pre-eminent sense, the moral teacher and moral ruler of mankind. All who acknowledge any revelation acknowledge that through Jesus Christ, God has communicated discoveries of His will which are of the last importance to the improvement and happiness of the race. Too many, indeed, reduce His pro- phetic functions to the mere publication of truth, and His kingly office to the proclamation of the laws which men are required to obey, thus divesting Him, as a teacher, of the dispensation of the Spirit, and merging His royal prerogative into that of a messenger of the King. But though there has been a disposition to strip these offices of some of the peculiarities which distinguish them as exer- cised by Christ, and which give them indeed tlieir value and efficacy to us, yet no peculiar presumption has been felt to lie against the general fact that His mediation embraces the elements of instruction and rule. Widely diffisrent is the case in regard to His priesthood. This has ever been the stone of stumbling and the rock of offi^nce in the Christian scheme. Every artifice of learning and criticism has been tried to expunge from the Scriptures their plain

265

266 THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST.

and obvious teachings upon the subject. The Word of God has been twisted, distorted and mutilated, the simplest rules of grammar set at defiance and the established usages of language disregarded and despised, in order to give some colour of plausibility to the shameless denial of the sacer- dotal mediation of the Saviour. What renders this con- duct the more remarkable is, that the New Testament gives a prominence to the priesthood which it nowhere concedes to the kingly or prophetic offices of Christ. It was the very end of His incarnation that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest. There was obviously no neces- siiy for such a miracle as the assumption of human nature by His Divine Person if the only result to be achieved were the discovery of truths inaccessible to the efforts of reason, and the promulgation of law^s resting upon the authority of God. Prophets and apostles were abun- dantly competent to offices of this sort. They could teach, they did teach ; the New Testament itself, the very oracles of God, is the labour of their hands, directed by the Spirit of God.

The incongruity is so palpable and monstrous betwixt the pomp of })reparation w^hich the common doctrine of the in- carnation involves, and the end to be accomplished betwixt the opulence of means and the poverty of result, that those w^ho deny the priesthood do not scruple to deny the Deity of the Son, and, with a painful consistency of error, reduce Him who is over all God blessed for ever to the level of our 2)oor, dependent humanity. The doctrines of a proper Sonship and a proper priesthood are in the Christian economy inseparably linked together, and it is a happy circumstance for the faith of the Church that the enemies of the cross can never hope to prevail without a double work of destruction. Their argument against the priesthood is felt to be incomplete until they have demolished the Deity, and their arguments against the Deity unsatisfactory until they have demolished the priesthood of Christ. They must show that He has never been addressed in the words, in their strict and proper

THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. 267

acceptation, Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten thee, before they can sliow that it has never been said to Him, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedek.

But while the Scriptures insist with peculiar emphasis upon the mediation of Christ, and represent the func- tions which are discharged in it as essential to salvation, it is not sufficiently considered that these functions them- selves are not necessarily sacerdotal — that they might have been discharged by one who was not a priest in the common acceptation of the term. All that seems to be indispensable to salvation is the obedience of a substitute voluntarily assuming our guilt and able to endure the curse of the law. The imputation of an adequate righteousness upon the ground of fedqral relations is the principle into Avhich the Apostle resolves our justification in the Epistle to the Romans. The government of God demands that sin should be punished and that life should be the reward of perfect obedience ; and the salvation of a sinner turns upon the possibility of vicarious righteousness and vicarious pun- ishment. These are the doctrines which Paul enounces and vindicates in that great Epistle which has ever been the bul- wark of the evangelical scheme as contradistinguished from the dreams of formalists, Pharisees and mystics. He says nothing there specifically of priesthood. It is Christ a sub- stitute, Christ the federal representative of sinners, Christ obeying and Christ dying in the place of the guilty, — these are the topics of discussion, these are the doctrines which lie at the foundation of our hope, and make the Gospel emphatically tidings of great joy. But these doctrines do not necessarily include priesthood. We can manifestly con- ceive of a mediation by substitution which shall not at the same time be sacerdotal. The Son of God, for aught that appears, might have become incarnate, assumed our legal responsibilities and brought in an everlasting righteousness ; He might have been a sponsor, paying our debt and slain by the sword of Divine justice in our stead ; He migiit have fulfilled all the requisitions of the law or of natural religion,

2fi8 THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST.

and have pledged the faithfuhiess and truth of God to our redemption, and yet not have performed any of these duties in the character of a priest. It becomes, therefore, an extremely interesting question why the mediation of Christ has been made to assume the peculiar form of priest- hood. If atonement is all that can be proved to be essen- tial to pardon and acceptance, and vicarious obedience and vicarious punishment all that are essential to atonement — if substitution is the fundamental principle of redemption — why is it that the substitute has been ordained a priest, that His death is a sacrifice as well as a satisfaction to justice, and that with the blood of this offering He has passed into the holiest of all to make constant intercessions for His joeople ? If we could have been saved by a substitute who was not a priest; and redeemed by a death which was not a sacrifice, why have a priest and a sacrifice been the chosen means of accomplishing the work ? These are not questions of idle curiosity. They have been suggested to my own mind by an attentive study of the Epistles to the Romans and the Hebrews. The first, the Epistle to the Romans, discusses the principles of the Gospel in their general relations to the moral government of God, and demonstrates, as well as asserts upon authority, the absolute necessity of legal sub- stitution in order to life. But if the disclosures of revela- tion stojjped here, we might look upon the death of the Redeemer as the result simply of the operation of justice — a death inflicted by the law, exclusively penal in its nature and relations, exacted of Him in the same sense in which it would otherwise have been exacted of the sinner. We might regard pardon as resulting from faith in that death as a satisfaction to justice, and access to God as immediate and direct in consequence of this historical fact as a past reality. The principles here discussed would resolve the security of our state into the covenant faithfulness of God without the least insight into the manner in which it is actually made available to the saints. All that we could say would be that our debt has been paid, that justice no longer demands

THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. 269

our lives, that God has promised in consequence of the Redeemer's death to receive us into favour, and upon the ground of that death we might approach Him ourselves and sue for mercy. This is all that could be certainly collected from the general discussion of this Epistle. But when we turn to the Epistle to the Hebrews we find indeed a substitute, and the substitute demanded by the Epistle to the Eomans, but that substitute is embodied in a priest ; we find a death, a penal death, a death which is commensu- rate with the curse of the law, but it is a death which is also a sacrifice — at once the result of the operation of justice and of a free-will offering to God. We find justification and pardon resolved ultimately into the obedience and death of Christ as past historical facts, but immediately due to rela- tions sustained to Him as a living person and Redeemer ; and access to God ascribed, not so much to faith in His past achievements as to His present appearance for us in the holiest of all ; and the covenant faithfulness of God is seen to be maintained through the agency of Him who ever liveth to make intercessions for us.

The Epistle to the Hebrews may be regarded as a detailed account of the method in which the great law of substitution has been actually applied in the redemption of our race. AYhile that to the Romans shows what must needs be done in order to our salvation, the Epistle' to the Hebrews shows how it has been done ; and where the arrangements have gone beyond the strict requisitions of necessity, they are demonstrated to be the dictates at once of mercy and wisdom. Priesthood is the perfection of mediation. There is not a single circumstance which distinguishes a priest from a general substitute which is not significant, a proof of good- ness, a fresh illustration of the adaptation of redemption to the condition of its objects ; not a single circumstance whicli distinguishes a sacrifice from the ordinary forms of death that does not enhance the preciousness of the Saviour's work. The full effect of this truth is lost upon most Christian minds through inattention to the distinctions in question. They

270 THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST.

admire the goodness and adore the wisdom of God in pro- viding a substitnte for the guilty, able to reconcile the con- flicting claims of justice and of grace ; but apart from the adaptation of His person to the mighty work they see nothing upon which they are accustomed to dwell as peculiarly in- dicative of the Divine goodness. They overlook the adap- tation of His office ; they forget that the manner in which He has accomplished the work is as glorious as the matter — the how as sublime as the what. The work as done, the person by whom, exhaust their topics of admiration and of praise, and they fail to enter into those other motives of faith, devotion and thanksgiving which are derived from the contemplation of the office in its essential and distin- guishing features. They use the terms Priest and High Priest, and have a habitual reference to the appearance of the Saviour in the presence of God ; but their High Priest is, after all, but little more than an all-sufficient sponsor, and His intercessions are regarded rather as acts of royalty than sacerdotal pleas. It is amazing how little and seldom we enter into those views of the death of the Redeemer which spring from the consideration of it as a real and proper sacrifice — how little we discriminate betwixt a legal repre- sentative and a consecrated Priest, betwixt Christ glorious in His kingdom and equally glorious in the holiest of all, betwixt even His triumphant ascension as a King and His passage as intercessor, not without blood, into the presence of God. As these distinctions are evidently important, and the benefits of that peculiar form of mediation to which the Saviour was appointed are clearly explained by the Apostle, it may be well to show how much we have gained and how pre-eminently God is glorified by this whole arrangement. Let us, then, contemplate Jesus, not simply as the Apostle, but the High Priest of our profession, and let us endeavour to collect from the Scriptures the excellency and glory of this species of mediation.

1. It deserves, first, to be remarked that those conceptions of the origin of salvation which are suggested by substitu-

THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. 271

tion in its nakedest form are rendered clearer and more im- pressive by the fact that the substitute is also a ^jriest. The appointment of any representative is an act of grace ; redemp- tion, no matter how achieved, is the offspring of mercy. The justice which connects punishment with guilt attaches the penalty to the person of the offender ; and though it is capa- ble of being satisfied by vicarious sufferings, it is the pre- rogative of the lawgiver to say whether he will accept a sub- stitute and transfer his vengeance from the original trans- gressor to an innocent but adequate sponsor. But this grace is more conspicuously displayed in the constitution of a priest than the designation of a simple surety. While, in either case, the whole proceeding is of grace, there are, in the consecration of a priest, a solemnity of purpose and an abso- lute sovereignty of will which arrest attention and compel the most thoughtless to acknowledge that it is the finger of God. In considering the claims of a surety, all that Avould seem to be important is his ability to pay the debt he assumes. But in tlie case of a priest this ability must con- cur with other qualifications, the anxiety to secure which is an additional proof of the mercy which pities the condition of the lost. It is always an act of sovereign condescension to admit a substitute ; but there is nothing inconceivable in the supposition that the proposition to redeem the guilty might proceed from himself and not from God — that he might volunteer his services, and so become the author of the scheme which dispenses salvation to men. But tlie honour of priesthood no man can take to himself but he that is called of God, as was Aaron. Hence the Apostle insists upon it that Christ glorified not Himself to be nuuk' an High Priest, but He that said unto Him, Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten Thee. A jH-iest is a solemn minister of religion — the channel through which all worsliip is conducted — the organ of all communications betwixt God and the people. This august agency none can assume with- out the authority of God. So awful and momentous is this office, which really collects the prayers and praises and

272 THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST.

thanksgivings of a world into a single person, which centres the hopes of mankind upon the conduct of a single individual throughout all ages, — so tremendous is this resjjonsibility and so sublime this honour, that it would be the climax of pre- sumption on the part of any one to propose that it should be conceded to him. It belongs to God, and to God alone, to designate a priest. The idea of a mediatorial worship conducted by a permanent and glorious minister, and so con- ducted as to strengthen the ties of personal obligation, is an idea which could only originate in the mind of the Deity ; and there were an evident fitness and propriety in the solem- nity and grandeur attached to the appointment of Jesus to this office when He was consecrated not without an oath. A scheme which contemplates an arrangement of this sort bears stamped upon it the strongest impress of grace. It sprang from the bosom of God ; it was mercy, which con- ceived the purpose of salvation ; mercy, which accepted the substitute ; and mercy upon mercy, the exuberance of grace, which made that substitute a priest. This last feature makes it little less than blasphemy to imagine that redemption could have any other source but the bosom of the Almighty. It is a Divine plan.

The acceptance of any substitute, on the part of the Deity, contains an implied pledge that he was adequate to the task. We can scarcely conceive without horror that a Being of infinite benevolence should subject the innocent — however willing he might be to undergo the torture — to unspeakable suflFerings, when it was known beforehand that they would be incompetent to redeem the guilty. God, we may rest assured, would never take a surety who was unable to pay. But the guarantee, arising from the Divine character, that an accepted mediation shall be sufficient, is immensely strengthened when the substitute is considered as not only accepted but iwoposed by God, and set apart to his work with a solemnity of installation which would seem to throw the most awful imputation upon the Divine veracity if the sacrifice should fail to be adequate. Can we, for a moment,

THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. 273

indulge the suspicion that Jesus shall not infallibly save every sinner who applies to Him, when He has been solemnly appointed to this office by the oath of God ? Was that oath an idle flourish, a mere mockery of our woe ? or was it not rather a proclamation to all the intelligent universe that the scheme of redemption should be as stable as the eternal throne — the priesthood of Jesus as incapable of disappointing our hopes as God of ceasing to be ? This designation of Jesus to the priesthood was the sole ground of security to the ancient saints. The great work was only in prospect — it stood in the counsel of God ; and as the Strength of Israel M^as not a man that He should lie, nor the son of man that He should repent, the patriarchs and prophets looked with steadfast hearts to the great events which ai'c matters of history to us. " And these all, having obtained a good re- port through faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect." Such is the strong consolation which the oath of God is suited to impart to the heirs of His grace that if nothing more were known of the economy of redemption than that it depended upon a priesthood ap- pointed by Himself, and consecrated with the solemnity of this awful sanction, this would be sufficient to establish their hearts. They would feel that the scheme could not fail; that the glory of God was so deeply concerned in its success that heaven and earth might sooner pass away than a single sinner fall short of salvation who had fled for refuge to the hope set before him. Such impressiveness could not be im- parted to the acceptance of a substitute, or even the selection of a mere representative. The forms of inauguration, the aw- ful rites of consecration, the proofs of love and of confidence implied in the delegation of so imposing a trust, — these must all be wanting, and would strip the transaction of whatever attractions they are fitted to give it upon a sinner's regard. No form of mediation could beforehand so deeply ])lc(lge the Deitv to its success as that which turns upon an office to which God alone is competent to call. In making it His Vol. II.— 18

274 THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST.

prerogative to glorify him who shall be clothed with the priesthood, we make it absolutely certain that he who is so honoured shall glorify God in the wisdom of the choice.

As, in every instance of substitution, the free and cordial acquiescence of the substitute is indispensable to the success of the arrangement, it is a favourable circumstance when the form of mediation can be made conspicuously to display it. His consent should not only be presumed, but known. It should be patent and manifest in the whole transaction. There would be an appearance of hardship, if not of injustice, in a proceeding which should doom the innocent to suifer in the place of the guilty without the concurrence of his own will. If arbitrarily done, it would be flagrant and intoler- able tyranny ; if done from high and solemn considerations of public policy, it w^ould impeach the wisdom of an admin- istration which had been so imperfectly digested as to de- mand an occasional departure from distributive justice, an occasional disregard of personal worth or delinquency, in order to answer its proper ends. If the scheme of redemp- tion, however, proposed Jesus to His people as only a legal substitute, though His consent might be easily collected from the circumstances of the case, yet it would not be conspicuous from the nature and progress of the work. Still less could it be seen that His consent was the spontaneous movement of His own heart, rather than a pious submission to the will of God, with whom the scheme must originate. But when He is announced as a priest all diiRculty vanishes. He must delight in the work ; the offering which He brings must be a free-will offering, or it could be no offering at all. If the victim laid upon the altar were not fully and cordially sur- rendered to God, the external act were hypocrisy and the whole service a mockery. Wherefore, when He cometh into the world, He saith, Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire ; mine ears hast thou opened : burnt-offering and sin- offering hast thou not required. Then said I, Lo I come : in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do Thy will, O my God.

THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. 275

Among the qualifications indispensable to a priest, next to his having somewhat to ofler, nothing is more earnestly- insisted on by the Apostle than a sympathizing nature. He must feel a real solicitude in the objects of his care. He must be one that can have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way. He is not to bring his sacrifice from a cold and repulsive sense of duty, nor from abstract regards to the dignity or glory of the deed ; but he must be governed by a real philanthropy — he must have love and \)\tj in his heart — he must weep for the transgressor while he makes atonement for the guilt. As he is to be a me- diator betwixt God and men, he must combine in his person the apparently incompatible elements of zeal for the Divine glory and affection for the souls of men. He must love the Lord his God, and maintain the integrity of His throne, while he commiserates the condition of the lost and would rescue them from their melancholy doom. He must have a brother's heart while he vindicates the decree of eternal justice. It is this zeal for God and man, this admirable blending of piety and philanthropy, which constitutes priest- hood necessarily and always a joyful work. This is a quali- fication M^hich the priest must have — it is of the essence of the office; and if at any period in the progressof his work he should fail to possess or evince it, his acts would cease to be sacerdotal ; they would become sacrilegious — the offering of strange fire upon the altar. This consideration puts it beyond the pos- sibility even of suspicion that the substitution of the Saviour was the result of " a momentary enthusiasm, a sudden im- pulse of heroic feeling, which prompted Him in the ardour of the moment to make a sacrifice of which, on cool delibera- tion, He repented." The very nature of the priesthood de- mands that the spirit of sublime devotion to God and heroic self-sacrifice for man, which first secured His consent to the enterprise, should animate Him at every step in His history, and sanctify every function of His office. He is not to be the passive recipient of ill. As a priest He must act — there are things to be done even in the endurance of the curse —

276 THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST.

and His whole heart must burn with piety and eonipas.<ioii while He bears the sins of the world in His own body on the tree. The lofty and godlike motives which induced the Redeemer, in the counsels of eternity, before the morning stars had yet sung together or the sons of God shouted for joy, to become the Lamb to be slain, must have continued to operate with undiminished intensity, or the prerogatives and glory of His office had been forfeited. The priestly spirit must have continued to dwell and to reign in His heart, or the priestly robes would have been taken from His shoulders. He nnist have been as free, as cordial, as de- lighted, when He uttered the cry of lamentation and woe upon the cross, which shook the earth and startled the dead, as when at the glorious suggestion of the scheme He uttered the language, Lo, I come. As the work of a priest, it is stamped upon the whole process of redemption that the sub- stitute gave His consent ; that His self-devotion was sponta- neous and free — the execution of a settled purpose to which He was impelled by no constraining influence of the Divine will, by no transitory fervours of enthusiasm, no martyr im- pulse of the moment ; that Pie delighted in the work — it was His meat and drink ; He felt it to be an honour and not a hardship, its successful achievement a crown of glory, and not a triumph over cruelty. This single consideration, that it displays so consj)icuously the freeness of the Saviour's mediation, is itself a sufficient vindication of the wisdom and fitness of a priesthood. It shows that our felicity has not been purchased at the expense of the rights of another ; and though there was an immense cost of suffering and of blood, it was never for a moment begrudged, never for a moment sustained with reluctance. We have no occasion for regrets that the blessings which we enjoy have been put into our hands by cruelty, injustice, or even harshness and severity to others. They are the free gifts of that sublimest of all spirits — the spirit of a priest.

It is obvious from the preceding train of remark that all those views of the origin and success of the scheme of re-

THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. 277

demption, which tJie general idea of substitution naturally suggests, are rendered more striking and impressive by the peculiarities of priesthood. If legal substitution involves a dispensatiou with the primary requisition of the law, attach- ing punishment always to the person of the offender, which proves that the substitute must be appointed by God — the necessity of this inference is immensely enhanced when that substitute sustains an office which absolutely demands a vocation from above. The proposition to suffer might origi- nate from a competent sponsor ; the proposition to be a priest (.i)uld not be made without blasphemy, and any scheme which compreheuds the functions of a real and proper priesthood can spring from no other source but the bosom of God. If the acceptance of a substitute carries a presumption that his proffered mediation must be successful, this presumption is magnified into certainty when the substitute is not only accepted but appointed by God, and invested with an office which requires a formal and solemn inauguration. The pre- sumption in the one case arises from the general principle that whatever means are appointed of God must be effica- cious ; but the certainty in the latter arises from the awful sanctity of the oath with which the Son was declared to be a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedek.

If the consent of the substitute must, in every instance, be presumed — the righteousness of the procedure depending upon his concurrence — it is obviously important that it should be open and palpable ; and this result is effectually attained by an arrangement which could not subsist a moment longer than the consent of the substitute is given. The priestly spirit, which is essential to tlie priestly office, exacts delio-ht in the work, and all sacerdotal functions would behove to be suspended should the priest fail in the spirit of his vocation. The joy of the Mediator in the work, there- fore, and the vindication of God from all suspicion of cruelty, injustice or severity, is complete and triumphant when the Saviour's death is made a sacrifice — a free-will offering to God. But though these considerations are not without tlieir

278 THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST.

value in illustrating the Divine wisdom and goodness, yet we are far from sup^Dosing that they constitute the peculiar advantages of sacerdotal mediation. The pre-eminent im- portance of the office is rather to be sought in the light which it throws upon redemption as a work achieved, and in the arrangements which it makes for the successful appli- cation of its blessings to the heirs of the promise. It is pre- cisely the scheme in which the provisions of the Gospel most conspicuously display the glory of God, and are best adapted to conciliate regard and to inspire confidence and hope. Grace is here seen to be a remedy without the disgust which remedies usually create ; it is rendered attractive to all who know their disease and appreciate their danger, and admin- isters strong consolation under circumstances in which no other arrangement could save from the encroachments of despair.

2. When we contemplate the death of Christ as simply the death of a substitute, we see in it nothing more than a full satisfaction to the claims of justice. The sponsor pays the debt, and pays it cheerfully ; the legal representative endures the curse Avhich others had incurred, and falls beneath the sword which the guilt of others had drawn from its scabbard. It is a transaction of law and govern- ment, the infliction of a judicial sentence. Though it is implied that the substitute approves the equity of the law under which He suifers, and is prepared to vindicate the Divine conduct from the charge of unreasonable rigour, — though the justice of the whole transaction is assumed, yet when it is represented as simply the operation of justice, much of its moral grandeur and impressiveness is lost. We see in the substitute a victim to his own generosity, and considering Him exclusively in this light, there are probably few men Avho have not had occasion to fortify their minds against a momentary impression of unrelenting severity when regarding those awful attributes of God which make atonement the exclusive channel of mercy to the guilty. We must go beyond the event to its principle

THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. 279

and causes before we can be at ease when we survey the sufferings of Jesus of Nazareth. He is felt to be a passive victim of Divine wrath, He bares His bosom to the stroke, He receives the storm which beats in violence and fury: He simply, in other words, stands and endures, while God, and God in His most terrible forms of manifestation, is the sole agent in the case.

Widely different is the impression which is made when the transaction is contemplated in its true light. There is no room for the remotest suspicion of inexorable rigour when Jesus is seen to be a priest, His death a sacrifice, and the whole transaction an august and glorious act of worship. The position of Jesus is sublime when, standing before the altar, He confesses the guilt of His brethren, adores the justice which dooms them to woe, and almost exacts from God as the condition of His own love that justice should not slacken nor abate. That prayer of confession, that assumption of guilt, that clear acknowledgment of what truth and righteousness demand, make us feel that God must strike, that the edict must go forth. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd and the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts. Still sublimer is His position when wdth profound adoration of the Divine character, by His own proper act. His own spontaneous movement. He lays His life upon the altar, virtually saying, Take it, it ought to be taken ; let the fire of justice consume it ; better, ten thousand times better, that this should be than that the throne of the Eternal should be tarnished by an effeminate pity ! We feel that death is not so much a penalty inflicted as an offering accepted. We feel that God is glorious, thai the law is glorious in the whole transaction, because Christ glorifies them. He lays down His life of Himself; it is His own choice to die rather than that man should perish or the Divine government be insulted with impunity ; and although in accepting the offering Justice inflicted upon Him the full penalty of the law, although the fire which consumed the victim was the curse in its whole extent, yet as

280 THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST.

it was an act of worship to provide it, and especially as that victim was Himself, every groan and pang, every excla- mation of agony, amazement and horror, was a homage to God which, in itself considered, the Priest felt it glorious to render. And if Jesus in all the extremity of His pas- sion proclaimed to the universe what from the nature of priesthood He must have ^jroclaimed, that the whole trans- action was a ground on which God was adored by Him, and ought to l)e adored by all, that His Father was never dearer, never more truly God in His sight, than when He accepted the sacrifice of Himself, the sublimity of the princi- ples involved, and the interest of Jesus in them, are a per- fect vindication from every illiberal suspicion. There is something, to our minds, inexpressibly sublime when we con- template the scheme of redemption as accomjilished by an act of worship — when we look upon Jesus not as a passive recipient of woes, the unresisting victim of law, but as a minister of religion, conducting its services in the presence of angels and men, upon an emergency which seemed to cover the earth with darkness. Our world becomes the outer court of the sanctuary, where a sacrifice is to be offered in which the Priest and the Victim are alike the wonder of the universe — in which the worship which is ren- dered leaves it doubtful whether the Deity is more glorious in His justice or His grace. In this aspect the satisfaction of Jesus is not merely the ground upon which others are at liberty to approach and adore the Divine perfections; it is itself a prayer uttered by the lips of one whose deeds were words — a hymn of praise chanted by Him whose songs were the inspiration of holiness and truth. Every proud imagi- nation is rebuked, every insinuation against the character of God is felt to be a shame to us, every disposition to cuvil or condemn is consigned to infamy, when we remem- ber that the whole work of Jesus Avas a solemn service of religion, as well that by which He descended into the grave as that by which He passed through the heavens into the holiest of all. He was a priest in His death, a priest in

THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. 281

His resurrection, a priest in His ascension. He worshipped God in laying His life upon the altar, He worshipped Plira in taking- it again, and it was an act of worship by which He entered with His blood into the very presence of the Highest to intercede for the saints. It was religion in Jesus to die, to rise, to reign, as it is religion in us to believe in these great events of His history.

Here, then, is an incalculable advantage of priesthood. While it makes the passion of the Redeemer a full and per- fect satisfaction of Divine justice, and so lays an adequate foundation of pardon, it vindicates the Divine glory in every step of the proceeding by making every step an act of adoration and praise. It makes the Saviour adore the Father in His death, makes that very death an offering of praise, redemption itself a mighty prayer, and throws the sanctities and solemnities of worship — and worship on the ])art of one who knew what was the proper ground of wor- ship— around all the stages in the development of the econ- omy of grace. This seems to us to be the very climax of wisdom. It was glorious to have provided a substitute who should be able to bear our sins in His own body upon the tree, to have devised a scheme by which the conflicting claims of mercy and justice should be adjusted and harmo- nized— by which God could be just and at the same time the justifier of those who believe in Jesus ; but it was the very perfection of wisdom to have executed this scheme so that the intensest sufferings should have produced only a deeper impression of tlie Divine glory and of the excellence and value of the Divine law. Surely in this arrangement the law is magnified and made honourable.

3. Another circumstance which illustrates the import- ance of sacerdotal mediation is the provision which it makes for the application of redemption to the heirs of the promise. The discussion has often been agitated, "Which precedes, faith or regeneration ? On the one hand it lias been maintained, and successfully maintained, that faith is a holy exercise, and necessarily supposes a change of heart ;

282 THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST.

and on the other, with equal truth, that a spiritual nature is the work of the Holy Ghost, and that He is vouchsafed in His saving operations only to those who are entitled to the favour of God. They must be in Christ in order to be recipients of saving grace ; they must have received that grace in order to be in Christ. There are but two hypothe- ses by which this difficulty can be met upon the scheme of simple substitution, and both of them are liable to insuper- able objections. The one is the Antinomian theory of eter- nal justification, which, "as it makes acceptance with God compatible with a state of sin, is destructive of the interests of holiness ; the other is the theory of a change in the Divine mind in relation to a sinner at a particular period of his history, which change occurs without any particular reason why it should be effected then rather than at any other time. It is supposed that the covenant of redemption included a promise to the Mediator that, at a given time in the history of each, the heirs of the promise should be renewed by the Spirit and enabled to believe on the Saviour. The actual communication of the Spirit is solely in virtue of that promise. Now, if the sinner were not justified in the justification of Christ, if before the critical period arrives he is the object of Divine reprobation, what is to make him less so after it has come ? If there was that in his character and relations to God which made it inconsist- ent with the Divine perfections to impart to him tokens of favour, the original promise has neither changed that cha- racter nor those relations, and has consequently not removed the inconsistency. The change towards him in the Divine mind is purely arbitrary. If it should be said that the work of Christ has laid the foundations of that change, the reply is obvious that, at the given time, the sinner's rela- tions to that work are no nearer than they were before; and if that work be the cause of it, the change must have occurred when Christ Himself was justified. These diffi- culties seem to be insuperable upon the hypothesis of sim- ple substitution. We must fall back upon Antinomian

THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. 283

principles, or confess that the conversion of a sinner is utterly inexplicable.

But when we take in the idea of priesthood the whole difficulty vanishes. There is no need for asserting what the Scrij)tures everywhere deny — an eternal justification, or an actual justification in the resurrection of Christ, or an arbi- trary change in the feelings and sentiments of the change- less God. The Spirit in His first operations is imparted, not as a token of God's favour to the sinner, but as a token of His regard to the great High- Priest who pleads before the throne. It is not that the sinner is accepted, but that Jesus is accepted. God looks only on the great Intercessor, and gives Him power to give eternal life to all whose names are on His breast-plate ; and when, in answer to these Divine intercessions, the Spirit is given to Christ, that Christ may give Him to us — when, in consequence of that gift. He descends not from the Father but from Christ to us, and unites us to Jesus — then, God looks upon us in tlie Redeemer and justifies us in consequence of that union. Here there is perfect harmony in the whole plan.

4. Another immense advantage of a priesthood is that it quickens and stimulates the devotion of the Church by the assurance it inspires that all true worship, however imper- fect or inadequate, shall infallibly be accepted and rewarded. Upon the scheme of simple substitution, the approaches of a sinner to God would be immediate and j)ersonal; he M^ould go in his own name, depending for acceptance upon a work which had already been performed ; he would plead the promises Avhich were suspended upon it, and cast him- self upon the unfailing faithfulness of God. We are far from saying that this would not be a sufficient grountl of confidence and hope ; but no man tluit knows the deceitful- ness of his heart, the depths of ini(|uity within him — no man who feels his own vileness and pollution, and appre- ciates at the same time the transcendent holiness of God — could venture without fear and trembling, however sup- ported by a covenant which guarantees his acceptance, to

284 THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST.

come into the presence of Him in whose sight the heavens are not clean and who charges the angels with folly. To talk of confidence and boldness, under such circumstances, would be sheer madness. However we might be author- ized to feel it, Ave could not feel it. The awful holiness of God must be like a consuming fire ; an oppressive sense of unworthiness and of immeasurable distance and separation from the high and holy One that inhabiteth eternity must arrest the prayer as it rises in the heart, and check the con- fidence which atonement as a past historical fact is suited to inspire. We should say with the Israelites that we cannot speak with God. There must be a Mediator of prayer and praise, of all the exercises of religious worship, as well as a Mediator to jDurchase our pardon. This is accomplished by a priesthood. There is no direct and immediate approach to God. We come before Him only in the name of our Priest, who attracts us by community of nature, and who presents all our worship for us before the eternal throne. Our prayers are not heard and received as ours, but as the prayers of Jesus ; our praises are not accepted as ours, but as the praises of Jesus. The imperfection wdiich attaches to our performances, our pollution and weakness and unbe- lief, stop with the High Priest ; His intercession and atone- ment cover all defects, and we are faultless and complete in Him. The prayer which reaches the ear of the Almighty is from Him, and not from us, and must be as prevalent as His worth. Here is our confidence, not only that Jesus died, but that Jesus lives — that He is our intercessor in the heavenly sanctuary, and there presents, enforces and sancti- fies the religious worship of earth ; here is our confidence that in the whole process of salvation God regards the Redeemer and not us, and deals out blessings according to His estimate of Christ ; here is our confidence that if any man sin we have an Advo(.'ate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. What an encouragement to prayer and praise ! And what thanks shall we render unto God for adapting the marvellous scheme of His grace with such

THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. 285

consummate wisdom to the wants and weaknesses of men ! " Seeing, then, that we have a great High Priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as Ave are, yet without sin. Let us, therefore, come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." " Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way wdiicli He hath consecrated for us, through the veil — that is to say, His flesh — and having an High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assur- ance of faith." This approach to God through the media- tion of a priest is one of tlie highest privileges of the Gos- pel, and meets so completely a prime necessity of nature that where it is imperfectly understood we are disposed to make arrangements of our own which shall answer the same end. All corrupt religions have an order of priest>>^. They could maintain no hold upon the people, they could not enlist the sympathies of the heart, Avithout some pro- vision of the sort. It is the glory of the Gospel that it has a Priest who can save to the uttermost all that come unto God through Him — who can sanctify the meanest worship- per and consecrate the humblest offering. None need be afraid or ashamed ; it is not they, but He who is accepted in the house of God. It was an ancient reproach of Christian- ity, both among Jews and Gentiles, that it was a mere spirit- ual and personal worship, without the intervention of altar, temple or sacrifice. It had indeed no imposing ritual, no pomp of ceremony, no gorgeous solemnities — all was simple and unpretending; its institutions were addressed to intelli- gence and not to taste, to the heart instead of the fiincy. Still, there was a temple in the Christian scheme, more auiTust and glorious than anv which could be reared by hands ; it had an Altar, a Priest, a Victim and a Sacrifice, which should for ever abolish through their transcendent

286 THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST.

efficacy all other altars, all other priests, all other vic- tims, however costly or imposing; it possessed in perfec- tion all those advantages of sacerdotal mediation which Judaism and Paganism faintly adumbrated, and instead, like them, of making its priesthood subservient only to a vicarious religion, it secured the real worship of the heart.

5. It deserves, finally, to be added that a mediation of priesthood is the form in which consolation is most effect- ually administered to the children of men. It is necessary to any substitute that he should be a kinsman of our race, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. But besides the possession of our nature free from the stain and impurities of sin, nothing more is required for the purposes of vica- rious righteousness and penal expiation than the consent of the substitute to undertake the task. If he can die the death to which we are doomed, and is willing to suffer in our stead, he is a competent redeemer. But though this is all which is absolutely essential to a legal substitution, it is not all which the state and condition of men evince to be desirable. We want a redeemer with a brother's heart as well as a brother's nature. Though not indispensable to our safety, it is indispensable to our comfort, that our substi- tute should be touched with a feeling of our infirmities, that he should be able to bear our sorrows and carry our griefs. Now this exquisite sympathy, which is one of the most poM^erful incentives to faith and love, is essential to a priest. Every high priest ordained for men must not only be a participant of their nature, but must have compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way. He must enter with sympathetic tenderness into all their temp- tations and calamities, their fears and apprehensions, their cares and sorrows. He must be prepared to pity and encourage the weak, to comfort the weeper in the house of mourning, to wipe the widow's tears, to hear the orphan's cries, to lie down with the beggar upon his pallet of straw, and to watch with those to whom wearisome nights are

THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. 287

appointed. He must be a friend in all those emergencies in wliich friendship is our richest boon.

This qualification is found pre-eminently in Jesus. Holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners, He possesses that absolute purity of nature in which the sensi- bilities have lost none of their delicacy from the petrifying influence of sin. Trained, too, by a protracted discipline in the school of affliction. He knows the temptations of our race — He knows what it is to weep, He knows the burden of a heavy heart. It was, perhaps, one design of the varied scenes of trial through which He passed to give Him that experience of our state which should call into the liveliest exercise the exquisite sympathy of His soul. In generous natures common troubles and afflictions have a tendency to knit them together ; it is only where the heart has been seared by sin and immersed in selfishness that it can look with indifference upon struggles of others similar to those through w^hlch it has passed. The Apostle assures us that Jesus was tempted in all points as we are, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest. And those who have felt His presence in their trials can appreciate the priceless value of His sympathy. He has gone before us through every path of sorrow, and we cannot utter a groan nor heave a sigh which does not go to His heart. His pity for the guilty is as tender as His sympathy with the saints. No language can express the intensity of His compassion for those who in ignorance and folly disregard the day of their merciful visitation, and are heaping up AATath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. He has no pleasure in their death : " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! thou that killcst the proi)hets and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not !" " Daughters of Jeru- salem, weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children." The sublimest example of compassion which the world has ever beheld was furnished by the

288 THE PRIESTHOOD OF CIIUIST.

Saviour in that memorable prayer, in which — when "the clouds of wrath from heaven and from earth, pregnant with materials which nothing but a Divine hand could have col- lected, were about to discharge themselves on Him in a deluge of agony and blood," when insulted by men, aban- doned by His friends, mocked by His enemies, jeered by devils and deserted by God, He was about to expire in soli- tude and darkness — He could still, for a moment in the plenitude of His pity forgetting these uns])eakable calamities, sue for the forgiveness of the remorseless agents of His death. This was compassion like a God. And what an exquisite spectacle of tenderness was that when Jesus, on the cross, just before the consummation of the last event that should fulfil the predictions of ancient prophecy, consigned His mother to the care of the beloved disciple ! Surely such an High Priest became us. In our waywardness and folly, in our sins and temptations, in our murmurs and impatience, we should alienate any other friend but Him, that sticketh closer than a brother.

I have now said enough to show the transcendent value of a priesthood, and I trust that I have opened to your minds a field of thought which shall not be wholly unfruit- ful. Upon occasions of this sort, when there are so many circumstances to impress with solemnity whatever truths may be uttered, and when there is every likelihood that the words spoken may be remembered in after years, I have always been accustomed to insist upon some vital doctrine of the Gospel. It is my earnest desire and prayer that those who hear me may be saved. The solicitude which I always feel for the young men of my charge is collected to its great- est intensity when they are about to be dismissed from my pastoral instruction and care. If it could avail, I could weep tears of blood over those who have never been per- suaded to become reconciled to God. I see them going out into a world which is full of dangers : temptations beset them on every side ; they have a wily adversary who is plotting for their destruction, a deceitful heart which is

THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST. 281)

readily caught with his guile, and in the midst of gins and traps and snares they are confident of perfect security. A spell is upon them, which, if it be not broken, must undo them. Under these circumstances, when I reflect that they are probably hearing my voice for the last time, I am con- etrained to cry aloud in one final, desperate effort to dispel the enchantment which, if not dispelled, must seal them up in death. My young friends, I earnestly beseech you to give heed, if you have forgotten all others, to the instruction of this day. Carry with you the lessons it has taught, and before you have yet become immersed in the world reflect upon the obvious inferences which flow from the subject that has just been discussed :

1. Is it so that Jesus is a Priest appointed with the solemnity of an oath? Then have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is no need of a mediator to the righteous and unfallen. It is only when guilt has separated betwixt God and men that a daysman is required betwixt them, who can lay his hand upon them both. The incarnation, temptations, trials, sufferings and passion of our Lord are all to be regarded as an awful and solemn procla- mation of human guilt.

2. Is Jesus a Priest ? Then sin cannot be pardoned with- out satisfaction and atonement. Is it so that the sacrifice of Christ is an act of worship — that those unspeakable sufferings with which He expiated the curse of the Law M'crc parts of a sublime doxology which, as the minister of religion. He chanted to the King Eternal ? Then how clear it is that God is glorious in the punishment of the guilty, and that none can hope to escape !

3. Is Jesus a Priest — now a Priest in the holiest of all ? Then with what confidence and boldness, notwithstanding our guilt and pollution, may we come to the throne of grace ! Why should we perish Mhen the mercy-seat is before us, and a reconciled God accessible to all ? And can we imagine that if with such advantages, Avith such a redundancy of grace as God has provided for us, we are finally lost, we

Vol. II.— 19

290 THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST.

shall perish with any common overthrow ? Abused mercy will kindle the fires of justice. These solemn truths, which have often been urged upon you before, I would now impress again with all the earnestness of which I am capable. These things are your life. Young, buoyant, you may not feel the importance of religion now. But the scene will change. The days of darkness must come. Calamities may overtake you in which you will need the support of a friend with a stronger arm than any that can be found among the sons of men. The hour of death must come, and after death the judgment. The world now smiles before you, its prospects enchant, its honours charm you. But the fashion of this world passeth away. Religion is the principal thing. Let it then be your first care to have Christ as your patron and friend. There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby you can be saved. The alternative is faith in this Divine Redeemer, or Eternal Death. Can you hesitate which to adopt ? Can you endure the thought of eternal banishment from God ? Who can dwell with devouring fire ? who can abide in everlasting burning ? Make Jesus your friend — confide in Him as your Saviour, and you conquer the world, trample over death and take hold on eternal life.

This is now my prayer for you, and shall ever be my prayer for you, that you may know Jesus in the sweetness of His grace and the power of His resurrection. Then, though separated here and scattered to distant fields, we shall be united again where parting shall be no more. If I could be sure that you would all meet me at God's right hand, I could now bid you farewell without a tear and with a cordial God-speed to your various pursuits in life. But the thought is agony that any here may perish, and my heart sinks within me as I am comj^elled to send into the world so many that I love, so many that Jesus as a man would love, who yet love not Him, and care little for His sacrifice or prayers. May God give you all the spirit of grace and wisdom in the knowledge of Him ! Farewell.

PEEFATOKY NOTE.

What follows on the subject of our Lord's temptation was the substance of a discourse delivered May 21, 1854, in the chapel of the South Carolina College, and on the following Sunday in Glebe Street Church, Charleston. It was based upon the records of the transaction in the three Gospels. One who heard it has testified to its marvellous power and force as de- livered, but it has never before appeared in print.

291

CHRIST TEMPTED AS THE SECOND ADAM.

fTlHAT the temptation in the wilderness is a most important -*- portion of our Saviour's history may be fairly presumed from the prominence given to it in the evangelic record. It is minutely detailed by Matthew and Luke, and noticed in general terms in the compendious Gospel of Mark. No part of the New Testament has been more perplexing to the pride of human reason. To say nothing of those avIio have turned the whole account into ridicule and made it a pretext for rejecting the authenticity of the narrative, many have adopted explanations which, though originating in the pro- fessed purpose of obviating difficulties, have terminated in others greater than those that were attempted to be removed. Among that class of writers tinged with Rationalism the im- pression is universal that the facts are not to be literally taken as they stand in the record. It is assumed that such a personal conflict of Christ and Satan, under the precise circumstances detailed by the Evangelists, is altogether incredible. Especially the transportation to the temple and to the mountain, the momentary exhibition of all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, the shocking pro- posal to worship the Devil, — these are said to be so intrin- sically improbable as facts that, to save the credit of the Evangelists, we must regard them as the drapery in which they have chosen to invest a spiritual conflict in the soul of Jesus. They were suggestions made to His imagination — visions of His own mind. Some have gone so far as to make them the products of His own thoughts.

293

294 CHRIST TEMPTED

In order to add to the incredibility of the narrative, cir- cumstances have been forced into it which do not properly belong to it, such as that Satan transported Jesus through the air, so as to put Him at one time on the pinnacle of the temple, and at another on the summit of a mountain. There is not a word of this in the Gospels. Their language implies no more than that Christ went to these places and that Satan accompanied Him; and the inference is that as He was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness, so it was under a DivinS impulse that He submitted to the continu- ance of the temptation in these places. There is no more intimation of a miraculous conduct to the temple or the mountain than to the first scene of the conflict — least of all is it intimated that a real miracle was wrought by the Devil.

But the ground upon which the narrative is set aside, supposing the facts to be as just represented, is altogether fallacious. It is assumed that intrinsic probability is the measure of the credibility of testimony — that we believe a witness, not for himself, but on account of the nature of his testimony. On the contrary, testimony is a positive source of knowledge, to be credited on its own account, and to be judged of by its own laws. There is but a single case in which it can be set aside by intrinsic improbability, and that is when the fact alleged is of such a nature that it could not be cognized by any intelligence — in other words, when it involves a contradiction, a contradiction to itself or to some known truth. It then becomes an absolute impossibility; and as testimony, and indeed all evidence, is only within the limits of the possible, there can be no real testimony in any such cases. What pretends to be so must be sheer lying or gross delusion. But as there is nothing in this narrative contra- dictory to itself or to any known truth, there is nothing which puts it beyond the range of testimony. The facts are possible, and therefore can be rendered credible.

Is it objected that they are unlike our ordinary experi- ence ? In the first place, it may be answered, that analogy

AS THE SECOND ADAM. 295

itself is the creature of testimony, and in the second, that diversity of existences is as much characteristic of nature as uniformity of law. The same laws indeed may pervade, the same great principles be involved in a multitude of facts which have not a single phenomenal point of resemblance. Look at the variety of beings among animals, unlike in everything but the laws of organic life. Look at the varie- ties of inorganic matter, unlike in everything but the greal laws of attraction or repulsion. Just so the facts before us may be new — wholly diverse as phenomena from anything that we have ever witnessed — and yet they may turn upon moral principles as broad as the universe. It is not reason, therefore, but arrogance, that sets them aside in their literal significancy.

Taking them, then, precisely as they are recorded, let us endeavour to study their import :

1. Christ is here to be considered in His public character as the representative of men and of unfallen angels. His mission upon earth was to redeem the seed of Abraham and confirm the angels that had kept their first estate. His work was much more extensive than that of Adam. The benefits of Adam's obedience we have no reason to believe would have transcended his own race; those of Christ's were to extend to principalities and powers, to angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim. The great problem was to be solved whether, on the principle of probationary government, an end could be put to sin.

2. The trial must be more severe and protracted than that to which Adam was subjected, for two reasons: (1.) The magnitude of the benefits to accrue from its success ; and (2.) As a vindication of the principle on which man had fallen. It must be shown that, in still more unfavourable circum- stances than those in which Adam was placed, human nature is capable of maintaining its integrity. 3. In this aspect, as a vindication of the Covenant of Works, it behoved to be public, and to be conducted upon the same principles with the trial in the garden of Eden. It was public, it

296 CHRIST TEMPTED

was notorious to angels, notorious to devils, and has been made notorious to men. It did turn upon the same princi- ples with the Adamic trial, whieh was essentially the test of obedience through impulses intrinsically lawful.

From these considerations it must have been a real trial, a severe trial, and one in which success was glorious. The destinies of the universe actually turned upon it. The bit- terness and intensity of it may be seen from comparing it with the trial of Adam :

1. The place. Adam's was in the garden of Eden — this in the wilderness. Adam's, with a companion to relieve his solitude — Christ alone. Adam's, with the Ijeasts tamed and in harmonious subjection to his authority — Christ among the beasts, wild and savage. Adam's, in the midst of plenty and abundance — Christ struggling with hunger. How differently were the two placed ! How favourable the circumstances in one case ! how unfavourable in the other !

2. The extent of the trial — that is, the points at which both might be assailed. The test to Adam was condensed Into a simple precept involving comparatively no self-denial. He could not fall as long as he abstained from the one tree of the garden. Christ was open to assaults upon all points. Every appetite, every impulse, every active principle of human nature might be plied with arguments, and success at any point would have been ruinous. There Avas but one sin against which Adam in the first instance was not absolutely guarded. Christ must rely upon His integrity to preserve Him from all. Behold, therefore, the severity of the con- flict by which men have been redeemed and angels confirmed!

3. The thing to be tested in both trials was allegiance to God, and the mode of attack is adapted to the different cir- cumstances of the parties. Adam was only a man, and the insinuation to him was that he was a god in capacity, and had only to put the thing to the proof Christ was the Son of God, and the insinuation to Him was tliat He was only a man, and He was challenged to put to the proof His claims to being considered as anything more.

AS THE SECOND ADAM. 297

This, then, is the light in which tlie whole case is to be regarded — as the second probation of the world. Christ is the second Adam — the head of a family consisting alike of angels and of men. His success proves —

1. That the race had not been hardly dealt with in Adam — that they might have stood, that they might easily have stood. The argument is from the greater to the less.

2. It illustrates the sublimity of Christ's virtue. Here was a human being wlio actually did pass through the world from the cradle to the grave without sin. If He had been placed in only ordinary circumstances, this is a truly aston- ishing phenomenon. The most humble and retired man is seduced on all hands in a world like this, where sin has reigned for thousands of years. But the case of Jesus is remarkable in that He was exposed to special and extra- ordinary trials. He Avas providentially dealt Avith as if He had been a sinner. The world and the Devil were let loose upon Him with aggravated intensity. The severity of the conflict was condensed into two periods — one at the com- mencement and the other at the close of His career — and yet He held fast His integrity. This is godlike virtue. Well did Paul say, If any man love not the Lord Jesus, let him be Anathema Maranatha!

3. Individual life is an analogue of the dispensation which rules the history of the race. There are crises in the history of each of us — points at which a determinate direction is given to the character, whether intellectual or moral. The will stands face to face with some great question of duty ; we debate it; we meditate; there is an earnest and bitter conflict — an agony; the issue gives a tremendous impulse one way or the other ! This is pre-eminently the case with religion. The laAV stands face to face with us ; the Spirit stimulates conscience; we struggle; we resist; we evade; matters are finally brought to a crisis — we must decide, and often that decision is final ! Oh, the importance of having every decision right ! Every act propagates itself, but an act after a conflict multiplies by scores — its like spring up

298 CHRIST TEMPTED.

then like drao-on's teeth. Satan knew that hereafter, in all ordinary circumstances, Christ was invulnerable. The first great crisis was past, and he never returned to Him until he was placed in a condition to constitute another crisis, when he was called to confront the Cross and Hell.

PREFATORY NOTE.

The discourse which follows was preached as a sermon by its author at least four times — first, in the church at Columbia, August 30, 1 840 ; then in the chapel of the college, March 21, 1841 ; next, at the opening of the Synod of South Carolina in Columbia, October 14, 1847 ; and again in the chapel, October 31, 1852. The preacher took his text from 1 Corinth- ians i. 22-24. It now appears in type for the first time.

299

THE GOSPEL, GOD'S POWER AND WISDOM.

THE Apostle Paul gives to us, in the first chapter of his first Epistle to the Church of Corinth, a graphic picture of a common spirit of infidelity as it was differently modified by peculiar circumstances in the history ayd character of the Jews and Greeks. The former, having been early selected as the peculiar people of God, had been signally indulged with miraculous exhibitions of His power in delivering them from the hands of their enemies and in confirming the mes- sages of their prophets. They had been so long trained to signs and wonders and mighty works, as the pledges of a Divine commission, that they could hardly be expected to listen to the voice of any teacher who could not produce these credentials from heaven. And yet, by a singular infatuation of mind and heart, they gave a cordial reception to the tra- ditions of the elders, which were sealed by no impress of Divine power, and cheerfully received those who came in their own name, whose wonders were only lying delusions ; while they rejected Jesus, a man approved of God among them by miracles so stupendous as to challenge the reluctant confession that it was never so seen in Israel. They were sealed up in invincible prejudice against all the proofs of a Divine commission which the Saviour presented in fulfilling the predictions of ancient prophets, in healing the sick, in raising the dead and controlling the elements by a single word. It seems that his countrymen had somcliow or other conceived the preposterous notion that their long-expected Messiah was to come in the character and with all the pomp

301

302 THE GOSPEL, GOD's POWER AND WISDOM.

and pageantry of an earthly prince ; that His advent was to be heralded by some portentous sign in the heavens, which would prove a signal token of Divine blessing to themselves and of fearful vengeance on their enemies ; that He would at once restore the kingdom to Israel by taking possession of the ancient throne of David and bringing their haughty and imperial masters under tribute to Himself; and hence we find that the most astonishing miracles of Christ could never divert their attention from an anxious seeking of the Sign from heaven. Having defined for themselves the sort of evidence with which they expected their Messiah to attest His authority, they obstinately perverted or closed their eyes against every other proof, determined not to believe until the Sign from heaven should be revealed; and because the Saviour repeatedly declared that no sign should be given but the sign of Jonas the prophet, they were offended at Him — they stumbled at that stumbling-stone.

The disgust which His first appearance among them in humility and poverty had produced was firmly and immov- ably settled by the ignominious circumstances of His death. They could never dream of owning Him as their Lord who had been nailed to a cross ; and all the arguments which inspired apostles could produce from their own Scriptures, or the acknowledged miracles of Jesus, they considered as amply refuted by the simple circumstance that hanging on a tree was an unquestionable token of the Divine maledic- tion. That Jesus died under a curse was a plain proof to their minds that He could not be the anointed of God — the favourite of heaven and the Saviour of His people Israel. In the life and death of the Redeemer they found anything but that Sign from heaven by which He should be proclaimed as the Son of David, and introduced among his countrymen with the dignity and grandeur which befitted the station of a great monarch. Such were the grounds of Jewish infi- delity.

The Greeks, on the other hand, sought after wisdom. Naturally curious and speculative, they were assiduously

THE GOSPEL, GOD's POWER AND WISDOM. 303

engaged in philosophical disquisitions about the First good, First perfect and First fair. Divided ofi' into different sects each headed by some illustrious master, they spent their time in discussions which, however they sharpened their wits, left their hearts barren of improvement, and eventually brought on a general skepticism in regard to all truth. There were the Stoics, the Epicureans, the Sophists and Khetoricians, all representatives of different principles and different inter- ests, whose very existence depended upon their contests with one another, and whose highest glory consisted in technical niceties and subtle disputation, which they vainly enough denominated wisdom. The forms of philosophy were pre- served among the Greeks long after its spirit had fled. In the days of Paul a spirit of candid inquiry after truth, which to some extent was possessed by Plato, Socrates and Aris- totle, had given Avay to the war of dialectics and the strife of sects : the highest boast of intellect was to involve the plainest truths in doubt, and to frame syllogisms against what all the world had believed without the aid of argument. The natural curiosity of the Greek prompted him to pry into everything, and his natural pride to dispute everything rather than acknowledge his own ignorance. It is a just picture of Greek society generally which Luke gives us of that at Athens : " For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing ;" they always had some new question to discuss, some old argument to refute, or some new doubt to defend; they were ever learning, and never able nor even desirous to arrive at the knowledge of the truth.

When Paul wrote the Epistle to the Church at Corinth, that city was the metropolis of the province of Achaia, the seat of its learning, elegance and arts, the rival of Athens in its schools of philosophy and rhetoric, and the acknowledged mistress of Greece, and perhaps of the world, in sensuality and voluptuousness. The Corinthians seem to have blended in their character the active curiosity of the Greeks with the

304 THE GOSPEL, GOD's POWER AND WISDOM.

effeminate luxury of the Asiatics — to have been a compound of whatevci' could give acuteness to thought and unbridled licentiousness to lust, and so to have combined an uncommon degree of intellectual vigour with an equal corruption of manners. We can form some conception of the state of society among them from the fact which Strabo mentions, that the temple of Venus at Corinth contained more than a thousand harlots whose devotion was prostitution and whose religion was their shame. The destruction of the city did not eradicate the evil. The same excesses prevailed after it was rebuilt that had disgraced it before ; and as it became a second time the eye and the glory of Greece in magnificence and elegance, commerce and the arts, it became also the mother of harlots and the mistress of abominations. That the inhabitants of such a city, busily intent upon the vain pursuits and the keen rencounters of intellectual dynamics, and slavishly devoted to the most disgusting licentiousness of personal habits, should have rejected the Gospel of Jesus is not to be thought strange ; and it was still less strange that they should denounce it as foolishness when we remem- ber what they were accustomed to regard as wisdom. Con- ceiving of nothing higher in the scale of intellectual distinc- tion than to be the founder of some new sect in philosophy, they probably looked upon Jesus as the setter-forth of strange doctrines upon their favourite and darling subjects of specu- lation, and Paul as an able champion of his j)eculiar opinions, and hence may have felt a strong curiosity to hear what he had to say in defence of the doctrines of his Master. As in Athens, so probably at Corinth, he was encountered on the one hand by the " budge doctors of the Stoic fur," armed at all points to maintain the sullen dogmas of their school, and on the other by the sleek and voluptuous disciples of Epi- curus, acknowledging no religion but pleasure, no law but lust, while the prim and starched Rhetoricians stood ready to try every sentence which he uttered by the technical niceties of trope and figure. We can well conceive that as he rose to announce his message, they were all eye, all ear — curiosity

THE GOSPEL, GOD's POWER AND WISDOM. 305

Stood on tiptoe; and as ho proceeded to reveal the unknown God, and to summon their consciences to the tribunal of eternal justice, and to unravel the sublime mysteries of re- demption, they probably looked in amazement upon his glowing fervour and holy enthusiasm, utterly at a loss how to account for them except avS the ravings of the mystical Apollo. But when he came to the doctrine of a future resur- rection, it was beyond all endurance : the Stoic could not abide it, and the Epicurean abhorred it for its consequences ; and perhaps in charity they may have come to the conclusion of most noble Festus, that Paul was beside himself, tliough they were not likely to attribute his madness to an excess of learning. Certain it was, that the instructions of the Apostle had none of the characteristics of what tiiey called wisdom. Instead of proposing a system of philosophy as a matter of subtle and doubtful disputation, to be discussed and treated upon the same principles with the systems of the Porch, Lyceum and Academy, he announced a series of the most momentous truths, and enforced their reception as a matter of imperative duty upon the solemn authority of God. He stood forth, not as the advocate of a sect, but the mes- senger of Heaven ; and he proclaimed truths in the name of the Lord God which were not to furnish amusement for the intellect, but to take possession of the man and bring every high thought and lofty imagination in captivity to the obe- dience of his jNIastcr. They saw at a glance that the system of Paul demolished the wisdom of man; that it was peculiar and exclusive ; and that, as it was intimately connected with the life and history of a Jew who had notoriously been put to death as a malefactor — as it held forth this victim of a nation's vengeance to be the only Saviour of lost sinners — they could find no milder form of expressing their contempt for it than by denouncing it i\s foolishness.

To those unacquainted with the Jewish Scriptures, and familiar only Avith the humble circumstances of the Saviour's life and its shameful and ignominious close, the first procla- mation of the Gospel must have api^eared prodigiously pre-

VoL. II.— 20

306 THE GOSPEL, GOD's POWER AND WISDOM.

postcrous. What would be the natural thought of the human mind ? Am I to believe that Jesus is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God through Him who could not "deliver Himself from violence and shame? Am I to regard Him as the ambassador of God whose birth-place was a stable, whose cradle was a manger, and who wandered through the world a homeless and outcast stranger ? Must I worship Him as King of kings and Lord of lords who paid tribute to Csesar, stood as a criminal before the bar of man and died the death of the lowest order of malefactors ? These were strange enigmas ; and the least to be expected from a blind and unbelieving world was that they should have been ridiculed as foolishness. The grand difficulty of the Gospel was Christ crucified — the humiliation, reproach and death of Jesus. Jew and Gentile stumbled here. The Jews required a sign, and the Greeks sought after wisdom, yet the Gospel gave the Jew no such sign as he demanded, and the Greek no such wisdom as he sought for. It simply held forth Christ crucified, and this to the Jews was a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness. Still, the Apostle persisted in preaching it, because to those who Avere called or supernaturally enlightened by the Spirit of God, whether Jews or Greeks, it was found to be the power of God and the wisdom of God. It displayed, in other words, an interposition of Divine power more signal and glorious than could have been afforded by the most portentous signs from heaven, and revealed an arrangement of Divine wisdom compared with which the dialectics of the schools were vain deceits and empty babblings. Christ crucified is a compen- dious phrase for the whole scheme of redemption ; and Paul's language conveys the idea that such power and such wisdom are nowhere to be found as are developed in the economy of grace. Let us consider then, in the first place, the Divine power, and in the next the Divine wisdom, as these attributes are illustrated in the plan of redemption :

I. There are three forms in which the power of God is displayed in the salvation of men, differing from each other

THE GOSPEL, GOD's POWER AND WISDOM. 307

in excellence, yet equally essential to the success of the enterprise.

1. The first is in the exercise of naked strength, or of direct and immediate causation, by which physical effects are pro- duced which did not exist before. As this seems to be the simplest idea of power, so it is the form under which it is most commonly and naturally contemplated. If we were required to produce a proof of the Divine omnipotence, we should spontaneously turn to the works of creation, and par- ticularly to those enormous masses of matter which, accord- ing to the Apostle, declare the invisible things of their Maker, even His eternal power and Godhead. The results here are striking and obvious, and arrest the attention of the most stupid understanding ; but in the mere exercise of force of this sort, though there is much to command admiration and inspire dread, there is nothing in itself really venerable — there is nothing which declares the moral character of its possessor and lays a foundation for hope or trust. This kind of power, which may be styled the omnipotence of causation, though it is called into requisition in the business of redemption, is perhaps not more conspicuously displayed than in the works of creation. To it we ascribe the incar- nation of the Son, for it was certainly an act of power to create the human nature of Jesus and to bring it into inti- mate and indissoluble union with His Divine personality. This cementing of heaven and earth. Deity and humanity, weakness and omnipotence, time and eternity, dependence and sovereignty, is surely an exercise of strength as prodigious and amazing as calling the worlds into being and upholding them in their courses. The miracles of Jesus, also, which were wrought in attestation of His Divine commission, must be referred to the same kind of power, together with His own resurrection from the dead, and that of all His people which is yet to take place. In the production of these results there is involved the exercise of naked force, of pure, irre- sistible might, or whatever is contained in the true concep- tion of a cause. But as this is not the power which the

308 THE GOSPEL, GOD's POWER AND WISDOM.

Apostle particularly celebrates, we pass on to notice a nobler form in which the strengtli of the Almighty is brought to bear upon the salvation of men ; and that is —

2. In the secret and silent influence which He exerts upon their minds. As mind, which is essentially active, is the immediate and the only seat of power, the control of it must necessarily demand a higher order of energy than the shaping, wielding and arranging of matter which is purely passive, and therefore contains no principle of 0})position to any ex- ternal influence exerted upon it. Hence the creation of the universe does not evince a power so glorious as the success- ful government of a single province of intelligent creatures. To call a world into being is certainly a great work, but to turn the heart of a king as the rivers of water are turned is a greater. David tells us that " God by His strength set- teth fast the mountains, being girded with power, and stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people," evidently implying, from the form of the ex- pression, that it was a more stupendous exhibition of power to still the tumult of the people than to settle the mountains and control the sea. Even among men the power over mind is regarded as a much more enviable distinction than the power over external nature, and hence the orator and poet, who wield successfully the elements of persuasion and of pleasure, have always received a large share of homage and applause even from the rude and unpolished. We are not to look, then, for the highest and most glorious displays of Divine power in what is obvious and sensible — in the whirl- wind and the storm, the starry heavens or the expanded firmament — but in the minds which Pie has formed with active principles, rendering them capable of obedience or rebellion, of happiness or woe. To keep busy, inquisitive and thinking spirits within the bounds which His will has prescribed, though not so imposing and striking, is a much more arduous work than to keep the sun in his place and the planets in their orbits. Yet such an influence over minds is put forth by God, the Holy Spirit, in His depart-

THE GOSPEL, GOD's POWER AND WISDOM. 309

ment of the work of redemption. The jiowcr which He exerts in the regeneration and sanctification of the sinner consists partly in a direct action upon the faculties of the soul and partly in what has been technically styled moral suasion. In other words, He first, by a direct and imme- diate exercise of power, puts the soul in a condition to re- ceive the truth, and then by the truth effectually persuades. These two operations are always associated in His saving work. He first enables and then persuades ; and at every step in the subsequent progress of the Divine life He must sustain and invigorate the holy principles Avhich He at first implanted, or the work of sanctification would come to a stand. This direct action upon the soul is peculiar to God alone ; it is His royal prerogative, and we find nothing in the influence which men or devils can exert upon each other at all analogous to it or that can even remotely illustrate it. God compares it to the power employed in the first creation : those who are born again or effectually called are said to be new creatures in Christ Jesus, the workmanship of God. They are said to be the subjects of a power as great as that which raised Jesus from the dead, to be quickened into life by the Spirit of the Lord. What the nature of this j^ower is, or how it is exerted, it is impossible for man to compre- hend. The wind bloweth where it listeth ; thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth : so is every one that is born of the Spirit. As in the original creation the Spirit brooded over the formless mass and brought beauty and order out of chaos and confusion, so in the new creation He broods over the benighted mind and distracted affections, and brings liffht out of darkness, holiness from sin. He slavs tlie old man, and raises a new man like the fabled phoenix from the ashes, formed in knowledge, righteousness and true holiness after the image of Him that created him. It is a trreat work to transform the children of the Devil — for such we all are by nature — into the children of God, and to plant the spirit of heaven where the spirit of hell had

310 THE GOSPEL, GOD's POWER AND WISDOM.

reigned. It is the Lord's doing, and marvellous in our eyes.

But there is among men, in the achievements of the orator, something analogous to the power of moral suasion. It con- sists simply in suggesting such truths and motives to the mind as are calculated to influence its determinations. It just brings the truth in contact with the soul, and its work is done. It is obvious that moral suasion is impossible un- less there be a congruity between the state of the mind and the truths which are brought to bear upon it. The mind must be able to apprehend them, the motives must be such as are adapted to the real state of the heart, otherwise you might as well talk of the power of truth over beasts and rocks. Truth has no influence except as it falls in with the current of the soul ; and hence moral suasion necessarily supposes that men are already renewed — that their minds and hearts are in unison with the truth, capable of appre- hending its power and feeling its force ; and hence God employs it as a means in the guidance and government of His people. To suppose that spiritual truth can make a spiritual man is just as absurd as to suppose that scientific truth can create a natural understanding. The understand- ing must first exist, and then the truth is received, and so the spiritual man must first exist, and then the truth may have its influence upon him. When the direct action of the Spirit and moral suasion are brought together, then you have a correct idea of God's power in the application of redemption or effectual calling.

3. The third form in which the power of God is displayed in redemption is under the character of a just and righteous Governor ; and here it assumes its most glorious and august form. In His moral government God reveals Himself as the patron of holiness and the avenger of sin ; it is a govern- ment of law adapted to the capacity of moral agents and supported by adequate sanctions. It is here, and here only, that the moral character of God is made known to His creatures. The power which is employed to sustain the

THE GOSPEL, GOD's POWER AND WISDOM. 311

interests of righteousness and to uphold the eternal principles of justice and truth is sublime and venerable. As the natural government of God consists in maintaining the established order of nature or those physical laws, such as attraction and repulsion, in conformity with which all physical changes take place, so His moral government consists in administer- ing the affairs of moral agents, dispensing to them happiness or misery according to the eternal principles of rectitude which necessarily grow out of the Divine character. The justice and holiness of the Divine nature are the rule of the Divine Avill, and without denying Himself, God cannot, as Judge of all the earth, do otherwise than right. But it may be asked how God as a righteous Governor has displayed His moral power any more strikingly in the redemption of men than it was displayed in the happiness of angels and the destruction of devils, or than it would have been displayed by the perdition of our race. There is a peculiarity in His power in this case, because there were peculiar difficulties to be overcome. The entertaining of a purpose of mercy created a crisis in the Divine government ; it seemed to unhinge all the principles upon which that had previously been conducted. The grand problem to be solved was, How shall God spare the sinner without letting down the majesty of the law — without ceasing to be the patron of righteousness and the avenger of guilt? There a]>poared to be a moral impossi- bility in the salvation of the sinner, because the principles of eternal justice demanded his condemnation. It was in reconciling the conflicting elements of mercy and justice, benevolence and truth, and in building up a stupendous fabric of grace without compromising a solitary principle of equity, that the power of God was illustriously displayed. And as the resurrection of Jesus was the consummation of the plan by which He proposed to magnify the hnv Avithout destroying the transgressor, the Scriptures speak with pointed emphasis of the exceeding energy of God's mighty power which it required to raise Jesus from the dead. The diffi- culties in His resurrection were not physical, but moral : He

312 THE GOSPEL, GOD's POWER AND WISDOM.

was the representative of sinners, and could only be raised as the first-fruits of His people after a full satisfaction ren- dered to justice and an ample reparation to the Divine law. The power of God, however, in redemption can only be known from the plan which He devised, and hence —

II. We come now in the next place to consider the wisdom of God as displayed in the work of redemption. Wisdom consists in the accomplishment of noble ends by excellent means. It is not enough that there be skill in the adapta- tion of the means ; the end Avhich is proposed to be com- passed must be worthy of the mind avhich designs it. But where the end is truly valuable, and a just correspondence is borne to it by the means employed to secure it, there true wisdom is found. To bring the wisdom of God in the economy of grace to the standard of these principles, it will be necessary to consider the end which God proposed to Himself, the means by which He has accomplished it, and their mutual correspondence or adaptedness to each other.

1. The chief and highest end of redemption, as of all the other works of the Almighty, is the manifestation of His own glory. No less an object would be worthy of the atten- tion of the Divine Mind. Whatever excellence the creatures possess is derived from the bounty of their Creator, and bears a slighter proportion to His infinite and everlasting perfec- tions than a drop of water to the boundless stores of ocean. Independent and self-sufficient. He must work all things according to the counsel of a will which is determined by nothing but the eternal and essential principles of His own nature. He cannot neglect the infinite excellences of His own character to take His plans or to borrow His motives of action from the fleeting, perishing, and, compared with His own, the vain perfections of the creature. In creation, providence and the moral government of the world, God proposes no less an end than the development to the mind of His intelligent creatures of His own glorious excellence. His works are so many mirrors in which He reflects so much of His own image as they arc able to behold. There they

THE GOSPEL, GOD's TOWER AND WISDOM. 313

may read what He is by contemplating what He docs. They cannot approach His awful throne ; the light would be intolerable to created eyes ; but they can behold Him veiled and shadowed in His works. They cannot fathom His glorious essence, but they can learn His character from what He hath wrought before them and around them. It is this manifestation of His character and pcrfc(;tions, which in themselves are infinitely glorious, that the Scriptures mean when they speak of God's working all things with a refer- ence to His glory. His real glory is to be what He is, and as His works declare what He is, so they reveal His glory to those who are wise and attentively observe them. The heavens declare God's glory, and the firmament showcth His handiwork, because the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead. But Creation and Providence reveal only the back parts of the glory of the Lord ; the brightest beams of His glory. His face or countenance, can be seen only in the person of His Son. The mystery of redemption exhibits His character in a new and marvellous light. It is a new and brilliant page in the history of God's administrations — a new book sealed with seven seals, containing lessons of sur- passing interest, treating of God in loftier strains than the seraph's heart had ever reached, or the seraph's tongue; had ever uttered, until the Lion of the tribe of Judah prevailed to unloose the seals and to open the book, and called upon the nations to come and know their God. The glory of Jehovah, as it was manifested to the world previously to the revelation of His scheme of grace, is as far eclipsed by the plan of salvation as the light of the stars, beautiful and lovely as they are, is eclipsed by the blaze of the rising sun. Creation and Providence proclaimed God's power anil good- ness; Conscience proclaimed His righteousness, and Hell proclaimed His vengeance. These were so many stars, dif- fering from each other in glory, in which we could see all that could be known of God, but they were only stars; the

314 THE GOSPEL, GOD'S POWER AND WISDOM.

light was feeble ! But Avhen Jesus came the Sun of right- eousness arose, darkness fled away and the light of God's glory, reflected from the face of Jesus Christ, scattered its rays through heaven, earth and hell, sending a deeper thrill of joy through the breasts of angels, opening a prospect of hope to perishing men, and wringing a heavier wail of anguish from tlie bosoms of the damned. In contemplating the stupendous scheme of grace —

" Our souls are lost in reverent awe, We love and we adore ; The first archangel never saw So much of God before."

In order to understand fully how the perfections of God are so illustriously displayed in this great work, we must consider its direct and immediate end, which is the Salvation of sinners. Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God imto salvation. And let it not be thought that the sal- vation of the lost as a subordinate end is unworthy of the great and ever-blessed God. On the contrary, when it is made to furnish a suitable occasion for the exhibition of the most exalted excellences of character, it becomes as worthy of the Divine regard as any other matter in His moral government of His creatures. It is not for the sake of the guilty, but for His own Name's sake that He has mercy upon them. There are three considerations which illustrate the Divine wisdom in this matter, and vindicate the character of God from all suspicions of stooping beneath the glory of His throne :

(1.) The very existence of such an attribute as mercy or grace could not have been known without the development of some such scheme as that of our salvation. To His holy and unfallen creatures God was known to be benevolent from the constant communications of His goodness, but it is one thing to bestow favours upon the upright, and quite another to bless the unthankful and disobedient. It is true that the holiest deserve nothing; on the score of merit from

THE GOSPEL, god's POWER AND WISDOM. 315

the hands of their Creator, but although they have no neces- sary claims to His lavour, tliey have never provoked His anger. The guilty on the other hand not only deserve no good, but are justly exposed to the inflictions of vengeance. They have sinned, and God, as a righteous Governor, cannot overlook their transgressions without letting down the majesty of His own law and revoking those awful sanctions which support the purity of His throne and proclaim the hateful- ness of sin. The principle of justice, which consists in ren- dering to every nian his due, and of course to the sinner the wages of sin, which is death, is an essential attribute of God. The punishment which is threatened in the law is not an arbitrary sanction of the precept. When we behold a deed of perfidy and baseness there is an instinctive feeling that the transgressor should undergo a certain degree of pain ; and this feeling arises apart from all considerations of per- sonal resentment or political expediency. We feel that it is riirht, it is due to his deed, that he shoidd sulfer. Should you see a son who had been affectionately nursed by a ten- der mother, in order to free himself from the responsibility of soothing her declining age plunge a dagger into that mother's heart, you would not only be chilled with horror at the crime, but you would at once feel that no amount of pain would be disproportionate to the magnitude of his offence. The reflection would probably never enter your mind that if such cases were permitted to pass with impunity the conse- quences would be disastrous to society ; but your instinctive sentiments, the moral emotions of your heart, having linked together crime and pain, the transgressor and punishment, would doom the ingrate to a dreadful end. In these instinc- tive feelings you may recognize the true idea of justice — a quality which, as it exists perfectly in the mind of God, must always be the avenger of His law. As sin is an infi- nite evil, the sanction of the law, on the principles of justice, must contain an infinite curse. God must denounce this curse upon the disobedient — the sanction must be enforced; or God must deny Himself, cease to be what He is necessa-

316 THE GOSPEL, GOD's POWER AND WISDOM.

rily, and vacate His throne, leaving His universe to the darkness and horror of anarchy and misrule. If the punish- ment of the guilty were a mere matter of expediency, mercy might be exercised freely where prudence did not forbid it ; but as it is a matter of right, of eternal, unchanging, essential rectitude, there would seem to be no place in the moral government of God for such an element as pardon, and con- sequently no such attribute in the Divine character as mercy to the guilty. But such a quality is necessarily involved in the scheme of salvation. Had there not existed in tlie Di- vine mind a })revious willingness to receive the disobedient into favour, justice would have had its course and the sanc- tions of the law have been enforced. If there be salvation, it must be from grace ; there is no other principle from which it could proceed ; and hence the salvation of sinners has been made to develo]) in the government of God an attribute of His nature which our limited capacities would have pronounced it to be impossible that He should possess — an attribute so glorious that God rejoices in it, and regards with peculiar complacency all who hope and delight in it. If the salvation of men in no other sense glorified God than as it evinced that He is merciful and gracious, it would have been worthy of His majesty to save them. Shall He create worlds upon worlds to display His power and make known the manifold riches of His goodness, and shall Mercy, wliich rejoices over judgment, be for ever eclipsed by the clouds of justice ? If it is not beneath God to create a world to reveal His might, it is as little beneath Him to redeem the guilty to display His grace. If, when we look to the starry heavens and contemplate the countless worlds of stupendons magni- tude moving in harmony and grandeur through the fields of space, we adore His power and acknowledge the scone to be worthy of God, why should we turn away from that grander scene beyond these lower skies, where, instead of masses of matter, the monuments of power, we behold im- mortal spirits, the monuments of grace — where, instead of worlds moving in harmony around other worlds, we behold

THE GOSPEL, god's POWER AND WISDOM. 317

enraptured minds moving in glory and blessedness about the throne of God ? Just as far as mind surpasses matter, and activity inertness, so far is grace more glorious than nature ; and just as far as heaven surpasses all the other works of God, so far does mercy rejoice over all other qualities of His being. And yet this perfection supposes guilt and misery, and God could not reveal it without stooping to the lost. Hence, there is wisdom in the very purpose of salvation ; the end from its relations to God is a noble one' well worthy of His signal interference.

(2.) This will farther appear from considering that the scheme of redemption not only proves the existence of grace, but solves the mysterious problem of its compatibility with the exercise of justice. It explains the otherwise inexplic- able enigma that God can be just, and at the same time the justifier of those who have transgressed His law. When we consider the relations which fallen man bore to his Creator and offended Lord, we shall see at once that his sal- vation involved a difficulty which created minds were unable to explain, and which, it would seem, tasked the resources of infinite wisdom to remove. There was a question to be answered which, as it silenced all orders of intelligent crea- tures, it was becoming in God to step forward and resolve. Justice demanded that the rebel should die, truth required that God's threatening should be executed, and holiness sus- tained the cause of justice and of truth, since God is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. How, then, shall the captive be delivered and the prey be taken from the mighty? Mercy says. Spare ! but all the other attributes of Jehovah seem to conspire against the purpose of His grace and pro- test against the salvation of the guilty. "The sublimest spirits in heaven," says the charming Bates, " were at a loss how to unravel the difficulty and to find out the miraculous way to reconcile infinite mercy with inflexible justice — how to satisfy the demands of the one and the requests of the other. God was to overcome Himself before He restored man. In this exigence His mercy excited His wisdom to

318 THE GOSPEL, GOD's POWER AND WISDOM.

interpose as an arbiter, which, in the treasure of its incom- prehensible light, found out an admirable expedient to save man without prejudice to His other perfections." And in the plan which was actually devised, as the same writer sub- sequently remarks, there is " a SAveet concurrence of all the attributes. Mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace kiss each other. Who can count up this heap of wonders ? Who can unfold all the treasures of this myste- rious love? ■ The tongue of an angel cannot explicate it ac- cording to its dignity ; it is the fairest copy of the Divine wisdom, the consummation of all God's counsels, wherein all the attributes are displayed in their brightest lustre ; it is here the manifold wisdom of God appears. The angels of light bend themselves with extraordinary application of mind and ardent affections to study the rich and unsearch- able variety that is in it. Only the same understanding comprehends it which contrived it. But as one that views the ocean, though he cannot see its bounds or bottom, yet sees so much as to know that that vast collection of waters is far greater than what is within the compass of his short sight, so, though we cannot understand all the depths of that immense wisdom which ordered the way of our salva- tion, yet we may discover so much as to know with the Apostle that it surpasses knowledge." And how exalted must that end be which in the process and mode of its ac- complishment reveals the character of God, not in detached and isolated features, but brings all His attributes together in harmonious accord, and presents the Divine perfections as a beautiful, glorious and consistent whole ; and such an end is the salvation of man by Christ crucified !

(3.) And what still more enhances the Divine wisdom in this Avhole matter is that all this harvest of glory has been reaped from a most unpromising soil. Sin, which in itself is essentially odious to God and at war with all the princi- ples of His nature, has been made by His infinite wisdom to furnish an occasion for the manifestation of His moral excellences more strikina; and glorious than could have

THE GOSPEL, GOD's POWER AND WISDOM. 319

taken place without it. In this is the triumpli of His wis- dom, that He has extracted praise from the provinces of rebellion, and made His holiness peculiarh- illustrious in the midst of sin. He has gone into the very cliambers of death, and waked up the energies of life among those whom He represents as emphatically dead. The weapons of the Devil have been turned upon himself — his guile and malice, in introducing sin into our world and so bringing it under the frown of its Maker, have been most signally defeated. In- stead of the widespread ruin from the blasting curse of the Almighty which he no doubt anticipated would make this earth the very door of hell, behold, the fallen creature is ex- alted to a glory and enriched with a blessedness far beyond what would or could have been enjoyed if Adam liad main- tained his integrity ! He is not only enriched with eternal life, but his nature has been brought into mysterious union with that of his Creator, and exalted to the throne of God and made the judge of angels themselves. Sin, instead of banishing man for ever from his God, has cemented a union so close and indissoluble as to make it impossible that the believing soul should ever again be separated from the Fountain of all holiness and good. " It is a mystery in nature," says the same author from whom we have quoted already, " that the corruption of one thing is the generation of another ; it is more mysterious in grace that the fall of man should occasion his more noble restitution. Innocence was not his last end ; his supreme felicity transcends the first. The holiness of Adam was perfect, but mutable ; but holi- ness in the redeemed, though in a less degree, shall be victo- rious over all temptations, for they are joined to the heavenly Adam in a strict and inviolable union. And those graces are acted by them for the exercise of which there were no objects and occasions in innocence, as compassion to the miserable, forgiveness of injuries, fortitude and patience; all which, as they are a most lively resemblance of the Divine perfections, so an excellent ornament to the soul and infinitely endear it to God ;" and the glory of our renewed state ex-

320 THE GOSPEL, GOd's POWER AND WISDOM.

ceeds our primitive felicity from the mysterious relation which M'c bear to the Son of God. Such are the magnificent blessings which by heavenly wisdom are extracted from sin, which naturally has a tendency to produce notliing but a curse. Surely our fallen world was a fit theatre for the gracious interposition of God when His unsearchable counsel, contrary to the very nature of things, and contrary appa- rently to all the principles of His government, could elicit light from darkness, a blessing from the curse, life from death, and holiness from sin. Grace has proved to the ruined family of Adam a heavenly elixir, transmuting all its coarse materials into the pure gold of the sanctuary.

2. Having now evinced the wisdom of God in the end proposed in the redemption of sinners, let us next consider the fitness and excellence of the means by which it is accom- plished. It must strike us as at least becoming, if not abso- lutely necessary, that the arrangements of our salvation should have been made upon the same principle by which death and all our woe were originally introduced. God has never dealt with men personally and individually as in all probability He dealt with angels ; but as He has established a sort of unity in the race by the peculiar mode of its propaga- tion, having made all nations of one blood, so He has, in both of the covenants which the Bible makes known, dealt with men collectively through a common representative. The Covenant of Works was entered into with Adam as the federal head of his race, and the Covenant of Grace was entered into with Christ as the federal head of His seed. Sin and misery flowed in upon our w^orld through the channel of imputa- tion, and life and joy and blessedness are dispensed upon precisely the same principle. If God had communicated the blessings of the second covenant upon a different principle from the one which He established as the basis of all His transactions with our race in the first covenant, it would have argued a change of the Divine mind ; it would have broken up that variety which obtains in the moral govern- ment of His creatures, and it would have been a virtual im-

THE GOSPEL, GOD's POWER AND WISDOM. 321

putation upon His wisdom in originally adopting a principle which He was subsequently unable to cany out. God there- fore has manifested His wisdom in building the fabric of mercy upon the very same foundation on which the hopes of the race were originally placed and destroyed. He has thus shown it to be a principle which does not contain the elements of failure within itself. He has shown that it is fully ade- quate to all the various exigencies of His government over man, and thus thrown upon man himself the guilt and re- sponsibility of his fall. The very rock on which he stumbled is that on which he must stand for ever — the principle whi(;h ruined him is the principle which must save him. God will not change the radical principles of the government — the established constitution, if I may so speak — of this province of His moral empire. Those who quarrel with the doctrine of imputation do not seem to be aware that they are rebelling against a cardinal law, and perhaps the distinguishing law, of God's dealings with the family of man ; and they might just as treasonably insist upon each man's being created at once perfect and full grown, complete in all the faculties of soul and body, without the tedious process which now obtains, as to contend that each of the race should be upon trial for himself. In other words, they might just as reason- ably arraign infinite wisdom for not making us angels as for not treating with us in the matter of salvation as He treated with them. Those spirits of light, having been brought into being without dependence upon each other, were placed each for himself upon independent, personal probation, and each stood or fell by his own personal obedience ; but we, having been brought into the world by a necessary connection with each other, were put upon trial in the first of our species, who just as effectually evinced what human nature would do as though that nature had been tested in all its possessors. The fundamental law, then, upon which the moral intereste of humanity were suspended, or the distinctive feature of the Divine administration in regard to man, is the principle of federal representation, and, by necessary consequence, of di-

VoL. II.— 21

822 THE GOSPEL, GOd's POWER AND WISDOM.

rect and immediate imputation. To inquire therefore into the suitableness or excellency of the means by which redemp- tion is accomplished, is just to inquire into the suitableness and excellency of the Federal Head whom God has appointed for the Church ; and this is none other than the second Adam, the Lord from heaven.

The wisdom "of God was remarkably displayed in the ex- traordinary constitution of the Saviour's person. Had Jesus been God alone. He could not have been the representative of man ; He could have been only the just Judge and the righteous Goyernor, upholding the insulted majesty of His law and visiting its vengeance upon the heads of transgress- ors. Had He been man alone. He would have been utterly incompetent to sustain the load of human guilt and to make satisfaction for the sins of His people ; but by combining the two natures in one mysterious personality, He is qualified by His participation of our flesh to be our representative and head, and abundantly able to do the office of a kinsman. The law required obedience from man, and denounced the curse of rebellion upon man ; the law will accept no other obedience but the obedience of humanity, and no other suf- fering but the suffering of humanity. Could an angel have interposed in our behalf, the law would have turned aside from His proffered substitution, because it was man's blood which alone could satisfy its curse. It would accept no me- diator but one who claimed a fellowship with our race, was bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, and blood of our blood. The Saviour of sinners, whoever he be, must be able also to sustain the infinite weight of Divine wrath without being crushed by the burden ; must be able to receive the sword of justice into his own bosom, and yet rise un destroyed from the stroke ; must be able to stand between the sinner and an angry God, and maintain his position unshaken and firm until all the clouds of infinite vengeance have burst and wasted their fury on his head and left the sinner unscathed by the storm. He must be able to bring in a righteousness which meets the highest demands of law and affords a title

■ THE GOSPEL, GOD's POWER AND WISDOM. 323

to the kingdom of glory. He must be able to storm the citadel of hell, and by the arm of power to spoil the hosts of darkness and deliver the captives from the hands of the de- stroyer. He must be able to reunite the soul to God and engrave the Divine image again upon it, and establish it in righteousness and holiness for ever. He must be able to raise the body from the tomb and fit it in glory and spiritual excellence for the immediate presence of Jehovah. All this he must be able to do, and yet be a man, or the work of redemption must come to an eternal stand. And where shall such a man be found? All the descendants of Adam, as they successively rise into being, pass under the curse, and so none can by any means redeem his brother or give to God a ransom for his soul ; or could one, by extraordinary inter- position, be born holy and undefiled, his limited capacities would be crushed under the weight of infinite guilt. He must possess in his own person the incommunicable perfec- tions of God in order to make an infinite atonement, to de- stroy the works of the Devil, to bring in an everlasting righteousness, to create the heart anew in knowledge, right- eousness and holiness, to pluck the sting from death and to open the kingdom of heaven to those who by nature were children of wrath. God and Man he must be to meet the exigencies of our case. One person of the adorable Trinity must become incarnate, and wisdom pitched upon the Second as the most suitable and proper. It was not fit that the Father, who is of none, neither begotten, should be placed in an attitude of subjection to His own Eternal Son, who by an ineffable and eternal generation received the essence of Divinity from the Father. It was not fit that the Holy Ghost, who eternally proceeded from the Father and the Son, should be placed in an attitude of authority over the Son, as would have been the case had He become incarnate and had the Son fulfilled His functions in the plan of salva- tion ; so that none could so appropriately assume our nature as the Second person in the blessed Godhead. But supposing this matter determined, how shall He assume the nature of

324 THE GOSPEL, GOD's POWER AND WISDOM.

man without the stain of original sin ? Divine w^isdom met this difficulty by making Him emphatically the Seed of the Woman, by suspending the usual law of propagation and miraculously communicating our blood and nature through the medium of a virgin, so as to avoid the bond of federal union with Adam and thus evade the curse of the covenant. Being thus marvellously qualified by the peculiar constitu- tion of His person to discharge the functions of Redeemer, Jesus, in human nature and as the Divinely-appointed rep- resentative of His people, did all that they were required to do, suffered all that they were required to suffer, and so gave them a title to everlasting life. The salvation of sinners was secured by such a Mediator without compromising a solitary principle of the Divine government. The law main- tained its authority, and was more magnified and honoured by the obedience of the Son of God than it could have been by the obedience of all men. Justice received its due, and became more august and venerable when pouring its vials of vengeance upon the head of Jesus than if a fallen world had sunk beneath its curse. Truth was preserved inviolate, for human nature died the death and the Seed of the Woman descended into hell. Holiness remained unsullied, for the groans and agonies of the cross proclaimed God's abhorrence of sin in louder accents and deeper tones of emphasis than the wails of the damned in the gloomy prison of despair. And Mercy, charming Mercy, became the brightest star in the constellation of heavenly excellences, shining the more gloriously in the rigorous maintenance of justice, holiness and truth. Surely there is Avisdom in the cross of Christ when the highest glory of God and the eternal salvation of men alike proceed from it, and well might the angels intro- duce the birth of Jesus with songs of joy and anthems of praise !

Neither Jew nor Greek could understand how He who died as a condemned malefactor should yet be the right- eousness of God for the acceptance of men — how He who descended to the grave should bring life and immortality

THE GOSPEL, GOD's POWER AND WISDOM. 325

to light from the darkness of the tomb. They could not comprehend how "life should spring from death, glory from ignominy, and blessedness from a curse ;" but the mys- tery is cleared up when we remember who it was that died, and what relations He sustained when He hung upon the cross ; and so, instead of stumbling at this stumbling-stone, or denouncing it as foolishness, we contemplate in Christ cru- cified the stupendous expedient of infinite wisdom for saving those who are called. We feel it to be a sublime doctrine, so utterly surpassing the invention of man or the counsel of angels as to bear visibly stamped upon it the impress of Heaven. We feel the blood of Jesus to be so transcend- ently glorious "that the justice of God, not to be pro- pitiated by any other means, pursues the transgressor on earth and in hell, and that nothing in the universe can arrest it in its awful career until it stops in reverence at the cross of Christ." We there behold Deity incarnate, the Lord of glory sinking under a weight of suffering, and the Sun of righteousness sustaining an awful eclipse. Let us turn aside and behold this great sight, and as we survey it in all its astonishing relations let us confess it to be the wisdom of God in a mystery.

3. The wisdom of God is further displayed in the scheme of redemption by applying its blessings in such a way as that His grace, which is in truth the fountain of»salvation, shall be prominently acknowledged. The medium through which we receive the benefits of Christ's mediation is faith, which consists in an entire renunciation of our own strength, righteousness and achievements, and in a simple depend- ence upon the kindness and favour of the Redeemer. We are to lean upon Him for the righteousness which alone can render us acceptable to God, for the knowledge which alone can make us truly wise, and for those communications of life and strength which alone can secure our personal holi- ness. In the Gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, that all boasting may be excluded, and that he that glorieth may glory only in the Lord. All

326 THE GOSPEL, GOd's POWER AND WISDOM.

schemes of salvation which have been devised by man, and all corruptions of the Gospel which have been popular, have proceeded upon a mixture of Divine grace and human obedience, representing God as propitious to man only when man has complied with certain specified conditions, thus sharing the glory of salvation between the creature and Creator. But the gospel of Jesus humbles all flesh in the dust, and holds forth Christ as our wisdom and righteous- ness and sanctification and redemption. Even faith does not secure the blessing as an act of obedience or principle or duty ; it is no part of the righteousness by which we are justified. It is simply an instrument by which we appro- priate the obedience of Christ, and through which it is im- puted to us. Just as ordinary generation and a natural birth is the channel through which we become really con- nected with our first head, Adam, and receive the curse of his broken covenant, so spiritual generation and the new birth which implants or originates the principle of faith is the channel through which we become connected with the second Adam and are constituted heirs of his spiritual bless- ings. As the curse of Adam falls upon his race only when they have a real existence, so the blessing of Christ is bestowed upon his seed only as they are born into his spirit- ual kingdom. Faith, then, is no more the ground of justi- fication and salvation than natural birth is the ground of condemnation, though it is true that none are justified but believers, as none are condemned but the posterity of the first man. Faith unites us with Christ, and all the bless- ings of the covenant are consequent upon this union. Christ is the salvation of God, and faith lays hold of Him under that character, and in the very act renounces itself as a procuring cause of favour. And if indeed our hopes are made to depend upon the doings and sufferings, of a mediator and representative, it is surely befitting that we should be brought distinctly to acknowledge it, so as to assume our own position in the dust and to put the crown of glory on the head which deserves to wear it. If our

THE GOSPEL, GOD's POWER AND WISDOM. 327

salvation from first to last is a matter of pure grace, it is certainly becoming that this fact should be prominently pressed upon the sinner as he receives its blessings. If self-denial is the first great law of our religion and the con- fession of Christ its most imperative duty, it is peculiarly fit that the whole plan of salvation should be so conducted as to keep these principles constantly before the eyes of the redeemed. This is accomplished by the mystery of faith. God is exalted, the flesh is abased, and Christ is the all in all. The law of representation is preserved in its integrity, and imputation direct and immediate is the foundation of our hoj)e. A beautiful consistency is maintained in the whole plan of the Gospel. The spiritual temple goes iip without the sound of an axe or hammer, and as the head- stone thereof shall be brought forth there shall be shout- ings of Grace, Grace unto it ! It is the Lord's doing and marvellous in our eyes. He laid the foundation of this fabric in setting forth Christ as a federal Head, and He piles stone upon stone as He calls Plis seed into si)iritual being and cements them by His Spirit to the great founda- tion. The simplicity of faith never appears more lovely than when contrasted with the bungling devices of men. Their legal schemes, like the black ground of a jncture, heighten its brighter colours and proclaim it to be from God and themselves from man ;— just as the glory of the sun declares its original more strikingly when contrasted with a farthing rushlight. .

Just examine the Arminian scheme, which is probably the most imposing of all the devices of man, and you will see what fearful confusion it introduces among the principles of the Gospel. It maintains that the death of Christ only bore such a relation to the race as to put each man on a new and modified probation, with the terms of which he is enabled to comply. Accordingly, each man is on personal and independent trial for himself Then God has changed the fundamental principles of His previous government of man. He has revoked the law of federal representation

328 THE GOSPEL, GOD's POWER AND WISDOM.

under which we were unquestionably placed at first, and the stupendous sacrifice of Christ was only a grand expedient to enable Deity to change His mind and institute a new order of government, as the old had proved a failure! Ah ! how true it is that the wisdom of man is foolishness with God ! He is the everlasting Jehovah, and changes not. The basis of His government on earth is still Repre- sentation, the great law of His kingdom is still Imputa- tion ; and these laws deal out a blessing or a curse according as we are found in the first or second Adam, natural birth connecting us with the first, and spiritual birth or faith with the second. Here is wisdom, the wisdom of God, though it may be denounced as foolishness by man.

4. Finally, the wisdom of God appears in the plan of salvation by so arranging its provisions as to allure human confidence at every step and to secure the interests of per- sonal holiness. What can more strongly draw us to Christ than His mysterious participation of our nature ? We look upon Him as an elder brother sympathizing witli us in all our sorrows, knowing the force of all our temptations, and pitying our weakness in all our fears. We can go to Him as to a friend, and unbosom our cares and seek His assistance and direction. Again, when we look beyond His flesh and behold Him clothed with all the perfections of the Godhead, we feel that He deserves our confidence — that He is indeed a shelter from the storm, the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. What a ^vonderful Saviour ! When we rise yet higher and ask whence arose this myste- rious incarnation, we are conducted to the counsels of the Eternal Mind, and find that the wonderful scheme of saving the guilty originated in the bosom of infinite Love. We con- template a grace so astonishing and stupendous as apparently to rise above tlie ineffable regard of the eternal Father to His beloved Son — a love to sinners so mighty and over- whelming as to drown the attachment of the Son to His own glory and even His life ; and we feel that the God who has

THE GOSPEL, GOD's POWER AND WISDOM. 329

loved us with such a love is worthy of our hearts and should be trusted for all things.

And just in projiortion as we are drawn to Christ wo are drawn from sin. In His cross we see God's abhorrence of it more strikingly displayed than in the torments of the lost; and as we become animated by the Spirit of the Saviour, and enter into the true meaning and intent of His sacrifice, we die to the flesh, we renounce the world, we overcome the Devil and live for God, for heaven, for immortality. Wc have a secret fellowship with Christ in His sufferings and death, and as He arose from the grave by the glory of the Father, even so we also walk in newness of life.

Such in a brief view is the wisdom of God in the work of man's redemption through Christ crucified — His wisdom in the end. His wisdom iu the means, in the application and practical results of the scheme of grace. Let the Jews re- quire a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom, but let it be the immovable purpose of our minds that we will know nothing but Christ crucified, being fully assured that Christ is the power of God aud the wisdom of God. What think ye of Christ? is and ever has been the distinguishing test of character among men ; and while some call Him a Prophet, others an Impostor, and others One of the People, none are safe but those who can say with Peter, Thou art the Son of the livinff God, and hast the words of eternal life !

To those who have been enlightened by Divine grace to behold and understand the glory of the cross, may be pre- sented a few motives for overflowing gratitude. They have been introduced into a new world ; they have been endowed with a knowledge which the most laborious efforts of the natural understanding could never reach ; they have been taught mysteries beyond the reach of reason or of sense, which eye hath not seen nor car heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, but God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit. The world of grace is a supernatural world ; and as sense is the medium of our correspondence with matter, and reason with speculative

330 THE GOSPEL, GOD's POWER AND WISDOM.

truth, so faith is the medium of correspondence with the unseen mysteries of grace. And the knowledge of the truths connected with redemption is more glorious in its objects, more certain in its evidence and more valuable in its influ- ence than the discoveries of sense or the demonstrations of science. It is more noble in its objects, for what can be a sublimer subject of contemplation than the being, character and perfections of the Eternal God? The ancients pro- nounced Theology to be the first philosophy, but how dim and indistinct are the clearest intimations which Nature can aiford us of the infinite God ! It may present Him as a being of uncontrollable power, the cause of all other beings besides — it may give us some intimations that He is pure sj)irit, and present some shadowy evidences of His goodness and holiness ; but in regard to the sublime mystery of the Trinity, Nature is dumb. In regard to the still sublimer mystery of the incarnation of the Eternal Son and the way of salvation through His blood, she is compelled to preserve the silence of the tomb. Take away the light of redemption and leave us only to the guidance of reason, and how dark and dreary become the prospects of man! Unacquainted with the Being who made him ; unacquainted with his own everlasting destiny; strangely distracted between the ills of life and the fears of death ; trembling, he hardly knows why, with involuntary dread at the j)rospect of being summoned to the mysterious tribunal of an unseen power ; he passes on through life in darkness and apprehension, meets death in horror and despair, and lies down in the grave without the hope of rest even there to his soul. Man to the heathen world is a profound mystery only because they know not God. And we can never be sufficiently thankful for that grace which has brought life and immortality to light, which has revealed God as a merciful Father, has plucked the sting from death and shed a lustre upon the darkness of the tomb. Surely God, heaven and eternity are the most noble themes which can occupy our thoughts. These are the themes which the Gospel discusses. The subjects which it brings before

THE GOSPEL, GOD's POWER AND WISDOM. 331

US are those which occupied the Eternal Mind before time was born or providence in motion. They are those which angels study with profoundest reverence, those which were discussed upon the Mount of Vision, and which will be the perpetual song of heaven as long as heaven or God shall endure. They are not the temporary subjects which embrace the fleeting interests of time and sense ; the impress of eter- nity is on them, the glory of God is involved in them, and the interests of immortality depend on them. Here is know- ledge— the knowledge of God, the knowledge of ourselves, the knowledge which shall never vanish with tongues nor cease with prophecy. Ah ! how frivolous are all the discus- sions of Greek philosophy or human science compared with the mystery of God manifest in the flesh ! — the veriest babe in the kingdom of heaven far outstrips all the attainments of the Porch, Lyceum or Academy. Those schools have passed away, and the glory of their masters is known only as a matter of history ; but Christ crucified is still the magnet of souls, the hope of earth and the wonder of heaven. " Blessed are the eyes which see the things which we see ; for I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which we see, and have not seen them, and to hear those things which we hear, and have not heard them."

These things are confirmed to us by the most indisputable evidence. They do not depend upon the deductions of our own reason, but God has revealed them to us by His Spirit. We see them in the supernatural light of faith, which is to the spiritual what sense is to the natural, and reason to the intellectual world; and as it rests upon the testimony of God, we have no more right to question the truth of its disclosures than we have to disbelieve the information of our eyes or ears. Faith is a spiritual eye by which we converse with distant and supernatural realities— the organ through which God corresponds with the soul, and true faith, consequently, can never be mistaken so long as God continues a faithful and true witness. But as this knowledge is most certain in

332 THE GOSPEL, god's POWER AND WISDOM.

its principles, so it is also eminently happy in its influence. It does not terminate in barren speculation. When we be- hold the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, we are transformed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. It is a light which can- not dwell with the darkness of sin ; wherever it appears the shadows of death flee away, and holiness, peace and comfort take possession of the soul. Such is the knowledge of Christ crucified. Let us rejoice if this Saviour, this wisdom of God in a mystery, has been revealed to our hearts. We have found a treasure compared with which the riches of all other knowledge are emptiness and beggary. And let us be sure that we exhibit its transforming influence by a holy walk and a heavenly conversation. If Christ crucified has been revealed to us, He has been formed within us, and the life which we now live in the flesh we will live by faith upon the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us.

But there are those to whom the preaching of the Cross is foolishness. Should it not alarm them that where God and angels and just men made perfect see so much to admire and rejoice in, they should see nothing to arrest their attention or enlist their regards ? Is it not a proof that there is some terrible disorder in the souls of such, that they can turn away from God incarnate to pursue the trifles of time and sense ? The burning bush was a great curiosity to Moses, and he turned aside to contemplate the wonderful phenome- non ; but here is a stranger wonder. It was a wonder even in heaven that God should be found in mortal flesh and bow His head and die. Here was a scene so portentous and wonderful that angels beheld it with amazement, hell with terror, and even inanimate Nature was moved at the specta- cle. That was no common event that shook the earth with convulsions, clothed the sun in sackcloth, and called up the dead themselves from the slumbers of the tomb. It Avas an hour of dreadful darkness — Nature in mourning for the ex- piring Son of God ! but in that moment of darkness the foundations of a new kingdom were laid, eclipsing by its

THE GOSPEL, GOd's POWER AND WISDOM. 3o3

splendour all the glories of Creation and Providence. The stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, which was not only to fill the earth, but the invisible realms of God's extended dominions. A new throne was erected so transcendently glorious that all other thrones must be prostrated before it, and all power in heaven and earth lodged with Him that sat on it. The day which from the beginning had been set apart to commemorate God's good- ness in creation was set aside, and that became the day of days which saw the incarnate God rise from the tomb in triumph over death and hell and sin. Oh how blind are those who see no glories in the cross of Christ, who can make light of what Heaven esteemed so highly, and rejoice more in farms, merchandise and pleasure than the unsearch- able treasures of grace ! Alas for impenitent men ! They walk in darkness ! The light which they have, conversant only about sense, is " like the funeral lamps which by the ancients were put into sepulchres to guard the ashes of their dead friends, which shine so long as they are kept close, a thick, moist vapour feeding them and rejiairing what was consumed ; but in opening the sepulchres and exposing them to the free air, they presently faint and expire." So, when- ever the minds of unbelievers are turned from the sensible to the supernatural and spiritual, their light goes out in darkness. Like the owls and bats, they riot in darkness and love the midnight gloom, but when the sun arises they find nothing congenial in his beams, and endeavour to screen their eyes from the glory of his light. Ah ! if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. If the preaching of the Cross be foolishness, it is foolishness to them that perish. Let the children of the night awake and leave this little scene of sense with its trifling gewgaws, and turn their eyes to the sublimer glories of that kingdom which shall never be moved. Let them come to the cross of Jesus and there learn things unutterable which God hath ])rcpared for them that love Him. The light of the Gospel now shines about us. Let us improve the day of our merciful visitation lest

334 THE GOSPEL, GOD's POWER AND WISDOM.

God in righteous vengeance should leave us to our spiritual darkness, which would be the certain presage of the black night of everlasting despair. The golden opportunities which we now possess if once lost are lost for ever : neither gold, nor tears, nor blood will prevail to buy them back, and we shall be compelled to lie down in sorrow with the doleful lamentation, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved."

PREFATOKY NOTE.

This Discourse on the Personality of the Holy Spirit was delivered, so far as appears, only twice — the first time, in the College Chapel, December, 1843 ; and the second time, at Charleston, in April, 1845. It has never before been published. The text was taken from Acts xix. 2.

335

THE PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY GHOST.

rpHAT the standard of popular belief in regard to the -1- nature, office and operations of the Spirit falls far below the requisitions of the Scriptures is too painfully evident to be denied. The spirit of Festus, which brands with enthu- siasm every pretension to supernatural assistance, not only lingers in the world, but has found its way into the sacred enclosures of the Church. Such is the deplorable skepticism which prevails, especially among those who claim to be of the better sort, upon the whole subject of Divine influences, that many are afraid to expect them, others despise them, and multitudes, like the disciples of the Baptist at Ei)hesus, have not so much as heard that there is a Holy Ghost. He who refers his conversion to the special agency of God, and exhibits a becoming fervour of gratitude for the grace which he has felt — he who professes to believe by a Divine power, to see the truth in a Divine light, and to relish its beauty with a Divine affection, — will be mocked as an enthusiast and denounced as a visionary. The language of spiritual religion is regarded in any other light than as the words of truth and soberness. Convictions of sin are represented as the infir- mities of a melancholy temperament, the joys of faith are derided as expressions of physical excitement, and the confi- dence of hope is insulted as the dictate of spiritual pride. Now, if it should be found that those who are despised a.s rabid fanatics are really the children of God, and that what are regarded as their dreams of folly are really the sugges- tions of the Holy Ghost, the fastidious skeptics who denounce them would be involved in as awful a sin as the haughty Vol. II.-22 337

338 THE PERSONALITY

Pharisees who ascribed our Saviour's miracles to the finger of Beelzebub. If there be any one doctrine that may pre- eminently be styled the doctrine of the New Dispensation, it ig that concerning the Spirit The parting benediction of our Saviour was the promise, soon to be executed, that He would give to Plis disciples another Comforter, who should abide with them for ever, and who, by His rich consolations and copious instructions, would more than supply the place of their absent Redeemer. " It is, expedient for you," says He in the last interview which He held with His friends before the fatal tragedy of Calvary — " it is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you ; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you. And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment."

The times of the Gospel, in contradistinction from the period of the Law, are pronounced by the Apostle to be not only the ministration of the Spirit, but to be, on that account, transcendently glorious. " But if the ministration of death," says he, in evident allusion to the awful scenes which attended the ffivine; of the Decalogue — " if the ministration of death Avritten and engraven in stones was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance, w^hich glory was to be done away, how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious ? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that ex- celleth. . For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious." In every circum- stance of external splendour, in all that was adapted to please the eye or fascinate the ear — pomp of ritual, imposing decora- tions and majesty of forms — the Levitical economy was cer- tainly unrivalled either by the "gorgeous solemnities of Paganism " or the simple institutions of the Gospel. Des- pising, as it does, the tinsel of ceremony, the mystery of

OF THE IIOI.Y GHOST. 339

symbols, the ornaments of art and the aids of eloquence, in what does the glory of the Christian dispensation consist? How does it transcend a ministration in which the name and authority of God were displayed amid the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, amid fire and thunder, blackness, dark- ness, tempest and smoke ? How does it surpass an economy adorned by visible symbols of the Deity, a cloud by day and a column of fire by night, the mercy-seat and cherubim, the altars and laver, the Urim and Thummim, and the special ministration of prophets? Our Saviour Himself answers the question, and the instructions of His Apostle fully con- form thereto ; it was the simplicity of truth and the power of the Spirit. These constitute the glory of these latter days. The magnificent truths of revelation are no longer shrouded in types and shadows, wrapped in mystery and contemplated only through a glass darkly, but God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit. He who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined into our hearts, and revealed the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. His throne of grace is no longer concealed under the elements of earth, to be approached only w^ith bleeding victims or smoking incense or eucharistic offerings, but it stands revealed in the light of day, accessible to all who are willing to approach in that living way which has been consecrated for us through the blood of the Lamb. It is evident, from repeated attestations of the Scriptures, that the whole powder of the Gospel lies in the demonstration of the Spirit. The simplicity of its truths, the solemnity of its sanctions and the overwhelming grandeur of the prospects which it opens are all ineffectual in reclaiming men from the sins, follies and vanities of time, so long as the Eternal Spirit " holdeth back the face of His throne and sprcadeth His cloud upon it." " Who then is Paul, and who is Apol- los, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?" He that planteth is nothing, he that watereth is nothing ; it is God alone who can give the in- crease.

340 THE PERSONALITY

The distiiigiiishing badge of the faithful followers of Christ, that by which they are known in heaven and recog- nized on earth as the sons of God and the heirs of everlasting life, is the possession of the Spirit. This is the stamp which is put upon the forehead — the evidence at once of their glo- rious adoption and of their consequent exemption from the penal visitations of wrath. When the Lord arises in the majesty of justice and makes terrific inquisition for blood, those who bear tliis mystical mark shall find protection in the secret of His tabernacle and be kept in His pavilion until the calamities are past. All their hopes, all their ac- complishments, their graces and their joys, their beauty and their strength, spring from their mysterious possession of the Spirit. Without Him they are poor and wretched, blind and naked, and destitute of all things. He is to them as refreshing showers to the thirsty earth. It is He who gives them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. Is Christ, in the eyes of His redeemed, the chief among ten thousand and altogether lovely ? The same Spirit which framed His body in the virgin's womb has formed Him in them the Hope of glory, and joined them together in indissoluble bonds. Do they rejoice in the prospect of future felicity, and sigh for that inheritance M^hich is incorruptible, unde- filed and fadeth not away ? It is the Spirit of God that o-ives them an earnest, a refreshing foretaste, of that eternal weight of glory reserved for them at their Father's right hand. Do they, like Jacob, wrestle with God and cling to His promises with importunate fiiith? It is the Spirit that maketh intercessions for them with groanings that cannot be uttered. The Spirit first found them in their guilt and wretchedness, and reduced to order the chaos of their souls. He led them to the light of Christ. He it is who continually feeds them with the true manna whicli came down from heaven. He purifies their hearts, watches their sleeping dust in the grave, raises their bodies on the great day, and for ever abides in them as His consecrated temples. His chosen

OF THE HOLY GHOST, o41

and beloved habitations. To teach, to guide, to sanctify, to comfort — these are the healthful and saving offices whicli the Holy Ghost accomplishes in the hearts of all who believe ; and if we know not Him, if we are strangers to His grace and unacquainted with His power, we are involved in fearful darkness in relation to our highest and noblest interests. No man can call Jesus Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.

As the Spirit discharges such important functions in the economy of grace, it is intuitively obvious that our views of redemption must be essentially modified by the conceptions which we form of the nature and operations of the Holy Ghost. If we detract from the glory of His work, we shall proportionably detract from the fullness of salvation. Most of the errors which have infested the peace and corrupted the purity of the Christian Church have arisen, in the first place, from mistaken apprehensions of those special points in the scheme of salvation in which it comes directly in con- tact with the hearts of men. Pelagianism is clearly a sin against the Spirit. In the same proportion in which it mag- nifies the powers of man, it debases the riches of Divine grace. Socinianism springs as much from defective views of the moral government of God and the consequent mean- ness, sinfulness and wretchedness of man, as from those per- verse speculations which the Apostle denounces as philoso])hy and vain deceit. To have correct apprehensions of the Divine law, the beauty of holiness and the immutiibility of moral distinctions — to admit the moral necessity of visiting disobedience with tokens of displeasure — to admit, at the same time, the extent of human guilt and the depth and malignity of human depravity and sin — is to admit a scries of propositions which necessarily involve the Divinity of Christ, or deny the possibility that God can be just and yet receive into favour the fallen sons of men. Let the Holy Spirit reveal the Law to the understanding and the conscience in its purity, strictness and extent ; let the inflexible integrity of Jehovah be distinctly apprehended and the measure of our iniquities clearly displayed to our view, and no power

342 THE PERSONALITY

of sophistry, no magic of eloquence, no artful delusions of the Devil, shall be able to convince us that any other Saviour can be suited to our need but one who can thunder with a voice like God, who can bear the keys of heaven and hell, who can shut and none can open, and can open and none can shut. All forms of heresy, skepticism and will-worship, the dreams of the formalist, the pride of the Pelagian and the presumption of the Socinian, will assuredly be dispelled by the mysterious operations of that Spirit whose office it is to take of the things of Christ and show them unto men. To be right, consequently, in the doctrine of the Spirit is to be right upon every other point ; to be wrong here is to walk in darkness, or, what is worse, to walk in the light of our own eyes and after the imaginations of our own hearts. Let us have the Spirit, and He will assuredly conduct us to Christ, and Christ will conduct us to God. Let us be devoid of the Spirit, and however seemly our conduct or orthodox our creed, we are children of hell, bearing the image of the wicked one, enemies of God and destroyers of ourselves. It is, in the emphatic language of inspiration, to be earthly, sensual, devilish.

The doctrine of the Trinity is so evidently involved in the scheme of redemption that it is morally impossible to deny the one without denying the other. The most satisftictory proof of the essential unity and personal distinctions of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost is to be found in the offices which each discharges in the economy of grace. If not a single passage existed in the Scriptures directly estab- lishing this mysterious truth of revelation, it might be col- lected as a necessary inference from the moral appearances which we are called to contemplate in the plan of salvation. The same principle of ratiocination by which we establish the Being of God from the operation of His hands, the natural disposition to ascend from effects to the causes which produce them — to follow a stream until we reach the fountain by which it is supplied — will also lead us from the phenomena of grace to acknowledge three agents of unlimited perlections,

OF THE HOLY GHOST. 343

essentially the same and yet distincL As the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firnianient showeth His handi- work, as the invisible things of Him arc clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, so the purpose, execution and accomplishment of that wonderful method by which the guilty are accepted, the dead are quickened and the ruined saved, reveal, clearly as any eifect can disclose its cause, the separate, distinct and harmonious operations of the Triune God.

The evidence, perhaps, upon which the large majority of Christians receive this article of faith is the spiritual expe- rience of their own hearts. They have not studied isolated texts nor collected together the names, titles and achieve- ments which are promiscuously ascribed to each of the Per- sons of the Godhead ; but they have been conscious of their own moral necessities — they have admired the beauty and rejoiced in the fitness of those exquisite arrangements by which their need has been relieved. They know, because they have felt, the love of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the communion of the Holy S[)irit. Their minds are established in the truth, because they distinctly perceive that however unsearchable and mysterious the doctrine of the Trinity may be, it is a doctrine which is obliged to be true. The phenomena of grace demand it. They can no mon; permit themselves to doubt it than call into question the reality of their daily food, or deny the separate existence of external objects as the causes of the constant changes which they experience in the history of their own minds. Inge- nuity may torture, and, under the pretext of profound inter- pretation, explain away detached and isolated texts; the dexterity of criticism may perplex with unreasonable doubts or confound wath learned plausibilities the minds of the simple and illiterate ; and the subtlety of logical skill may raise such a cloud of dust that language shall appear like a riddle and truth be lost in the distinctions of sojihistry ; but the aroument from experience, from the indisputable wants of our own nature and the provisions which alone can be

344 THE PEESONALITY

adequate to meet them, is clear as consciousness, palpable as sense and irresistible as liglit. The speculations of phi- losophy may find insurmountable difficulties in this and every other mystery of the Gospel, for who by searching can find out God ? But the measures of antecedent proba- bility are not the standard by which we should judge either of the facts of nature or the more wonderful provisions of grace. The essence and personality of God can never be degraded to the limited capacities of man. To divest the Trinity of the awful mystery which enslu'ouds it, to remove the veil which conceals from mortal eyes the august and glorious Being whose majesty is as terrible as His mystery is profound, would be to depress the inconceivable sublimity and contract the illimitable grandeur of His nature. We are permitted to know of God only what can be gathered from the faint adumbrations of His character in the diver- sified departments of creation, or what has been displayed with greater brilliancy in the stupendous economy of grace. Redemption, as a grand whole, a magnificent moral phe- nomenon, a sublime evolution in the righteous government of God, reveals the perfections of its Author with a degree of splendour which completely eclipses the brightest dis- coveries of nature. While the Jews look for a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom, " we," says the Apostle, " preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to them which are called, Christ the power of Qod and the wisdom of God." We, in other words, develop the overwhelming scheme of redemption, which, however neglected, insulted or despised by the miser- able votaries of sense, displays to the illuminated eye of faith, in the depths of its wisdom, the resources of its power and the exhaustless riches of its grace, the glory of God in a light which the most portentous signs from heaven or the deepest investigations of learning and philosophy can never be adequate to compass. xVs the stars hide their diminished heads when the sun emerges from his chamber to run hit? career in the heavens, so all the discoveries of God which

OF THE HOLY GHOST, 345*

nature and Providence are competent to make fade into comparative insignificance before the transcendent disclosures of redemption. Tliat scheme stands like a temple of majestic proportions, and bears visibly engraved upon its portals, not only the name of God, like the ancient temple of Isis, but also the subliiner mystery of His personal distinctions. In walking about Zion, telling her towers and marking well her bulwarks, we perceive the hand of the Father, the hand of the Son and the hand of the Holy Ghost. There are palaces adorned for the great King which we are exhorted to consider, for there the Trinity reigns, there God displays His mysterious personality, and the whole house is filled with His glory.

It is a melancholy fact, however, even among those who admit, in general terms, the doctrine of the Trinity, that in consequence of their low views of the operations of grace, the distinct personality of the Spirit is practically denied.

That experience which does not recognize the supernatural character of the work which we attribute to the Spirit, as well as the necessity that it should have been accomplished by an intelligent, voluntary agent, falls below the measure of the Scriptures. We may in words profess to receive the operations of the Spirit, but it is only an empty declaration if we do not feel that influences have been exerted on us — our ovvu hearts, understandings and consciences — that could not possibly have been eifected without the agency of a glorious and extraordinary Person. We must have experi- mental evidence, the witness within ourselves, that the Author of our faith, our hopes and our joys is a living Per- son, abundant in goodness, rich in grace and unlimited in knowledoe. Such are the relations of the Spirit to the un- derstand ings and consciences of men in applying the great salvation of the Gospel that it seems to be impossible that His office should ever be discharged in the mind of a sinner without producing a consciousness of the extraordinary chanu-e which has been effected, and a consequent imi)rcssion of the distinct personality of the agent by whom it was

346 THE PERSONALITY

wrought. Wherever He dwells there must be displays of His glory and power. No heart can become His abiding habitation without adoring His goodness and resjjonding to His love. We should question, without hesitation, the piety of any man who should refuse to admit the personality of the Father or the distinct subsistence of the Son. There are peculiar offices accomplished by each, peculiar relations in which they stand to us, and consequently peculiar aifections which are due to each that cannot possibly be conceived upon any hypothesis that blends the Father and the Son into one personal subsistence. The idea of mediation becomes absurd, the whole doctrine of atonement dwindles down into un- meaning jargon, if the Son be not a separate agent from the Father. That religion which consists in the worship of the Father through the Son — in access to God through the atoning blood of His own beloved Son — becomes an enigma, a riddle, an inexplicable mystery, if Father and Son are only different names for precisely the same Almighty Being. If, then, Ave should brand as a dark and dangerous delusion any scheme of securing salvation which did not proceed upon distinct offices, and consequently the acknowledgment of a distinct personality in the first two persons of the adorable Trinity, how can it be safe to admit a doctrine of Divine influences which does not leave upon the mind clear and manifest impressions of the personality of the Holy Ghost? Is the glory of the Third Person less to be promoted than that of the First and Second? Must He not have the honour of His own work? And is it possible that men can ascribe to Him the glory due unto His name unless they are conscious of His hand in the work which He is said to per- form— unless they know that it is His influences which their hearts have felt in submitting to the righteousness of God, and receiving that record which He hath given of His Son ? It is intuitively obvious that as the very essence of religious worship consists in the inward affections of confidence, love, joy and hope directed to the persons of the glorious God- head, the Holy Spirit, wherever He leaves the impressions

OF THE HOLY GHOST. 347

of His grace and reveals the knowledge of the Father and the Son, must at the same time record His own name. How, otherwise, could He be the object of adoration, grati- tude and praise ? Can there be communion with a Being of whose personal and separate subsistence there is not a distinct apprehension ?

It requires but little sagacity to perceive that the person- ality of the Spirit is consistent with no views of His influ- ences that fail to present the supernatural character of faith. The theory of the formalist admits, in general terms, that no man is able to call Jesus Lord, but by the Holy Ghost ; but it so connects the operations of the Spirit and the efficacy of grace with instruments and means as to make the result as much a matter of natural conset|uenco as the success of the husbandman, merchant or mechanic. It is possi1>lc to ac- knowledge that Paul may plant and Apollos water, l)ut that all will be in vain unless God give the increase, and yet to suppose, at the same time, that the blessing of the Almighty is so inseparably conjoined with industry, zeal and diligence in the use of proper appliances as that success shall attend our efforts in religion with the same unvarying uniformity with wdiich the phenomena of nature result from its estab- lished laws. We may make a course of grace in which one spiritual event shall succeed another with the same regularity and order as the changes around us observe in the constitu- tion and appointments of nature. What, in fact, is usually denominated the course of nature is nothing but the uniform succession of events — the same antecedents being invariably connected with the same consequents. The laws of nature are only compendious expressions for uniformity and order in the phenomena around us, and what I understand by natural consequence is the conjunction which we learn from experience between a physical cause and its effect, from which we can confidently predict that the effect will invaria- bly follow the cause, or that the cause will invariably j)re- cede the effect. All the results of mechanism take place, obviously, in the way of natural consequence. The material

348 THE PERSONALITY

elements which compose the machine are so combined and arranged, antecedents are so determined and adjusted, that the invariable consequents must be the ends which we pro- pose to accomplish. We simply avail ourselves, in other words, by mechanical arrangements of the known operations of natural laws to compass the objects which we have in view. The telescope, for instance, is simply particles of matter of such properties and so arranged as to be suited precisely to the refraction of light, so that through the opera- tion of that law it can approximate what is remote and in- crease its apparent magnitude. That, therefore, is natural which uniformly happens under the same conditions — which takes place in conformity with fixed and invariable laws, and in regard to which the experience of the past is a certain index of the future. If, now, there be an order established in the system of grace in obedience to which faith is produced as a natural consequence, the personality of the Spirit is just as completely excluded as in the results of machinery or the common phenomena of nature. It is true that just concep- tions of cause and effect must ultimately lead us to the Su- preme Mind as the only source of efficiency and power. The works of nature in all the departments of matter and mind, the changes and vicissitudes which are constantly occurring wdthin us and around us — whatsoever is, has been or will be — are only a chain of effects connected together in the order of time, of which no satisfactory account can be given until we ascend to the Will of the Almighty. There is the seat of power ; the laws of nature possess no efficiency in them- selves : they are simply uniform effects which the agency of God calls into being. The results of machinery, therefore, are as truly produced by the power of God as the creation of the world, the establishment of its order and the govern- ment of its affairs. No canvas can swell in the breeze, no water-wheel can be turned by a stream, the sun must fail to rise, seed-time and harvest must disappear from the earth, the variety of the seasons and the succession of plants and ani- mals must all be arrested, unless there be an actual concur-

OF THE UOI.Y GHOST. 349

renoe of God in every event that occurs within the limits of His empire. Without His will not a sparrow falls nor a flower blooms ; so that in a sense widely removed from that refined and specious Atheism which identifies God with the operations of His hands, the sublime inscription upon the temple of Isis, the fabled mother of nature — " I am whatso- ever is, whatsoever has been and whatsoever shall be" — may be applied to the real Father of the universe in full consist- ency with truth. Divine influences, accordingly, must be acknowledged in })urely meclianical operations. Those etfects which are produced in regular and established order are just as truly the works of the Almighty as signs, wonders and miraculous achievements. But Avhen events occur in accordance with a fixed constitution, the very regularity of the series excludes from our view the immediate agency of God. Our attention is confined to the phenomena them- selves ; the constitution of our nature leads us to expect that the future will resemble the past; and the fact that this inborn instinct is gratified in the actual appearances around us represses curiosity, or stimulates our efforts only in arrang- ing and collecting the results of past observation to serve as a guide in making calculations for the future and subduing nature to our purposes of interest and convenience. Hence it is that miracles which interrujit the order of natural sequences and consequently disappoint our natural expecta- tions are such signal proofs of the prcs(;nce of God. The birth of man is an event which requires no less an exertion of Divine power than his resurrection from the dead ; and yet a thousand births may take place about us without excit- ino- one thought of God, while no one could raise the dead before us without creating th(^ iini)r('ssion that he was a spe- cial messenger of God. Whatever coincides with an estab- lished order is regarded as a matter of course. It is some- thing that we expect. Our natural instinct has the same effect in regard to such phenomena as familiarity, and it requires a deep infusion of the spirit of religion as well as the spirit of philosophy to see God in the lilies of the field,

350 THE PERSONALITY

the fowls of the air, the succession of the seasons and the ordinary occurrences of life.

It is evident, then, that the only way in which the person- ality of the Spirit can be immediately and directly recognized in the production of faith is to make it a supernatural endow- ment. To establish an oi-der in conformity with which the grace of God is imparted to the soul is to treat the opera- tions of the Spirit as purely mechanical. Upon this theory Divine influences are no more conspicuous in the new birth, the illumination of the mind and the sanctification of the heart, than in our natural generation, the growth of our bodies, the development of our faculties and the daily busi- ness of life. It is not enough to say in general terms that the Spirit is the author of faith — there must be something in the mode of its production that shall infallibly impress upon the mind the intuitive conviction that a voluntary agent is the cause of the phenomenon.

Hence the operations of the Spirit, in communicating spiritual life, must be analogous to those exercises of power by which miracles are wrought, and not to that method of operation which sustains the fabric of nature. Any system of religion, therefore, which teaches us to look for the bless- ing of God only in the way of natural consequence ; which regards it as a thing of course when the proper instruments have been put in requisition ; whatever else it may be called, has no pretensions to be treated as spiritual and Divine. If it acknowledges the Spirit at all, it is in such a sort as to involve a practical denial of His free, sovereign and personal agency. His will — and the essence of personality is sup- posed by many to consist in will — His will is not made the standard of gracious expectation, but our own industry and diligence in bending to our purposes the institutions and appointments of the Gospel. What are usually denominated the means of grace are presented in this theory in the aspect of laws, and the Spirit accordingly is nothing more than the invisible means — the Divine influence or the concealed deter- mination of the Divine will — which connects the spiritual

OF THE HOLY GHOST. 351

cause with its eiFect, the antecedent with its consequent, a proper application of means with the regeneration of the heart. The conversion of the soul is a process of spiritual mechanism brought about upon precisely the same principles of natural sequence as the construction of a telescope, the arrangement of a watch or the erection of a loom. The inevitable consequence is that conversion is just as much an achievement of our own as any of the natural operations which we daily perform.

It is intuitively evident, however, that the tendency of a fixed constitution to veil the personality of God can only be developed where the laws which regulate the succession of events are capable of being known and ascertained by us. The difficulty does not lie in the fact that order is observed, but in the fact that the order is hnowii. In such cases the antece- dents themselves, apart from all reference to God, are regarded as the real causes of the effects which ensue, and the Hand accordingly which governs and directs all the movements of nature is concealed from our view. Hence, God manifests His wisdom as well as His glory in so conducting the dispen- sations of His providence as that many of its most remarkable events shall appear to be fortuitous. The birth of individuals, the period of their death, that tide in their affairs which deter- mines their destiny, though unquestionably parts of a scheme as uniform and regular as that course of nature which we are capable of tracing, are yet concealed in all but their proxi- mate causes ; and no satisfactory reason can be assigned why Hannibal was not a citizen of Rome and Alexander a hero of the nineteenth century. This large infusion of " chance" in the moral administration of the world is suited to operate as a check upon the obvious tendency to Atheism which a known constitution is fitted to produce. The mind is called oif from the mere contemplation of physical causes to that sovereign Will which orders all things in heaven above and in the earth beneath. Fortuitous events are so many monu- ments of the Divine personality, so many memorials of God in the midst of a scene in which we are too prone to forget

352 THE PERSONALITY

Him. We may lament the proclivity of our minds to ovi^r- look the Author of Nature where we are capable of tracing the succession of its phenomena — we may denounce it as a signal proof of the depravity of our hearts and the perverse- ness of our will — but the fact is unquestionable. And hence the supremacy of the Spirit and the absolute sovereignty of His will must cease to be necessary elements of religious experience upon any hypothesis of grace which does not recognize a direct, immediate, intuitive perception of Divine operations. To establish a cowrsfi q/" ^^race at all. analogous to that we are accustomed to denominate the constitution of nature is to divert our attention from the agency and effi- ciency of the Holy Ghost, and to fix our hopes upon that series of subordinate antecedents which are supposed to be invariably attended with the results v/hich we are anxi(jus to secure. If reading, meditation and prayer, together with a diligent attention to all the other appointments of the Gos- pel, be recommended as standing in the same relation to faith in which industry, economy and prudence stand to success in the ordinary business of life, there is unquestion- ably in the nature of religious experience no more recogni- tion of the hand and sovereignty of God than in the usual transactions of the world. A man, in other words, in con- sistency with this hypothesis, may be truly converted and yet be totally unmindful of any peculiar grace, power or mercy on the part of the Almighty. His hopes and expect- ations are all placed upon the means which He employs ; and the ground of his confidence is the conviction, whether true or false, that these means are certainly connected with the ends which He proposes to secure. The planter who deposits his seed in the ground founds his expectations of a crop not upon the interpositions of God, but upon the fer- tility of the soil and the skill of his culture. The mechanic who erects a loom arranges all his materials with reference to the laws of motion, and never once thinks of the agency of the Supreme Being. He adjusts his antecedents, and takes it for granted that the usual consequents must follow.

OF THE HOLY GHOST. 353

Now, if the means of grace are really and truly laws of grace, there may be just as much practical atheism among the redeemed as among successful planters and mechanics. Accordingly, we find, in fact, that those who take low views of gracious operations are accustomed to maintain that we are not directly conscious of the possession of the Spirit. It is a fact which they suppose that we gather in the same way of philosophical analysis or necessary inference by which we recognize the power of God in the succession of the seasons or any of the beautiful arrangements of Providence. We compare, according to their statement of the matter, what we have felt and experienced with the declarations of the Word, and if we find that the spiritual phenomena of which we have been conscious are such as are there attributed to the agency of the Spirit, we are authorized to believe that we are taught of God, although our impressions themselves in their own nature would never have led us to look for an extraordinary or supernatural cause. Our experience itself would not have awakened the suspicion of Divine influence if we had not been previously informed by the Scriptures that all religious affections proceed from God ; we are so clearly capable of tracing the process by which our impressions have been produced in the secret, silent and imperceptible influence of reading, meditation and prayer that we should never have dreamed that any external cause was at work if we had no other evidence of the fact than the consciousness of what has been passing within. The Bible, such persons will inform you, is written in the language of men, it is adapted to mortal comprehension, and they can perceive no substantial reason, either in the bliudneas of man or the mystery of the subject, why the coherence and connection of its parts, the meaning and dependence of its various propositions, may not be mastered by the same sort of diligence by which we master the visions of poetry or the speculations of philosophy. The Divine authority of the Scriptures rests, they will tell you, upon historical and internal evidences which are capable of being understood Vol. II.— 23

354 THE PERSONALITY

and appreciated by all who are able to reason ; and when the disclosures of revelation are once received as truth, there is nothing more strange and wonderful in the effects which they produce than in the operations of any other truth. Such is the power of its motives, the solemnity of its sanc- tions and the fervour of its appeals that it is invariably followed in all who attend to it by results similar to those achieved by the orator or poet. Hence, we are conscious of no more grace in receiving the instructions of the Bible than in understanding the writings of Cicero or Plato.

Now, if the scheme of redemption has been so arranged as to produce in the experience of the faithful a full con- viction of the personality of God, this hypothesis of grace, however ingenious or plausible, must be false. So far as the Holy Ghost is concerned, the economy of salvation according to this view is as dumb as nature, and every believer might justly exclaim, in the language of the Ephe- sian disciples of the Baptist, " We have not so much as heard whether there be a Holy Ghost." That stupendous change which the Scriptures everywhere illustrate by the analogies of creation and resurrection from the dead is reduced to a natural process. Conversion is brought within the compe- tency of man. He can regenerate his heart by employing the proper means just as really and truly as he can raise enormous weights far transcending his physical abilities by pulleys and steam. There are laws by which he can avail himself of the power of God in the department of grace as well as in the department of nature — a moral machinery as potent in spiritual results as natural machinery in material effects. The solemn assertion of the Apostle, " It is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy," becomes palpably false, and the true state- ment is that, Whoever will employ the antecedents which are placed before him in the means of grace will assuredly find that faith, holiness and love will follow as the natural and uniform effects.

There cannot be a more overwhelming condemnation of

OF THE HOLY GHOST. 355

these mechanical operations of the Spirit than is furnished by Paul in the memorable text : " The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of God." How can there be a testimony of the Spirit separate and distinct from the testimony of our own hearts if, after all, we know the presence of the Spirit only from the effects which He impresses upon us ? How can a witness assure us of a fact when we do not hnow that the witness is speaking ? If Paul does not proceed on the assumption that we are con- scious of the personal presence of the Holy Ghost, language may cease to be employed as a vehicle of thought. The complete reversion of this text by those who deny super- natural influences is a humiliating instance of the stubborn reluctance of man to prostrate his pride of understanding before the authority of God. The Spirit, according to the Apostle, bears witness to us that we are the children of God. That we are the children of God, according to the common exposition, is the only proof which we can have that we really possess the Spirit. So that we make Paul's proof our question, and his question our proof.

To the train of argument which 1 have attempted to develop it may be, and perhaps plausibly, objected that because the means of grace are denied to possess the efficacy of laws, therefore they are rendered useless and nugatory. Such miserable skeptics might be asked what idea our Saviour probably intended to convey when He assured His disciples that the first should be the last and the last first. Can there be uniformity in a kingdom where the laws of its proceedings are frequently reversed ?

To say nothing of the repeated instances in which the blessings of the Gospel were evidently dispensed without the least reference to personal qualifications or previous preparation — a fact inconsistent with the theory of an uni- form method, and consequently of laws in the kingdom of grace — the means of grace have a clear and definite use which would be entirely defeated by making them equiv.;- lent to laws. Their end is not to impart grace, but to

856 THE PERSONALITY

remind us of our dependence upon the Spirit. They are not channels through which the waters of salvation are con- ducted to our hearts ; they are rather the chambers or pal- aces in which we meet with the King Himself, and transact our affairs in His immediate presence. Reading, for exam- ple, has no necessary tendency to ingenerate Divine and supernatural faith. On the contrary, it shows the darkness of the mind and the hardness of the heart, just as a picture spread out before a blind man forcil)ly reminds him of his defect of vision. A sense of need is consequently awak- ened, which directs attention to a living agent by whose benevolence and j)ower our wants may be relieved. Prayer Ls only an outward expression of that conviction of indi- gence and weakness which leads us off from the resources of the creature to the will of the Almighty. Hence, any proper view of the means of grace prevents us from attribut- ing the least degree of efficacy to them. They do their office when they have convinced us that there is no help in man, and prostrate our hearts before the throne of God in entire dependence upon the will and grace of His Holy Spirit.

Now, if the ultimate end of these Divine institutions be to produce a conviction of need, so far is their use from being inconsistent with the personality of the Spirit, that they confirm and establish it. He wdio has tried them finds them to be empty and dead, incapable of supplying his wants, and consequently worthless as his ultimate depend- ences. He must, of course, look beyond them, and what- ever comfort he receives must be attributed to the agency or influence of an external cause. They conduct him directly to the Spirit. To that august and glorious agent he presents himself burdened with the load of his sins and overpowered with a sense of his blindness, and he feels that nothing can relieve him but the grace, power and will of the Holy Ghost. They teach him his need of personal interference, and through them that condition of the soul is produced in which a manifestation of the loving-

OF THE HOLY GHOST. 357

kindness of the Lord shall be acknowledged as a direct and immediate interposition of God. Hence, to depend upon the means of grace, which we would be authorized to do if they were laws, is completely to destroy their legitimate tend- ency and render them worse than useless. They should only be employed as the way to the Spirit, as the galleries in which His glory will be manifested, as the instruments by which we are reminded that our help is in God. When properly employed they are most forgotten when most earn- estly used ; the eye is fixed exclusively on the Spirit.

Our vindication of supernatural grace will perhaps be complete if it can be shown that in avoiding the extreme of a dead and spiritless formality we are not necessarily exposed to the extravagant follies of a rabid enthusiasm. The fact, however, that this accusation is so repeatedly urged against those who maintain the personality of the Spirit as an essential element of Christian experience is a strong pre- sumption that their doctrine is substantially the same as that of the illustrious Apostle of the Gentiles. When Paul related the astonishing history of his conversion before the Roman judges, Festus said with a loud voice, " Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad." The governor did not mean to charge the Apostle with actual insanity, or that melancholy derangement of the mind in which all its powers are confounded and the distinctions of truth and falsehood, of right and wrong, are neither felt nor perceived. He rather looked upon his prisoner as deluded, as a dupe to his own imagination, mistaking the visions of fancy for the realities of fact. There is nothing strange in attributing such madness to excessive learning. The profound and solitary studies of Democritus exposed him to a similar imputation among his stupid countrymen of Abdera, from Avhich, as the story goes, he was eloquently defended by his friend, Hippocrates. As Festus could not bring himself to believe the marvellous narrative which the Apostle had just given of his sudden conversion to the Christian faith by the innnediate agency of God, and as the

358 THE PERSONALITY

evident sincerity of Paul's convictions, the depth of hia feelings, the fervour of liis manner, his disinterested labours and extraordinary sufferings in behalf cf Christianity evinced an honesty of heart and simplicity of purpose wholly incompatible with the supposition of imposture, no alternative was left but to treat the whole matter as a strong delusion. Paul was accordingly dismissed as a vis- ionary, though in the great day it will be found, to the con- sternation and dismay of all Pharisees, formalists and hypocrites, that such enthusiasm was the real production of the Spirit, the words of truth and soberness.

The charge of enthusiasm which we find upon the lips of Fes- tus, and which has since been repeated by a thousand tongues, is, from the vagueness and ambiguity of the term, admirably adapted to the purposes of scandal. In ancient times the word seems to have been used in three dilferent applications. It was first employed to denote that ecstasy of the Sibyls, Priests, and Prophets, in which the powers of the mind and the organs of the body were under the complete control of the inspiring god. This sort of enthusiasm is what Cicero calls divination. It was next applied to those strong and vehement conceptions of an excited imagination in which the balance of the soul was disturbed and the distinctions of vision and reality destroyed. This species of enthusiasm was, among the people, as also among some of the philoso- phers, ascribed to the agency of the gods, and hence it re- ceived the same general name with prophetic inspiration. The third sense in which we find the term employed by the ancient writers is in reference to the extraordinary achieve- ments of genius and learning. As those effects of the orator, the poet, and the philosopher which were distinguished by unusual ability and fervour were ascribed to supernatural assistance, they were likewise embraced under the general head of enthusiasm. Hence, it would appear that enthusiasm^ or madness, among the ancients was a term invented to denote the cause of a large class of phenomena, which, as they could not be explained upon the established principles of mind and

OF THE HOLY GHOST. 359

matter, were referred to Divine interposition. The inspira- tion of the Sibyl, the dreams of the visionary, and the sub- lime effusions of the poet or the orator had nothing in com- mon but the extraordinary impulses with which they were attended, and they received a common appellation only in consequence of the vulgar apprehension that they all pro- ceeded from the gods.

As employed in modern times to cast reproach upon the gracious operations of the Spirit, the term may imply either diabolical possession or fanatical delusion. The fundamental idea conveyed is that all pretensions to supernatural assist- ance are extravagant and wicked, proceeding either from the craft of an impostor, the excitement of the passions or the artful suggestions of the tempter. The leading assumption, upon which alone any plausibility can be given to the charge, is that the Divine illumination, which is made essential to the reality of faith, is philosophically absurd. It is supposed to be impossible that we can be conscious of the immediate agency of God. To say nothing of the numerous and pointed declarations of the Scriptures which directly teach that faith is an extraordinary gift of the Spirit, the fact that Proi)hets and Apostles must have known that their minds were pos- sessed of the Holy Ghost is conclusive proof that there may be manifestations of the Spirit which are accompanied with intuitive convictions of His presence. "We have no reason to believe that the holy men of old, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, were left to deduce their own inspiration from the miracles which they found themselves capable of working. It is not for us to say in what way the prophetic impulse indicated its Author. It is certain, how- ever, that there must have been such impressions of the Divine goodness, glory, knowledge and power made upon their minds as rendered it impossible to doubt, antecedently to any external signs of their supernatural commission, that the Lord was with them. In some way they felt His pres- ence and knew Him to be there as certainly as any natural phenomenon is ascertained by the senses. To say that God

360 THE PERSONALITY

cannot communicate an intuitive conviction of His presence to the mind is not only to deny that Prophets and Apostles were directly conscious of their own inspiration, but boldly and presumptuously to limit the Holy One of Israel. No good reason can be given why an immediate revelation of Himself is not as possible and easy as an indirect manifesta- tion of His glory through the wonderful works which He has made. The fact, therefore, that the doctrine of super- natural illumination involves an immediate conviction of the presence of the Spirit is no necessary presumption against its truth.

I do not mean to insinuate, however, that the Divine illumination which is the only cause of supernatural faith is, by any means, identical with prophetic inspiration. There is certainly a vast difference betwixt imparting origi- nal revelations, and enabling the understanding to perceive the impressions of Divine glory in a revelation already com- municated. But He who, in the one case, can manifest His presence so as to silence doubt and generate conviction, can also do it in the other.

That to make faith depend upon Divine and supernatural illumination is virtually to make it a new endowment of the soul is no valid objection to the truth of the doctrine. There are unquestionably original powers by which, in reference to every department of knowledge, we are enabled to distinguish the fictitious from the real, the true from the false. In a sound condition of the senses, phantasms are never confounded with material impressions ; we readily discriminate betwixt existing objects and the creatures of fancy. So also in mat- ters of science we I'ise by degrees from intuitive perceptions to legitimate deductions, keeping a steady hold of truth by means of judgment and reasoning. What sense is to matter, what intuition and reasoning are to science, faith is to super- natural revelation. It is a gracious faculty by which we recognize spiritual truth, trace the impressions of Divinity upon the disclosures of the Gospel and behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. As the measure of faith is

OF THE HOLY GHOST. 361

the testimony of God, it may be defined as a supernatural perception of the reality and glory of that testimony. Our Saviour, accordingly, teaches that in the spiritual appre- hension of the Gospel the flesh, or the natural understanding, profiteth nothing. There must be an evidence, or, as the Apostle styles it, a powerful demonstration of the Spirit, which genius, industry and learning are utterly inadequate to comj)ass, and which produces conviction by its own irre- sistible light. If the Scriptures are indeed the Word of God, the traces of His character must be indelibly stamped upon them, their doctrines must reflect His glory, aud the whole scheme which they are intended to develop must bear His name visibly engraved upon it. Now the Spirit, in the production of supernatural faith, shines into the heart and reveals a light by which we are enabled to perceive the Divinity and feel the efficacy of the mysterious truths of the Gospel. Hence, from the very nature of the case, faith must become an extraordinary gift — a new faculty of the soul directly conversant with spiritual trutli, distinguishing the true from the false, answering to perception in matters of sense, to intuition in matters of reasoning, and to demonstra- tion in matters of science. It is the eye of the spiritual man by which he beholds the things of God, and as sense and intuition carry their own evidence along with them, so faith is justified by its own light.

To maintain such an intuitive perception of the reality and excellence of spiritual truth is generally supposed to be fatal to the interests of sobriety and order by opening a wide door for extravagant delusions and fanatical excesses. Every dreamer, it is said, may receive the ravings of a frantic imagination as the genuine impulses of the Spirit of God. This is nothing more than to say that Faith, like every other faculty of our nature, is capable of being abused ; and as in every other case the existence of counterfeits is generally regarded as a presumption that an original exists of which the counterfeit is only an imitation — as hypocrisy itself, in conformity with the famous aphorism, is an indirect acknow-

362 THE PEKSONAI.ITY

ledgment of the reality and excellence of virtue — so the delusions of fancy could never be mistaken for the inspira- tion of the Spirit if there were no reasons to believe in the truth and genuineness of Divine and supernatural impres- sions. Still, the argument from abuse is never legitimate. The perceptions of the senses are sometimes delusive. In a diseased condition of the eye colours are often confounded, and to the muscles of the senseless paralytic the impression of resistance is impossible. The maniac reasons coherently and closely from arbitrary premises, mistaking the strong appearances of delirium for the indisputable truths of intu- ition. Shall we, therefore, from the known and acknow- ledged abuse of the fundamental principles of knowledge, be led to deny the reality of sensation or the certainty of intui- tive convictions? If the abuses of Religion are greater, more numerous and terrible than the abuses of any other subject, the only proper conclusion should be that religion itself is of infinitely greater importance than all other sub- jects combined. The evils of abuse are always proportioned to the intrinsic excellence of that which is perverted. That ocean which purifies the atmosphere, moderates temperature and binds the nations together in the enduring ties of broth- erhood and interest, diverted from its bed would be the most appalling scourge with which the earth could be visited. The greatest temporal blessing which any nation is capable of enjoying is a wise, equitable, free and magnanimous gov- ernment ; the most awful calamity with which any country can be cursed is tyranny. Fanaticism may well be called Legion, for its horrors are unspeakable and its dangers in- conceivable both in time and eternity ; but it derives its malignity from the perversion and abuse of the sublimest truths and most elevating doctrines which can possibly be addressed to the human understanding. It poisons the waters of life at the fountain, converts them into elements of death and spreads devastation and terror in the whole extent of its progress. The Devil will sometimes transform himself into an angel of light, so that the corruptions and

OF THE HOLY GHOST. 363

excesses both of superstition and enthusiasm seem to be inseparable, without the special interference of God, from our fallen condition. The great deceiver will endeavour to mimic the real operations of the Spirit ; he will endeavour to substitute the glare of hell for the illumination of grace, and the revelry of intoxicated feeling for that joy in the Holy Ghost which is the special prerogative of the saints. He will deceive multitudes with the furious dreams of fanaticism, and yet the foundation of God standeth sure. The seal of the Spirit is no vain delusion, though thousands may bear a stamp which is only a counterfeit — a wicked and diabolical imitation of the impression of the Holy One. Let every man look well to his own heart.

I have thus presented a subject which it is useless to declare lies at the foundation of our highest interests. If we have correct apprehensions of the personality of the Spirit as an essential element of religious experience, we shall be guarded at once from tlie evils of formality and the extravagant excesses of fanaticism. We shall be led to regard Christianity as a Divine life in the soul — as consist- ing not in forms, rites and ceremonies, but in the communion of the Spirit, the love of the Father and the grace of the Son ; and we shall perceive that the worship of the glorious Trinity is the sum and substance of spiritual religion. The great doctrine of supernatural grace is the great opprobrium of the Gospel. Multitudes who have the form of godliness without its power, who are sleeping in carnal security though their consciences have never been purged from the sad defile- ments of sin, will represent all anxiety about the condition of the soul as the result of melancholy or the incipient stages of insanity. From such we must turn away in pity and in fear — in pity, because, if there be truth in the Bible, they are in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity ; in fear, because contact with them is the torpedo-touch of death. Others, who are full of life and zeal and boisterous preten- sions, will talk largely about the supernatural influences of the- Spirit and the cheering operations of grace, but if their

364 THE PEESONALITY

characters be tested by the infallible standard of the Word, there will be detected the elements of pride, vain-glory and selfishness under the specious mask of religious devotion. Their zeal is without knowledge, their fervour without piety, and their comforts without faith. They are like waves of the sea or clouds of the air, wells without water, shooting-stars to whom is reserved the blackness of dark- ness for ever. There are many false Christs abroad in the world. The forms of deception are so numerous, and its con- sequences so unspeakably disastrous, that we need a Teacher who alone can guide us through the labyrinths of error, re- veal to our liearts the economy of grace, unite us effectually to the Son of God, and make us partakers of everlasting life. The Eternal S})irit is the true Minister of the Tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man. Under His Divine guidance and direction we may pass through the world in safety and peace; its elements of disorder shall be rendered subservient to our good, and even afflictions and calamities made to work out a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. If He dwell in our hearts and control and regu- late our lives, our peace shall flow as a river, and our hope shall be as an anchor to the soul both sure and steadfast. It is His presence that renders the Church fair as the sun, clear as the moon and terrible as an army with banners, and to every true believer He will infallibly be found a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

Soon every other distinction will fade away but that which is created by the possession of the Spirit. In the great day which awaits us all, when God shall arise to shake terribly the earth, and the destinies of all the race shall be sealed for ever, our right to life will depend exclu- sively on the witness of the Holy Ghost. None can sus- tain their title as sons but those whom He has sealed unto the day of redemption. To appear without His signet on our foreheads and His impress upon our hearts is to awake to the resurrection of damnation, to be doomed to shame and everlasting contempt. It will not be a question whe-

OF THE HOLY GHOST. 365

ther we have been great or mean, honoured or despised, ricli or poor. All the trappuigs of earth must be laid aside at death, but it will be a question, and a question of over- whelming importance, whether or not we have possessed the Spirit. The complexion of eternity must depend upon the answer to this awful question. If we have been among those miserable skeptics who have not so much as heard that there be a Holy Ghost, if we have despised religion under the name of fanaticism, and laughed at grace as the effervescence of enthusiasm, unlimited duration will be the period assigned us to lament our folly and bewail the con- sequences of our terrible delusion. If we have preferred the light of our own eyes to the light of the Spirit, and the imagination of our own hearts to His heavenly guidance, we shall be left at last to stumble irretrievably upon the dark mountains of despair, to eat the fruit of our own ways and be filled with our own devices. Without the Spirit of the living God we are dead, irrecoverably dead — dead for time and dead for eternity.

In addition to these considerations, which ought to be sufficient to impress upon us the transcendent importance of seeking the grace of the Holy Ghost, the tremendous sanctions with which His majesty and glory are sustained deserve to be seriously pondered. If we blaspheme the name of the Father, there is a place left for repentance and salvation — we may be forgiven. If we blaspheme the name of the Son, that also may be forgotten and blotted out for ever. But if we blaspheme the name of the Holy Ghost, we shall never be forgiven, either in this world or that which LS to come. There is no place left for repentance, though, like Esau, we seek it bitterly and with tears. This tremen- dous sanction is like a wall of fire thrown around the Spirit to protect Him from insult and to attest the grandeur of His nature. Coming directly in contact as He docs with the darkness, corruption, impurity and defilement of the hearts of men. His authority is maintained and His honour vindicated by the unspeakable malediction with which they

366 THE PERSONALITY

are visited who despise His majesty. Because there is wrath let us beware. Let us not venture to sport upon the edge of a precipice so inconceivably dangerous. What the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is, we are perhaps unable to determine, and in this acknowledged ignorance of its nature we may commit it while we are amusing our hearts with the siren song of prosperity and whispering all is well. The day of our merciful visitation may pass away, and the things that belong to our peace be for ever hid from our eyes, while we have been conscious of no greater sin than just the grieving by neglect and delay of the Holy Spirit of God. There is a point at which mercy shall kindle into vengeance, at which the insulted Spirit shall take his ever- lasting departure, and leave those M^ho would not believe under the terrible calamity of judicial blindness. Let us, then, see that we grieve not the Holy Spirit of God. The salvation of the soul is invested with too much solemnity, eternity is too vast an interest, to be treated with levity and postponed for our convenience. The dictate of reason and prudence, as well as the conunand of God, is to seek first the one thing needful ; let that be secured before we distract our minds with the vain anxieties of the lieathen about what we shall eat, or what we shall drink, or wherewithal we shall be clothed. Let not the summer pass away nor the harvest disappear until we can say that our souls are saved.

If we could be brought to apprehend our real condition as condemned malefactors, if we knew our guilt, our misery, our weakness, if we felt the magnitude of the interests at stake, we should cease not day or night to cry mightily to God that He would bow the heavens and come down, and make our hearts His chosen habitations through the Spirit. We should prize the Holy Ghost as our hope, since He alone can sprinkle the blood of iatonement on our consciences, repair the ruins of our moral constitutions, prepare us for death, for judgment, for eternity. Christ must for ever remain to us a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence, unless the Spirit reveal His glory as of the only-begotten

OF THE HOLY GHOST. 367

of the Father, full of grace and truth. God must for ever continue a consuming fire unless the Spirit purify our hearts by faith and fit us for communion with the Father of lights. Heaven must ever remain inaccessible to our efforts unless the Spirit seal us as the sons of God and the heirs of im- mortality. So deep is my conviction of the importance of the Spirit that I know not where to find the language that is suited to express the transcendent value of His grace. Eternity alone can reveal how much they lose who know nothing of His love, His consolations and His joys. It was the Spirit who garnished the heavens and the earth ; traces of His glory are found in all the visible creation ; the only spot where His light does not shine is among the spirits of the lost. Hell, and hell alone, is adorned with no memorial of His grace, and to hell all must be finally con- signed who have not His witness within them.

PREFATORY NOTE.

This short, but sweet and touching, exhibition of what the salvation of the Gospel is, would appear from the handwriting to have been amongst its author's earlier productions. It was written in the form of a sermon on John iii. 17, but there is no record on the manuscript of its ever having been preached, and it certainly was never before put into type. Vol. II.— 24 369

THE NATURE OF SALVATION.

"TTTE read in the third chapter of John that God sent not His ' ' Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. Now, while in accord- ance with these words it is universally admitted by all who acknowledge the Divine authority of the Scriptures that Jesus Christ is the Saviour of His people, various opinions are supported in regard to the nature of His salvation and the means by which it is effected. In cases of signal deliver- ance or eminent success the Greeks and Romans erected temples and dedicated altars to the false objects of their worship under the title of saviours, and even princes and heroes, for daring achievements in the hour of conflict, re- ceived the same mark of honour and respect from the grate- ful adulation of the people. Inspiration itself applies the term to Othniel and Ehud, evidently showing that the mere word does not necessarily imply attributes and powers inconsistent with the nature of man. We learn from Plato that the Greeks, at their banquets, uniformly made a liba- tion to Jupiter from the third goblet, under the title of saviour, as the giver of prosperity. In Scripture phraseol- ogy, the word salvation is applied to any deliverance from evil, whether moral or physical. It was common with Christ to say to the invalid, " Thy faith hath saved thee," meaning only. Thy faith hath healed thee. The word is so broad and extensive in its import that the mere phraseology of the passage from John, separate and apart from other declarations of Scripture, does not prove that Jesus is at all

371

372 THE NATURE OF SALVATION.

distinguished from Moses or from Joshua, from Othniel or Ehud. To be sure, He is represented as offering salvation to the world, while their operations are confined to the chil- dren of Israel. But if this passage in John stood isolated and alone, or were the only ^^^^sage of the Bible which attributes salvation to Jesus, we would not be bound to con- clude that He was anything more than a distinguished teacher or illustrious prophet. To save the world may mean only to dispel the ignorance which prevails among men and to diffuse the light of knowledge and of truth. The Apostles are frequently styled the saviours of those who were con- verted by their preaching, because they delivered them from the dangerous influence of idolatrous error by spreading the knowledge of the true religion. If Jesus had done nothing more than reform the abuses and correct the errors of society ; if He had only promulgated a system of moral and religious truth, fixing accurately the nature of right and the extent of human duty ; if He had only added fresh and stronger sanctions to the eternal principles of rectitude and virtue ; if He had done nothing more than teach, reform and elevate our race, — He would have done enough for the world to elicit its gratitude and gain the honourable title of its Saviour. Valuable, however, as the moral teachings of Jesus unquestionably are. His salvation includes something higher and more difficult. Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato were eminent philosophers, and did much towards reforming abuses and correcting errors amongst their countrymen, and yet we should hardly think of comparing the Messiah with a Grecian sage or a Roman seer. Solomon uttered dark sayings of old, and was a teacher of wisdom to his subjects, but a greater than Solomon is here. In what, then, does the salvation of Jesus consist, or in what peculiar and emphatic sense is He denominated the Saviour of His jJcoplef The passages which stand in immediate conjunction with the words quoted above from John distinctly declare that the great object of the mission of Christ was to deliver His followers from the ruin and misery of sin, and to give them

THE NATURE OF SALVATION. 873

the blessings of eternal life. " As Moses lifted up the ser- pent in the wildernesSj even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth on Him might not per- ish, but have everlasting life." " For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever be- lieveth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Here the salvation ascribed to Christ evidently has a pri- mary reference to the beatitude of heaven and the ruinous punishment of sin. He is styled a Saviour because He delivers His people from eternal death and gives them eternal life. If we bear in mind that happiness is not an independent, isolated object of existence, but merely the natural consequence and uniform concomitant of holiness, we shall see at once that the salvation of Jesus necessarily includes ample and adequate means of destroying the de- pravity of the heart and of rendering His followers holy. Happiness and virtue have been linked together by the eternal fiat of Jehovah, and no human ingenuity can tear them asunder. Without holiness it is impossible to see the Lord — that is, to be completely and eminently happy. Jesus cannot — such is the moral government of God — Jesus cannot be a Saviour without delivering His people from their sins. It is a profound remark of a writer in other respects dangerous and heretical that a " man is saved only so far as he is holy." Jesus received His name by the ex- press and solemn appointment of God, because He should save His people from their sins. In view of the intimate connection which obtains between vice and misery, virtue and happiness, and in view of the passages which ascribe salvation to Christ because He delivers us from a state of misery into a state of happiness, and of those which ascribe salvation to Him because He delivers us from sin and cor- ruption, we should say that the true scriptural idea of sal- vation can only be found in combining the two. Jesus would then be called a Saviour, because He frees His fol- lowers from sin, and consequently from misery — because He makes them holy, and consequently happy. If we have cor-

374 THE NATURE OF SALVATION.

rcct notions of the government of God, we shall see that these ideas are substantially the same. To be freed from sin and misery is to be made holy, and to be made holy is to be made happy. Holiness, therefore, itself, in its cause and results, covers the whole ground of salvation. We can indeed conceive of a state of things in which holiness should be essentially different from happiness, but this is not the state of things which actually obtains under the providence of God. The formation of a holy character, therefore, is the great point to which Jesus as a Saviour must direct His efforts. His salvation is incomplete — nay, it is a total failure — unless this great point is effectually secured, and when it shall have been completely gained, happiness and eternal life necessarily follow.

According to the Scripture account of the matter, we are all clean gone from original righteousness — totally averse from all good and pertinaciously inclined to all evil. We are said to be conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity, and it is a well-known fact that our first exhibitions of moral agency, how guarded soever our educations may have been, manifest a fearful disregard to the laws of God, to holiness and to truth. It was the curse of our great progenitor to transmit to his posterity the corruption which he brought upon himself. In the wild infatuation of his heart he sought out the strange invention of moral deformity and death, and his whole issue to the latest generation became involved in his ruin. The recorded experience of the world proves beyond all doubt that man is naturally depraved — completely, totally, utterly depraved. When I say that men are totally depraved, I do not mean that they are incapable of performing any acts which, in themselves considered, are conformable with the law of God. The recij)rocal duties of humanity may be faithfully discharged by a man who, in the vicM^ of God, is regarded as dead in trespasses and sins. Depravity consists in a total defection from the authority of God — in an alienation of the heart from its Maker. With fidelity and zeal we may perform the duties which devolve

THE NATURE OF SALVATION. 375

upon us in all the important relations of life. We can pity the unfortunate and relieve the distressed ; submit with quietness to the laws of the country ; sustain the offices of a father, a husband, a brother and a friend ; and yet be want- ing in the only principle of living obedience and genuine virtue which the Scriptures recognize. The heart is yet at enmity with God, and until this enmity is slain our very best actions are only splendid sins. Morality is important to society, but the morality which jJroceeds from any other principle than a principle of love to God is like a statue, beautiful, elegant and well-proportioned, but, alas ! wanting in life. The carnal heart is enmity with God, and this is the secret, the great secret, of human depravity; into this principle it can all be resolved, and is resolved by the sacred writers. The rebel and revolted spirit must be brought back to its allegiance to God before it can perform an act of genuine obedience or of genuine holiness. How, then, caji this be done? This was the great problem which infinite wisdom had to solve in planning the salvation of the world. This was the great riddle which puzzled the universe — ^the mystery into which the angels desired to look. Man could not be reclaimed to his allegiance by the thunders of the law which he had violated ; these would only drive him to a stouter resistance. His affections could not be recalled by the frowning aspect of a menacing Deity ; this would excite a deadlier hate. How, then, can he be reclaimed? The answer is. By removing the procuring cause of his enmity to God, for when the cause is removed the effect, as a matter of course, ceases to exist.

Now, what mainly produces the enmity of the carnal heart against God is a consciousness of sin and a dread of its awful consequences. It is a radical doctrine of all religion that no sin is unconditionally pardonable, and the feeling is deeply rooted in the human heart that some satisfaction must be rendered to the Divine law before the sinner can gain the approbation of his God. Hence, all superstitions have insti- tuted rites and ceremonies, penances and sufferings, in order to

376 THE NATURE OF SALVATION.

appease the anger of Heaven. The connection between guilt and punishment has been written by the finger of Omnipo- tence on the human heart, and in the darkest midnight of the mind we find the idolatrous heathen and the wandering savage responding to the sentiment of the Apostle, that without the shedding of blood there is no remission. Re- pentance was felt to be inadequate, for it could only act on the future without touching the past. The law had been broken in days gone by, and the future could only discharge its own incumbent obligations. Resort was consequently had to the blood of bulls and goats, and even the body was lacerated and torn to purge the sin of the soul. But these penances gave only a temporary quiet without affording per- manent security. Men still felt that they were debtors to the law and justly exposed to punishment. The fear of punishment clung to them, an intolerable burden ; they feared the might of God's right hand. A thought of God was a thought of terror, and the grave was black as mid- night. This dread of God's justice, arising from a sense of guilt, is the great ground of the sinner's hatred to God, and can only be removed by appeasing that justice and assuring the sinner that he can be pardoned. In other words, some plan must be devised to assure the sinner that he can be regarded as just — as a being who has never offended in the sight of God — and the integrity, at the same time, of the Divine attributes be preserved unimpaired. Every scheme of salvation which fails to comprehend this important prin- ciple can afford no permanent or solid security to the hopes of the guilty. The sinner must be certainly assured that he can stand on the same footing with a man who had never sinned, without detracting from the honour of God, before he can be brought to view his Maker with affection or to dis- miss his sentiments of dread. It is all idle to talk of his loving God while the weight of unpardoned guilt hangs over him. The terrors of the Lord encompass him about, and the horrors of the grave seize hold upon him. In the nature of things, a vindictive deity cannot be the subject of delight

THE NATURE OF SALVATION. 377

to the fallen object of His vengeance. Terror and dread are not the native elements of love. We may quail beneath the fiery justice and uplifted arm of a menacing Deity; we may tremble and shake at the awful exhibitions of an angry God, when the heavens grow black with His wrath and the firma- ment smokes with His hot displeasure. Aye ! He may alarm and appal us by exposing to view the revolting scenes of the lower pit, where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched, but where there is wailing and woe and black despair for ever and ever. But exhibitions like these will only steel our hearts to deeper defiance and sterner hate. They cannot unbar the doors of our love. They may make us muster the energies of dark despair and clench our fists and nerve our souls to battle with Omnipotence. Love can only be gained by love, and God must show to the sinner a smiling face and an approving eye before He can win the sinner's affections. The sinner must know that his guilt is gone, that God has forgotten it and is disposed to treat him as a just man, as a being who had never sinned.

Now the principle of imputation, the very keystone which supports the arch of the Christian system, is admirably suited to dispel the fears and quiet the apprehensions of conscious guilt. The iniquities of the sinner are taken from his own shoulders, and all their burden is imposed upon Christ. The penalties of the law are met and satis- fied by His vicarious sufferings, and His perfect obedience to the law of God being imputed to the sinner as his own obe- dience, the sinner comes to be regarded in the eye of God as a just man, as a being who had never offended. The law has no further claims upon him ; he is restored in the view of Heaven to the same situation of sinless purity which belonged to Adam before his fall. He is as though he had never transgressed. All this results from the great princi- ple of imputation — a radical principle of the Gospel clearly set forth in the writings of the Apostles and that old Evan- gelist, Isaiah; nay, it is deeply grounded in the moral gov- ernment of God, and he that denies its existence will find

378 THE NATURE OF SALVATION.

many anomalies which he cannot unriddle and many appear- ances which he cannot explain. Those who deny that the sufferings of Christ were truly and properly vicarious are reduced to the awkward dilemma of denying entirely all moral distinctions or of denying that Jesus is a Saviour. If they hold to moral distinctions, they must likewise hold to a moral government. Now, a moral government is a gov- ernment of law, and every law implies a sanction, a reward for obedience and a punishment for disobedience. When 'God promulgates a law, He does it with a view of having it observed, and the object of the sanction is to supply a strong and adequate motive for the observance of the law. Now, the force of the sanction depends essentially on the certainty of its execution. Unless the sanction be uniformly enforced the laAv is a dead letter. Those who deny that the suffer- ings of Christ were truly and properly vicarious, and at the same time contend that Jesus is a Saviour, actually main- tain that the sanctions of the law have been left unexecuted, and that the law consequently is a dead letter ; in other words, that there is no distinction between vice and virtue, a duty and a crime. They charge God with the ridiculous farce of promulgating a law with awful solemnity which He never meant to enforce, and with the downright duplicity of uttering threats which He never designed to execute. A law without a sanction is no law, and a sanction unexecuted Ls no sanction. Its efficacy depends altogether on the abso- lute certainty of its being enforced. Let the law be once violated with impunity, and there is an end at once of all obedience and authority. On the other hand, those who hold to moral distinctions and deny the atonement leave man exposed to the penalty of eternal death, quailing beneath the justice of God, a child of wrath and an heir of woe. They leave man just where they found him, oppressed with guilt and hating God on account of the ter- rors which surround His throne. We conclude, then, that the sufferings of Christ were truly and properly vicarious, that He died the just for the unjust, and that on Him wns

THE NATURE OF SALVATION. 379

laid the iniquity of us all. This is the only view of the subject which can give quiet to the troubled spirit and relieve the apprehensions of the guilty mind. Let the sin- ner believe firmly in the atonement of Jesus, and he can look to heaven without horror or dismay, for he sees there an approving Father and a smiling God. No sins oppress his soul, for he wears the robe of Christ's obedience and stands out in the light of day a just man. The great cause of his hatred to God is removed, the doors of his love are effectually unbarred, and what the Law with all its threats and penalties and terrors could not do, is gloriously accom- plished by the Cross of Christ. His spirit of stern rebellion and stubborn defiance is effectually subdued when he sees his God bending from the Mount of Crucifixion with out- stretched arms and a smiling face, imploring the children of men to come and be saved. He may stand out against all the threats and terrors of an incensed and vindictive Deity, he may defy his Maker when He frowns in wrath or upltfts tlie sword of eternal vengeance, but he cannot resist that supreme love, that wonderful love of God which spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for His enemies. The sinner may hate an angry God, but he cannot but love a rec- onciled Father. Here is the magic of the Cross ; it presents a scene of love such as the world had never seen before and will never see again. When the world w^as lost, ruined and undone, w^hen all hope had fled from earth, and apparently fled for ever, Jehovah bows the heavens and comes down, and, travelling in the majesty of His strength, works out a redemption for His imprisoned subjects which astonished the angels and made the universe stand aghast. Here was love, unspeakable love, " When God the mighty Maker died for man the creature's sin." And when this amazing love is fully apprehended and distinctly realized, the stoutest heart of the proudest sinner will yield to its mighty influence. Love is the talisman by which God subdues the sinner's heart and gains his supreme affection. Let him firmly believe and strongly realize that Jesus was indeed the Lamb

380 THE NATURE OF SALVATION.

of God, slain for the sins of the world, and that it was Love, almighty Love, which occasioned the awful sacrifice, and he will bow his soul in the depths of humility and give his heart to God. So the Gospel accomplishes what the law could not do ; it infuses into the sinner's mind a principle of holiness and living obedience ; it gives him what noth- ing else could give him, a love of God, and under the sacred influence of the Holy Ghost fits him to enjoy the blessedness of heaven. Thus is Christ the Saviour of His people.

The cross of Christ portrays at the same time in living characters the awful turpitude of guilt. We cannot regard sin, that abominable thing which God hates, as a matter of little moment when we call to mind the intense agony and withering suffering which the Son of God underwent in order to remove its curse. Chained as we are to this little corner of the universe, we can neither see clearly nor esti- nuite exactly the dreadful breach which it makes in the gov- ernment of God. But we are satisfied that God would have spared His Son if He could have done it consistently with His honour. We know that it was not a light affair which robed the sun in the darkness of midnight and awoke the dead from the slumber of ages. God does not exhibit His power from the mere vanity of show. There was a cause, a real, substantial, adequate cause, of these mighty changes in the course of nature. The Son of God in bleeding agony is enduring the hot displeasure of His Father against the ungodly, the vials of Divine wrath are poured upon Him, and He bows His soul in meek resignation to meet the pun- ishment which the sins of His people had incurred. The sufferings of Christ are a living comment on the awful tur- pitude and dreadful consequences of guilt ; and he that brings home to his own bosom the terrible tragedy that was acted on Calvary, while he feels his heart melt within him at the amazing love of God to His fallen creatures, will hate sin with a perfect hatred. Two points are gained at once — the love of God and the hatred of sin.

PREFATORY NOTE.

The article upon Antinomianism is the Appendix added hj Dr. Thornwell to Traill's Vindication, which he published, as before men- tioned, amongst other Doctrinal Tracts, at Columbia in 1840.

381

ANTINOMIANISM.

rriHE term Antinomianism is employed to denote a sys- J- tern of doctrine which naturally leads to licentiousness of life. Those who deny that the law of God is the meas- ure of duty, or that personal holiness should be sought by Christians, are those alone who can properly be charged with Antinomian principles. The Scriptures are so pointed and explicit in pressing upon believers that " denying ungodliness and worldly lusts they should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world," that it becomes a matter of no little interest, even to the speculative inquirer, to account for the origin of Antinomianism. We must not confound the origin of the wo7-d with the origin of the tiling. The latter existed long before a single term expres- sive of its true character was applied to it. The word was coined in the sixteenth century to denote the peculiar opin- ions of John Agricola and his followers in regard to the Law. Agricola was a native of Aisleben, and, until he began to propagate his extravagant opinions in the year 1538, a friend and abettor of Luther. The thing existed as far back certainly as the days of Paul and James. That the preaching of the " Word of the truth of the Gospel " should have been attended with Antinomian consequences upon any mind, however illiterate, can be accounted for only by the singular tendency of man to oscillate, in his opinions and practices, from one extreme to another. When, after a dreary night of Arminian darkness and of legal bondage,

383

384 ANTINOMIAKISM.

the doctrines of grace are proclaimed with clearness and power, there are always found men who, unable to endure the light which reveals the folly of their slavish toils and unchristian schemes, pervert the Gospel and turn the grace of God into lasciviousness. If the Pharisees and doctors of the law had not galled and broken the necks of the peo- ple by the yoke of servitude which they imposed upon them, Paul perhaps would never have been slanderously reported as teaching men to do ill that good might come, neither would any have been tempted to boast of a faith which produced no fruit. Christians in his day, no doubt, in- directly and incidentally afforded plausible pretexts to the carnal and profane. Those who had been required to go through the laborious drudgery of establishing their own righteousness — a toil not unlike that imposed upon the Hebrews by the Egyptian taskmasters — who were at all enlightened to perceive the defects and wickedness of their best performances, could not but hail with joy the procla- mation of a perfect righteousness which was the " end of the law to every one that believed." And in their anxiety to free others from the same gross and slavish delusions under which they had laboured themselves, it is not strange, it is natural, that in some instances a phraseology more remark- able for point than accuracy should have been adopted for the purpose of effect. They saw the reigning power of legalism, they had felt its bitterness and knew its curse, and consequently spoke with the energy and pathos of men in earnest when endeavouring to arrest the pharisaical bias of the carnal heart. The dreams of the sleeper may be changed while his slumbers are unbroken. Many, no doubt, received opinions in the head which found no entrance in the heart, and confounding the important dis- tinction between justification and sanctification, and wilfully misled by the incautious statements of true disciples, pre- tended to receive Christ ; but it was a divided Christ, so that they might freely indulge the lascivious propensities of the carnal mind. These are the men whom Jude and

ANTINOMIANISM. 385

Peter denounce, and whose monstrous opinions James refutes.

Three circumstances, therefore, conspired to produce the Antinomianism of the apostolic age: 1. The previous prevalence of legal opinions ; and, 2, the reception of the true doctrine of justification as a matter of the head M'ithout the concurrence of the heart, and consequently separated from the Gospel doctrine of sanctification. The mutual action and reaction of two such circumstances gave a violent impetus to these extravagant opinions. The nat- ural vibration of the mind is from the extreme of legalism to that of licentiousness, and nothing but the grace of God can fix it in the proper medium of Divine truth. The Gospel, like its blessed Master, is always crucified between two thieves — legalists of all sorts on the one hand and Anti- nomians on the other ; the former robbing the Saviour of the glory of his work for us, and the other robbing him of the glory of his work ivithin us. 3. Another circumstance which should be specially noted as contributing to a spirit of blasphemy among the ungodly was, that the Gospel laid its axe at the root of human pride. It excluded all boast- ing on the part of man. In the plenitude of his pride he had indulged the golden dream of buying the favour of his God by his vain oblations, his empty sacrifices and his heartless formality of worshij) ; and when assured that even his righteousnesses, were as filthy rags, when reminded of his native depravity and helplessness, like the encaged but untamed tiger he gnashed his teeth in rage, and vented his blasphemy against God by abusing, perverting and cor- rupting the glorious Gospel of grace. Such was the spring of Antinomianism in daring blasphemers. To men inflated with conceptions of their own sufficiency and intrinsic good- ness, the Gospel, when unaccompanied by saving grace, will j)roduce one of two effects — either contempt for its doctrines or unblushing licentiousness. In the one case its princi- ples are utterly rejected ; in the other, they madden and destroy. Both effects flow from the same principles of

Vol. II.— 25

386 ANTINOMIANISM.

pride. They are only clifFerent streams from the same fountain.

The Antinomianism which sprang up in the time of Luther (if indeed it can be called Antinomianism) seems to have been nothing more than a very violent revulsion in weak minds to the opposite extreme from the papal doctrine concerning good works. Whatever may have been the errors of Agricola and his followers, Popery should be regarded as their legitimate father. As long as men act upon the prin- ciple of contraria contrariis curantur, legalism, when the Gospel once comes to be proclaimed, will infallibly be fol- lowed among unrenewed men by abuses of some sort. The effect will be different according to the aspect in which the Gospel is most strongly contemplated. If it is seen as <'oming directly in collision with our pride and natural self- sufficiency, the result will be infatuated blindness to its tru+h or an open profligacy of life. If it is viewed as a system of grace providing a full and free salvation without the works of the law, as a free gift of God, the result will be a greedy appropriation of the blessing, without receiving Him by whom alone it is bestowed. The idea upjjermost in the mind is the absolute //•ec» ess of Divine grace; and hence that spiritual training by which we are rendered meet for the inheritance of the saints in light is totally disregarded or presumptuously denied, as if an unholy heart could hold everlasting communion with a holy God.

Whatever form, however, Antinomianism may assume, it springs from legalism. None rush into the one extreme but those who have been in the other. If Dr. Crisp was really, as he has usually been regarded, the founder of English Antinomianism, let it be remembered that he was notori- ously, at one time, " a low Arminian, who held the merit of good works, and looked for salvation more from his own doings than from the work and grace of a Redeemer." The Antinomianism of Dr. Crisp consisted more, however, in loose and unguarded expressions than in real licentiousness of principles. He was an humble and a godly man. The

ANTINOMIANISM. 387

testimony to his excellence and worth, signed by a divine whom none can charge with the least tincture of libertinism — Rev. John Howe — deserves to be seriously pondered by those who can find no epithets too scurrilous to apply to Dr. Crisp. It may be fouud prefixed to Flavel's " Blow at the Root." From the statement there given, Dr. Crisp's Antinomianism seems to have been very questionable. His works, published after his death, which took place in 1643, nearly about the time of Traill's birth, gave rise to what has been called the Antinomian controversy in England.

The "middle way" to which Traill alludes is probably the scheme of doctrine borrowed substantially from Vossius and Grotius, and maintained by Richard Baxter among the Dissenters, and Bishop Bull among the Churchmen, who took an active and even a violent part in this controversy against those whom they denounced as Antinomians. Their views, though the one professed to receive the Westminster Confes- sion of Faith and the other the Articlas of the Church of England, were substantially Arminian. They maintained that the death of Christ purchased for us a new and an easier law, which they called the law of grace or Gospel covenant, by obedience to which we were justified. This obedience they denominated evangelical righteousness, and contended that it is the matter of our actual justification before God, The new law of grace prescribed repentance, faith and sincere obedience as the conditions of our accept- ance and salvation. Whatever opposed this scheme, which is essentially legal and eminently dangerous, was denounced as Antinomian. Hence, it is no marvel that Baxter should have abused Owen, who triumphantly exposed his futile aphorisms on justification, and maintained the true Gospel doctrine which Traill so ably defends in his Vindication.

According to Arminians generally, Antinomianism and the system of grace, which is usually called Calvinism, arc synonymous terms. Because the Gospel excludes our own works from forming any part of the matter of our justifica- tion, they most preposterously conclude that it excludes all

388 ANTINOMIANISM.

personal holiness ; because it does not confound justification and sanctification, they take it for granted that it denies the latter entirely. The following beautiful passage from Traill's "Sermons on the Lord's Prayer" may be commended to their special notice :

" Christ represents His CJiurch unto God for their sancti- fication. Election in Christ is an eternal purpose in God's iieart and counsel about His people. Redemption by Christ is a Divine bargain for them and their salvation betwixt the Father and the Son. Justification is a gracious sentence of God in Christ on them that are represented by Him for acceptance. By this act and sentence the state of their per- sons is favourably changed. But sanctification is a Divine work in them that changeth their heart and nature. The Spirit of sanctification is a precious gift of Divine love, and is only given to them that are in Christ and because they are in Him. Gal. iv. 6 : ' And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.' All the anointings of the Holy Ghost that believers receive are but some drops that fall down from the head of our High Priest ' unto the skirts of His garments.' (Ps. cxxxiii. 2.) 'He received the Spirit without measure' (John iii. 34), that to His people, even 'to every one of tliem, grace may be given according to the measure of the gift of Christ' (Eph. iv. 7); not according to the measure that Christ got, but the measure that Christ giveth. And all of them received it. Rom. viii. 9 : ' If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His.' Let him not ' name the name of Christ ' (as his Lord and Master) ' that departeth not from iniquity.' (2 Tim. ii. 19.) All whose iniquities Christ did bear for their expiation, in due time Christ ' blesseth them in turning every one of them away from their iniquities.' (Acts iii. 26.) This blessing of sancti- fication is of pure grace, for as there is nothing of worth in a man, or regarded by God in justifying, so there is nothing of goodness or of fit matter for God to work upon in His sanctifying. God's word is as clear about this as about the

ANTINOMIANISM. 389

other. The account that we have so largely of the natural state of all men without Christ is sufficient to show the absolute necessity all stand in of God's grace to save them, and to declare both the freedom and power of that grace in all its applications to men. Grace is the spring of salvation and of all its parts ; Christ is the root of all ; and eternal life and glory is the ripe fruit of all that grace of God that * reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.' (Rom. v. 21.) See but these texts and read them, and conclude this truth: 1 Cor. vi. 11 ; Eph. ii. 1-7 ; and Tit. iii. 3-7. In all which places justification and sanctification are joined (as they are certainly and constantly in all that partake of them), unworthiness in the receivers overcome and passed over by the grace of the Giver, and the interest of Jesus Christ, in God's giving and in His people's receiving of both these blessings, is plainly told us."

Holiness so far from being the cause of salvation is a part of it : " He shall be called Jesus because He shall save His people from their sins." Sin is that body of death from which we are delivered by the effectual operations of the Spirit of Christ. Hence, it is perfectly ridiculous to represent works as conditions of salvation, since the ability and disposition to perform good works are blessings which we receive from our Saviour in fulfillment of his office as Redeemer. Holiness is a benefit received, and not a price paid; it is our meetness for heaven, not our title to it. " Gospel justification," says the Rev. Robert Bragge, " is a change of state and condition in the eye of the law and the lawgiver, whereas Gospel sanctification is a blessed con- formity of heart and life to the law or will of tlie lawgiver. The first is a relative change from being guilty to be ri2,lit- eous; the other is a real change from being filthy to be holy. By the one we are made near to God, by the other we are made like Him. By being justified, of aliens we are made children ; by being sanctified, the enmity of the heart is slain, and the sinner made not only a faithful, loyal sub- ject, but a loving, dutiful child. This may be set in the

390 ANTINOMIANISM.

clearest light by the following simile : Our children, the clay they are born, are as much our children as they are ever after, but they are many years growing up into a state of manhood ; their likeness to us as it respects the mind as well as the body is daily increasing. Thus a king's first- born son is heir-apparent to the crown while lying in the cradle ; after-growth adds nothing to his title, but it does to his fitness to govern, and succeed his father. Our right to heaven comes not in at the door of our sanctification, but at that of our justification ; but our meetness for heaven does. By Christ's righteousness, it being upon us, we have a right to the inheritance, and by Christ's image, it being drawn upon us, we have our meetness."

Those who are anxious to see an elaborate and very able effort to reconcile the doctrine of justification by works with the grace of God as revealed in the Gospel will find ample satisfaction in the " Harmonia Apostoliea" of Bishop Bull. If my limits allowed, I would present an abstract of the work for the purpose of exposing the radical error which pervades the whole system. The Bishop inveighs severely against Pelagianism and those works which are done by the power of nature Avithout the grace of Christ, and denies that even our evangelical obedience possesses any merit in itself; all its value is derived from the merit of Christ. Christ merited, not that we might merit by our works but that we might obtain. We have no strength in ourselves to do good works. This we derive from grace, but the efficacy of grace depends entirely upon our own wills. Now the reigning error of Arminianism, Pelagianism and this Neo- nomianism — for they are all substantially the same, they rest upon identically the same principle — is an utter disregard of the true Scripture doctrine of grace, and a fatal misap- prehension of the present condition of man in the sight of God. The friends of these sj'stems will all admit that a man is justified by grace, but when they undertake to explain their meaning, " grace is no more grace."

The source of the error in many minds is the unfounded

ANTINOMIAXISM. 391

notion that grace is whatever is opposed to merit. They judge of the former by comparing it with the latter, and hence they suppose that they are contending for salvation by grace when they arc only denying salvation by merit. According to the conceptions which we usually frame of merit in our intercourse Avith one another, it is impossible that man can deserve anything at the hands of his Maker. Wrapped in the blessedness and immensity of His own nature, the Eternal Jehovah stands in no need of any ser- vices from us, and our constant dependence upon His benev- olence and bounty for all the blessings which we enjoy renders our holiest obedience nothing more than a suitable expression of gratitude. Vie only give Him of His own. The purest angels that surround His throne strictly and properly speaking deserve nothing at His hands ; their joy and blessedness are nothing but the results of unrestrained loving-kindness on His part. To suppose that man can merit any of the blessings of God is just to suppose that the obedience of man is a full equivalent for the favour of his Creator — that it constitutes a value received, an actual bene- fit, which God is under a moral obligation to acknowledge. If grace, then, is only that which is opposed to merit, such a thing as salvation by grace in distinction from any other scheme is utterly impossible. The necessary relations sub- sisting between the creature and the Creator preclude for ever, even from the holiest, the most remote approximations to merit. Hence, every scheme of justification would stand u])on the same footing on the score of grace, and one could no more be said to be of grace than another. If Adam had kept his first estate, and secured the fulfillment of the promise to him and his posterity, he would have been just as far from meritwg eternal life as the sinner redeemed by Christ, and consequently, according to this absurd conception of the matter, w^ould have been just as much saved by grace. We are not, then, to look into the antithesis of merit for just conceptions of grace. The Scriptures nowhere speak of the merit of the creature. This idea, unknown to the holv and

392 ANTINOMIANISM.

the goodj is to be found only in the hearts of the ruined and the lost. Its only lodgment is in that cage of unclean birds, the unsanctified heart of man. Strange that the wretch who is so far from God, who is dead in trespasses and sins, should enhance his guilt by inflated conceptions of worth ! " Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie." To what, then, do the Scripture oppose grace ? To works, to works of law. Grace is the opposite of legal obedience. Justification by grace is justification without tho deeds of the law. Salvation by grace is salvation which is not of works. *' Being justified freely by grace" is used a.s synonymous with " being justified by faith without the deeds of the law," (Rom. iii. 24, 28.) Grace and works are clearl}' opposed in Rom. xi. 6 : " And if by grace, then is it no more of works ; otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of Avorks, then is it no more grace ; otherwise work is no more work." Also in Eph. ii. 8, 9 : " For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God : not of works, lest any man should boast." The nature of a legal dispensation, or a state of proper probation, is that it is one in which God promises eternal life upon condition of obedience to be rendered to a specified law. The very essence of such a state consists in the prescription of conditions. To prescribe the con- dition is purely an act of sovereignty and grace ; to bestow the blessing when the condition has been fulfilled is an act of faithfulness arising only from the obligation which God by His promise has imposed upon Himself. In this way, and in this way only, a Divine blessing may become a matter not of merit, but of debt. Rom. iv. 4 : " Now, to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of del)t." It is due to the obedient by the Divine promise.

Any plan of salvation, therefore, which lays down any- thing to be done by man, no matter what and no matter Itow, whether with or without the assistance of Divine grace as a condition of the Divine favour, is a legal plan, and

ANTINOMIANISM. 393

rests upon the same fundamental principle, and is precisely of the same essential nature with the scheme on which the hopes of the race were suspended before the Fall. By a condition is meant that for sake of which the blessing is bestowed, that to which it is promised, and without Avhich it would not be bestowed. It is not a value received for the blessing, or a strict and literal equivalent ; the blessing becomes due to it only by the grace and sovereign appoint- ment of God. The term condition is sometimes employed to express that which is prior in the order of nature or of time. In this sense it is what Boston calls a condition of connection; it denotes that one of them must take place before another in consequence of their connection in the scheme of grace. Thus, in this sense, faith is a condition of justification ; not that it is a something to be done, for the sake of which we are justified, but we must be united to Christ before we can become partakers of his everlast- ing righteousness. Holiness is a condition of seeing God ; it is necessary to the full enjoyment of the beatific vision. The successive rounds in the ladder must be passed before we can reach the top. W^hen used in this sense, the word condition conveys no dangerous idea, but as an ambiguous word liable to be abused it should be laid aside by all sound ministers of the Gospel.

If, tlien, God has made our salvation dependent upon any- thing to be performed by us, it is not a matter of grace, but of works. The notion that legalism is avoided by ascribing our power to comply with the conditions to the grace of God is a mere evasion of the difficulty. A legal dispensation necessarily supposes power in its subjects to comply with its requirements. We would instinctively revolt at the tyranny involved in the supposition that Adam was destitute of the power necessary to fulfil the condition of the Covenant of Works. It is hardly conceivable that God would make a covenant with man, and solemnly ratify it, without giving man the power to obey its requirements. It signifies little whether this power come from nature or from grace (in

394 ANTINOMIANISM.

either case it is from God) ; man must have it before he can be the subject or the party of a legal covenant. Neither is the principle affected by the thing required to be done; Avhether it be obedience to the whole moral law, or only sincere obedience, or only faith, repentance and perseverance which are required, something is to he done — a condition is prescribed — and God's favour ultimately turns upon man's will. The principle of works is as fully recognized in a mild law as in a strict one. He as truly buys who pays only Si farthing as he who j)ays a thousand pounds. If these prin- ciples are correct, the Arminianism of Bishop Bull and Baxter, and all who coincide wath them, is common ground with barefaced Pelagianism. There is no medium in prin- ciple between Pelagianism and Calvinism. Man is either not under a legal dispensation at all, or there is no sucli thing as salvation by grace. Man is saved either by works or not by Avorks. There is no halfway ground, and all the eflPorts to find one have proved unsuccessful. Calvinists maintain that man is not in a state of legal probation — that he is condemned already ; destitute of life and power, and therefore incapable of being the party to a legal covenant, and that God has never qualified him by grace to become so. He is under the curse of such a covenant, and therefore cannot hope for its blessing. He is delivered from the guilt and dominion of sin by the power and grace of a Redeemer. Being destitute of all things in himself, he is justified by the righteousness of another and sanctified by the Spirit of another. Salvation, as a harmonious whole embracing par- don, acceptance, adoption, peace, holiness and everlasting joy, is the free gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. This is our testimony. In the faith of these principles w*^ Avould live and die, and consequently we would glory in nothins: but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is all our " salvation and all our desire."

PREFATOEY NOTE

The article on Christian Effort was written as a sermon on Philii>- pians i. 27 : " Only let your conversation be as it becometh the Gospel of Christ, that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the Gospel." But there is no record of its having ever been preached. The handwriting makes manifest that it was one of the author's earlier productions. It is placed here as properly follow- ing and applying the principles of the Doctrines of Grace set forth in the previous portions of this volume.

395

CHRISTIAN EFFORT.

THE life of the Christian is not a life of inactivity and ease. He becomes the servant of God by receiving the Lord Jesus Christ, and is sent into his Master's vineyard for the purpose of working for his Master's glory. The Apostle, in Philippians i. 27, gives us a brief but comjire- hensive description of the work which the Christian is required to do and the manner in which it should be done.

I. The follo^vers of Christ must " strive together for the liiith of the Gospel." This is their business — their duty — their Master's work which they must perform. The faith of the Gospel may mean only that particular feature of the Gospel which relates to justification, or all the doctrines and ])recepts of the Gospel taken together as a whole. It is a matter of very little consequence which interpretation we adopt, as they both come to the same thing at last. There can be no cordial acceptance of Christ for righteousness with- out a cordial acceptance of Him for sanctifi cation. He can- not be divided. No man can receive Him as a priest who does not at the same time receive Him as a king. The general idea of the Apostle, therefore, is that Christians should strive together for the purpose of promoting the suc- cess of the Gospel in themselves and others. Here, then, are two important objects held up before the Christian, demand- ino- his efforts, and tliese are, The sanctification of believers and The conversion of sinners. The Gospel is not the poAver of God to salvation until it is cordially received and cheer- fully obeyed, and it is the business of the Christian to strive

397

398 CHRISTIAN EFFORT.

that it may liave free course in his own heart, the hearts of his fellow-disciples and the world lying in wickedness.

1 . His own heart is the first theatre of his efforts. If he be really the servant of Christ, it must be his supreme desire to glorify his Father in heaven by a Avell-ordered life and godly conversation. He cannot be content with a bare hope that he has passed from darkness to light, but he strives and prays and labours that the body of sin may be mortified in him, and that he may day by day become more conformed to the image of Christ. His regard is fixed on holiness, his hatred is directed against sin, and he can neither be content nor at rest until he is freed from every vestige of corruption and indwelling sin, which will only be when he awakes from the sleep of death in his Redeemer's likeness. " I shall be satisfied," says David, " when I awake in Thy likeness." Sanctification, progressive growth in grace, and the having his light shine brighter and brighter until the perfect day he knows is his privilege, secured to him in the Covenant of Grace, and he shows by his eflforts and evinces by his life that he feels it to be a sweet, delightful, precious privilege. Such are the Christian's views of his own heart, such his regard for the glory of God and the beauty of holiness, that he cannot intermit or relax his eiforts so long as the deceit- fulness of the one distresses or the loveliness of the other allures him. Now this holiness of heart can be obtained only through the faith of the Gospel. Christ by His Spirit sanctifies the soul, and the Christian must be found resting upon Christ and looking to Christ for every blessing of the Covenant of Grace. " Without Me ye can do nothing;" and hence the faith of tlie Gospel is peculiarly dear to him who hungers and thirsts for holiness of heart. There alone we see our strength — that strength of Christ which is imparted to us through the medium of faith.

2. The edification of the body of Christ is another field of important effort presented to the Christian. The believer is not to be viewed merely as a solitary individual ; he is a member of a great and glorious community, and his efforts

CHRISTIAN EFFORT. 399

must be aimed at the welfare of that whole community on earth as well as of himself. He must look not on his own things alone, but on those of others. The good of the visi- ble Church would be much more extensively promoted if each individual member could be brought to feel more deeply his own personal responsibility to labour for its wel- fare. The Church is the light of the world, and upon the conduct of every professing Christian much depends in regard to the brilliancy or dimness with which that light shall shine. There should be no spots in this moral sun. Now, if each Christian should keep the good and holiness of his own brethren in the Lord prominently in view as an object of his efforts, there would and could not be dissen- sions and animosities, coldness and lukewarmness in the Church. There would be a delightful scene of perpetual revival. It ought, then, to be an object of anxious effort with every follow^er of Christ that all his brethren might daily grow in grace and in the knoAvledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And for this end there ought to be a mutual striving together for the faith of the Gospel. The sanctification of every believer is accomplished by the same glorious Agent, and His influences are received by all through the same medium.

3. The conversion of sinners is another oliject of effort which the sincere Christian should never forget. The world is lying in wickedness, under the wrath and curse of God's violated law. The impenitent are daily and hourly in dan- ger of experiencing the realities of an undone eternity. They are already under the condemnation of a holy law, and the short season of their reprieve is the only period wdiich they have of obtaining pardon and securing eternal life. The only possible mode of salvation is through the faith of the Gospel. " There is no other name given under heaven or amongst men whereby we must be saved" but the name of Jesus. "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned." Unless the siimer, therefore, can be rendered obedient to

400 CHRISTIAN EFFORT.

the faith of the Gospel, he must be lost ; there is no hope l)ut in tlie Lord Jesus Christ ; and if he reject the Saviour there " reniaineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a certain fear- ful looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries." It should, therefore, be a promi- nent object of effort among Christians to bring the Gospel to bear with powerful effect upon the ungodly and disobe- dient. They should labour and pray and live with special i^ieference to the case of those who are blinded by the god of this world and led captive by the Devil at his will. They should regard themselves as " workers together with God," as humble instruments in His hand of reclaiming a lost and perishing world to its proper allegiance. He that saveth a soul from death hideth a multitude of sins.

In striving, then, for tlie faith of the Gospel, the promi- nent objects before the mind of the Cliristian are the sanc- tification of believers and the conversion of sinners. These are the great purposes which the Gospel is intended to pro- mote, and let it be remembered that nothing will promote these purposes but the Gospel. We cannot expect that God will bless anything but His own truth, and "philoso- phy and vain deceit" palmed off upon men under the specious pretence of Divine revelation will prove utterly unavailing in the edification of Christ's mystical body, or in alarming and converting the impenitent and careless. A healthy and vigorous Christian character can be formed only by feeding on the solid and substantial food of uncor- rupted truth. Not by any means that the truth has any sanctifying power in itself. All its efficacy depends on the accompanying operations of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will accompany notliing but Plis own Word. Just in proportion as the true faith of the Gospel, the pure doctrines and precepts of Christ are enforced and inculcated by the life and efforts of professors of religion, just in the same pro- portion will the Church be edified and sinners born into the kingdom of heaven. Hence, the duty of "striving together for tlie faith of the Gospel" is solemn and imperative ; it

CHRISTIAN EFFORT, 401

is no less than striving for the salvation of lost, helpless, immortal souls. It is striving to establish the reign and authority of Christ upon the ruins of sin, iniquity and rebellion. It is no less than striving to open the eyes of the blind, unstop the ears of the deaf, and knock the fet- ters from the hands of the captive and set the prisoner free. II. Having now stated the leading objects of Christian effort, the next thing to be noticed is the manner in which that effort should be put forth. And in the first place — 1. Christians should strive xcith earnestness. This charac- teristic of their efforts is implied in the term which the Apostle uses, and which our translators have rendered strive. It is a term descriptive of athletic exercises, and is manifestly borrowed from the Grecian games, in which the wrestlers exerted all their might against each other. We are required, then, by the Apostle to wrestle for the faith of the Gospel — to exert ourselves with as much intensity and earnestness as the wrestlers at the Grecian games. The ardour of pursuit ought to bear some reasonable proportion to the value of success. Great results should be sought with great industry. And what result is so grand and glorious as the salvation of the soul? Heaven or hell, life or death, eternal life or eternal death, depends upon the reception which is given to the Gospel ; and if there is anything terrible in hell or desirable in heaven, if the inte- rests of eternity are matters of supreme importance, if the frown of God is above all things to be dreaded, and the smile of God above all things to be won, then the efforts put forth in the salvation of the soul ought to be deep, intense and powerful. There should be no trifling here ; our all is at stake, and at stake for eternity. Who can think without emotion of the bare possibility that he or his friends may be damned for ever ? and yet who does not know that this must be the case unless a cordial obedience is rendered to the Gospel ? The Christian looks around upon sinners, he sees the storm of Divine wrath gathering fearfully above them, there is a burning gulf beneatli them,

Vol. II.— 26

402 CHRISTIAN EFFORT.

and they are fast asleep upon its very edge ; in a moment they may be lost eternally, and shall he not strive to awake them — strive with an intensity and earnestness proportioned to their danger ? Oh if there be an object which from its intrinsic value and tremendous results ought to call forth all the energies of the soul in strong and mighty exercise, it is the fiiith of the Gospel. If there be anything in the whole universe of God that is worth contending for, it is the salvation of the soul, " Therefore, let us not sleep as do others;" let all who are called Christians awake, let them strive as one man with all possible intensity of effort for the furtherance of the Gospel in the conversion of the world. Here is a commanding object requiring com- manding energy. Soldiers of the cross ! shall we sleep at our posts, and while we are at ease in Zion shall our fel- low-men around us sink into the torments of hell ? How terrible is the idea that one soul should be lost, and lost for ever, through a criminal neglect in us !

2. Unanimity is another characteristic of Christian effort which is quite essential to success. When the Holy Ghost was poured out on the memorable day of Pentecost, it is particularly recorded that the disciples were with one accord in one place, and the text requires that Christians should with one mind strive for the faith of the Gospel. When there are dissensions and animosities in the Church, the moral influence of the saints is distressingly weakened ; nay, these unhappy divisions very often exert an influence decidedly against the cause of Christ. And the existence of such a state of things is alleged by the Apostle as a manifest proof of carnality among the Corinthian professors.

Christians have strong and powerful motives to unanimity of effort. They have been redeemed by a common Saviour, regenerated by a common Spirit ; they are animated by a common hope and are striving for a common end. Why then should they fall out by the way ? Why should they wound the Saviour in the house of His friends by their wranglings and animosities? They may differ in their

CHRISTIAN EFFORT. 403

views on some points, but they should not permit these dif- ferences to distract their efforts and mar their success in the grand object of converting the world. They have an im- portant work to do, and it too often happens that when they ought to be working they are only quarrelling. Instead of aiding, abetting and assisting each other in bringing the Gospel to bear upon the hearts of sinners, they are too often found weakenino; each other's hands and hardening^ the hearts of the impenitent against the overtures of grace. There should be one mind, one spirit among Christians, and that the Spirit of their Master — a spirit of active benevolence and persevering effort for the glory of God and the salvation of men. They ought to feel the solemnity and importance of their business, and then there would be little disposition to wrangle with each other. These remarks are not designed to intimate that Christians should not resist, and resist with firmness, every effort to corrupt the purity of the Church in doctrine and in discipline : such resistance is actually striving for the faith of the Gospel. All that I mean is that private and personal differences should not be indulged by the pro- fessors of a common religion and the followers of a com- mon Saviour. Soldiers should act together on the field of battle. Union is strength in religion as well as in every- thing else.

3. Steadfastness and regularity of effort are also necessary. What I mean by this is, that Christians should not be flighty and unsteady in the exertions which they put forth for the faith of the Gospel, at one time boiling over with zeal, at another frozen up with indifference ; now earnest and engaged for the salvation of souls, and now as careless as though there were no souls to save. This irregularity in their exertions for the faith of the Gospel has a decided tendency to throw a shade over their own personal piety ; it destroys, by a necessary consequence, their influence in the world, and it defeats the very object at which the Christian professes to be aiming — the success and furtherance of the Gospel. The light of the Christian should be a steady and uniform light. Cases

404 CHRISTIAN EFFORT.

sometimes happen in which a whole church becomes cold and careless and lifeless, and continues so for a considerable length of time, and then suddenly bursts forth, as if by vol- canic action, and puts forth deep, protracted and earnest efforts for the faith of the Gospel, and subsequently relapses to the same state of lukewarm indifference. Such successions of heat and cold make up the whole history of some congre- o-ations, and the reason is to be found in the unsteadiness and irregularity of Christian effort. The followers of Christ ought always to be impressed with a deep sense of the trans- cendent importance of those objects for which they are striving; they should feel their value to the race, and then there would not and could not be those dreary stages of relaxed exertion which too often occur in the history of the Church. Christians become cold and careless only when eternity is out of view and the value of the soul forgotten. The advice of the Apostle requires them to stand steadfast in one spirit, striving together for the faith of the Gospel. They were not to be blown about by every wind of doctrine or every gust of feeling, but they were to have correct appre- hensions of their Master's business, and then to exert them- selves with earnest, intense, united and steady efforts for the success and honour of His name. Their efforts were not to be flighty, but uniform ; not irregular, but constant ; not heartless, but powerful ; and by such efforts they might well expect to advance their Master's cause and glorify their Master's name.

4. The above considerations have suggested the general characteristics of the manner of those efforts which Christians are required to put forth for the faith of the Gospel. But they have determined nothing in regard to the nature of the efforts themselves. Very bad measures may be adopted for advancing the cause of Christ, and yet professing Christians be very earnest, unanimous, steady and decided in pushing them on. These features may be found in the exertions of errorists and fanatics as well as in those of humble and sin- cere followers of the blessed Saviour. The next reflection,

CHRISTIAN EFFORT. 405

therefore, that I would present, is that the measures which Christians adopt should be such as become the Gospel of Christ. The spirit of the world should not be suffered to appear in the bosom of the Church. Our weapons are not carnal, but spiritual. The religion of Jesus demands a pecu- liar temper, and that temper ought to be observable in all the movements of His disciples in striving for the faith of the Gospel. " But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temper- ance." " For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth."

In these days of morbid excitement and reckless enthusi- asm there prevails, in some quarters of the Church, a melan- choly disposition to receive a counterfeit spirit for the temper of Christ. Measures are adopted and encouraged and de- fended which manifest more of the cunning and dexterity of worldly-minded policy than the honest simplicity of an unsophisticated Christian. Men are trapped into the Church. A course of committal, or rather of efforts to make them commit themselves, is pursued, which does not indicate the simplicity of the Gospel. " Only let your conversation be as becometh the Gospel of Christ." The censorious spirit which is indulged toward those who are not willing to be duped into a ready acquiescence with these unauthorized measures shows but too plainly the source from which they spring. In all our efforts, then, to promote and strive for the faith of the Gospel, let nothing be done in a spirit which the Gospel must condemn. Let all our measures be charac- terized by that honest simplicity and unsophisticated charity which are so conspicuously manifest in the character of Jesus. Let there be no breach of that decency, sobriety, dignity and decorum which become us no less as men than as Christians. And in our universal deportment let the world see the natural influence of the Gospel when cordially received and cheerfully obeyed. The Gospel can be lived as well as preached — enforced by the life as well as from the desk. Cultivating, then, the Spirit of Christ, let us put forth our

40() CHRISTIAN EFFORT.

efforts earnestly, unanimously, steadily and firmly in striving together for the faith of the Gospel.

5. Everything should be done, however, under a sense of deep and entire dependence upon God for success. Paul may plant and Apollos water, but God alone can give the increase. He alone has power to convert or sanctify tlie soul. All the help of man, all our earnest, warm and per- severing- efforts to alarm and awaken the sinner and lead him to the Saviour, will be utterly unavailing unless the Spirit of God should accompany the truth with His gracious and saving operations. The truth of itself can do nothing at all in the way of a saving work, but it is mighty when wielded by the Spirit and driven home upon a heart pre- paretl by the Spirit to receive it. The agency of the Holy Spirit is a fact which, in the fullness of our arrogance and })ride, we are shamefully prone to forget. It is an humbling doctinne, but then the Christian must keep it in view, and liave his eyes continually directed to that Agent if he would be successful in his efforts for the furtherance of the Gospel. The Holy Spirit must have the glory of His own work ; and if we assume to ourselves and ascribe to our own doings what belongs only to Him, we may expect leanness and bar- renness and miserable disappointment until Ave shall Iiave learned the true source of all spiritual strength.

All our Christian efforts, therefore, should be carried on in a spirit of dependence upon God. The blessing of His Holy Spirit must be continually invoked, as that alone whicli can give efficiency and success to the movements of the Church. *' The excellency is of God and not of men." It is God's Avork and not ours, and we should not dare to assume the glory to oui*selves.

We have now seen the great ends for Avhich a Christian should vStrive, the maimer in which he should strive, and, in conclusion, it might be Avell to suggest a few considerations showing the necessity of striving. The believer in Christ becomes a servant of Christ : " Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price;" and it is surely the part of au

CHRISTIAN EFFORT. 407

affectionate and faithful servant to feel a strong attachment to the interests of his master. Shall not the Christian, then, labour in the Lord's vineyard with all possible dili- gence and industry ? Shall he not be deeply concerned for his Master's cause, and exert all his powers and energies in carrj'ing it onward? We are not our own. Our great business is to labour for Christ, for heaven, for eternity. We have no right to consult ease and comfort and self- indulgence. We are the Lord's, and His glory is the great end which we should ever have in view.

The consequences which depend upon our efforts are tremendous. Sinners are in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity, under the wrath of God and the curse of a holy law, and there is no possible way of escape but in the faith of the Gospel.

If Christians, then, value the souls of their fellow-men, if they look upon salvation as a matter of eternal moment, considerations of humanity, independently of any regard to the glory of God, would urge them to labour and toil and pray and strive for the success of the Gospel. It is the only hope of a sinking world ; it is in the hands of Chris- tians, and they are required to proclaim its glad tidings of hope and pardon and mercy to every creature. Shall they not strive, then, with earnest, unanimous, steady, persever- ing efforts for the recovery of their race ? Is there a man who professes to have the spirit of the Saviour that would wish to be exempt from a work like this? Is there one who would excuse himself from the delightful task of hastening on the latter-day glory of the Church ? This is an age of great enterprises. None are too humble or too poor to labour for the Saviour. All have some influence, all have some work assigned them, and it is the duty of all to be just in that part of the field which the Redeemer has allotted to them. May we all be found of Him in well- doing— faithful, laborious and devoted servants, such as the Lord will delight to honour !

PEEFATOKY NOTE.

The discourse on The Sacrifice of Christ the Type and Model of Missionary Effort, still more fully than the preceding one on Christian Effort, forms a suitable conclusion and application of the Doctrines of Grace, and is therefore inserted here at the close of their discussion. The former portion of it covers briefly the same ground as the Discoui'se on the Priesthood of Christ, but the reader will not object to perusing again, in a somewhat ditlerent form, that which, we are sure, will be found both edifying and comforting.

This Discourse was a sermon preached by appointment of the Board of Foreign Missions of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (Old School), in the First Pres- byterian Church, New York, on Sabbath, May 18, 1856, and was pub- lished by order of the General Assembly.

The text of the sermon was, "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father." John x. 17, 18.

It was this sermon respecting which Dr. Addison Alexander, who was

a hearer of it, remarked to a friend that it was as fine a specimen of

Demosthenian eloquence as he had ever heard from the pulpit, and that

it realized his idea of what preaching should be. It is pleasant to record

this tribute from one eminent scholar and pi-eacher to another, honourable

alike to both.

409

THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST

THE

TYPE AND MODEL OF MISSIONARY EFFORT.

rnmS passage (John x. 17, 18), so rich, is yet so awful and -L mysterious that it is not without fear and trembling I have ventured to make it the subject of discussion. It pierces the depths of eternity and lays bare the counsel of peace betwixt the Father and the Son. The " command- ment " of which it speaks is nothing more nor less than the commission to the Son to be the Saviour of the world — a commission to which allusion is frequently made in the Scriptures under the emphatic designation of the will of God. " For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own Avill, but the will of Him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which He hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of Him that sent me, that every one that seeth the Son, and believeth in Him, may have everlasting life ; and I will raise him up at the last day." To the same "commandment" or commission concerning the redemption of men the Psalmist refers when he introduces the Son as exclaiming : " Lo, I come ; in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do Thy will, O my God ; yea. Thy law is within my heart ;" and it is to the infinite satisfaction which Jesus took in the execution of the trust that He Himself refers in the memor-

411

412 THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST

able words : " My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work." This is the will which was supreme with Him in the garden of Gethsemaue, and nerved His soul for the horrors of the cross ; the will for which He was born, for which He died, for which He rose again, for which He lives and reigns — the rule and meas- ure, in a single word, of the mediatorial economy.

What is particularly remarkable in the text is the light which it throws upon the nature of the trust. Though styled a will, a commandment, a commission, it is not so much an authoritative law as the accepted condition of a voluntary compact. It binds, not by virtue of a right to command, but by virtue of a consent to obey. The Saviour appears not as a subject, but a prince, an equal party to a high and sovereign treaty. He claims complete jurisdic- tion of Himself: " I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself." These words bear the bur- den of the Godhead ; no creature could sustain their weight. Jesus here asserts to Himself the essential independence which separates contingent from necessary being, and appro- priates that intrinsic immortality which belongs exclusively to Him who lifts His hand to heaven, and says, I live for ever. They are words which none can consistently employ but He who is God over all and blessed for evermore, and may therefore be accepted as an unequivocal testimony that as the Father hath life in Himself, so, by the mysterious communication of His essence, hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself. The absolute sovereignty which Jesus assumes to Himself can be reconciled with no hypothesis short of the acknowledgment that He is the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords. The natural import of His language is : "I have received a commission from my Father, not as a dependent subject in whom it would be treason to have an independent thought, but as a free and an equal party whose only law is in Him- self; and though it is not possible that there can be any

THE TYPE AND MODEL OF MISSIONARY EFFORT. 413

discordancy betwixt the Father and myself, yet the harmony is not obedience, but concurrence — the result not of a sense of duty, but of unity of nature. My acceptance of the trust is not the necessary allegiance of a creature, but the volun- tary consent of a sovereign. The redemption of the world is not a task imposed upon me as the expression of a supe- rior will which leaves me no liberty to decline, but a work cheerfully assumed, deriving all its obligation from my own cordial assent. It is not a command which, as a servant, I am bound to obey, but a treaty to which, in the depths of eternity, I have plighted my princely faith." This para- phrase which I have ventured to put into the mouth of the Saviour accords precisely with the prevailing tenor of the Scriptures. You cannot fail to recall that exquisite passage in the Psalms already recited, in which, when sacrifices and offerings were pronounced unavailing, and among all the myriads of creatures none could be found to expiate guilt or ransom from the grave — when from the tallest seraph to the humblest beast all were alike unable to take away sin — the Son is introduced as saying from the fullness of His own heart and the exuberance of His own grace, Lo, I come. He did not wait to be commanded. The purpose which heaved in the Father's bosom swelled in His own. It was the common love of a common nature, as free, as cordial, as sovereign in the consent of the Son as in the orio-inal con- caption and proposal of the Father. The whole transaction was a covenant of grace — the only covenant which God ever made in which the parties were equal, the only covenant in which there was no penalty, in which the sovereign faith of the agents was ample security for the fulfilment of the terms. The commission having been accepted, the execution of it necessarily involved relations in which He would have to become a subject and render the obedience of a creature to law. But the act which introduced Him into these rela- tions, the first step in the stupendous enterprise, was sove- reign, free, independent. He was the master of Himself. The text asserts that precisely because He was the master

414 THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST

of Himself, the disposition which He made of Himself ren- dered Him, in a peculiar sense, the object of the Father's regard. Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life that I might take it again. This passage is very remarkable ; it seems to intimate that, in these acts of Jesus — the laying down and the taking of His life again — there was something so glorious as to comprehend all His claims to attention within itself; a brightness which hid the perfections of His nature and being, displayed in other works, as the sjilendour of the sun conceals the lustre of the stars. The other glories of His name had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excelleth. It is a sublime tribute to the death and resurrection of Jesus that they are singled out as the special grounds of Divine complacency and delight. They include within themselves every other motive of love. Here the rays of His excellence are concentrated and a per- fect image is reflected. Here the Father beholds Him in a work which expresses the fullness of His being, which gives scope for all the energies and illustrates all the perfections of His nature — which declares Him to be the Son of God with power. Here His Deity appears in full-orbed radiance as Deity in action. Nowhere else can the Son be seen in all the intensity of His glory, and well may He say : Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I may take it again. My brethren, if I can in any measure extract the spirit of this j)assage and present it before you in the light in which it has impressed my own mind, I shall not need to say a word in furtherance of tlie cause which I have been appointed to plead. It will then speak for itself, and its appeals to the Christian heart will be as resistless and constraining as the love of Christ. The point to which I wish to call your attention is the connection indicated by the illative " therefore," betwixt the laying down and the taking again of the life of Jesus, and the peculiar complacency and approbation of the Father — how it is that these acts of His so illustriously display His glory, and absorb Avithin themselves all the grounds of the Father's love.

THE TYPE AND MODEL OF MISSIONARY EFFORT. 415

In estimating these events we must obviously penetrate beyond the surface. xVs the transaction is exhibited to the eye of sense, there is nothing in the death of Jesus to justify the claim to a complete jurisdiction of Himself so clearly asserted in the text. He seems to be the passive and help- less victim of violence and hate. He was taken and by wicked hands crucified and slain. And to look merely at the circumstances of His trial as they lie upon the face of the record, one would be inclined to suspect that there was much more pretext for the jeering exultation, " He saved others — Himself He cannot save," than for the lofty preroga- tive of sovereignty : " My life is my own, I lay it down of myself, no man taketh it from me, I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." It is evident that there must be more here than meets the eye — an interior work, in which Jesus Himself was the actor, in which the Ro- man soldiers and the cross were but the outward instruments. The phraseology of the text puts it beyond doubt that while Jewish malignity was consummating its scheme of disap- pointment and revenge, Christ also was engaged in an enter- prise of very different character, in which He could be truly said to lay down His life of Himself. The scenes in which man figured were but the outer court of the transaction ; an auo-ust mvsterv was enshrined within. Significant intima- tions of something awful and sublime, in which Jesus was conspicuously the agent, veiled beneath the tragedy which human infatuation was enacting, were afforded in the display of more than mortal power which preceded the arrest, when the band that came to apprehend Him " went backward and fell to the ground," and in His own distinct recognition of the cup, which, in pursuance of the will He had undertaken to execute, the Father had given Him to drink. We here see that His submission was voluntary — that man had no power over Him, except as it was given by Himself At the very time when He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is dumb so He opened not His mouth, He could have prayed to the Father and received an

416 THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST

army of more than twelve legions of angels for His rescue. He had but to speak, and every arm uj)lifted against Him would have fallen palsied by the side of its possessor. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled, that thus it must be ; the commandment He received from the Father must be accom- plished— His covenant-engagements must be kept. He gave Himself up to men, and while the scourge, the thorns and the nails, the ostensible instruments of His death, were doing their office, there was passing in the mysteries of His own being a stupendous transaction which filled heaven with wonder and hell with dismay, — that " laying down of His life " as its sovereign proprietor, which, when adequately understood, extorts the confession, Truly this Man was the Son of God, and removes all occasion of surprise that there- fore the Father should love Him. It were an idle mockery of language to find nothing more here than patient submis- sion to insult and injury ; and no martyrdom for truth, how- ever sublime and noble, could ever sustain the weight and intensity of the inference, Therefore doth My Father love Me. As Jesus has no rival in His Father's heart, we must obviously seek a sense which will leave Him without a rival in the transaction which justifies the Father's love ; and as the point of admiration is not so much what He endures, but what He does, we must seek a meaning that shall represent Him rather as an heroic actor than an humble and uncom- plaining sufferer.

What, then, is the nature of the act implied in the laying down of His life ? I shall not scruple to assert, whatever other interpretations the language may be capable of bearing, that it is here to be taken in a sacrificial sense. It is this which distinguishes the death of Jesus from the death of every other man. He made His soul an offering for sin. A body was expressly prepared for Him that He might, through the eternal Spirit, present an offering which should really achieve what it was not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could accomplish — the taking away of sins. Interpreted in this sense, the apparent contradictions of the

THE TYPE AND MODEL OF MISSIONARY EFFORT. 417

text are beautifully harmonized. Pic lays down His life, He takes it again, and is as truly alive Avhen He lays it down as when He takes it up. All this is readily explained when we remember that as a priest He ever lives, and that the efficacy of His work is dependent upon the circumstance that He is incapable of death. Plis Divine Person is essen- tially immortal, and that assumption to Itself of the entire nature of man by virtue of which He becomes a priest in- volves a union whicli can never be disturbed. He can never cease to be God and man in two distinct natures and one Person for ever. Pie is a priest after the power of an end- less life. The victim which He offered was His human nature, which was susceptible of death by tlie s<^])aration of its parts, though the union of neither part with the Divine Son could be dissolved. Here, then, tlie Priest, as living, lays down a life upon which death may seize without affecting the integrity of His own being. He lays it down and He takes it again. Both are His own acts, and the inconsistency of attributing to the dead the properties of the living is fnlly resolved. The language, indeed, seems to be accommodated to what we are studiously taught in the Epistle to the He- brews concerning the sacrifice of Christ, and no other expo- sition— none, at least, which divests ITim of either nature — can extricate His words from absurdity or paradox. Plow He could die and yet be ever alive; how, as dead, He could resume a life which supposes Him not to be dead, — these are contradictions which can only be explained by the mystery of the incarnation, in which the union of the natures is main- tained, each in its integrity, without confusion, amalgamation or mixture. The priest lives, the victim dies ; the priest is the actor, the victim the sufferer.

The death of Jesus being distinctively a sacrifice, the ques- tion arises what there is in this aspect of it which entitles Him to such ])re-eminent consideration. It is not a question concerning redemption as an objective work or an outward manifestation of the Divine glory, but concerning the sub- jective states of the Redeemer, the moral influences under

Vol. II.— 27

418 THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST

whicli PIc accomplished it. The spirit of the Agent, and not the result or tendencies of the work, determines His own w^orth. The text implies that the motives which animated Jesus were in the highest degree meritorious ; that great as His achievement unquestionably was, He Himself was still greater ; and whatever moral grandeur it possesses, either in illustrating the perfections of God or ameliorating the pros- pects of man, is to be attributed to the moral grandeur of Himself. The Agent dignifies the work. Now, in what did the moral greatness of Jesus, as exemplified in His death, consist ?

To elucidate this point, all that is necessary is distinctly to apprehend the nature of a sacrifice, which, as to its matter, may be compendiously defined as the satisfaction of the penalty of the law, and, as to its form or specific difference, an act of worship. Guilt expiated by an office of devotion, — this embraces the prominent conceptions. Hence it always imj)lies a Priest, who presents the victim and celebrates the worship. In the death of Christ, therefore, if we would attain to a just conception of the moral excellence reflected by it, we must consider alike the matter and the form — the judicial sentence, and the spirit of religion in which the offering was laid upon the altar. Let us then contemplate, for a moment, the form of His death as an act of worship, evolve the elements of piety which prompted it, and measure their extent and intensity by the trial to which they w'cre subjected.

1. The moral grandeur of the death of Jesus is not a lit- tle enhanced when it is apprehended in its distinctive charac- ter as an act of worship. If we consider it exclusively in the light of a judicial sentence, and detach from the Saviour those active sentiments of ])iety and religion which make him a doer rather than a sufferer, we may understand the principles of moral government which underlie the atone- ment, but we shall fail to appreciate the dignity and glory of Jesus. It is not right to consider Him as the helpless victim of inexorable wrath ; and all the imputations upon

THE TYPE AND MODEL OF MISSIONARY EFFORT. 419

the goodness and clemency of God, which the malice of the human heart has made His vicarious punishment the pre- text of suggesting, are at once dispelled when we enter into His own mind, and sec the spirit of devotion in which He presented His soul as an offering for sin. His satisfaction is not merely the ground upon wliich others are at liberty to approach and adore the Divine perfections ; it is itself a stupendous act of prayer and an amazing tribute of praise. We dare not entertain the thought, even for an instant, that the Father is harsh or vindictive, or tliat a cloud obscures the benevolence of His nature, when the very circumstances which are most revolting in the tragedy of Calvary are ele- ments of a worship which the Son delighted to render, and felt that the Father was glorious in accepting. Considered as an act of worship, there is a majestic awe, a moral sublimity thrown around the death of Jesus, which fails to be impressed when attention is exclusively confined to the legal principles which made it indispensable to the pardon of the guilty. It is invested with a sacredness which makes us pause and adore. Never ^yas there such a doxology as when Jesus died, and the whole work of redemption is a grand litany w^hich has no parallel in the history of the universe. There can be no wonder that the Father should love the Son. Such worshippers are not to be dismissed from the sanctuary, nor such homage lightly esteemed. Never, never was there displayed before, and never, never will there be displayed again, such piety as that which burned in the bosom of Jesus when He laid down His life of Himself.

2. This will appear from considering the principles involved, or those moral elements without which the form of worship degenerates into an idle mockery. The internal feelings of the priest must correspond to the external sig- nificance of the act. His offering must express the sponta- neous sentiments of the heart, or the whole service becomes an empty parade of hypocrisy. Noav, what are the motives which alone could be adequate to prompt to such an under-

420 THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST

taking as the death of Christ, and to prompt to it specilieally in the light of a solemn office of religion ? The first, most obviously, is an intense sense and admiration of the holiness and justice of God, and a corresponding sense and detesta- tion of the sinfulness of sin. This is the very language of a sacrifice, considered in its matter as the expiation of guilt and in its form as an act of worship. If there could have been a cheaper redemption for the race, if sin could have been pardoned at a less expense of suifering and of blood, if any other law could have given righteousness consistently with the integrity of the Divine character, we can hardly conceive that Jesus should have consented to experience gratuitous pain ; and mucli less can we comprehend how He could have rendered a tribute of worship to the Father on the ground of an exaction which could not be vindicated from the charge of cruelty. The strongest argument to me for the necessity of the atonement is that Jesus died in the spirit of devotion. When I consider His soul as a pious offering, and then reflect that He celebrates the grace and the condescension of God in accepting the gift ; when I consider the extent and severity of His sufferings^ aud then remem- ber that all were endured to express to the universe His sense of tlie Divine holiness, I ask no more : I am satisfied that thus it must be — that without the shedding of this pre- cious blood there could be no remission. So intense was His conviction that His death was indispensable to the righteous pardon of the guilty that He seems to have cov- eted the cross, and to have been straitened for Plis baptism of blood. He could not brook the thought that man should be saved at the peril of the Divine glory, and whatever His Father's honour demanded He was pre})ared to render at any cost of self-denial to Himself. Our finite minds are incapable of conceiving the extent to which the principle of holiness, the principle of supreme regard for the charac- ter of God, energized Mithin Him when He made His soul an offering for sin ; and when I figure to myself the scene, and undertake to penetrate into the workings and

THE TYPE AND MODEL OF MISSIONARY EFFORT. 421

emotions of the Saviour's heart, I am irresistibly impressed with the conviction that nothing short of the Divine nature could have been the dwelling-place of such zeal. I see not so much an admiration of the holiness of God as the ener- gies of that holiness itself I see the Father reflected in the Son. The piety of the Priest flows from a fountain of inexhaustible fullness. I feel that death Avas to Jesus not so much a penalty inflicted as an offering accepted — rather a favour than a curse. It was His commentary upon the Divine honour, and cuutemplated in this light all that was revolting and terrible — His groans, amazement, agony and horror, His strong crying and tears — all lose their harshness, except as marking the malignity of sin, and become expres- sions of love and piety and zeal. I forget the sufferer in the actor, and enter into that awful reverence for God which invests the cross with the sanctities of worship and converts its shame into glory. I feel the moral sublimity of the scene. The beauty of holiness gilds its terrors. I am at no loss to understand that the Father should love the Son because He laid down His life of Himself.

But, secondly, sacrifice expresses, with equal perspicuity, the sentiment of pity for man. Here is the mystery of grace. It is not strange that God should be loved with all the full- ness of the Saviour's being, but it is strange that our fallen race should be made the object of a condescension which our capacities are incompetent to measure. The philosopher finds mysteries in nature. His inquiries begin with the incomprehensible, and end by attributing an equal wonder to all the phenomena of life. The department of grace is, in this respect, a perfect counterpart to that of nature. All is wonderful, but that which is most amazing, which com- municates least with any ordinary measures of ])robal)ility, is God's love to the sinner. This is the starting-point in the scheme of redemption. The whole necessity of priest- hood arises from the niiscries of man as viewed by a nature at once supremely holy and good. Sacrifice is the combined expression of righteousness and grace. " God so loved the

422 THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST

world '^ is the explanation of one mystery by another equally incomprehensible. The charity for man which sacrifice obviously expresses was conspicuous in the whole career of Jesus. His bosom glowed with love. He had compas- sion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way, and such was the ardour of His zeal, such the intense vigour of His philanthropy, that no ingratitude or cruelty could quench its fires. " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," is a key wliicli unlocks the secrets of His heart.

3. These two elements — love to God and love to man — which His death, considered as a sacrifice, expresses, con- stitute the essence of virtue. They are the principles into which every form of moral excellence may be ultimately resolved. The extent to which they pervade the character and regulate the life — ^the degree, in other words, in which they are possessed — determines the moral worth of the pos- sessor. This degree is ascertained by the severity of the trials to which they are exposed. In the sacrifice of Jesus, therefore, we are to look for the measure of the intensity of His principles ; ^ve are to study His character in the light of sufferings. We are to learn how much He loved God and how much He pitied man from the cost of His piety and philanthropy to His own soul. Tried by this standard. He stands without a rival. To appreciate the greatness of His virtue we must bear in mind that the occasion on which it was so triumphantly displayed was one wliich might have been avoided. He was under no previous obligation to become a priest and a victim. Pie might have cherished His sentiments of sympathy and love for our race, and enjoyed for ever the communion of the Father, without subjecting Himself to the pains and privations of a mortal state. The glory of His nature might have been content with those exhibitions of its power which nature and provi- dence unfold when they reveal the ever-blessed God. His virtue might have reposed in undisturbed beatitude. There was no claim upon Him to empty Himself of His Divine

THE TYPE AND MODEL OF MISSIOXARY EFFORT. 423

glory, and to be found in fashion as a man. He was master of Himself. Nothing but the sublimity of His ])rinciples, the godlike greatness of His heart, brought Him to the earth,, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief Neither, again, was it a momentary enthusiasm or sudden ebullition of heroic ardour. The principles from which He acted were the settled principles of His soul ; they were the life of His life. Had they failed or suffered abatement at any stage in the progress of His work, the worship would have been adulterated and the victim blemished. His zeal for God never cooled, His charity for man never lessened. What grandeur do these considerations throw around the charac- ter of Jesus ! Can there be a loftier height of virtue, an intenser energy of holiness ? All creatures here, with their superficial trials, retire into the shade. Jesus stands un- rivalled and alone the possessor of a virtue which none can understand, and none can adequately love, but He who can fathom the deep things of God.

" There is reason to believe," says Robert Hall, '^ that in a moral — that is, in the highest point of view — the Redeemer, in the depth of His humiliation, w^as a greater object of attention and approbation, in the eye of His Father, than when He sat in His original glory at God's right hand ; the one being His natural, the other peculiarly His moral elevation." His virtue was put to the strongest trial which Omnipotence could exact. The work on which He entered, and which, however His humanity sometimes quailed and trembled, the Priest prosecuted with unabated ardour and consistency of purpose, was a work whose dif- ficulties could only be estimated by Him who can take the length and breadth of God's hatred to sin. The tragedy of Calvary was no scenic exhibition of fictitious terror and distress. The victim was roasted with fire. Behold the man ! and be astonished at the spectacle, " His visage is so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men." Tell me, ye that pass by, is there any sor- row like unto His sorrow? My brethren, this is holy

424 THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST

ground, and we must take the shoes from our feet. We can only admire and adore. There never was witnessed such a scene in the universe before — the infinite holiness and goodness of God sounded to their depths, the whole moral energy of the Godhead in action. Well might the angels stoop from their heights and desire to look into this mys- tery ; well might there be silence, the silence of profound admiration, in heaven ; well might the sun be darkened, the earth convulsed and the very dead startled, when moral elements were at work on a scale of infinite grandeur before wliich the earth, the sea and the sky, and all mate- rial things, dwindle into littleness as mirrors of the glory of God. When I contemplate Calvary and comprehend the spirit of the agent who there laid do\vn His life — when I see Jtsus putting into action and trying to the utmost the whole essence of virtue — I ask for no other explanation; the text is solved : Therefore doth My Father love me.

The text, it will be noticed, connects the love of the Father not only with the laying down, but with the taking again, of tlie life of Jesus. From what has been said, the extra- ordinary merit of the first may be readily perceived, but the influence of the latter consideration is not so obvious. That the resurrection of the Saviour, as the proof of the complete- ness of His satisfaction, is essential to the justification of the sinner, is manifest from the nature of the case ; that it was indispensable to the discharge of the remaining office of His priesthood — intercession before God — and to His entrance into His kingdom, is equally apparent. But these are not the points to which the text alludes. It is represented as having an influence, not upon His work, but upon the feel- ings of the Father to His Person. The doctrine is, that the love of which He is the object on account of His death demands His resurrection as equally essential. His death could not, in other words, make Him the subject of Divine complacency and delight if that death were regarded as final. Understood in this light, it enhances the tribute to the personal glory of the Saviour. Such were the trans-

THE TYPE AND MODEL OF MISSIONARY EFFORT. 425

cendent merits of His virtue iii the laying down of His life that it Avoukl be an imputation upon the Divine character to permit such an exhibition to pass without a conspicuous reward. The thought that such a life should hopelessly perish would be intolerable from the veiy greatness of its worth. The nobleness of the sacrifice demands a propor- tionate compensation. It was not the heroism of necessity or duty ; it was a spontaneous outburst of the most exalted magnanimity, for which there was no call but its own un- rivalled greatness. Creatures may do well, but no mere creature can deserve. But here there was merit, and merit of the loftiest character. God's government would have been wanting in essential justice, and the Divine resources been defective, if such virtue could have existed without the opportunity of signalizing its worth by appropriate rewards. It must be honoured or there would have been a blank, a chasm, a dark spot, in the moral administration of Heaven. Jesus, therefore, must rise again, not merely for His people's sake, but for His own name ; and when we read the mag- nificent honours which ai'e heaped upon Him, Ave feel that they are fairly His due. Pie deserves to be exalted and to have a name which is above every name — that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord to the glory of God the Father. We feel that He is entitled to be made Head over all things, and to have the power not only of presenting His Church without spot or wrinkle before the presence of the Father, but of collecting the angels under His headship, and extending His grace through all the realms of intelligent being, so as finally to destroy the possibility of sin. This is the grand consum- mation, and it is a beautiful and glorious reward. He is to finish transgression and to make an end of sin, to redeem and sanctify the Church, and to confirm in holiness every order of inifallen being ; so that when His work is finished and His glory complete, the intelligent universe by virtue of one grand enterprise of triumphant virtue shall be bound inviolably to the throne of God. There shall be no more

426 THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST

sin, no more sorrow, no more darkness. Holiness is to be the eternal distinction of the creatures, because He who is in the midst of the throne is the centre and source of their stability, and their security is the tribute which the Father pays to His transcendent excellence.

I have now briefly and imperfectly developed the force of the illation in the declaration of the text : Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life that I might take it again. Jesus appears as a worshipper of God, burning with zeal for the Divine glory and compassion for the souls of men, and performing an act of homage which concentrates in itself every principle of virtue and displays the energies of infinite holiness in intensest action. The cross is the only spot in all the universe of God where the word merit should ever be pronounced ; and when we con- template Him who hangs there, and enter into the moral import of the deed ; when we rise to the comprehension of all that is included in a sacrifice for sin ; when we measure the length and breadth, the height and depth of that moral heroism which dared to undertake it, — we want no other argument ; we feel at once that Jesus is Divine. The im- pulse to Avorship is irresistible. We cannot help falling down like Thomas and exclaiming. My Lord and my God ! There is no glory that we can give to God higher than the glory which our moral nature constrains us to attribute to the High Priest of our profession. These were the senti- ments of Jehovah Himself. He loved the Son, because He perceived in the Son the brightness of His own image. None could be capable of such an act as the offering of Jesus but One who was God over all and blessed for evermore. Such merit, which we feel not to be disproportioned to the reward of universal dominion, and for which' our moral sen- timents demand a compensation that taxes the resources of Omnipotence, — such merit it were blasphemy to ascribe to a creature. It blazes through the universe in Divine cha- racters. It proclaims its own nature. It stands out un- rivalled and alone ; and if it be not the property of God, we

THE TYPE AND MODEL OF MISSIONARY EFFORT. 427

must cease to ascribe to Ilini absolute supremacy of excel- lence. For myself, I am bold to say that the moral cha- racter of Jesus shuts me up to the belief of His Divinity. There is no brightness in heaven which can transcend the glory of the Cross, and if there be a being greater and mightier than Jesus, there is assuredly none that is purer, holier or better. He fills the love and admiration of my soul.

The application of this subject to the question of missions need not detain us long. It has grown into a proverb that the spirit of missions is essentially the spirit of the Gospel ; but the grounds of their identity are in many cases so imper- fectly apprehended that many who call themselves Chris- tians are not ashamed to slumber over the necessities of the heathen, while others are impelled to exertion by motives which have little analogy to the temper and example of Christ. The proposition, however, is true, and it is of the last importance that the Church should be aroused to a full conviction of its truth. Zeal for the propagation of the Gos- pel, upon proper principles and for proper ends, is the highest exhibition of Christian integrity. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. This is true of the sjnrit which He exemplified as a Priest. We also are made kings and priests unto God. As our union with Him introduces us by adoption into the fiimily of God, so we share an office bearing somewhat the same relation to His priesthood which our adoption bears to His sonship by nature. AVe are priests in the sense that we must be animated by the same principles which pervaded His offering, and that we must really express them in outward works in the full intensity of which they are susceptible in our hearts. Our priesthood differs from His in the circumstance that our offerings are only expres- sions of our principles, and have no judicial value in the expiation of guilt ; and by the other circumstance that, as we have no jurisdiction of ourselves, they possess no absolute merit. AA'e can neither redeem others nor arrogate praise to our own persons. In other respects there is a full and

428 THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST

striking correspondence betwixt the priesthood of the Church and the priesthood of Jesus. As He was, so are His disci- ples in the world.

1. That supreme reverence for the glory of God which prompted Jesus to regard not His life dear unto Him, pro- vided Plis Father's honour were maintained, must be the dominant principle of action in every Christian heart. The Divine character must be sacred in our eyes. The jealousy which the prophet Elijah expressed for the Lord God of hosts, which Paul felt when he beheld the Athenians devoted to superstition, is no transient sentiment of extraordinary zeal nor sudden ebullition of romantic impulse : it is the steady, settled, pervading principle of the Christian life. To be a Christian is to love God, and to love God is to reverence His name. In proportion to the intensity of this principle will be our efforts to vindicate the Divine honour from reproach. We hate sin not merely because its conse- quences are disastrous, or its forms repugnant to our tastes and sensibilities, but because it is a reflection upon God. In all its exhibitions it is essentially enmity against Him, but there are manifestations of it which assume the distinctive character of a libel upon His name. Idolatry, Superstition, Socinianism, all the types of Paganism, do not more con- clusively demonstrate that man is by nature a religious being, than they demonstrate that the carnal mind is enmity against God. The abominations of the Gentile world are not the crude rites of mankind, as many philosophers would have us believe, adapted to the infancy of human knowledge, expressing the natural sentiments of piety and reverence in a form as yet imperfectly developed, and promoting the edu- cation of the race in larger and justcr views. They are not tendencies towards God in the direction of a proper worship. They are not the feeble and obscure utterances of childhood, sincere and honest, but uninstructed. They are not the results of involuntary ignorance. On the contrary, they are stages of degradation which men have successively reached in their apostasy from God ; they are the utterances of

THE TYPE AND MODEL OF MISSIOXARY EFFORT. 429

alienated hearts, the shinders of malignant and poisoned tongues. The heavens deelare God's glory and the firma- ment showeth His handiworlc ; the invisible things of Him are clearly seen, even His eternal power and Godhead, being understood by the things that are made. Creation and providence, the structure and laws of our own souls, pro- claim His being, His attributes and His will ; so that men are without excuse. There are radical principles in the mind which, if cherished and developed according to their proper tendencies, Avould rebuke the errors of the heathen ; so that they may be said to know God as possessing the germs of that knowledge in the constituent elements of reason. The real difficulty is their reluctance to glorify His name. Hence, they become vain in their imaginations, sup- press the light of nature, and their foolish heart is darkened. Hence it is that they have changed the glory of the uncor- ruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Hence it is that they have changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. This is the natural history of Paganism. When the Christian man contemplates this spectacle ; when he rises to some mount of vision and passes in review before him the heathen and anti-Christian tribes of earth ; when he hears one unbroken voice of blasphemy and slander ascending from every tongue against that Name which angels pronounce with awe, — is there no sentiment of indignation, no spirit of zeal for the I^ord God of hosts ? Can we hear our God traduced and reviled, and yet hold our peace? Can we witness unceasing libels on His character, and yet take no step to vindicate His injured honour? Can we pretend to have the spirit of our Master, who was clad with zeal as a cloak, Avhen we can gaze unmoved upon the alwminations of a world lying in wickedness, which have l)cen introduced by the arch-enemy of God in order to insult and reproach Him? Oh tell it not in Gath, publish it not in Askelon! Your national

430 THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST

banner is insulted ; your blood boils in your veins, and you cannot rest until the wrong has been repaired. Your earthly friend is reviled in your presence ; you would scorn yourself if you could submit with patience. But all wTongs are tolerable provided it is only God who is their object ! You must not tarnish my country's name, you must not reproach my patron nor my friend, you must taint with infamy no earthly object that I love or prize; but God, the God who made me, the God who redeemed me, the God who keeps me, whose air I breathe, whose earth I walk, and whose heaven I hope to gain, — why upon Him you may trample and pour contempt, with nothing to fear from me ! Is this the Christian spirit ? Is this the spirit which brought Jesus from the skies and nailed Him to the cross ? Is this the love which we bear to our Father's name ? Oh no, no ! Our souls are stirred within us, stirred to their very depths, when we behold a world joined in conspiracy to darken the glory of God. Our hearts are moved, the fire burns within, and we must speak.

But you object that these reproaches cannot injure the Almighty nor dlsturlj the eternal tranquillity of His throne. Why, then, be so concerned about them ? Simply because they are lies and frauds. They traduce His character, and withhold from Him His due. Is your indignation against theft measured exclusively by the injury which the party may sustain in the loss of property ? — ^your abhorrence of scandal founded alone upon the probability of its success ? Is this the secret of your zeal for the honour of your friend ? Is there no sense of right, no sense of justice, no sense of truth ? Is there no such thing as an honest desire that the truth should be known because it is the truth ? Has a mis- erable utilitarian philosophy exploded from amongst us the first principles of morals ? God is glorious; the Christian man knows it, and he wants all the world to know it, and his anxiety to spread the truth is in proportion to the enor- mity of the lie which is supplanting it. The Christian man loves God, and loves Him with all his heart, mind, soul and

THE TYPE AND MODEL OF MISSIONARY EFFORT. 431

strength ; and tlie spontaneous dictate of love is to maintain the rights and vindicate the worth of the object to which it is directed. The more completely undisturbed the Divine throne is by the calumnies of sin, the more eager is the impulse to set the truth before the nations of the earth, because the more undisturbed it is the more flagrant is the falsehood, the deeper is the shame.

My brethren, this motive is no visionary thing. It has animated the people of God in all ages and under all dis- pensations of religion ; and if we are not sensible of its ascendency in our own hearts, we have reason to question whether wc are fit for that communion in which Moses is found, who ground the calf to powder ; Elijah, wdio de- stroyed the prophets of Baal ; and Paul and Barnabas, who were shocked at the proposal to pay them Divine honours. We have reason to distrust our sympathy with Him who made His soul an offering for sin in the spirit of intense adoration of the holiness of God. Our zeal can never be put to any such test as that of our Master. We are not required to expiate guilt. All that is demanded of us is to speak. We are not to energize commensurately with that holiness ; we are only to j)roclaim it, and to proclaim Him in whom it has been conspicuously displayed. Let us look at His work and then at ours, and can we, for very shame, settle down in indifference ?

2. The form which our zeal for the Divine glory is to take — that is, the works to which we should be impelled by it — is determined by the influence of the other motive which entered into the sacrifice of Christ. We do not belong to a dispensation wdiich calls down fire from heaven to avenge the impieties of earth. The Son might have maintained His Father's honour by consigning our race to perdition. But pity moved Plis heart; and while He was indignant at the sins and wickedness of man. He pitied his miseries. His feelings of compassion were moved, and the universe beheld with rapture and astonishment the match- less scheme of grace. This sentiment of pity for the guilty

432 THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST

and the miserable He has imbedded in the hearts of His people. He has cast them in the mould of His own ten- derness, and their hearts yearn over a fallen world. They ascend the mount of vision as Jesus from Olivet surveyed Jerusalem, and the spectacle which they behold of misery, degradation and death — the iiends of darkness brooding over guilty and infatuated nations, and the curse of God settling upon their souls — moves them to tears as the approaching ruin of tlie holy city moved their Master before them.

Wherever they turn their eyes sin and death present their hideous shapes. Every gradation of wretchedness, from the letharo-y and insensibilitv of stolid ignorance to the anxious apprehensions and agonizing fears of awak- ened consciences seeking a delusive peace in the rites and tortures of will-worship and superstition, is seen on every hand. Darkness covers the earth and gross darkness the people. Without God, they are yet seeking Him ; misled by their carnal minds, they can never find Him. Tliey must lie down in sorrow. There is a light which can dispel tliis darlcness, but it has never yet appeared in tlieir hemisplierc. There is a name which can heal this sorrow, but it has never yet been pronounced in their dialects. Is there noth- ing in this spectacle of a world in ruins to stir the compas- sion of the Christian heart? Can we look upon our fel- lows, members of the same family, pregnant with the same instincts and destined to the same immortality, and feel no concern for the awful prospect before them ? They are perishing, and we have the bread of life ; they are famished with thirst, and we have the water of which if a man drink he shall never thirst ; they are dead, and we have the spirit of life. We have but to announce our Saviour's name, to spread the story of the Cross, and we open the door of hope to the multitudes that are perishing for lack of knowledge. The secret of their misery is sin, and nothing can do them eifectual good but that blood, offered through tlie eternal Spirit, which purges the conscience and destroys the domin-

THE TYPE AND MODEL OF MISSIONARY EFFORT. 433

ion of this monster. We have but to erect the Cross, and the millions who are dying from the stings of the fiery ser- pent may look and live. Was there ever such an appeal to the charities of man-y-a dying world stretching out its arms and imploring by the mute eloquence of its miseries our sympathy and aid ?

When the cry of starving Ireland came to our shores the nation rose as one man, and by a noble and generous im- pulse interposed to arrest, without delay, the progress of the destroyer. The sufferers were bono of our bone and flesh of our flesh — they \yere our brothers in humanity ; that was enough, we gave them the bread which their own soil had denied to them. When the pestilence was spreading its raven wings over the Southern cities of our own land, their brethren at a distance felt it a privilege to relieve their dis- tresses by their sympathy, their assistance and their alms. It was a just tribute to our common nature. But, my brethren, what was the famine in Ireland, what the plague in Charles- ton and Savannah, Portsmouth and Norfolk, compared with that famine under which nations are starving — that plague under which nations are dying? And if we cannot disre- gard the call of earthly wretchedness without renouncing that humanity which binds us to our fellow-men, what shall be said of him who refuses to extend a helping hand, or even to entertain a sympathizing wish, for those who are rushing blindly and hopelessly into the thick darkness of the second death ? Shall we call him a man ? Can we, dare we, call him a Christian man ? Can he stand beneath the cross and be warmed by the blood which flows there, can he be joined to the heart Avhich bleeds there, and enter into the prayer which is breathed there, and turn away unmoved from the spiritual miseries of his kind? Is this to imitate Jesus? I shall not insult your understandings by a categorical answer to the question. I shall not doubt the authenticity of the scenes of Gethsemane and Calvary. The truth is, the apathy of the Christian Church to the con- dition of the heathen can only explained l)v the supjiosition Vol. II.— 28

434 THE SACRIFICE OP CHRIST

of a lurking skepticism in regard to the perils of their state. There is a secret feeling, where there is not a developed con- viction, that after all they shall not surely die. This plea may extenuate, but does not justify, the neglect of the Church, for it only denies without destroying the eternal misery of the heathen. The appeal to our principles as Christians, our love for God and our pity for our fellows, is still mighty from the present injuries which idolatry and superstition are endeavouring to heap on the character of God, and from the j)resent sorrows which Paganism entails upon its vota- ries. These are evils which, with minds and hearts prop- erly tempered, we could not tolerate a moment longer than we were destitute of power to relieve them. We do not turn away from our suffering brother who is helpless with disease because we are persuaded that after all he shall not die. We minister to his present wants. We do not hold our peace when the name of a dear one is reviled because we are convinced that in the course of time his reputation shall come forth like the sun. And so, even if we had scrip- tural warrant for the impression that the benefits of redemp- tion may, in some way, be mysteriously imparted to the heathen, yet we could not behold their attitude to God and the manifold calamities of their ig-norance ^vithout feeling: our pity and phihuithropy equally impelled to dissipate their darkness at once. But the appeal should be irresist- ible upon the supposition — which is the only one the Scrip- tures Avarrant — that they who are destitute of the external means are also destitute of the internal dispensation of grace — that they who are aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenant of promise are also without Christ, and, because without Christ, without God and with- out hope in the world.

If there is any force in the figure so often recurring in the Scriptures, it were as idle to expect a crop from a soil in which no seed had been deposited, as to expect the fruits of the Spirit wliere the Word had not been disseminated. That is the instrument of grace and holiness. To say that

THE TYPE AND MODEL OF MISSIONARY EFFORT. 435

the heathen can be saved irrespectively of the work of Christ, is to renounce the whole doctrine of atonement, and to pour contempt upon that very zeal for the holiness of God which lies at the foundation of the Saviour's sacrifice. To sup- pose that the benefits of redemption can be imparted where the knowledge of redemption is not found, is to violate all the analogies of providence and to contradict the express teachings of Revelation. But granting that by a provision analogous to that which extends redemption to infants, those who are most diligent in improving the light of nature are led by the Spirit and are in a state of salvation, the number, upon the most charitable estimate, is so small that it hardly deserves to be taken into account in consid- ering the prospects of the heathen world. It would create, at best, only a possibility of salvation, while the overwhelm- ing likelihood would remain that hardly one in millions would avail himself of it. The appeal to our sympathies is scarcely affected. The call is almost as loud as it was before. There is no excuse for our apathy and indiffer- ence. The spirit of our Master is the spirit of compassion upon the weak and ignorant and them that are out of the way. We must preach good tidings to the meek — we must bind up the broken-hearted, proclaim liberty to the caji- tives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. But such darkness as that which enshrouds the heathen world requires a stronger light than the glimmering of a fee- ble star. The Dayspring from on high must visit them, the Sun of righteousness must arise with healing in His wings. The good Samaritan cannot pass by on the other side and leave the wounded traveller to the chances of help ; he must alight and put him on his own beast, conduct him to the inn and make provision for his wants. We cannot slight the miseries of so many millions of mankind, and quiet our consciences with the vague plea that their case may not be desperate. We know that they are diseased and that we have a remedy, and we do not know that they can be healed without it. We know that there is salvation in

436 THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST

the sound of the Gospel ; we do not know that there can be salvation where the silver trumpet is not blown. There is certainty on the one side, there is no certainty on the other. AVho can hesitate as to what the priestly office of the Church involves in such an aspect of the case ? How can we explain the strange infatuation of the people of God ? There is a spectacle before us of misery and degra- dation and ruin, compared with Avhicli the decay of states and empires is but the small dust of the balance. A wail comes up from the regions of superstition, idolatry and error deep and terril)le as that which brought our Master from the skies. Millions upon millions are plunging into perdition, and we turn unmoved away, because without Scripture, analogy or experience we have fancied to our- selves that here and there a chance individual may be saved. We harden our hearts and steel our sensibilities, and yet dare to lay the flattering unction to our souls that we are the disciples of Him who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich. ISTevertheless, the declaration of God standeth sure : " Whoso hath this world's goods and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of com- passion from him, hoAV dwelleth the love of God in him ?" If you cannot refuse a cup of cold water without renoun- cing your title to Christ, how, oh how can you refuse the glorious Gospel of the blessed God ?

3. The love to God and the compassion to man which reigned in the Saviour's breast were not permitted to evapo- rate in sentiment or to expire in transient desires. They were active and operative principles, expressing themselves in a work which exemplified all their intensity, which tried His allegiance to them, and which was really a sacrifice from the cost to Him and the benefit to others. We can make no expiation for guilt. Our piety and philanthropy are not to operate in this way. But we are required to evince the truth and sincerity of our principles by labours which sliall really express them, and which, in what shall

THE TYPE AND MODEL OF MISSIONARY EFFORT. 437

be the cost to us, shall be images of the sacrifice of our Master. Those works which put our iutegrity to the trial are the offerings which as priests we are bound to render unto God. As the dispensation of the Gospel is founded in a real sacrifice, all its duties are stamped with the spirit of sacrifice. The whole Christian life is a sacrifice ; the man must present himself to God as a living sacrifice, and with himself he must give all that pertains to him. The law of sacrifice is consequently the law of Christian effort. The first condition of dLscipleship is to deny ourselves. We must tread in the footsteps of the Master. Our sacrifices must be presented in the same spirit and with the same motives as His ; they differ in their nature, their efficacy and their ends.

As Jesus by His sacrifice purchased redemption, we by ours must make it known ; and as there were difficulties wdiich He had to remove before He could bring salvation to our race, so there are difficulties which we have to encounter in spreading it abroad. In these respects His priesthood and ours are strikingly analogous, and it is to give us the opportunity of showing that we are imbued with the same mind which was also in Him that so many obstacles have to be surmounted in the work of the world's conversion. It would be contrary to the whole analogy of our religion, contrary to the very genius and constitution of Christianity, to suppose that those whose life has sprung from death, whose holiness is repentance, whose great busi- ness is to die, should be remitted to indolence and ease. They are called to sacrifice. Hence, it does not stagger my faith to be told of the magnitude of the enterprise and the comparative inefficiency of the means, to be reminded of the obstinate and bitter prejudices Avhicli must be subdued, the fierce opposition whicli must be allayed, the cruel perse- cutions which must be endured. It moves me nothing to point me to the long and patient preparation which must fit the missionary for his work, the inclemency of climates, the low and disgusting customs and rites of heathen nations.

438 THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST

All these and a thousand more such obstructions are only proofs that the Church must tread in the footsteps of her Master, and bless the nations by the sacrifice of her own ease and life. These are only proofs that we have ample and glorious opportunities of attesting to angels and to men that we are really consecrated to a royal priesthood and have the materials for princely offerings. I take fresh courage as larger views of the dignity and grandeur of the trust break in upon my soul. The magnitude of the dan- ger illustrates the spirit of the hero. As the whole earthly existence of man is modified by its relations to the cross^ that cross has impressed its type ui)on our whole earthly being, so that nothing great or good, whether in providence or grace, can be achieved witliout sacrifice. The law of our whole state is life out of death. Learning is the fruit of sacrifice, power is the purchase of sacrifice, character is the result of many and severe sacrifices, liberty comes from •sacrifice ; and look where you may you will find nothing that deserves to be called a good that has not cost labour, or tears, or blood. The only way to gain life is to lose it. This is pre-eminently true in the sphere of our religion. We are born into the kingdom with pains and throes ; we live there in much tribulation. We begin in a conflict, we continue in a conflict, and the conflict never ceases until the crown is put upon our heads. No marvel, then, that our outward labours for Christ should call fi)r the crucifixion of the flesh. We should have reason to doubt their genuineness as Christian works if they involved no test of our princi- ples, if they required no agony, or tears, or blood. In the very difficulties of tlie world's conversion we see the tokens of our Father's will. These are the signs that we are called to undertake it ; we should rejoice that we have the oppor- nity of showing our love to our Master's name and our charity for our fallen race. These are the crosses which precede the crown, the tribulations through which we pass into glory. If we would reign with Jesus, we must also suffer with Him ; if we would sit on His right hand or ou

THE TYPE AND MODEL OF MISSIONARY EFFORT. 439

His left, or, what suits us better, at Plis feet, in His king- dom, we must be baptized with the baptism that He was baptized with, and drink of the cup that He drank of.

I think it of great importance that this peculiarity of our work sliould be understood. The whole course of reason- ing by which many pacify their consciences, while neglect- ing tlie only enterprise in which they can acquit themselves as priests before God, is founded upon a radi(!al misconcep- tion of the nature of their calling. They expect the moun- tains to be levelled, the valleys to be elevated, the rough places made smooth, before tliey herald the advent of their Lord; whereas this is the very labour by Avhich they are required to prepare His way. This is the very work which His Church must do. She must cast up the high- M^ay for the progress of the Gospel by her own efforts, self- denial and prayer. She has no questions to ask but what is the will of the Lord ; that being known, to be deterred by difficulties is to renounce her faith, and to withhold her sacrifices is to be unworthy of the office to which her Lord has commissioned her. The full and distinct recoo-nition of the truth which I have been endeavouring to present is, it seems to me, all that is necessary to awaken the energies of God's people upon a scale of grandeur which the world has never witnessed before. We have great resources in means and men, in piety, learning, talent and wealth. The world is open before us. Commerce and war liave broken down the barriers of centuries, and the rapid and constant intercourse of the nations has brought the heathen to our door. The ships are waiting in port to bear the heralds of salvation to the ends of the earth. The American Eagle and the British Lion are prepared to accompany and protect them wherever they may choose to pitch their tents. The harvest is rich for the sickle, or, to change the figure, the altar is ready for the sacrifice, the materials are all waiting to be offered ; nothing, nothing is wanting but the spirit in the priest to avail himself of the golden opportunity. Let the Church comprehend her calling, let her comprehend the

440 THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST

times, and there would be presented to God an oblation which would soon change the aspect of the world. \Ve should soon be found rejoicing in sacrifices. The father would bring his son with delight and offer him upon the altar of God. The rich would bring their wealth, the wise their learning, the great their power, the poor their prayers ; all would bring something to testify their zeal for God and their sympathy for man. Commerce would consecrate its ships, and war its victories. Soon the name of Jesus would be found in every dialect under heaven. The spirit of sacrifice is all that Ave want — the offering lies at the door. And, my brethren, can we endure the shame, when God calls us by His providence and commands us in Plis Word to undertake this work, specifically in the light of a sacri- fice, in order that in so doing it we may imitate Him who prepared us for it by a sacrifice which cost Him His life, — can we endure the shame, the deep damnation of our indo- lence and love of ease, our cowardice and idleness, if we decline to bind the victim with the cords of our love to the horns of the altar ? Shall we be deterred by the prospect of self-denial ? Who is so base that he would let a nation perish rather than forego some little pleasure or encounter a little pain ? Who so mean that for his own personal and private ends he would be content that the earth should be covered with darkness? But your children are dear, and you cannot give them up ; you cannot renounce for them the prospects of wealth and influence and fame ; you must keep them at home, though continents join with the isles in imploring your aid. What would you think of this plea if your country should call to arms? Could you find capa- city in your souls large enough for despising the man who could hold back his sons when patriotism was mustering its hosts for the conflict? ^t your country's call you would gladly give up all. And is there no magic in the call of Jesus ? Under your country's banners you would renounce your homes, your wives and lands ; you would endure hard- ships as good soldiers, and rejoice in them the more the

THE TYPE AND MODEL OF MISSIONARY EFFORT. 441

severer they were ; the cold ground, the open air, bogs and marshes, disease and hunger and thirst, — all this would be sweet to you if it added to your country's glory. And is there nothing in the glory of Jesus, nothing in attachment to that country of which you hope to be immortal citizens, nothing in the great interests of the human soul, to stir up your energies and to nerve your resolutions? And are you disciples of Jesus ? Can you stand beneath the cross, can you behold the Lamb there slain, the blood there poured out like water ; can you listen to the cry of agony and feel the shaking earth, and shudder at the darkened heavens, and then talk of your sacrifices for that Saviour ? Shame, shame, if we draw back in the service of such a Lord ! No, no, my brethren, let us gird ourselves for the sacrifices; let us rejoice in making them. They are but shadows after all, mere emblems and images. The true sacrifice was made on Cal- vary. The way has been broken up, the Breaker has gone before us ; let us follow in His tracks — we shall know them by the blood. Let us put our hands in His, and bid an eternal farewell to all parleys with flesh and blood.

4. And as there was a joy set before Jesus, for which He endured the cross, despising the shame, so there is a glorious recompense of reward attached to our sacrifices and labours of love. We are not required to spend our strength for naught, nor to waste our energies upon a bootless scheme. The reward of Jesus was won upon the strictest ])rinciples of right. He deserved the glory with which for His sacri- fice He was crowned. The reward in our case is exclusively of grace. We can never be other than unprofitable servants ; but God, in infinite goodness, measures the expressions of His favour by the intensity with which we have manifested the spirit of allegiance to Him. All He asks is that tiie heart should be in the service; and any effort that reallv proceeds from love to His name and charity to the race will never be overlooked nor forgotten. A cup of cold water ministered in the spirit and for the sake of Clirist is a treasure laid up in heaven. The moral significance of our

442 THE SACEIFICE OF CHRIST

actions depends upon the degree and severity of the sacrifice. What costs us little means little. It is not the external splendour of the deed, it is the spirit in which it is performed and the self-denial it involves that determine its value in the sight of God. If vanity, ostentation or secular motives have prompted it, if it have sprung from a mercenary spirit and is presented as a price for the Divine favour, if its ascet- icism and self-denial are regarded as pleas of merit and occasions of self-gratulation and applause, the water is pol- luted at the fountain — the victim is blemished, it is the halt and the lame that are presented on the altar. The act must proceed from love, be a cheerful and voluntary expression of love, and vindicate its own sincerity by its cost to the flesh. When these conditions meet, there is a reward, which becomes the more glorious the less we feel it to be deserved — a reward compared with which the poor satisfaction we ob- tain in the carnal indulgences which Ave spare in refusing to make sacrifices deserves not to be named. This reward is twofold — it is the reward of success here, and of glory here- after. The first is not sufficiently understood, nor the latter sufficiently contemplated. I have no hesitation in laying down the proposition that no real sacrifice of the Christian heart is ever lost, even in this world. If it is an exercise of some personal grace, the exercise strengthens the habit and improves the principle of grace in general. If it is an effort for the external kingdom of Christ, it enters as a link in the chain of providence, and contributes its part to the final consummation. Works of grace are as immortal as grace itself — they can never perish. As the sacrifice of Christ, the great High Priest, was infallibly accepted, so the real sacrifice of all whom He has consecrated priests must be as really accepted, and must as really secure, in the way of means, the blessings to which they were directed. Our labours for the conversion of the world, so far as they are spiritual sacrifices, must be crowned with success. What now hinders the result is, that there is so little sacrifice for it. We pray ; but what is there of agony in our pra}^ers ?

THE TYPE AND MODEL OF MISSIONARY EFFORT. 443

Who wrestles with God? whose soul is burdened with the weight of a perishing world ? or who takes an hour from his sleep or foregoes a single meal in order that he may plead the cause of the millions upon millions that know not God? And are such prayers aacrijiaes f Are they more than breath ? — and can there be any Avouder that mere breath should not move the Lord of hosts ? What was the spirit in which Christ prayed when He made His soul an offering for siu ? Again, we give ; but who, like the widow, gives all his living? Who denies himself one luxury or refuses one indulgence that he may have the means of contributing more to the cause of the Redeemer ? How many give oidy what they think they Avill not miss ! How many professedly adjust their contributions by the principle that God is entitled only to what they do not want, and accordingly treat His kingdom as they Avould treat a beggar who supplicates for alms at the door ! Are such gifts sacrifices, and is it any wonder that they should stink in the nostrils of the Lord of hosts ? He is no pensioner upon our bounty ; the cattle upon a thousand hills are His, and what He requires is some proof that we recognize His right — His supreme and absolute right — to us and ours. We are not first, and then the Lord have what we can spare. He is first, and we are to liave what He may allow for our sustenance and comfort. If these things are so, it is painfully obvious that the Church collectively is not animated Avith the s])irit of its priesthood ; it makes no sacrifices for the heathen world, it detains the victims from the altar, and the darkness continues to cover the earth and gross darkness the people. The few who here and there are awake to their responsibilities, and are strug- gling to do their duty, will find in the issue that their work has not been in vain. Every prayer has told, every con- tribution has told, every missionary has told, every martyr- death has told, — all have entered into the complicated web of providence, and all have aided in bringing about the accomplishment of the eternal purposes of God. And when the M'hole Church shall compreiiend the nature of her call-

444 THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST

ing, and summon her energies to make the sacrifice which God exacts at her hands, the period will soon revolve in which sacrifices will give place to praise and trials to glory.

Those who are embarked in the Avork should not be dis- couraged because there are not symptoms of immediate success.

As in the discoveries of science, according to the observa- tion of Whewell, so in every great enterprise, there are always three stages — the prelude, the pursuit, the triumph. The prelude is mainly a work of preparation. It is the mustering of forces, the collection and distribution of means, the marshalling of the hosts for the impending conflict. This stage in the missionary work consists in efforts to awaken interest, to arouse the dormant energies of the Church, and to bring it to a full apprehension of its duty and the magnitude and extent of the task to be performed. In the pursuit the battle is joined ; and as in the ardour of the contest it is often impossible to determine the chances of victory or to estimate the success of particular evolutions and manoeuvres, so in the great work of missions, while the enterprise is still in progress, in the heat and fervour of the struggle, it is hardly possible to comprehend the bearing of particular achievements or to ascertain the measure of what is actually accomplished. Appearances, for the time, may be doubtful, when, after all, there is a real and steady progress.

While Jesus was engaged in His own peculiar work, as He approached its termination the appearance was anything but encouraging to the minds of His disciples, and the victory was gained at the very hour in which all seemed to be lost. The corn of wheat must lie under the ground and seem to perish before it can vegetate and bring forth fruit. In this enterprise, therefore, we are not to be disheartened by unpromising appearances. The day of triumph will come, and our defeats and disasters will be the means of advancing it. What we have to do is to gird ourselves for the fight. The faith of God is pledged for the rest. When we engage in good earnest in the enterprise, offering up the

THE TYPE AND MODEL OF MISSIONARY EFFORT. 44.>

sacrifices of prayers and men and alms, we shall soon sec the ensign of the Lord lifted up on high and the nations flock- ing to His standard. Victory will perch upon our banners, and the shout will thunder through the temple of God, " The kingdoms of this world have l)ecome the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ ! " Is not this a reward worth striving for ? And Avhen you add to it that eternal weight of glory which awaits us in the skies, is there not induce- ment enough to awake the very dead in labours for the honours of Jesus ? JNIy brethren, do we believe in our religion ? Can we believe in its promises and prospects, and yet be so reluctant to make the sacrifices it requires ? What have her labours for the conversion of the world cost the Church collectively? Individuals have suffered, have given themselves and their all as a free-will offering to God. Parents here and there have consecrated their children to the work, and God has accepted the gift. Young men and maidens have taken their lives in their hands and become strangers and pilgrims upon earth ; and some here to-night have had the distinguished honour of anointing heathen soil with martyr-blood derived from their veins. These are glorious achievements of grace, and the actors shall flourish in eternal renown. But the Church collectively, what has she suffered for Christ ? what has she suffered for the heathen ? Where are her sacrifices, where her tears, where the offerings that have cost her dear? What has our Presbyterian Church done worthy of her privileges and resources ? How many sacrifices can she count as proofs of her love to God and man? I would not reproach her — with all her faults I love her ; and when I cease to love her may my heart cease to beat ! It is because I love her that I would have her love her Lord more, and that I would delight to trace upon her the scars and wounds of many a hard-fought battle in His cause. I would have her foremost in sacrifices, as she is foremost in intelligence, purity of doctrine and simplicity of worship.

I have now, brethren — very inadequately, I know — dis-

446 THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST

charged the cliit}' assigned to me. I have taken you to the Cross, and discussed this great subject in the light of the argu- ments and motives derived from it. My appeal has been to Christian principle, Christian faith and Christian love. I have pointed you to your Saviour, and endeavoured to illus- trate the spirit in which He laid down His life that He might take it again. I have explained the nature of your own spiritual priesthood, and insisted on the duty, the privi- lege, the glory of making sacrifices to communicate that salvation Avhicli Jesus made His sacrifice to procure. I have appealed to no selfish, personal or secular considera- tions. I have drawn no argument from the sympathies, the vanity, the pride of the natural heart. I have resorted to no tricks of rhetoric, no artifices of logic, to seduce your feelings and entrap you into conclusions for a momentary effect. I have simply contemplated you as the anointed priests of the Lord, and have sketched a single department of your work in this high and holy calling. Have I exag- gerated aught? Is it so that when our Divine Master had completed His work of sacrifice for the expiation of human guilt, He anointed His followers with His own Spirit, and commissioned them to make the sacrifices which should be needed to propagate the Gospel to the ends of the earth ? Is it our business to spread, as it was His business to pur- chase, salvation by sacrifice f Is this so ? And does not the call of the heathen world come to us with a solemn, momentous, awful emphasis ? They are perishing in their sins. True, it is their own guilt which condemns them. Their idolatry, superstition and will-worship, their impuri- ties, crimes and abominations, are all the result of their own voluntary ignorance, the successive steps and indications of a wicked apostasy from God. They are without excuse ; and when they stand before the great white Throne every mouth shall be stopped and all the world shall become guilty before God. Their condemnation is just. But are we free from their blood? Have we manifested the love to them which has been manifested to us ? We, too, were perishing in our

THE TYPE AND MODEL OF MISSIONARY EFFORT. 447

sins, but the Saviour passed by ; and when He extended to us tlie arms of salvation and of mercy, He commanded us to give to others what Ave had so freely received ourselves. Can we face the Saviour by whose stripes we were healed — can we encounter the rebuke of that eye which melted Peter into penitence and shame — when we confront the dying- millions in reference to whom we must have the agonizing consciousness that we have made no sacrifices for their souls ? Who could brook the thought, saved by blood himself and unwilling to endure a little hardship for the salvation of others? Were it not for all-glorious, matchless grace, it seems to me that the faithless Christian, when he meets the wretched tribes of superstition for whom he has done nothing that deserves to be counted a sacrifice, would wish to sink into the earth or be crushed by rocks and mountains, rather than meet that Redeemer who was all sacrifice for him. He could not see the scars and wounds and look upon his own unmangled body. The sense of unfaithfulness, of shame, of baseness, of utter meanness, must be excruciating, would be excruciating beyond degree, were it not that the sacrifice which saves also cancels. This very consideration that God forgives us should make us now more determined not to forgive ourselves. The destinies of the heathen are, in some measure, intrusted to us ; we hold the key of life. We are required to make sacrifices for their souls, and we assume a fearful responsibility in declining to do so. It is a vain plea that the work is too great for us — that we have neither the men nor the means. Have we prayed for the men with an earnestness, intensity and fervour that may cause our prayers to be denominated sacrifices? Is not this a part of our office ? Have we not the means of supporting all that God shall give? Are not our resources abundant, provided the heart were in the Avork ? Have we done what we could ? Nations sitting in darkness and the valley of the shadow of death cry to us for light. These nations we have been com- missioned to enlighten ; and because the work cannot be done with a sigh or a wish, or a little useless treasui'c that

448 THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST

no one would miss, we, the priests of God, who have been bought with blood and appointed for self-denial, fold our arms and say they must die ! We pity them, we are sorry for them, but it would require too much trouble to do all tliat their case demands, and we must therefore let them perish in their sins ! O my God, have mercy upon us ! O blessed Saviour, reveal Thy love for ruined man and shed it abroad in our hearts ! We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us and we would not hear.

AVhen I consider the magnitude and grandeur of the motives which press upon the Church to undertake the evangelization of the world ; when I see that the glory of God, the love of the Saviour and pity for the lost all con- spire in one great conclusion ; when I contemplate our own character and relations as spiritual priests, and comprehend the diffnitv, the honour, the tenderness and self-denial of the office ; and then reflect upon the indifference, apathy and languor which have seized upon the people of God ; when I look to the heavens above me and the world around me, and hear the call which the wail of perishing millions sends up to the skies thundered back upon the Church with all the solemnity of a Divine commission ; when a world says. Come, and pleads its miseries ; when God says. Go, and pleads His glory, and Christ repeats the command, and points to His hands and His feet and His side, — it is enough to make the stone cry out of the wall and the beam out of the timber to answer it.

If Jesus should stand again upon the IMount of Olives and summon before Him this venerable court, as He sum- moned the disciples of His personal ministry and the apos- tles of His extraordinary call — if He should collect you and me and all the otiicers and all the people of His Church on earth — what, think you, ^vould be the language in which He would address us ? It would be an august spectacle — a solemn, an awful scene. The words tliat He would speak would pierce our souls and stir the very depths of our being.

THE TYPE AND MODEL OF MISSIONARY EFFORT. 449

They could never be effaced from the memory. We should think of them by day and dream of them by night ; and the most anxious cares of business could never drown them. The voice would ring in our ears wherever we went — at home, in the market, by the wayside, as we lay down and as we rose up. It would be an era in our history never to be forgotten. Is it presumption to imagine what those words would be ? Shall we say that He would reproach us ? His nature is made of tenderness, His bowels melt with love. His eyes would beam only with pity, but our own hearts would be busy with upbraidings. My brethren, there is no need for any exercise of fancy. He was once present with His collected Church, and He did give her a parting man- date— Go ye into all the world !

Methinks I see Him here to-night, with His hands up- lifted to bless us, repeating the same commission to us ; and as here present I cannot restrain the prayer that He would breathe ujion us as He did upon the Apostles, that we too may receive the Holy Ghost. With a fresh anointing fi*om Him we will look upon the world with new eyes and a new heart, and an impulse be given to our efforts which shall never falter nor fail until the whole earth is filled with the glory of the Lord. Amen, so may it be !

Vol. II.— 29

PREFATORY NOTE

The seven following Discourses on Truth were written and preached in the spring of 1851 from the text, "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true .... think on these things." — Philippians iv. 8. They were first published by the Messrs. Carter of New York in 1855, while their author was President and Chaplain of the College at Columbia. His dedication of the volume was in the following terms :

" To the Students of the South Carolina College,

Whose high character for Truth

Reflects the greatest honour on themselves

And tlie State,

These Discourses,

Originally prepared for their benefit,

Are now affectionately inscribed."

It is very well known to have been no departure from the strictest truth-telling for their President and Chaplain to pass this compliment upon that body of young men. Deception of the Faculty was not a crime requiring the exercise of ordinary discipline, for the very attempt by any member of college would expose him to so much scorn from his fel- lows that the dishonoured youth Avould be forced to abandon the campus.

The author's preface was in these words :

"This unpretending little volume consists of a series of Discourses preached in the ordinary routine of the author's ministrations as Chap- lain of the South Carolina College. He has ventured to publish them, because the young men who heard them thought that they derived bene- fit fi-om them; and as the subject is eminently adapted to the case of the youthful student, it did not seem presumptuous to hope that what had been useful here might also be i)roductive of good beyond tlie walls of the college. The times require some such discussion as that which is here attempted. The author is by no means sanguine, liow-

451

452 PREFATORY NOTE.

ever, of any other success tlian that which may be found in tJie cordial approbation of his own pupils. They will accept the work in the spirit in which it has been written ; and if it shall have the effect of imbuing their minds with that generous love of truth which constitutes the noblest inspiration of the scholar — if it shall lead them to Him who is the Foun- tain of truth, and to the study of that eternal Word which is the only infallible message of truth — he will feel that he has not laboured in vain, whatever reception his little manual may experience at the hands of strangers and critics. The structure of the sermons may be explained by the circumstance that the author sustains the double oflBce in the College of a Preacher of the Gospel and a Teacher of Moral Philoso- phy. It is his custom to make the pulpit and the lecture-room subser- vient to each other. With these brief statements he sends the book into the world to speak for itself, and he earnestly prays that He whose pre- rogative alone it is to bless, and who can accomplish the purposes of His grace as well by the feeblest as the mightiest instrument, may make it speak with power to the understandings and consciences of all into whose hands it may chance to come."

Amongst the papers of Dr. Thornwell the editor discovered the follow- ing note from Sir William Hamilton, which he thinks it proper to append here :

[CkjPY.]

" Edinburgh, 23 July, 1855. " Rev. Dr. Thornwell —

" Sir : I beg leave to return my warmest acknowledgments for your Discourses on Truth. I have read them with great interest and no less admiration. I was particularly pleased with the justice with which, it seems to me, you have spoken of the comparative merits of Aristotle as a moralist, and cordially coincide with your judgment upon Paley and other modern ethical writers. I need hardly say that I feel much flat- tered by the way in which you have been pleased to make reference to myself; and I remain, sir,

'' Your most obedient servant,

(Signed) " W. Hamilton."

The subjects treated are as follows: 1, The Ethical System of the Bible ; 2 and 3, The Love of Truth, in two Discourses ; 4, Sincerity ; 5, Faithfulness ; 6, Vows ; 7, Consistency.

The wliole together form an appropriate termination of this volume of Evangelical Doctrine.

DISCOURSES ON TRUTH.

Discourse I THE ETHICAL SYSTEM OF THE BIBLE

THE passage from which the text is taken gives us an enumeration of the principal duties of morality. The Apostle has been supposed to refer to the different systems which were discussed in the schools of Greek philosophy, analogous to those which have divided the inquirers of modern times. It is remarkable that his language admits of an easy application to the prominent theories of Virtue which have been proposed in Europe within the last two centuries. One, for example, places it essentially in con- formity with truth ; another in beauty, corresjjonding perhaps to the Apostle's lionesty; another in obedience to nature and reason ; another in disinterested benevo- lence ; and others still in a comprehensive prudence. Simi- lar theories obtained among the ancients. Aristotle and Plato have been reproduced in the speculations of Clarke, Cudworth and Price, the Epicureans and Soj^hists in tlic Utilitarians, and the Stoics in Butler, Peid and Stew- art. The import of the Apostle's advice, upon the sup- position that he refers to these disputes, is interpreted to be : Think upon these speculations, bring them to the standard of the Divine testimony, try them by the doctrines which I have taught you, and whatsoever they contain in keeping with the genius and temper of Christianity, that

453

454 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM OF THE BIBLE.

appropriate and practise ; prove all things ; hold fast that which is good.

Ingenious and plausible as this exposition appears to be, it is not, I apprehend, sustained by the context. It is rather the dictate of fancy than the result of sober and unbiassed criticism. The design of the Apostle, it rather seems to me, was to recapitulate several prominent heads of duty — to single out certain great characteristics of virtue, and to recommend everything in which these characteristics were found. He is giving the outlines of an exemplary man, and accordingly seizes upon the fundamental elements of morality — those data of consciousness which every sys- tem must acknowledge, which constitute the touchstone and standard of all speculations upon right — and inculcates as duty everything in which these elements essentially enter as constituents. The first is Truth — whatsoever things are true. He assumes the inherent rectitude of veracity, its indispen- sable and eternal obligation, and enjoins upon his readers to cultivate a spirit that shall reverence and exemplify this obligation in the whole extent of its application. He next signalizes Dignity of character, the principle of self-respect, which saves a man from the contempt of his fellows by protecting him from all that is little, or mean, or indecent in deportment — whatsoever things are honest; rather, whatso- ever things are venerable or truly honourable — whatsoever is calculated to command respect or deserves veneration and esteem. Then comes the master-principle of Justice, or righteousness, without which all pretensions to integrity are vain and unmeaning ; this is the solid basis of an upright character — ichatsoever things are just. It is not enough, however, that our words and actions should be exempt from censure ; the heart must be kept with all dili- gence, the streams must be healed at the fountain. The Apostle accordingly, as his Master had done before him, insists upon inward purity, the regulation of the thoughts, appetites and affections, so as to prevent the contamination of aught that is unholy or defiling — whatsoever things are

THE ETHICAL SYSTEM OF THE BIBLE. 455

jyure. Under this head are obviously inckided Temperance, Chastity and Modesty. The things that are lovely compre- hend everything that is fitted to conciliate or express the sentiment of affection and esteem. It embraces such duties as Benevolence, Urbanity, Courtesy, Affability and Sweetness of temper ; M^hatever, in other words, springs from love in us and generates love in others. The things of good report, I am inclined to think, have reference to those matters, indifferent in themselves, by means of which we can recom- mend our persons and our cause to the confidence and good- will of others. They not only require the ordinary duties of Politeness, but exact compliance with innocent customs and harmless prejudices where a failure to comply would expose us to unjust censures. They exclude repulsive Aus- terity and studied singularity of manner, and every species of Affectation or pretension. Here ends the specific enu- meration ; but as there might be virtues which are included under none of these heads, the Apostle, that he may omit nothing, extends his injunction to them. If there be any virtue, and if there he any iwaise — if there be anything which a good man ought to observe, anything right or praisewor- thy, that cannot be reduced to any of these categories — it is to receive the Christian man's attention. His relisrion com- prehends all duty.

This passage, then, according to the interpretation which has been given, exhibits the model of character which Christianity proposes to its followers, and which their Christian profession exacts of them that they shall steadily endeavour to realize. It is the Apostle's picture of an exemplary man.

As a specimen of the richness and compass of Scripture morality I shall single out the duty of Tndh, and make it the subject of a series of discourses. Before entering upon them, however, I deem it not unimportant to make a few remarks upon the ethical teachings of the Scriptures, with a view to determine what there is that is peculiar to reve- lation, and what is the real nature and extent of our obli-

456 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM OF THE BIBLE.

gations to the Bible. This will lead us to a just estimate of secular morality, and perhaps impress us with a deeper sense of the priceless value of the Gospel. It is precisely because they do not comprehend the ethical relations of Christianity that many of the educated men of the country undervalue its importance. If asked what it is, and what it proposes to do for men, and what kind of offices it exacts from them, it is amazing how crude and ill-digested their notions would oftentimes appear to be.

I. So far as the simple knowledge of duty is concerned, we may err, on the one hand, by exaggerating the necessity of revelation, and on the other by exaggerating the suf- ficiency of reason. There can be no doubt that morality is a subject which falls within the province of natural light. To say that we are dependent on the Word and Oracle of God, as Bacon seems to insinuate,^ " not only in those points which concern the great mysteries of the Deity,, of the creation, of the redemption, but likewise those which concern the law moral truly interpreted" — to say that we can have, from the dictates of conscience, only negative conceptions of rectitude " sufficient to check the vice, but not to inform the duty" — is to contradict alike the testimony of Scripture and the experience of mankind. " For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do. by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law are a law unto themselves." A being without the sense of obligation and a spontaneous recognition of the fundamen- tal diffia'ences of right and wrong could not be responsible. He could not form the remotest notion of duty, and the lan- guage of authority and law might as well be addressed to stocks and stones. The elemental principles of right, there- fore, which are involved in the very conception of a moral nature, must be conceded to man as man. They are the birth-rights of his being, and not the legacy of a subse- quent revelation. An intelligent creature without primitive beliefs to determine and regulate the operations of the cog- 1 Advancoment of Learning. Works, vol. ii., p. 300. — Montagu.

THE ETHICAL SYSTEM OF THE BIBLE. 457

nitlve faculties would be no greater absurdity than a moi-al and responsible creature without primitive laws of right to determine and regulate the operations of moral judgment. But it is equally an error to maintain that, because the Scriptures presuppose the moral constitution of man, they are of little or no importance considered as a rule of life. It is one thing to say that reason is a law, and another to say that it is a perfect law. In our present fallen condi- tion it is impossible to excogitate a standard of duty which shall be warped by none of our prejudices, distorted by none of our passions and corrupted by none of our habits. We are liable to as great perversions of the original princi- ples of right as of the original principles of truth. The elements of reason have no power to secure their just appli- cation. There never has appeared an absolutely perfect rule of duty among any nations, however civilized and cul- tivated, that were destitute of Revelation. It is only of the law of the Lord as contained in the Scriptures that we can justly say. It is perfect. There are two respects in which every natural system of morality is likely to be found M^anting. In the first place, the difficulty of reproducing in reflection the spontaneous processes of conscience, and of seizing upon its fundamental laws in their integrity and completeness, renders it next to impossible that the verbal generalizations of philosophy shall exactly represent the operations of the mind. Something is apt to be omitted or added. The danger is enhanced by the difficulty of distin- guishing betwixt prejudices of education and natural prin- ciples ; it is easy to confound a crotchet with a principle, to make a maxim of a habit of thought. In the next place, the application of these fundamental laws, supposing them properly eliminated, to the concrete cases of life requires great delicacy and caution. We are as likely to go wrong from misapplying a true principle as from adopting a false one. The heathen father admits the great law of parental affection ; he niisai)plics it when he murders his infant child to save him from the miseries of life. The heathen son

458 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM OF THE BIBLE.

recognizes the duty of filial piety ; he reasons badly upon it when he puts his aged parents to death. Here our depravity exerts its power; it is a constant temptation to pervert the original j^rincijile of right, to make light dark- ness and darkness light. It is here, too, that the principal defects of every natural scheme of morality are exhibited. True principles are falsely applied. We make crimes of duties and duties of crimes. It is not so much that the law is wrong, that the prime data are questionable — though they are often defective — as that the law is not legitimately car- ried out; its proper applications are not seen; limitations and exceptions are superinduced by our circumstances, and we envelop ourselves in a cloud, and the result is that a de- ceived heart turns us aside. The Scriptures, as an authori- tative rule of duty, guard against these defects. They pre- scribe the law in its fullness and integrity, they illustrate its application by description and example, they indicate the prejudices which are likely to pervert us, and signalize the spirit which will always ensure obedience. By the infallibility of their results they are of inestimable value to the moral philosopher himself. When his speculations contradict their statements, he knows that there is an error in his processes ; he retraces his steps and continues to renew his investigations until he discovers the secret of his mis- carriage. They serve the same purpose to him which the answer to its sum serves to the child in learnins; his arith- metic. They are at once a guide and a check to his speculations. Paley^ has depreciated the sufficiency of the Scriptures as a rule, from the absurd notion that if they were admitted to be complete they would dispense with the use of moral philosophy. He took it for granted that the sole business of philosophy was to furnish rules, and of course, if they are already furnished to our hands, there is no need for its investigations. To save, therefore, the credit of the science which he had undertaken to expound, he has impugned the value of the ethical teachings of the Bible. ^ Moral and Political Philosophy, Book i., chajj. 4.

THE ETHICAL SYSTEM OF THE BIBLE. 459

His argument is curious. He has very singularly con- founded moral philosophy with the moral constitution of man, and because the Scriptures "presuppose, in the per- sons to whom they speak, a knowledge of the principles of natural justice" — that is, because they presuppose a con- science or a sense of the fundamental differences of right and wrong — he gravely concludes that they exact of men, in order to be understood, some tincture of philosophy. But it is one thing to be a moral agent, and quite another to be a moral philosopher. The Scriptures certainly expect that those to whom they speak are possessed of those principles of practical common sense without which their instructions are utterly unmeaning and absurd. But to possess these principles is not to be a philosojjher. Philosophy imj)lies reflection, speculation ; it is thought questioning the sponta- neous processes of mind, thought returning upon itself and seeking the nature, authority and criterion of its own laws. A man may have all that Dr. Paley ascribes to him with- out having once reflected upon this mysterious furniture, or asked himself a single question which properly belongs to the domain of philosophy. The Scriptures consequently, in prescribing an adequate and perfect rule of life, are far from dispensing with speculation. They leave untouched its peculiar work. The moral nature, in its phenomenal variety and essential unity, still invites the researches of the curious, and the more it is studied the more conspicu- ous will appear the absolute sufficiency of the Bible. The law of the Lord is perfect.

II. The superior efficiency of the Bible is universally conceded by all who admit a revelation at all. It teaches duty with greater certainty, and enforces it by motives of greater power. Dr. Paley thinks this tlie great merit of the Scriptures ; and that it is a merit of incalculable importance will at once appear by reflecting on the tendency of temp- tation to blind the mind to the truth of the law or the danger of the consequences. AVhatever certifies the rule or illustrates the misery of disobedience) assaults temptation in

460 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM OF THE BIBLE.

its stronghold and strips transgression of its favourite plea. The certainty of the law is put beyond question in the Scrip- tures, because it rests upon the immediate authority of God. It is not a deduction of reason to be questioned, but a Divine command to be obeyed. The power of the sanctions is found in the unlimited control which He who promulgates the law possesses of the invisible world. The legal motives of the Scriptures are projected on a scale of inconceivable grandeur. The Bible deals with the vast, the awful, the boundless. If it addresses our hopes and proposes the prospect of future happiness, it is an exceeding, an eternal weight of glory it dispenses. Does it remind us of a judgment to come ? God is the Judge, earth and hell the subjects, angels spectators, and the complexion of eternity the doom. Does it address our fears ? It reminds us of a worm that never dies, a fire that is never quenched, the blackness of darkness for ever. It is a grand system ; it springs from the bosom of an infinite God and opens a field of infinite interests. Eternity is the emphasis it gives to its promises, the terror it imparts to its curse. Conscience, under the tuition of nature, may dread the future ; it is the prerogative of revelation alone to lay it bare. Conscience may tremble, but revelation alone can show how justly its fears have been excited. Hence the Bible is without a rival when it speaks in the language of command. It wields the thunder of infinite power, as well as utters the voice of infinite righteousness. Still, its mightiest sanctions are not what may be called its legal motives. The scheme of redemption, in its conception and evolution, is a sublime commentary upon the sacredness and supremacy of right, which, while it reveals the ineffable enormity of sin, presents the character of God in such an aspect of venerable grandeur that Holiness becomes awful and majestic, and we insensibly adore under the moral im- pression which it makes. He that stands beneath the Cross and understands the scene dares not sin ; not because there is a hell beneath him or an angry God above him, but because Holiness is felt to reiarn there — the (rround on which

THE ETHICAL SYSTEM OF THE BIBLE. 461

he treads is sacred, the glory of the Lord eneircles him, and, like Moses, he must remove the shoes from his feet. The Cross is a venerable spot. I love to linger around it, not merely that I may read my title to everlasting life, but that I ma}' study the greatness of God. I use the term advisedly. God never appears to be so truly great, so intensely holy, as when, from the pure energy of jirinciple, He gives Himself, in the person of His Son, to die, rather than that His cha- racter should be impugned. Who dares prevaricate with moral distinctions and talk of death as a greater evil than dishonour, when God, the mighty Maker, died rather than that truth or justice should be compromised ? Who, at the foot of Calvary, can pronounce sin to be a slight matter ? Here, then, lies the most impressive sanction of revelation. Not content to promulgate the law with absolute certainty, to put under tribute the whole resources of the invisible world, to lay its hand upon eternity and make heaven and hell its ministers, it rises yet higher and seeks to impress us with a subduing sense of the sacredness of right — to make us feel how awful goodness is; it reveals its inherent great- ness, unveils its ineffable glory. It does not describe it, but shows it; and we return from the Cross with emotions similar to those of Moses when the name of the Lord was proclaimed, and the goodness of the Lord passed before him in the cleft of the rock. It is the scheme of redemption which croAvns the ethical teachings of the Bible. The lesson is sealed at the Cross ; there, and there only, do we shudder at sin for its own sake, and reverence right for itself.

III. But, impressive as the general truths of morality are rendered by the tragedy of redemption, that Avould be an inadequate view of the extent of its contributions which should stop at this point. It goes beyond the giving cer- tainty and power to the doctrines of nature. It teaches les- sons, and lessons of incalculable value, which philosophy could never have dreamed of. It opens a new chapter in the book of Ethics, and invites us to speculations as refresh- ing by their novelty as they are invigorating by their truth.

462 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM OF THE BIBLE.

It is not sufficiently recollected that the doctrines of the Scriptures in relation to the destiny of man, the nature of Holiness and the means of grace are answers to the very questions which were earnestly and anxiously agitated in the schools of ancient wisdom, and which the sages of Greece and Rome proved themselves incompetent to solve. I am ashamed to add that they are answers which multitudes, with the Bible in their hands, have failed to comprehend, and have consequently been left to grope, as if struck by judicial blindness, in a thicker darkness than ever enshrouded the sifted minds of Pao-anism. There is a tenfold nearer approximation to the teachings of the Bible in Aristotle than there is in Paley ; more affinity with the Gospel in Cicero than in the whole tribe of utilitarians.

1. First, in regard to Happiness, which is universally con- ceded to be the chief good of man, the conceptions of the Scriptures are noble and exalted. The nearest approxima- tion which has been made by unassisted reason to their doctrine is in the philosophy of Aristotle. He failed to compass the whole truth only because man by wisdom can- not find out God. He saw enough, however, to impress us with a sense of the greatness of his genius, and to make us feel that, even amid the ruins of the Fall, there are yet traces of our ancient grandeur and dim foreshadowings of our future glory. He has taught us enough to make us accept joyfully those fuller disclosures of the Bible which illuminate what in him and nature is dark, and "what is low raise and support."

I do not know that I can set the benefit of revelation in a clearer light than by sketching the doctrine of Aristotle, pointing out its defects, and contrasting the whole truth with the miserable sentiments which prevail, to the corruption of society and the degradation of the age in which we live. His fundamental notion is, that Happiness consists in virtuous energies — that it is not mere pleasure, not the gratification which results from the possession of an object congruous to our desires. That is good only in a very subordinate sense

THE ETHICAL SYSTEM OF THE BIBLE. 463

which simply ministers to enjoyment. The chief good must be something pursued exclusively for its own sake, and never for the sake of anything else ; it can never be used as an instrument ; it must be perfect and self-sufficient. What, then, is the highest good of man ? To answer this question, says Aristotle, we must understand the proper business of man as Man. As there is a work which pertains to the musician, the statuary, the artist, which constitutes the good or end of his profession, so there must be some work which belongs to man, not as an individual, not as found in such and such circumstances and relations, but belongs to him absolutely as Man. Now, what is this ? It must be some- thing which springs from the peculiarities of his nature, and which he cannot share with the lower orders of being. It cannot, therefore, be life, for plants have that ; neither can it be the pleasures of sensitive existence, for brutes have them. It must be sought in the life of a being possessed of reason ; and as that can be contemplated in a twofold aspect, either as a state or as an exercise, as the possession of faculties or the putting forth of their activities, we must pitch upon the more important, which is activity or en- ergy, or, as he also styles it, obedience to reason. Energy, therefore, according to reason, is characteristic of man. This is his business, and he who pursues it best is the best man. Human good, or the good of man as Man, is consequently energy according to the best and most perfect virtue.

This is a brief outline of what I regard as one of the finest discussions in the whole compass of ancient philosophy.^ The notion is predominant that Happiness implies the per- fection of our nature, and that perfection not so much in the habits considered as so many states, as in the unimpeded exercise of the faculties themselves. The being properly exerted is their good. Happiness, therefore, is not some- thing imparted to the soul from without ; it springs from the soul itself — it is the very glow of its life. It is to the mind ^ Nichom. Ethics, Lib. i., c. 7.

464 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM OP THE BIBLE.

what health is to the body — the regular and harmonious action of all the functions of the frame. It is not a si'atifi- cation, not the j^leasure which results from the correspond- ence between an object and a faculty ; it is the very heat and fervour of spiritual life. All this is strikingly in accordance with the doctrine of Scripture. Happiness there, too, is represented as consisting in moral perfection, and moral per- fection in virtuous energies. It is a well of water within the man, springing up to everlasting life. It is treated as an image of the blessedness of God ; and when we remember the ceaseless activity of the Divine nature — my Father worketh hitherto and I work — there cannot be a more con- vincing j)roof that felicity consists in energies. To be happy is not to be torpid ; it is not a state of indolent repose nor of the passive reception of extraneous influences. It is to be like God, who never slumbers nor sleeps, who fainteth not, neither is weary. This is the great thought of the Bible. The defect of Aristotle lies in this, that he has not explained how these virtuous energies are to be elicited and sustained in a course of unimpeded action. We cannot think without thinking something; we cannot love, w^e can- not praise, we cannot exercise an}^ virtuous affection, without exercising it upon something. An abstraction wants life, and finite objects limit, condition and obstruct our energies. Besides this, as we shall subsequently see, the fundamental princij)le of virtue is love, and love imjjiies the existence of a person with whom we are united in intimate fellowship. Communion is indispensable to the energ}^ of Holiness, and that the energy may be unimpeded the person with whom we are in union must be worthy of the intensest affections of which we are susceptible. He must himself be the per- fect Good. Now, the Scriptures propose the fellowship of God as the consummation of felicity. We may concentrate upon Him all the faculties of our nature. He can evoke their intensest activities, give them full scope and never put a period to their flow, " His favour is life, and His loving- kindness better than life. I shall be satisfied when I awake

THE ETHICAL SYSTEM OF THE BIBLE. 465

in Thy likeness." That man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him for ever — that this and this only is Happi- ness ; that we enjoy as we glorify ; that the very going forth of our energies upon Him, the ever-blessed, is itself blessed- ness,— this is the doctrine which lies at the basis of the ethical system of the Gospel. It is a doctrine which phi- losophy never could have discovered, but which it pro- nounces to be just as soon as the terms are understood. We are so familiar with the statement of it, we have it so often on our lips or hear it so often from the desk, that we do not enter into the depth of meaning it contains. In itself it is a grand thought, a noble and exalted privilege. Fellow- ship with God ! the real communion of our minds with His! — what tongue can express it ? what heart adequately con- ceive it ? And yet this honour have all the saints. It is not a figure, not a flourish of rhetoric, no dream of the mystic. It is a great fact ; and in reflecting upon it I have often been impressed with the words of a dying saint : " Preach it at my funeral, publish it at my burial, that the Lord converses familiarly with man." His secret is indeed with them that fear Him, and He will show them His cove- nant. How coarse and degrading, by the side of this doc- trine, do those views of Happiness appear which make it consist in pleasure ! which, instead of setting man upon the improvement of himself, the perfection of his nature and the expansion of liis energies in communion with God, send him in quest of the beggarly elements of earth, which all are to perish in the using ! There cannot be a greater obstruction to the pursuit of real happiness than the love of pleasure. It relaxes and debilitates the mind, destroys the tone of the spirit, superinduces languor upon all the faculties ; it is the grave of energy. Hence is that of Scripture : She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth. If Hajipiness is an adumbration of the blessedness of God — and it must be so — if it is the glory of man to bear tlie image of God, the whole subject is manifestly degraded when it is reihiced to the analogy of the enjoyment of a brute. Take the account

Vol. II.— 30

466 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM OF THE BIBLE.

which is given by Paley,^ and Happiness consists not only in a succession of pleasurable sensations, but sensations imme- diately connected with the body. It is a sort of tickling in the region of the heart. He oj^enly declares, too, that there is no essential difference among pleasures but that of inten- sity and continuance. The main thing is enjoyment ; and so a jnan enjoys himself, he need ask no further question. The superiority of the soul to the body ; the coarseness of some and the excellence of other pleasures ; the dignity and refinement of moral, intellectual and spiritual gratifications, — all this is idle declamation. He that scratches with the itch experiences as noble satisfaction as he that rejoices in charity or whose soul turns upon the poles of truth ! This ■fundamental error, that Happiness is pleasure, pervades society. It is the animating spirit of the eager and restless struggle for wealth, honour and power. It is the grand delusion of sin — a delusion whose potent spell no experience has been able to dissolve, no reasoning to dissipate. It is the vanity of the carnal heart ; " every age renews the in- quiry after an earthly felicity ; the design is entailed and reinforced with as great a confidence and vigour as if none had been baffled or defeated in it before." ^ Philanthropy projects upon it its visionary schemes for the benefit of the race, and, forgetting that all real improvement must begin within, directs its assaults upon the outward and accidental — aims its blows at the social fabric, and seeks to introduce an order of things which shall equally distribute the sources of enjoyment. Let all men be equally rich is the insidious fallacy — equally fed, equally clothed, equally exalted in social and political condition — and, like cattle in the same pasture, they must all be equally happy. " What serious heart doth not melt and bleed for miserable men that are (through a just Nemesis) so perpetually mocked with shadows, cheated with false, delusive appearances, infatuated and betrayed by their own senses! They walk but in a vain show, disquieting

^ Moral and Political Philosophy, Book i., chap. 6. ' Howe's Blessedness of the Righteous, chap. xi.

THE ETHICAL SYSTEM OF THE BIBLE. 467

themselves in vain ; their days flee away as a shadow ; their strength is only labour and sorrow ; while they rise up early and lie down late to seek rest in trouble and life in death." ^ Behold, I show you a more excellent way : fear God and keep His commandments ; for this is the whole of man ; this is his being's end and aim.

2. Intimately connected with the subject of Happiness is that of Holiness. As happiness is an image of the blessed- ness, so holiness is an image of the moral perfections, of God. It is, consequently, that in the energies of which Happiness must essentially consist. It is God's likeness that fits us to see His face. It is therefore a matter of the very last importance that we should know what Holiness is, or, if incomprehensible in its essence, that we should under- stand its phenomena and relations. It is only from the Bible that we can obtain any satisfactory light upon these points. Philosophy can discourse of virtues — virtues in the habit and virtues in the act ; it can classify and arrange the duties they exact ; but when the question arises as to the unity of rectitude, it is utterly unable to answer. Truth is right, justice is right, benevolence is right, temperance is right; the habits which prompt to the observance of these virtues are right; but are all these one and the same right? If one, in what does their unity consist? The actions of truth are certainly different from those of tem- perance; the actions of benevolence are as clearly differ- ent from those of justice; the habits are obviously so many different subjective states. Where, then, is the unity, and why is the same term applied in common to them all ? Philosophy can only dissect consciousness, and consciousness can only reveal to us the primitive cognitions of the moral faculty which the constitution of our nature comjiels us to accept as the criteria of right. Philosophy, consequently, can give no other answer to the question than that all these things, though various in themselves, receive a common name in consequence of a common relation to conscience. 1 Howe's Blessedness of the Righteous, chap, xi.

468 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM OF THE BIBLE.

They are all commanded by it. As truth is essentially con- formity with the laws of the understanding, so virtue is essentially conformity with the laws of conscience. Here philosophy stoj)s. Beyond consciousness it cannot pene- trate; and though it may surmise that there is a higher unity in which all these laws are ultimately grounded, it is unable to lay its hand upon it and bring it to light. Here the Scriptures come in Avith their doctrine of Holiness, and what philosophy had surmised they abundantly confirm. What, then, is Holiness ? It is not a single habit ; it is not a complement of habits ; it is a nature, and by nature we are to understand, not the collection of properties which distinguish one being from another, but a generic disposi- tion which determines, modifies and regulates all its activi- ties and states — the law of its mode of existence. It is that out of which habit grows, from which every single action ultimately proceeds. There is a nature in the lion, the dog, the tiger, which determines their manner of life^a nature in all beings which makes them as they are. Without it there could be no character, no habits, no consistent opera- tions. All action would be fortuitous and arbitrary. In itself we cannot define it, belonging as it does to that class of things which, incomprehensible in themselves and inca- pable of being represented in thought, are yet matters of necessary belief. But as there are, within the sphere of our daily experience, various generic dispositions each of which serves as the basis of very different habits, there is nothing incredible in supposing that there may be one great central disposition in which all others are grounded. The general temper of Sadness has numberless manifestations ; the same is true of Joy ; and there may be a temper or tone of mind in which all virtuous activities are united. To illustrate the all-pervading influence of Holiness as a nature, the Scriptures employ tlie striking analogy of life. When we ask the question, What is life ? M^e soon become sensible that we are dealing with a subject that eludes the capacity of thought. We cannot seize it in itself: we see its effects.

THE ETHICAL SYSTEM OF THE BIBLE. 469

we witness its operations, we can mark the symptoms which distinguish its presence, but the thing itself no mortal mind can apprehend. We can only speak of it as the unknown cause of numberless phenomena which we notice. Where is life? Is it here and not there ? Is it there and not here ? Is it in the heart, the head, the hands, the feet? It evidently pervades the man ; it is the condition, the indispensable con- dition, of the organic action of every part of the frame. The body may be perfect in its structure : it may have every limb, and nerve, and muscle, and foreign influences may be made to mimic the operations of life ; but if life be not there, these actions, or rather motions, are essentially distinct from those of the living man. In like manner Holiness pervades the soul. Though not a habit, nor a collection of habits, it is the indispensable condition of them all. It is not here nor there, but is diffused through the whole man — the un- derstanding, the will, the conscience, the affections ; it under- lies all dispositions and habitudes, and is felt in all the thoughts and desires. All moral qualities inhere in it as properties inhere in substance. It is to the moral faculties of man what extension is to matter — the very form of their existence.

As natural life has its characteristic functions, so spiritual life has its distinguishing tendencies. They all point to God. The very essence of a holy nature is sympathy with the Divine perfections — a state of the soul which harmonizes with the Divine will ; which attracts it to God ; which pro- duces a communion, a fellowship, a familiarity, if I may so speak, that instinctively detects the impressions of God wherever they are found. It is fundamentally the principle of LOVE to Him ; its true expression is that of union with Him ; and even where there is no direct reference to His name, it gives tone and complexion to all moral and intel- lectual exercises. This love to God, not as a single habit, not as a series of particular affections, but as the ground-form of all, as the fundamental law of their manifestation, is the nearest approach we can make to the description of Holiness

470 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM OF THE BIBLE.

as a state. This is the reason why fellowship with God must be the perfection of a holy being. Love demands it. Com- munion is the life of love ; and this, too, is the reason why love is said to be the fulfilling of the law : not that benevo- lence or any individual sentiments of kindness, not even that the adoration and praise of God's excellencies or gratitude to Him as single and independent exercises, fulfil the law ; but that state of the soul which is in deepest harmony with God, and finds its full manifestation only in a sense of union and correspondence with Him, contains the elements of all true virtue. Here is tlieir centre of unity and their point of divergence. Schleiermacher was right in making the essence of religion, subjectively considered, to be feeling, in the extended sense which he has given to that term, but he was wrong in making that feeling a sense of absolute de- pendence upon God. Had he put love for dependence, and distinguished between it as a pervading tone of the mind and as manifested in special operations, his analysis would have coincided substantially with that of the beloved Apos- tle : He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him. So also there is a subjective unity in sin. Depravity, like Holiness, is a generic state — the law of a mode of exist- ence and operation. It is denominated in the Scriptures death; and the term is happily chosen, as it impressively exhibits its pervading influence upon all the powers and faculties of the man. The question of total depravity could never have been raised if the Scripture notion of depravity had been steadily apprehended. It must either be total or not at all. The man who is dead is dead all over. As the ground-form of holiness is love to God, or rather the spirit of love to God, so the ground-form of sin is the spirit of opposition ; the carnal mind is enmity against God.

In this analysis of Holiness and Sin I maintain that the Scriptures have rendered a real contribution to the philos- ophy of our nature. The fact that there is an essential unity in each had been previously felt and distinctly asserted by the Peripatetics and the Stoics, but in what that unity

THE ETHICAL SYSTEM OF THE BIBLE. 471

consists, their ignorance of God and of all trne communion with Him precluded them from the possibility of answering. The unrenewed man is destitute of those elements of con- sciousness out of which alone an answer could be reflectively extracted. It was reserved for Christianity, in revealing the true God, to reveal, at the same time, the moral excel- lence of man. The scriptural account of Holiness resolves a difficulty which, I apprehend, every thinking man has felt, in explaining the effects which the history of the Fall attrib- utes to a single sin upon a nature originally upright. If we were left to conjecture and speculation, we might suppose that, as a habit is not likely to be formed from a single act, the principle of rectitude would still remain, though weak- ened in its power, and by vigorous and systematic efforts might recover from the shock which, to some extent, had disordered the moral constitution. Bishop Butler^ speaks with hesitation in relation to the degree of injury which might be expected to accrue from the first full overt act of irregularity, though he has no backwardness in regard to the natural results of a confirmed habit. The difficulty is created by overlooking the reality of government and the peculiarity of Holiness. In contemplating the effect of the first transgression on the part of an upright creature, we are not to confine our view to the tendency of the act to form a habit, as if the law of habit were the only law under M'hich it does its mischief. We are to bear in mind that as we are under government, as well as possessed of a moral constitu- tion, it has also judicial consequences which must enter into the estimate of the extent of injury sustained by the iimer man. Now, as Holiness, which is the foundation of the virtuous principle — the keystone of the arch which maintains an upright nature in its integrity — consists essentially in union with God, whatever alienates Him must destroy it. This is precisely M'hat every sin does ; it provokes His curse, breaks the harmony of the soul with Him, and removes that which is the fundamental principle of all true excellence. ' Analogy, Part i., cliaj). 5.

472 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM OP THE BIBLE.

The sinner must die ; the moment that God frowns in anger death invades the soul. It is the judicial consequence of sin.

3. The third and last point to which I shall advert, as distinguishing the ethical teaching of the Bible, is the answer which it gives to the question, How shall man accomplish the end of his being ? How shall he acquire that perfection of nature, that holiness of state, without which he can never see God and live ? There is evidently a double work to be done — a change to be effected in his judicial relations, and in the temper and dispositions of the soul. As to the method of achieving the first, philosophy is completely dumb. The scheme of redemption, by which pardon and accej)tance are secured, is necessitated by no principles of natural light ; it is the offspring of infinite wisdom begotten by infinite grace. But philosophy may aspire to institute a discipline by which the sinner shall restore his shattered constitution to integrity, and attain the perfection to which he was originally destined. There is a strong feeling in us all that, though damaged, we are not ruined by the Fall, that we still possess the elements of our ancient greatness, and that by care and diligence on our part we can repair the mischief that has been done.

I am far, very far, from detracting from the benefits of a moral education, or saying aught to depreciate the import- ance of the most scrupulous self-culture. We can accom- plish much by energy of purpose, by fidelity to conscience, by sensibility to honour. We can employ the principles of our nature, fallen though it be, in the consummation of a (character which shall be distinguished by habits of nearly every specific virtue. The virgins who went up and down in quest of them might have gathered all the limbs of the mangled body of Osiris and put them together in their order, but it would not have been Osiris himself. We can form habits of nearly all that is materially right, and yet be want- ing in the true principle of Holiness. It is a great mistake to suppose that total depravity means devilish wickedness. Death is one thing, and the putrefaction of the body another.

THE ETHICAL SYSTEM OF THE BIBLE. 473

Now, the Scriptures teach us that the highest attainments of nature are only dead works. Left to itself, without check or hindrance to its spontaneous developments, it would produce nothing but wicked works ; but modified by educa- tion, by example, by society, and the thousand influences which co-oj^erate in the formation of character, it may exhibit the loveliness of life on the features long after life has fled. Man can only act in obedience to his nature ; from the very definition of this term it is the law of his mode of existence or of life. He can never, therefore, escape from the per- vading power of depravity. He may check one tendency by another and counteract one motive by another; just as in the physical world one law may be made to control another, and effects be produced by their combination which neither could singly produce. But he can never rise above these laws ; all his power, after all, is in obedience. So man can never rise above his nature — all education is within its sphere. Hence the utter and absolute impossibility of trans- ferring himself from a state of depravity to that of holiness. He must be born again. The new nature must be imparted, and as it tends to God, it must come from God. Until the Divine Spirit shall renew us we are incompetent to perform a single work that is acceptable to God. The victims which we bring to the altar are only lifeless carcasses. It is idle- ness to talk of a discipline in Holiness to him to whom the primum mobile is wanting. Neither does the Bible leave us, after imparting the elemental germ of Holiness, to the prin- ciple of habit or any other law of development and growth to effect the perfection of our being. Having brought us into a state of fellowship with God, it maintains that fellow- ship by constant communications of His love, by unceasing assistances of grace. We are committed to the tuition of the Holy Ghost, and under His guidance and inspiration we rise from one form to another until we are rendered meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. Hence, the sub- jective states in which our Holiness is manifested are not denominated habits, but graces. They are not acquisitions.

474 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM OP THE BIBLE.

but gifts ; and to remind us perpetually of the source of all the excellence that attaches to us, the very language we employ is a confession of our own impotency and an acknow- ledgment of God's free favour.

I have now completed what I had to say upon the ethi- cal system of the Bible. The true light in which redemp- tion should be habitually contemplated is that of a Divine institute of Holiness. Its immediate end is to restore the union between ourselves and God which sin has broken. It starts out with the great thought that the Happiness of an intelligent and moral creature is not somethino- foreig^u, not the possession of an outward and separate good, not shining courts nor splendid halls, nor any other princely equipage of state, but the exercise of its own energies in God. To be happy it must be in sympathy with the Author of its being. Upon this lofty eminence the whole scheme is erected, and all its arrangements are directed to the achievement of two results — the removal of those judi- cial consequences of sin which repel God from the sinner, and of those moral obstructions which repel the sinner from God. Jesus, as the Daysman betwixt them, comes in and lays His hand upon them both. He bears our sins in His own body on the tree, and thus reconciles God to us ; He cleanses our hearts by the washing of regeneration, and thus reconciles us to God ; and the first friendly interview of the parties takes place at the foot of the Cross when ^ve believe in Jesus. This whole scheme invoh^cs the moral system — the system, if you please, of Divine philosophy — upon which the government of God is conducted. It is the ethical system of the universe, and the Gospel is the only means, accordingly, by which we can attain true integ- rity. In rejecting it we are not rejecting crowns and scep- tres ; we are rejecting the very essence of virtue, and it is idle to pretend to a profound reverence for rectitude when we disregard the only means by which we can be restored to it. In this moral aspect I am anxious to recommend it to you. All your present excellencies are dead works, and

THE ETHICAL SYSTEM OF THE BIBLE. 475

when the influences which now embalm and preserve the corpse are gone, it will putrefy and stink. The first step in real moral improvement is faith in the Son of God. When that step is taken we begin to live ; until then we are dead in trespasses and sins.

Discourse II

THE LOVE or TRUTH.

THE injunction of the Apostle, to think on whatsoever things are true, obviously implies that the love of truth for its own sake is a habit which we are bound to cultivate and cherish. If it is the circumstance of their being true which entitles these things to our attention and regard, and makes it our duty to investigate and pursue them, there must be something in truth, essentially consid- ered, which commends it to the moral approbation of the species. It is to be regretted that philosophers, in com- menting upon the obligation of veracity, have not paid suf- ficient attention to the habit or general disposition of the soul which lies at the foundation of every form of the vir- tue— of accuracy in narrative, sincerity in conduct, and fidelity to engagements. Commentators have even gone so far as to maintain that the Apostle in the words before us had his eye only upon that species of truth which relates to the social intercourse of men, taking it for granted that this is the only kind of truth to which an ethical character per- tains. One^ represents him as describing "moral charac- ters and the duties of a Christian," and accordingly restricts his meaning to " integrity and uprightness in opposition to hypocrisy, insincerity or moral falsehood." The conviction seems to be common that the operations of the understand-

^ Dr. Walts. Sermon on Phil. iv. 8. 476

THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 477

ing are not immediately under the cognizance of conscience, and that of the processes by which we form our speculative opinions virtue and vice can neither be affirmed or denied. These speculations are often directed to subjects in their own nature indifferent, and it is confidently inferred that, because the objects of our thoughts have nothing to do with the distinctions of morality, our thoughts themselves are equally exempt from a moral character. Hence has arisen the dogma that we are not responsible for our opinions. The understanding is treated as a series of faculties, sub- ject to its own laws, moving in a peculiar and restricted sphere, having no other connection with conscience than as it analyzes and applies the rules of morality to the cases of practice which are constantly occurring in the busi- ness of the world. It may study, arrange and digest the moral code, but the laws which it acknowledges have no reference to its own processes, but only to the conduct of life.

This, however, is not the doctrine of the Scriptures. They represent the domain of morality as extending to the whole nature of man. Whatever directly or indirectly falls under the jurisdiction of the will possesses an ethical character, and may be the occasion to us of praise or blame, according to the principles and habits by which we have been governed. The morality does not attach to the pro- cesses or faculties themselves, but to the spirit and temper, the motives and purposes, which have shaped and determined their operations. There is a general sense in which all the elements of our spiritual nature are in subjection to the will. The springs of action in our appetites, affections and desires, with which we are endowed, all act blindly ; they simply impel, but they do not direct. They cannot regulate their own motions, they cannot prescribe the extent or circum- stances of their gratification, or determine the relative value of the objects which elicit them. They rouse the will, and that must consult the conscience and the understanding as to the course to be pursued. Corresponding to all these

478 THE LOVE OF TRUTH.

springs of action there are moral laws in obedience to which the will must control them. These laws, ingrained into the nature and invested with the supremacy which belongs to them, are so many habits of virtue the complement of which makes up integrity of character. In the springs of action themselves there is nothing directly virtuous or vicious — they are simply indifferent. It is when they have put the man in the attitude of motion that responsibility begins, and according to the principles upon which he treats them he is entitled to praise or blame. These motive impulses are adjusted to the whole nature of man. Some spring from the body and operate at periodic intervals, such as hunger and thirst, the appetite of sex and the desire of repose. There is nothing virtuous or vicious in any of the naked appetites, but virtue and vice may attach to the methods of their gratification. There may be excess, as in gluttony and drunkenness ; food may be unlawfully procured, or may con- sist of materials prejudicial to the health of the system. Other springs of action are directed to the mind, among which one of the most prominent is curiosity, or the desire of knowledge. In this, also, there is nothing directly moral, but an ethical character ensues the very moment the will pronounces upon the manner, the ends and the extent of its gratification. When the question arises. How shall this desire of knowledge be gratified ? there are moral laws in conformity with which the will is compelled to decide. Other springs of action are directed to the nurture and cul- tivation of the finer affections of the heart, and like those already enumerated are indifferent in themselves, though the modes, and measure, and objects of their indulgence are equally subject to the jurisdiction of the conscience. As, then, there are principles of action designed to stimulate every department of our nature, and as the method, end and extent of their operation are to be determined by the moral understanding, every department of man's nature is brought under the cognizance of moral law, and he may be virtuous or vicious on account of his opinions and sentiments as well

THE I.OVE OF TRUTH. 479

as on account of his conduct. The law in conformity with which we are bound to regulate the impulses of curiosity is the love of truth. This law, written upon the heart, incor- porated into the nature, strengthened into a habit, consti- tutes the measure of the morality of intellect. It is not merely an accomplishment, an excellence, a beauty ; it is an indispensable duty to aim at truth in all the excursions of the understanding. It is as much a moral obligation to seek for it in our opinions as to express it in our words or to manifest it in our conduct. We are responsible for the opinions which Ave form, not merely as these opinions are connected with conduct, or are probably the offspring of corrupt affections, but on the ground that the love of truth, in the whole extent and variety of its imj)ort, is an impera- tive and indestructible duty. This is the uniform teaching . of the Scriptures. This is implied in the exhortation to buy the truth and sell it not, to seek that wisdom which is only another name for it as for hidden treasures, and to prefer its merchandise to that of gold and silver. Jesus Christ commends Himself to our confidence and love on the ground of His being the truth ; promised the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth ; denounced the vengeance of God upon those who believed Him not when He had told them the truth ; and makes it the glory of the Father that He is the God of truth, and the shame and everlasting infamy of the prince of darkness that he is the Father of lies. The eulo- gies directly and indirectly bestowed in the Scriptures upon truth, knowledge, understanding, wisdom, have special ref- erence, we freely concede, to that department of truth which is the immediate subject of Divine revelation, but they would be evidently pointless and meaningless if truth in general were not intrinsically a good, and a good of such a nature as to lay the understanding under a formal obliga- tion to receive it.

It is, indeed, as the ancients well expressed it, the food of the soul — pabulum animi. There is a natural congruity betwixt it and the structure of the mind. The one corre-

480 THE LOVE OF TRUTH.

sponds to the other as light to tlie eye and sounds to tlie ear. The existence of such a desire as curiosity is a clear intima- tion that man was formed for intelligence as well as for action ; and the adjustment of his faculties to the objects by which he is surrounded is a command from God to exercise them according to the laws by which He has defined their operation in the acquisition of knowledge. Aristotle/ having divided the rational faculties of man into speculative and practical, proceeds to determine what is the best habit of each. The best habit of anything he denominates its virtue, and very justly observes that the virtue of each object is ascertained by its fitness for performing its peculiar func- tions. These faculties evidently point to truth — the one speculative, the other practical — as their appropriate func- tion, and hence are a call of God through the essential con- stitution of the mind to seek for wisdom. This doctrine seems to me to be expressly and directly taught in a passage of the Eudemian Ethics^ which has been the occasion of not a little perplexity to the commentators. The Stagirite there makes God the principle of motion in the human soul, and treats the fundamental deliverances of consciousness as inspi- rations of the Almighty, more certain than any deductions of science or reason, and as the conditions upon which all subsequent knowledge depends. God has made us cognitive beings. He has impressed upon us necessary and inde- structible laws of belief; and if there be any force in the ar- gument from final causes, we are obliged to regard the pur- suit of knowledge as a part of the law of our being. It is the end of the mind to know, as it is of the eye to see, the ear to hear or the heart to feel. Every man is as distinctly organ- ized in reference to truth as in reference to any other purpose. It deserves farther to be remarked that it is the prerogative of truth alone to invigorate the mind. The distinctions of sophistry and error may impart acuteness, quicken sagacity and stimulate readiness, but what is gained in sharpness is

^ Nichom. Ethics.

"^ Lib. vii., c. 14, quoted in Hamilton's Reid, p. 773.

THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 481

lost in expansion and solidity. The minuteness of vision which falls to the lot of whole tribes of insects is suited only to a narrow sphere and to diminutive objects. The eye, which can detect the latent animalcules which teem in the air, the water and the soil, is incompetent to embrace in its range the glories of heaven or the beauties of earth. The dexterity and readiness which defences of falsehood are suited to produce is not a free, generous, healthful activity, but a diseased condition of the system analogous to that induced by fever or poisonous and stimulating potions. But truth is a food which the soul dio-ests ; it strengthens and consolidates the mind, and is in every view worthy of the high enco- miums which the ancient sages were accustomed to lavish upon the pursuits of their favourite philosophy as the wealth of reason, the culture and medicine of the soul, the choicest gift of heaven.

There is another aspect in which the love of truth, as the pervading law of our speculative inquiries, may be satisfac- torily exhibited. The moral and intellectual natures of man are so intimately connected, their mutual dependence so nicely adjusted, their action and reaction so perfect and com- plete, that confusion of understanding is always accompanied with corresponding lubricity of principle ; and he whose per- ceptions of truth are not remarkable for clearness and pre- cision will most surely be distinguished by an equal obscurity in his conceptions of rectitude. The moral duties which we are required to perform may be contemplated as speculative principles whose truth must be submitted to the decision of reason, as well as authoritative laws of the conscience whose precepts we are bound to obey. There must be an exercise of the reflective understanding in eliminating the primary dicta of our moral nature, and in determining the occasions and circumstances which call for the application of particular rules. The regulation of our conduct is not dependent upon instinct. Aristotle, among the ancients, was unquestionably in advance of every age which preceded the introduction of Christianity, and is still in advance of many who call thcm- VoL. II.— 31

482 THE LOVE OF TRUTH.

selves Christians, in his clear and steady perception of the indissoluble connection betwixt the cogitative and practical departments of man's nature in reference to duty. He treats it as a distinction betwixt virtue and science that the latter is restricted to one portion of the soul, while the former em- braces all the elements of our being. " There are three prin- ciples," he affirms in the Nichomachean Ethics, "which, either single or combined, are the sovereign judges of truth and conduct. These are sensation, intellect and appetite. Of these three, mere sensation cannot alone be the founda- tion of any judgment respecting the conduct — that is, the propriety of action — for wild beasts have perception by sense, but are totally unacquainted with propriety. Affirming and denying are the operations of intellect ; desire and aversion are those of appetite ; and since moral virtue implies the habit of just election, and election or preference resolves itself into deliberation and appetite, every act of virtuous prefer- ence requires that there should be accuracy and truth in the comparison, as well as correctness and propriety in the desire." In conformity with this reasoning he subsequently denominates the moral election or preference peculiar to man " an impassioned intelligence or reflecting appetite." Who is not reminded of Bishop Butler's "sentiment of the understanding or perception of the heart ? " The investiga- tion of duty involving so obviously the exercise of judgment, those pJiilosophers are not to be rashly condemned who at- tribute the power of distinguishing betwixt right and wrong to the same faculty of the mind which, it is confessed, distinguishes betwixt truth and falsehood. They feel that the mental processes are so nearly identical that they cannot but regard it as an unnecessary multiplication of original powers to have a peculiar understanding conversant only about moral truth, while another understanding is admitted to exist which deals in truth of every other kind. Our faculties, which are only convenient names for the various operations of a simple and indivisible substance, derive their appellation, not from the specific differences of the objects

THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 483

about which they are employed, but from their general nature. The discovery of truth, it is maintained, is as much an end to the moral inquirer who is seeking, under given circumstances, to determine his duty, as it is to the physical philosopher, whose investigations cannot be legitimately pushed beyond the province of existing phenomena. The same laws of evidence, the same original principles, the same elements of human belief, and the same process of patient analysis and patient induction, are, or ought to be, common to both, and can no more be discarded with impunity by the one than they can be by the other.

This reasoning is certainly plausible, though not conclusive. There is judgment in the decisions of the conscience, and the laws in conformity with ^vhich that faculty pronounces ^hat Kant calls its categorical imperative become standards of evidence, the constitutive and regulative principles of opera- tion in all that pertains to rectitude and duty. Mere specu- lation could never suggest to us the notions of right and wrong, of virtue or a crime ; but the materials which con- science supplies become the subjects of philosophic contem- plation, and are worked up in the laboratory of reflection into abstract principles, which must react upon the con- science. The moral opinions framed by the understanding from the phenomena of conscience will constitute our code of right, and in the application of this code to the countless contingencies and diversified occasions of life there is room for the influence of judgment in determining what principles to apply. There can, consequently, be no progress in virtue beyond the merest elements or primary dicta of our moral constitution without progress in intelligence. Knowledge is as essential to responsibility as conscience. Hence a vari- able or fluctuating standard of truth necessarily introduces a varial^le and fluctuating standard of morals ; whatever sys- tem legitimates error legitimates crime ; whatever blinds the understanding corrupts the heart. The moral nature, devel- oped side by side with the intellectual, and in a large meas- ure dependent upon it, is always involved in the same ruin.

484 THE LOVE OF TRUTH.

Rude and barbarous nations are as niucli indebted to imbe- cility of reason, superinduced by neglect of cultivation, false associations or ill-judged discij^line, for their mistaken ap- prehensions of good and evil in the practical details of life, as to depravity of taste or perversion of moral sensibility. Their deeds of darkness are performed without compunctious visitings of conscience, not because that messenger of God slumbers in the breast, or is bribed by the sinner to hold its peace, or prevaricates in regard to the fundamental distinc- tions of right and wrong, but because that light is extin- guished, that soundness of judgment is wanting, without which it is impossible to discriminate in the cases presented. The moral habits can no more expand nor take root down- wards and bear fruit upwards, while the understanding, the true sun of the intellectual system, is veiled in darkness, than the plants and herbage of nature can flourish in beauty and luxuriance without the genial light of the dav. The sense of obligation is always just in proportion to the enlargement of the mind with liberal views of the relations of mankind ; and although the knowledge of the right does not necessarily secure its practice, it does secure what is always of vast importance to society — remorse to the guilty and a homage of respect to the good. He that acknowledges a legitimate standard of moral obligation will find in his conscience a check to those crimes which, through weakness, he is unable to suppress — a restraint upon those passions which, through frailty, cannot be subdued. The transgressor who violates rules of unquestioned authority which his own understand- ing has deduced from the phenomena of conscience will assuredly drive tranquillity from his bosom and repose from his couch. He sins indeed, but without that moral hardi- hood which attaches to those who, in their blindness and ignorance, put light for darkness, and bitter for sweet. They are the most dangerous offenders who tamper with the prin- ciples of rectitude itself, who seek to escape the reproaches of conscience by degrading the standard of moral obligation, who pursue peace at the expense of truth, and extinguish

THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 485

the light that they may not behold tlie calamity of their state. The abandoned condition of the Gentile world, which the Apostle graphically describes in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, is ultimately traced to the vanity of their thoughts and the darkness of their minds ; and those to whom the Gospel is hid have their minds blinded by the God of this world, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine into them and reveal the glory of the Lord, by the contemplation of which they might be transformed into the same image from glory to glory. There is hope of reformation as long as the prin- ciples remain uncorrupted ; but when the light which Is in us is converted into darkness, wlien lies are greedily embraced and errors deliberately justified, the climax of guilt has been reached, the ruin of the character Is complete, and the per- dition of the soul, without a stupendous miracle of grace, seems to be inevitable. Shame and remorse, the usual chan- nels through which amendment is produced, are always the result of consciousness of wrong — an affection which Is utterly inconsistent with that complete degradation of the mind into which thousands have been sunk, and in which error is neither lamented nor admitted.

From the intimate alliance which subsists betwixt the understanding and the conscience, speculative falsehood must be fatal to the integrity of morals. He who trifles with the constitution of his nature In those primary convictions which lie at the foundation of all knowledge and philosophy — and error must be ultimately traced to some transgression of their laws — is cherishing a temper which shall soon rise in rebellion against the authority of conscience, and extinguish the only light that can convict him of crime. From the obscurity and confusion which have been permitted to shroud the understanding may be anticipated a deeper gloom which is soon to settle on the heart. That the moral conduct of men is not always answerable to the looseness of their speculative principles. Is not to be ascribed to any redeeming virtue in the principles themselves, but to tlie

486 THE LOVE OF TRUTH.

restraints of society, and the voice of nature which licen- tiousness has not yet been able to suppress. The tendency exists, thouti'h accidental hindrances have retarded its development. The denial of the reality of truth and evi- dence will be attended with a corresponding denial of recti- tude and sin. These remarks, though they appear to me to be intuitively obvious, are felt to be necessary in order to rebuke the growing impression that speculative principles have no immediate influence in regulating conduct. We live in an age of sophists. A man may believe anything or nothing, and yet if his actions are consistent with the stand- ard of public decency, his principles are not to be condemned, and he is not to be charged with wickedness on account of them. In the formation of his opinions he is exempt from the moral law ; conscience takes cognizance of nothing but the life. As if there could be any real virtue where practice is not the result of principle ! As if the opinion were not the soul, life and being of all that is praiseworthy or excel- lent in the conduct ! There can be no morality without intelligence, and if there exists in the bosom of the Almighty an eternal standard of truth, from which the law of right- eousness proceeds, in conformity with which the arrange- ments of Providence are conducted and the relations of thing;,'- adjusted, and by which alone the harmony of the world can be effectually promoted, the first step towards communion with the Father of lights is to recognize that standard, and to have its rays reflected upon our own consciences. The mind cannot move in charity nor rest in Providence unless it turn upon the poles of truth. " The inquiry of truth," says Baeon,^ " which is the love-making or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God in the work of days was the light of sense, the last was the light of reason, and His Sabbath-work ever since is the illumina- tion of His Spirit."

1 Essuv on Truth.

THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 487

The last consideration which I shall adduce, in order to show the ethical character of the love of truth as the per- vading law of intellectual speculations, is the circumstance that it is the general habit of mind of which honesty, frank- ness, sincerity and faitlifulness are only specific manifesta- tions. There is no method of argument by which the obli- gation of veracity, in the ordinary intercourse and business life, can be established which will not equally apply to the doctrine in question. Whatever evinces the wickedness and sin of voluntarily imposing upon others, will evince with equal certainty the wickedness and sin of voluntarily im2>osing upon ourselves. We have no more right to de- ceive ourselves tiian we have to deceive our neighbours. That state of the understanding in which it is exempt from prejudice, and judges according to the light of evidence, is only a different manifestation of that general condition of the soul in ^^'hich it rejoices in rectitude, delights in sincer- ity, and scorns every approximation to concealment or hypocrisy. Few are sensible of the close alliance which subsists between partiality to error and duplicity and fraud in conduct. They are shoots from the same stock, fruits of the same tree. He that lies to his own understanding, or, what amounts to the same thing, does not deliberately pro- pose to himself truth as the end of all his investigations, will not scruple at deceit with his neighbours. He that prevaricates in matters of opinion is not to be trusted in matters of interest. The love of truth is honesty of rea- son, as the love of virtue is honesty of heart ; and so impos- sible is it to cultivate the moral affections at the expense of the understanding that they who receive not the truth in the love of it are threatened in the Scriptures with the most awful malediction that can befall a sinner in this sublunary state — an eclipse of the soul and a bligjit uj)on the heart, which are the certain forerunners of the second death. The spirit of leasing is always one. W^liat, in regard to speculative opinions, we denominate sophistry, is a species of the same general habit which developed into action gives

488 THE LOVE OF TRUTH.

birth to the character of the knave, distinguished from the man of probity and wisdom, not more by the meanness of his views and the littleness of his ends than the number and minuteness of his contrivances to reconcile villainy with fair appearances. The sophist of speculation is the hypocrite of practice. The same temper which prompts us to preva- ricate on one subject will prompt us to prevaricate on all. As the soul is one and indivisible, and understand- ing, affections, memory and will are only terms expres- sive of conditions in which the same substance is succes- sively found, or forms of action which the same substance successively puts forth, whatever indicates disease in one mode of operation must, from the simplicity of its nature, aifect it in all. As in music it is the same key which per- vades the tune, whatever may be the variety of notes of Avhich it is composed, so there is a general tone of mind which distinguishes all its activities, and gives harmony, consistency and unity to its various processes in every de- partment of thought and feeling. There is a characteristic complexion, a pervading temper, which may be found alike in the tenor of its opinions, the trains of its reasoning and the sentiments of the heart. If that temper be the love of truth, the whole man will be distinguished by candour, sincerity, openness and generosity ; if the spirit of leasing, the whole man will be distinguished by duplicity, treachery, equivocation and concealment. The love of truth is, accord- ingly, the great moral law in conformity with which curios- ity must be regulated ; it is the morality of the intellectual man, being to the understanding what sincerity is to the heart. The only plausible objection which can be sustained against tlie conclusiveness of these views, which bring the understanding under the control of conscience and subject the motives to intellectual effort to the jurisdiction of moral- ity, is that which assumes that the operations of the mind in the department of speculative truth are exempt from tlie authority of the will. Reid was unquestionably right in the enouncement which, so far as I know, he was the first

THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 489

distinctly and broadly to make, that virtue and vice are im- possible where there is no exercise of the will. It has accord- ingly been contended by philosophers of no less note than Sir James Mackintosh, Lord Brougham, and the author of Essays on the Formation of Opinions, that as the assent of the understanding is always involuntary, being the necessary result of the evidence submitted to its view, no moral cha- racter can attach to our opinions. We cannot on account of them be either the subjects of praise or blame, of reward or punishment. By one, they tell us, who has mastered the successive links in a chain of mathematical reasoning the conclusion can no more be resisted than light can be excluded from the open eye. The design of these illustrious men in maintaining the innocence of opinion is worthy of all jjraise, but they have certainly confounded questions that are entirely distinct. Their purpose was to lay a broad basis for civil toleration and for mutual charity. They wished to transfer opinions from the jurisdiction of the magistrate, and to rebuke the clamours of bigotry, intolerance and sectarian zeal. For this purpose, however, it was not necessary to prove that man is not responsible for his opinions at all, but only that he is not responsible to his fellows. Persecution is not the offspring of the doctrine that responsibility attaches to opinion, but that this responsibility is directed to the magistrate. The Scriptures consecpiently put responsibility upon its proper ground when they show that though we are responsible, we are responsible only to God. We are not the masters of each other's faith. We are not at liberty to judge or despise our brother in consequence of his differences from us, but still each man must give account of himself to God. He may sin in his opinions, but we are not the per- sons to punish him for his guilt. To his own Master he stands or falls. These remarks are made in order to guard against the impression that in combating the argument for toleration we are opposed to the principle of toleration itself. On the contrary, it seems to us that the philosophers in question have left it in a much more precarious condition

490 THE LOVE OF TRUTH.

than they found it. But to piiss this over, the same method of argument to which they have resorted in this ease might be employed, with equal pertinency and force, to prov^e that there is no responsibility for the emotions, affections or per- manent conditions of the heart. Love and hate are as much beyond the immediate province of the will as doubt or belief. These passions depend upon the presence or conception of qualities which just as necessarily excite them as evidence jjroduces conviction. Even the determinations of the will itself are not exempt from the influence of the great law of causation, and if the argument is pushed to the extent of its legitimate application, conduct will be as lawless as opinion. The connection iDctwixt motives and action is not less intimate and necessary than that between evidence and faith. It is precisely because there is this connection that responsibility in either case becomes conceivable or possible. If evidence had no inherent and essential tendency to gener- ate belief, if conviction were the arbitrary offspring of cir- cumstances, why should we be bound to examine evidence at all ? and if motives had no inherent and essential tendency to terminate in conduct, why should we be bound to culti- vate right affections ? Let those who hope to escape from responsibility by resorting to metaphysical distinctions, be- ware that they are not entangled in their own net, and that in the issue they do not establish what they are trying to overthrow.

The fallacy, however, of this popular argument is easily detected. It consists in restricting the application of the will to the final determination to act — in making icUl synonymous with volition. But when morality is confined to the province of the will, that faculty is made to embrace all the wishes and desires, all the appetites and habits, which constitute the springs of human action. Morality prescribes to them their laws ; and whenever these active princi23les are indulged in contravention of those laws, there guilt necessa- rily ensues ; whenever in obedience to those precepts, there virtue and rectitude obtain. The sole question therefore is,

THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 491

whether vicious propensities and desires have any influence upon the operations of the mind — whether good or bad emo- tions can exert any sway in directing its eiforts and giving shape to its results. The answer here is too obvious to be denied. The illustrations derived from mathematical demon- stration are singularly unfortunate. The reasonings of neces- sary science are subject to none of those disturbing influences which, as we shall subsequently see, the mind experiences in practical inquiries from its tastes, its temper and its prejudices. There is in this case no coloured glass to tinge the light as it passes to the eye. Besides, the contradictory of a necessary truth is not only false but absurd, and to entertain it, or even to represent it in thought, is a simple impossibility. The will has no jurisdiction, because the sub- jects embraced are wholly beyond its province. This is implied in the very epithet by which this species of truth is signalized. It is very difi'erent with moral speculations. There, as every question has two sides, and the opposite of truth is always cogitable, the assent is not the product solely of the evidence, but of the evidence conjointly with the tem- per and disposition of the man. Two factors conspire in the production of the result. The mind not only receives the liirlit, but chano;es and transforms it into its own image. The will, in its wide sense, enters as a powerful element, and puts its own interpretation upon the appearances submitted to the intellect. It does for the evidence what, according to the philosophy of Kant, the understanding does for the material of sensibility — it supplies the form. Hence, in moral and religious subjects universal experience has demonstrated that a man " understands as much by his affections as his reason." His beliefs are voluntary, in the sense that they are largely determined by the active princi- ples of his nature. Then, again, there is an indirect and mediate power of the will by which, although we cannot immediately produce any given conviction or emotion, we can place ourselves in the circumstances in which the causes shall operate that are fitted to achieve the desired result.

492 THE LOVE OF TRUTH.

Upon these two grounds we maintain that there may be a virtuous or a vicious exercise of the understanding, and that man is responsible for his opinions as he is responsible for the motives which impel him to intellectual effort, and for the diligence, caution and attention by which he avails himself of all the means of arriving at truth.

I have designedly taken this wide circuit as preparatory to the illustrations, which are yet to be presented, " of the nature of that veracity which is incumbent on us in our in- tercourse with our fellow-creatures. The most solid founda- tion for the uniform and the scrupulous exercise of this virtue is to cherish the love of truth in general, and to im- press the mind with a conviction of its important effects on our own happiness and on that of society." If asked why the love of truth is a duty, I can only appeal to the dictates of conscience and the authority of God. It is worthy of remark, however, that no theory of morals has ever yet been ventilated, at all entitled to the respect of mankind, in which this virtue has not received a prominent position. Among the ancients all virtue was a species of truth ; and in the school of the Stagirite prudence was an intellectual habit conversant about all practical, as wisdom was a habit con- versant about all speculative, truth. In the school of the Stoics the importance which is attached to it may be seen from the Offices of Tully. " Of all the properties and incli- nations of men, there is none," he informs us, " more natural and peculiar to them than an earnest desire and search after truth ; " and to this instinctive love of truth in general he traces our approbation of frankness, candour and sincerity in conduct. Among the Stoics, as among the Peripatetics, pru- dence as a cardinal virtue consisted in the contemplation and study of practical truth. The theory of Wollaston, to come down to modern times, confessedly resolves all virtue into truth ; and the schemes of Clarke, Cud worth and Price pre- suppose the speculative conclusions of the intellect as the final basis of moral distinctions.

If we place virtue in sentiment, there is nothing, accord-

THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 493

ing to the confession of all mankind, more beautiful and lovely than truth, more ugly and hateful than a lie. If we place it in calculations of expediency, nothing on the one hand is more conspicuously useful than truth and the confi- dence it inspires ; nothing, on the other, more disastrous than falsehood, treachery and distrust. If there be, then, a moral principle to which, in every form, humanity has given utterance, it is the obligation of veracity. Truth is alike the perfection of the intellect and the glory of the heart. The Gospel, it has been beautifully said, " divides universal virtue into Uvo cardinal, collateral and co-existent branches — truth and charity, the foundation and consummation of all things, corresponding to the two constituent parts of human nature, the intellect and the will, those singular and superemiuent distinctions by which man becomes the subject of a religion which makes him wise unto salvation."

The practical conclusion which I am anxious to impress upon you, from this part of the subject, is the obligation of making truth for its own sake the great end of your intel- lectual efforts. It is a principle which requires to be strengthened by exercise and matured into a habit. The discipline of the mind is imperfect, however fully its various capacities have been developed, until the love of truth gains the ascendency which is due to it as the supreme and sove- reign law of thought. Various motives may prompt us to be diligent and patient in the acquisition of knowledge. vSome seek it, as Butler has caustically suggested, merely for the sake of talking, or to qualify themselves for the world, some for their own entertainment, some for one purpose, others for another ; but multitudes have no sort of curiosity to see what is true. There are subordinate ends which are lawful, but they must always be kept in subserviency to the love of truth for itself. What an influence it would exert upon all who are engaged in intellectual pursuits if they were pervaded in the whole soul with this pure and sacred love of knowledge ! What student could indulge in indo- lence, or turn to his lessons as a weary task, or immerse

494 THE LOVE OF TRUTH.

himself in habits which dim the understanding, if he felt in any just proportion to the real state of the case the tran- scendent excellence of truth or the loathsome deformity of error? Let us rise to the dignity of this high argument. We have minds that were made to hioio — we are constructed with a reference to truth, and we are called upon to purge and unscale our sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radi- ance. The streams of science are flowing at our feet, and the food which angels eat is offered to our palate. Let it never be said that we have neglected these golden opportu- nities and turned from the temj)le of truth to \\'orship at the shrine of ignorance, error and shame. Resolve in the strength of God this day that, like Isis in search of the mangled body of Osiris, you will go up and down gathering, limb by limb, the scattered fragments of truth as your cir- cumstances shall enable you to find them.

This love of truth, which I have been endeavouring to recommend, will be of the very last importance to you to guard you against the deceits of the w^orld. Man walketh in a vain show. Untutored by experience, the young, par- ticularly, are slow to suspect that the prospects of good, of pleasure, opulence and power which stretch in rich luxuri- ance before them are an empty pageant. Unskilled in the treachery of the heart and the wiles of the tempter, they can hardly be persuaded that the gilded colours in which imagi- nation adorns the future are only a splendid drapery under which are concealed disappointment, sorrow and vexation. They have yet to learn the emptiness of pleasure, the agonies of power and the vanity of wealth. Impetuous in their passions, ardent in their temper and ignorant of life, they are prone to fix their affections upon some of those beggarly elements which will crumble into ashes at the touch of expe- rience. The Prince of Darkness, intent upon their ruin, plies his fatal arts of enchantment to lull them into a sleep of false security, to exclude religion from their thoughts, and to con- duct them by deceitful promises of good, by lies congenial with his nature, to the shades of death. This is a position

THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 495

of Immense peril. The world, the flesh and hell all conspire by glozing falsehood to seduce us to perdition. A covering is spread upon the grave and the pit, and the ways of sin are adorned with all that can please the eye, fascinate the ear or enchant the heart. Our security against these dangers is conviction of the truth. The Word of God, which is pre- eminently the truth, and in which a truth-loving heart will lead us to rest, dissipates the spell, reveals the snare and delivers from the plot. It paints life in its true colours, tears the mask from the face of guilt, disrobes the world of its gorgeous drapery and points to Him who is emphatically the way, the truth and the life. All the rays of moral truth ultimately centre in the Cross of the Redeemer ; and we never reach the summit of wisdom until we attain that life which is alike the knowledge of the Father and of His Son Jesus Christ. Every one, says the Saviour, that is of the truth heareth My voice. None perish but those who love darkness rather than light. A deceived heart turns them aside.

Discourse III THE LOVE OF TRUTH

IN my last discourse I endeavoured to demonstrate that the love of truth, as such, is a duty from the constitu- tion of the human mind ; the aptitude of truth to enlarge and expand it ; the intimate connection betwixt the culture of our moral and intellectual powers ; and the impossibility of vindicating the obligation of specific forms without recog- nizing the obligation of truth in general. I was led to show that we are responsible for our opinions in so far as we are responsible for the motives and influences under which we form them — that the operations of the understanding have a moral character, inasmuch as the impulse of curiosity, like all our other springs of action, is subject to the direction and control of the moral faculty. The love of truth for itself was evinced to be the law in conformity with which all our intellectual processes should be conducted. The end of every inquiry should be knowledge, the aim of every inves- tigation simple and unadulterated truth. To guard against the possibility of misapprehension, it may be well to add that, in inculcating the love of truth as a moral obligation, it is by no means my purpose to imply that all men are bound to know all truth. There is a great difference betwixt asserting that nothing should be sought which is not the truth, and that everything which is the truth is the appro- priate pursuit of every und(Tstanding.

496

THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 497

There are departmeuts of inquiry from which the natural limitation of our faculties precludes us ; there are subjects upon which we are incompetent to speculate from the want of congruity betwixt them and the constitution of our own minds, and as long as our powers remain what they are they must for ever be to us an unknown world. All know- ledge^ as I have elsewhere demonstrated at some length/ is relative in its nature and phenomenal in its objects. Who- ever, therefore, would seek to penetrate into properties of things to which our faculties are not adjusted, overlooks a fundamental condition of the possibility of knowledge, and his conclusions are entitled to no more respect than the speculations of a blind man upon colours or of a deaf man upon sounds. There are conditions in the objects corre- sponding to conditions in the subjects of knowledge ; one thing is set over against another, and beyond the limits of this correspondence it is folly to push our inquiries. Om- niscience is the prerogative of God alone. Men and angels, all creatures however exalted, must be for ever doomed to write over boundless regions of truth, " Hades, an unseen world." There is light there — light in which God dwells and rejoices — but which created eyes are not fitted to receive. To inculcate the obligation of universal knowledge is to tell men to forget that they are men, and to urge them upon attempting to be gods. It is to inculcate the most daring presumption, to sanctify intolerable arrogance and blas- phemy. The duty to seek knowledge can never transcend our capacities. We are not bound to know what our facul- ties are unable to grasp, and the attempt to become wise beyond the laws of our nature has always been rebuked in the history of philosophy with the most signal and disas- trous failures. Neither is it the duty of all men to seek all the knowledge which is attainable by any. The circum- stances of multitudes arc such that their inquiries are necessa- rily confined within narrow limits. Their time and attention

* See Second Keview of Morell's Philosophy of Religion, in vol. iii. of this Collection.

Vol. II.— 32

498 THE LOVE OF TRUTH.

are tiilven up with pressing cares, and the exigencies of life leave no leisure for abstracted speculation. The progress of knowledge, too, requires that those who are devoted to its interests should divide their labours. Some should be engaged in one department, some in another. Some should give themselves to the sciences, some to the arts, some to elegant letters, and others to the severer studies of logic, metaphysics and morals. In this way the march of human- ity is accelerated, the general condition of society is im- proved, though no single individual can ever hope to be abreast of the whole culture of the age.

What particular department of speculative truth each man shall select for himself, and how far he shall prosecute his labours, are questions to be determined by the circum- stances in which he finds himself placed. All that I assert in any case is that it is an indispensable duty in whatever inquiries we engage to aim only at the truth. We are not bound to endeavour after universal knowledge, but we are bound to guard against error and to receive nothing that has not the stamp of truth. All truth is not obligatory, but nothing but truth is obligatory, on the understanding. No man, under any circumstances, has a right to think a lie. He can no more without guilt administer poison to his understanding than he can administer it to his body.

The degree of knowledge which is essential to the dis- charge of the duties of any sphere in which a man is called to act, and to the accomplishment of his destiny as a moral and responsible being, is always binding. What the exig- encies of our peculiar and distinctive vocations as artisans, labourers or members of the learned professions demand, and what our general calling, as men made in the image of God and destined to happiness or misery in a future state according to our character and conduct here, requires, it is incumbent upon all to seek, and it is possible for all to attain. That knowledge which pertains to the conduct of life is ac(!essible to all upon whom the duties of life are imposed. It is the only knowledge which is of universal

THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 499

obligation, and in reference to it there is no need to inquire who shall ascend into heaven or who shall descend into the deep ; the word is nigh us even in our hearts and our mouths. The great doctrines of man's duty and destiny are not left to doubtful disputations. They are proclaimed upon an evidence which is open, palpable, authoritative — they stand upon the testimony of God. Wherever the Scriptures are known it is the imperative duty of all to know Him, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. No cares, no business should be allowed to preclude us from the fountain of life ; things temporal must yield to things eter- nal, things carnal must give way to the spiritual, the seen and perishing to the unseen and immortal. The Bible must have the precedence of every other book ; and though a man could speak with the tongues of angels, and under- stand all mysteries and subdue all nations in obedience to his will, yet if he were destitute of that knowledge which makes him wise unto salvation, with all his boasted attain- ments he would be but a chattering fool, but as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. This knowledge, then, in its essential elements as bearing upon our destiny as men, is of universal obligation. This pearl of great price we must purchase though we sacrifice all our other possessions to gain it. With these explanations and limitations I proceed to point out in what the love of truth essentially consists, and to indicate some of the temptations to which the young particularly are exposed to disregard it.

I need not say a word in reference to the importance of these points. AVith all our commendations of the beauty, the glory, the excellency of truth, it must yet be acknow- ledged that the temper of mind which is most favourable to the successful pursuit of it is exceedingly rare, even among those whose professed business is to seek and explain it. Composed as men are of conflicting elements, as evi- dently disordered in their understandings as they are in their affections, liable to the perversions of passion and interest, apt to confound the zeal of prejudice with earnest-

500 THE LOVE OF TRUTH.

ness of principle, the affectation of vanity with brilliancy of genins, eager for applause, and not always scrupulous about the means of securing it, the last spectacle which they exhibit is the true spirit of philosophy, the motive which least vigorously impels them is the ingenuous love of knowledge. I cannot better introduce what I have to suggest upon the nature of the love of truth, which I have been endeavouring to commend, than in the words of Locke, a competent authority upon this subject, having been him- self a distinguished example of the spirit he inculcates :

" First," says he,^ " a man must not be in love with any opinion, or wish it to be true, till he knows it to be so, and then he will not need to wish it, for nothing that is false can deserve our good wishes, nor a desire that it should have the place and force of truth. Secondly, he must do that which he will find himself very averse to, as judging the thing unnecessary or himself incapable of doing it; he must try whether his principles be certainly true or not, and how far he may safely rely upon them. In these two things — viz., an equal indiiferency for all truth : I mean the receiv- ing it, the love of it as truth, but not loving it for any other reason before we know it to be true ; and in the exami- nation of our principles, and not receiving any for such, nor building on them, till we are fully convinced as rational creatures of their solidity, truth and certainty — consists that freedom of the understanding which is necessary to a rational creature, and without which it is not truly an understand- ing:." We are not to confound the indiiference of which Locke here speaks as to what is true previous to the dis- covery with indifference to the truth itself, neither are we to suppose that he commends a spirit which is at all indif- ferent to the search after truth. On the other hand, he would have us eager in the pursuit, impartial in our inqui- ries and established in our conclusions ; zealous for truth, when truth is found, and ardent in quest of it while it yet lies undiscovered before us ; guarding equally against the ' Conduct of the Understanding, sects. 11, 12.

THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 501

partiality which would pervert and the lethargy which would arrest the efforts of the understanding. He is a slave to ignorance who is too idle to examine ; he is a slave to pre- judice who believes without, or independently of, evidence. An exemption from indolence or apathy on the one hand, and all irregular biases on the other — an exemption founded upon the very anxiety to escape from the stagnation of ignorance and the impostures of error — is the freedom of the under- standing which Locke ^ pronounces to be essential to a rational nature, without which it may be " conceit, fancy, extravagance, anything," but not " an understanding." It is this freedom which constitutes the love of truth, or rather this freedom is the only means by which the love of truth oiiu be exemplified, and curiosity directed to its appropri- ate objects.

The whole duty of man in regard to the conduct of his understanding may be referred to the single comprehensive principle that evidence is the measure of assent. This is the light which alone can make it manifest, and by this light, and this light alone, are we commanded to walk. The understanding, as the instrument of truth, has for its guide the laws of belief, and it is in virtue of these laws that it is so admirably adapted to the exercise of intelligence. Truth to us is and can be only relative. Things in their own natures, in their essences and quiddities, we are incapable of apprehending. That alone is truth to us which the con- stitution of our nature either immediately or mediately prompts us to believe. Its fundamental condition is confi- dence in our faculties, and the convictions which are pro- duced in conformity to the laws of our rational nature, the appearances of things to the human understanding when iiealthfully exercised, these constitute the ultimate measures of truth and falsehood. That is to us which appears to be, and is only in so far as it appears. Beyond these appear- ances our faculties can never penetrate. Intelligence, or the apprehension of truth, involves judgment, belief^ conviction ' Conduct of the Understanding, sect. ]2.

502 THE LOVE OF TRUTH.

of certainty, not merely that the thing is there, but, to use a sensible analogy, seen to be there. There must be a consti- tution of mind adapted to that specific activity by which it believes and judges, as it is only by virtue of such a consti- tution that the conception of knowledge becomes possible. This preparation of the mind to know, or its adaptation to intelligence, consists in subjecting it to laws of belief under which it must conduct its own operations. Its ener- gies can be exercised only under the condition that it shall know or believe. As it is the necessity of belief which dis- tinguishes intelligent action from every other species of operation, there must exist in the mind, as a part of its very structure, natural tendencies to certain manners of belief, to be developed as soon as its activities are called forth. In their dormant state, as they exist antecedently to experience, they are only necessities of thinking ; but developed by ex- perience and generalized into abstract statements, they are original and elementary cognitions, the foundation and crite- ria of all knowledge. They are the standard of evidence, the constitutive and regulative principles of intelligence, the light of the mind; and without them the mind could no more be conceived to know than a blind man to see. Through them we know and believe everything else ; they are vouchers and guarantees for all the truth which it falls to the lot of man to apprehend. To regulate belief by evi- dence is, accordingly, to receive nothing which is not either an original conviction or capable of being resolved into one. As we know by and through the mind, we can only know according to the laws of mind. All error may conse- quently be traced to some transgression of the laws of belief. There can be no doubt that, if all the conditions which ought to be observed in the processes of the understanding were faithfully regarded, there would be no danger of fallacy or mistake. Error is the result of disobedience or inattention to the intelligent constitution of our own nature, and the punishment of intellectual guilt. To follow nature, as that

THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 503

nature came from the hands of God, is to be conducted to truth as well as to duty.

If the primary data of consciousness are the standard and measure of evidence, there are but two ways in which we are liable to be misled and deceived. The first is, in assum- ing as an original conviction or the legitimate product of such convictions, what is only the dictate of authority, cus- tom, education or desire ; and the second is, in misapplying the data of consciousness to the cases which are actually sub- mitted to the decisions of the understanding. We mistake the real nature of the phenomena, and accordingly apply to them laws which are not applicable. In other words, we are liable to err by having a wrong standard of judgment or by using a right standard improperly. These are the heads to which it seems to me all prejudice, however origi- nated, may be at last referred. They give rise to skepticism and falsehood. He who confounds the dictates of education or authority with the primary convictions of nature not only exposes himself to the danger of serious and fatal mis- takes, but prepares the way for the utter anniliilation of the essential distinctions betwixt truth and fiilsehood. The origin and nature of skepticism have been admirablv described by Sir William Hamilton.^ " Our knowledge," says he, " rests ultimately on certain facts of consciousness, which, as primitive, and consequently incomprehensible, are given less in the form of cognitions than of beliefs. But if consciousness, in its last analysis — in other words, if our pri- mary experience — be a faith, the reality of our knowledge turns on the veracity of our generative beliefs. As ultimate, the quality of these beliefs cannot be inferred ; their truth, however, is, in the first instance, to be presumed. As given and possessed, they must stand good until refuted ; negcmti incumbit probatio. Intelligence cannot gratuitously annihi- late itself; nature is not to be assumed to work in vain, nor the Author of nature to create only to deceive. But though the truths of our instinctive faith must orlgmally be admitted, ^ Philosophical Discourses. Article on Brown.

504 THE LOVE OF TRUTH.

their falseliood may subsequently be established ; this, how- ever, only through themselves, only on the ground of their reciprocal contradiction. Is this contradiction proved ? the edifice of our kuoAvledge is undermined ; for no lie is of the truth. Consciousness is to the philosopher what the Bible is to the theologian. Both are professed revelations of Di- vine truth ; both exclusively supply the constitutive elements of knowledge and the regulative standard of its construction. Each may be disproved, but disproved only by itself. If one or other reveal facts which, as mutually rejDugnant, can- not but be false, the authenticity of that revelation is invali- dated ; and the criticism which signalizes this self-refutation has, in either case, been able to convert assurance into scep- ticism— to turn the truth of God into a lie. As psychology is only a developed consciousness, the positive philosopher has thus a primary presumption in favour of the elements out of which his system is constructed; while the sceptic or negative philosopher must be content to argue back to the falsehood of those elements from the impossibility which the dogmatist may experience in combining them into the har- mony of truth. For truth is one, and the end of philosophy is the intuition of unity. Scepticism is not an original or independent method. It is the correlevant and consequent of dogmatism ; and so far from being an enemy to truth, it arises only from a false philosophy as its indication and its cure. The sceptic must not himself establish, but, from the dogmatist, accept his principles ; and his conclusion is only a reduction of philosophy to zero, on the hypothesis of the doctrine from which his premises are borrowed. Are the principles which a peculiar system involves convicted of con- tradiction, or are these i)rinciples proved repugnant to others which, as facts of consciousness, every positive philosophy laast admit ? then is established a relative scepticism, or con- clusion that philosophy, so far as realized in this system, is groundless. Again, are the principles which, as facts of con- sciousness, philosophy, in general, must comprehend, found exclusive of each other? — there is established an absolute

THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 505

scepticism ; the impossibility of all philosophy is involved ill the negation of the one criterion of truth. Our statement may be reduced to a dilemma. Either the facts of conscious- ness can be reconciled or they cannot. If they cannot, know- ledge absolutely is impossible, and every system of philoso- phy therefore false. If they can, no system which supjjoses their inconsistency can pretend to truth." It is the office of the skeptic to bring the diiferent powers of the soul into a state of unnatural collision and to set our faculties at war ; to involve their functions in suspicion ; to make the deduc- tions of the understanding contradict original convictions of nature, or these original convictions contradict themselves in the conclusions they legitimate ; and thus to sap the founda- tions of knowledge, to annihilate all certainty, to reduce truth and falsehood to a common insignificance, and expose the mind to endless perplexity, confusion and despair. The danger of receiving as maxims what are not entitled to the dignity extends much beyond the immediate errors in which they involve us. It is not that they generate a rash dogma- tism, but that they afford the materials of undermining th*; whole temple of knowledge, which creates their mischief. The skeptic accepts them at the hands of the dogmatist and uses them as instruments of death. Hence, the importance, in the language of Locke,' of accustoming ourselves, " in any question proposed, to examine and find out upon what it bottoms. Most of the difficulties that come in our way, when well considered and traced, lead us to some proposi- tion which, known to be true, clears the doubt and gives an easy solution of the question." The mischief which maxims rashly accepted as intuitive judgments or well-drawn con- clusions have done to the cause of truth, both in philosophy and religion, is incalculable. A single crotchet of philoso- phers, that the relation of knowledge implies an analogy of the subject and the object, involved for centuries the whole subject of perception and the mode of our knowledge of the external world in confusion, hypothesis and contradiction. ' Conduct of the Uuderstanding, Sect. H.

506 THE LOVE OF TRUTH.

The ideal theory was the offspring of this simple proposi- tion ; and it might even yet retain its ascendency in the schools, if the skepticism of Hume, at once the indication and cure of the disorder, had not arisen and prepared the way for a sounder metaphysics. The Scribes and Pharisees took it to be a maxim that no good thing could come out of Nazareth, and upon the absurd dogma founded the belief that Jesus was an impostor. The "' soft enthusiast " receives it as an axiom that the benevolence of God rejoices in the happiness of His creatures simply and for itself, and hence proceeds to the denial of government, and especially the operations of penal justice.

It deserves to be particularly remarked that the mind very frequently assumes, without the formality of distinct enunciation, as self-evident truths, a class of propositions from which it would recoil if stated in words. It silently and imperceptibly takes them for granted. They enter into its reasonings without its being distinctly conscious of their presence. Some men are tenacious of opinions because they are the characteristics of a party or a sect — because the}' are recommended by high authority, and have been sanctioned by a long, uninquiring acquiescence. " When any of these maxims are brought to the test" no man who protends to reason will hesitate to condemn them as fallible and uncer- tain, and " such," as Mr. Locke expresses it,^ " as he will not allow in those that differ from him ; and yet after he is convinced of this, you shall see him go on in the use of them, and the very next occasion that offers argue again upon the same grounds."

The criteria by which the fundamental data of conscious- ness are recognized are sufficiently plain for all the purposes of life. The difficulty consists not in their obscurity or confusion, but in our own reluctance to examine the grounds of our belief, and to bring every proposition to the law and to the testimony. We love opinions instead of truth. We are pleased with dogmas upon other and independent ' Conduct of the Understandinp;, Sect. 6.

THE LOVE OF rRUTlI. 507

grounds, and are insensibly led by our passions and desires to transform ourselves from candid and impartial inquirers into earnest and interested advocates. Education makes authority tantamount to nature, and we quietly treat as intuitively obvious what we caught from the nursery and cradle, without having ever seriously asked ourselves whe- ther these principles are indeed distinguished by the marks and characters of original convictions. Hence, error is per- petuated from age to age. One generation transmits a legacy of lies to another, and the dreams of tranquillity are not dis- turbed until some threatening form of skepticism arises that compels examination and enforces inquiry. The first duty, therefore, which the lov^e of truth exacts at our hands is to look well to our principles, to jjrove all things and to hold fast that which is good. Bring everything to the standard of evidence which our nature supplies. This is the only light which we are at liberty to follow. A blind and im- plicit reception of any principles, however sacred, without satisfactory evidence, is alike condemned by the Scriptures and the voice of reason. This mechanical faith is not an exercise of the understanding ; it is a passive acquiescence in the circumstances which surround us. Such a man does not think, he is thought for ; he simply crams himself with the cogitations of other minds, as a cook crams a bird with food. Let a man be rigidly indifferent as to what shall prove to be truth, keep all passion, interest or disturbing influences at a distance, and patient examination will most certainly conduct him to the light of real evidence.

The other form in which prejudice operates is by distort- ing the appearances of things, so as to make us upon true principles pronounce wrong judgments. Our faculties are not put in complete possession of the case. This is espe- cially true of moral and religious subjects. In all such subjects the evidence is tinged by the complexion of the mind, and although the judgment may be right according to the evidence as j)rescnted, it is not right according to the evidence as it exists in itself. It is a jaundiced eye mis-

508 THE LOVE OF TRUTH.

judging of colours. That there is a connection betwixt the state of the soul and the perception of moral and Divine truth was a principle admitted even by the heathen philos- ophers. Aristotle expressly enounces it, and the cele- brated fable of the wolf learning to read was especially designed to illustrate it. Depravity of heart and the indul- gence of corrupt and wicked passions not only give rise to false measures of truth, but false applications of the true measures of good and evil. In this double operation con- sists Avhat the Scriptures denominate the deceitfulness of siu. Things are represented in disguise, bitter put for sweet, sweet for bitter, and through the " fatal force and imposture of words" the fraud is concealed and propagated. Thu.'^, parsimony may have the credit of frugality, and a spirit of revenge be dignified as sensibility to honour, and extrava- gance or prodigality receive the praise which is due to libe- rality. The passions make out a false case, and hence a false judgment is necessarily rendered. The ablest advo- cate of the passions on such occasions is the power of asso- ciation. Let unpleasant ideas be connected with a name, and they will be transferred to everything to which the name is applied. A " slaveholder" at the North is the very embodiment of evil, and an "abolitionist" at the South an emissary of darkness. It is the trick of politicians to bandy epithets, words being the "counters of wise men, but the coin of fools." You might not be able to injure a man's principles, but call him some hateful name and you effect- ually destroy him. There is no subject in regard to which the young should be more constantly on their guard than the sophistry of the heart. In a right-ordered mind adapt- ation to its state is the highest evidence of good, and when the heart is corrupt the things which are suitable to it will still be prized as objects of desire, and invested with all those properties and attributes which belong to real excel- lence. It will still make analogy or correspondence to its prevailing tastes and inclinations the practical criterion of truth. As the relation of assent can never freely and cheer-

THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 509

fully obtain where the mind and proj)osition are not homo- geneous— sympathy being in tliis, as in all other cases, essential to union — it is clear that wickedness has a fearful power in seducing the understanding into error. It has but to seize upon this principle of fitness to make the feeling of proportion to its own tastes, of correspondence and con- gruity with its own dispositions or desires the measure of good, in order to fill the mind with prtjudiccs, and to erect a standard of practical truth which must fatally pervert the judgment. Taylor has well observed that "a man's mind must be like your proposition before it can be entertained, tor whatever you put into a man it will smell of the vessel. It is a man's mind that gives the emphasis, and makes your argument to prevail." Hence, as the same eloquent writer again remarks, " It is not the wit of man, but the spirit of a man, not so much his head as his heart, that learns the Divine philosophy." Moral is not more distinguished from mathematical reasoning by the fact that it admits of degrees than by the equally important fact that these degrees may be indefinitely modified by our tempers, dispositions and habits. Even the transient humour in which we may chance to be has often a controlling influence. The same circumstance which in one state of mind would carry no weight with it, in another might amount to a very high degree of certainty, just as in one state of mind a phenome- non may be eminently suggestive which in another would pass unheeded. Newton, no doubt, had often seen apples fall, but the event was insignificant until he happened to be in a particular vein of speculation. "Trifles," which to the generous and unsusjjecting seem " light as air, are to the jealous, confirmation strong as proof of Holy Writ." While, therefore, it is true that a man's faith will always be according to his apprehension of the evidence, it is not true that in moral subjects the evidence will always be apprehended in its just proportions. It may be perverted, distorted, discoloured or reduced to nothing ; the facts which contain it may fail to suggest it, or suggest it feebly and

510 THE LOVE OF TRUTH.

inadequately. To a man under the habitual dominion of covetousness it is impossible to represent in its true light an enterprise of charity; to a glutton lost in sensuality or a sot reduced to the condition of a brute all discourses upon man's sublime gifts must be unmeaning. The voluptuary and debauchee cannot comprehend the dignity and excel- lence of self-denial. The proud will turn in disgust from lessons of humility, and the envious sneer at the obligation of benevolence. It is an universal rule that sin darkens the understanding, while it corrupts the heart. It is as inconsistent with the just appreciation of evidence as with the faithful discharge of duty. Hence, it was a custom in the ancient schools of philosophy to spend some time in trials and examinations of the genius and disposition of their scholars before they admitted them to the sublime instructions of the sect. The Platonists, particularly, laid down severe rules for " the purgation of the soul, for refin- ing and j)urifying it from the contagion of the body, and the infection it might have contracted from the sensitive life, in order to fit and prepare it for the contemplation of intellec- tual and abstract truths." One greater than Plato or Aris- totle, the Master of a nobler philosophy than ever sprang from earth, has enjoined it as the condition of knowing Divine truth that we cultivate the spirit of universal obe- dience. He that will do God's will shall know of the doctrine.

There is no principle which needs to be more strenuously inculcated than that evidence alone should be the measure of assent. In reference to this principle the whole disci- pline of the understanding must be conducted. Our anx- iety should be to guard against all the influences which preclude the access of evidence, incapacitate us to appre- ciate its value, and give false measures of judgment instead of the natural and legitimate laws of belief. All real evi- dence we are bound to receive according to the weight which it would have in a sound and healthful condition of the soul. It is a defect in the mind not to be able to appre-

THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 511

ciate its lowest degrees. That is a feeble and must be a fickle mind which, foolishly demanding certainty on all the questions submitted to its judgment^ cannot proportion its faith to the amount of light it enjoys. Dissatisfied with probability, and ever in quest of what the circumstances of our case put hopelessly beyond our reach, such men, like Noah's dove, M'ill seek in vain for a spot on which they can rest. Probability is the guide of life, and he who resolves to believe nothing but what he can demonstrate acts in open defiance of the condition of sublunary existence. There are many things here which we can only see through a glass darkly. Our duty is to walk by the light Avhich we have. God commands us to yield to all evidence that is real in precise propoi'tion to its strength. Evidence, and that alone, He has made it obligatory on our understandings to pursue, and whatever opinions we hold that are not the offspring of evidence — that have come to us merely from education, authority, custom or passion — how^ever true and valuable they may be in themselves, are not held by us in the spirit of truth. These measures of assent are only presumptions which should stimulate inquiry and breed modesty and caution. They are helps to our faith, but should never be made the props of it.

Hence, all efforts to restrict freedom of debate and the liberty of the press should be watched with caution, as pre- judicial to the eliciting of evidence and the defence and propagation of the truth. But little is gained if opinions are crammed into men ; and this is likely to be the case where they arc not permitted to inquire and to doubt. At the same time it must be remembered that no spirit is more unfriendly to that indifference of mind so essential to free- dom of incpiiry than that which arises in the conduct of controversy. When we become advocates we lay aside the garb of philosophers. The desire of victory is often stronger than the love of truth ; and pride, jealousy, ambition and envy, identifying ourselves with our opinions, will lend their aid to pervert our judgments and to seduce us from our can-

512 THE LOVE OF TRUTH.

dour. A disputatious spirit is always the mark of a little inind. The cynic may growl, but he can never aspire to dignity of character. There are undoubtedly occasions when we must contend earnestly for the truth; but when Ave buckle on the panoply of controversy, we should look well to our own hearts, that no motives animate us but the love of truth and zeal for the highest interests of man.

I am apt to suspect that the habit which is not unfre- quently recommended, as a means of intellectual discipline, of arguing on the wrong side of a question as a trial of ingenuity and skill, is inconsistent with ingenuousness of mind. It is sporting with falsehood, trifling with evidence, and must eventually produce a fondness for sophistry, which will ultimately destroy solidity of judgment. Besides this, to use arguments as conclusive whicli we do not believe to be possessed of that character is very near to a deliberate lie. It is a practice closely allied to pious frauds.

But the most serious dangers to which a young man is exposed of surrendering the interests of truth are those which arise from vanity or shame.

The love of applause, which, studious only of appearances, substitutes hypocrisy for virtue, rashness for courage and pedantry for learning, will court reputation rather from the glitter of paradox than the steady light of truth. He whose end is to elicit admiration, who aims to seem, not to be, a philosopher, will prefer plausibility to evidence, ingenuity to reasoning and singularity to general consent. When the ambition of notoriety, which ought not to occupy the sub- ordinate position of an incidental motive, usurps the place of an end of inquiry, its disturbing influences upon the integrity of the mind are not less disastrous than the elFects of ostentation in morals upon the sincerity of the heart. The laws of evidence cease to be regarded ; novelty, not truth, becomes the measure of assent; astonishment, not conviction, the aim of argument ; and the stare of wonder is deemed a more pleasing tribute than substantial esteem. The excursions of this insane principle are marked by oppo-

THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 513

sition to the settled opinions of the race fierce and malig- nant in proportion to their worth, and by a prolific ingenuity in the invention of error. As the reputation of sagacity and superior discernment is the prize to be won, he promises to be the most successful competitor who triumphs over the general persuasion of mankind, who detects flaws and ele- ments of falsehood in the faith of generations, and rears a new fabric of wisdom and knowledge upon the ruins of ancient ignorance and superstition. To such men nothing is venerable, nothing sacred. They penetrate the depths of the past to collect the mischievous opinions which time had consigned to oblivion, and to reproduce upon the stage in the dress of novelty the actors that once inspired consterna- tion and alarm. They explore the mysteries of science, not to admire the wisdom or adore the goodness of God ; not to enlarge the dominion of mankind, to relieve their wants, to increase their comforts, to stimulate their piety and exalt their destiny ; but to wring from the secrets of nature, by hateful processes of torture, some dubious confessions that may signalize themselves as unexpected ministers of ill. As religion is the most awful subject that can occupy the thoughts of men, it is here that the encroachments of vanity will be most daring and presumptuous. Science is the pos- session of but few, and he who ventures upon novelties in any of its departments can expect but a limited glory. Religion, on the other hand, is the property of the race, and he who should succeed in confounding its principles or ex- tinguishing its sanctions would achieve a conquest which, if the extent of ruin is to be the measure of renoM^i, might satisfy the largest ambition. It is a marvellous phenomenon that men should be willing to relieve obscurity by infamy — that rather than not be known, they will deliberately sup- press the light of reason, quell the remonstrances of con- science, forfeit the approbation of the wise and good, defy the Omnipotent to arms and run the risk of everlasting damnation. Yet such there are, infatuated men, who seek for distinction in unnatnral efforts to degrade their species — Vol. II.— 33

514 THE LOVE OF TRUTH.

who found a title to respect upon discoveries which link them in destiny to the brutes — who glory in their shame. Xo- thing in the majesty of virtue rebukes them, nothing in the simplicity of truth allures them, nothing in the terrors of the Almighty alarms them. With ruthless violence and parricidal zeal they attack whatever is venerable, sacred, august and true. The sublimest doctrines of religion, the dread retributions of eternity, and the name and perfections of Him who sits upon the circle of the earth and before whom the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers and the nations are counted as the small dust of the balance, are treated as materials to minister to vanity. At one time, under the pretext of exalting natural religion, the mysteries of the Cross are disregarded, and reason is professedly ex- alted only that grace may be really despised. At another time the distinctions of truth and falsehood are involved in confusion, and universal skepticism made the touchstone of sound philosophy ; and truth, and duty, and religion disap- pear in the darkness. The scene changes, and we behold open apologists for Atheism, who seek to gain a name in the earth by unblushingly proclaiming that they can detect no traces of wisdom in the fabric of the world, no tokens of goodness in the conduct of Providence — whose deity is chance, whose devotion is sensuality, whose hope is extinc- tion. But as these gross forms of impiety and absurdity soon excited too much disgust to flatter the vanity of their authors — the infamous c dour they emitted rebuking the in- spection of curiosity — this miserable ambition of distinction was compelled to resort to decency, and assuming the air of profound speculation, covered its enormities under the refinements of a philosophy in which names that are dear to the heart — the names of God, of virtue and religion — are retained, but the things themselves are exploded. This system is exactly adapted to the ruling passion of the vain. Obscurity is its element, and as objects look larger in a mist, the reputation of profound sagacity and wisdom may be chea])ly purchased by substituting mystery for sense and

THE LOVE OF TRUTH. 515

dreams for tliought, by drinking inspiration from the clouds, and elotliing- oracular responses in a jargon as dark and un- intelligible as the hieroglyphics of those great exemplars of imposture, the priesthood of Egypt. Guard against vanity. Never let it be a question whether this or that opinion shall attract attention to your persons. Look only for evidence ; follow the light; and be content with the reflection that you have deserved, whether you have gained or not, the appro- bation of your fellows. Wisdom will eventually be justified of all her children. The triumphs of vanity are short, those of truth everlasting.

Closely connected with vanity is the irregular influence of the sense of shame in prompting us to shrink from opin- ions which may expose us to ridicule. False shame, it is obvious, however, is not so fatal to the interests of truth as vanity, since, content with suppressing unpopular convic- tions, it makes no excursions into the fields of error. Unam- bitious of attracting observation, it meditates no monument of glory. It is not obscurity, but contempt, that excites its apprehensions. The sense of shame as a subsidiary sanc- tion of virtue and propriety is an important, perhaps an indispensable, element in the economy of human nature. It is a protection from what is little in principle and mean in conduct. But to exalt the sense of the ridiculous into a criterion of truth, to make it the guide of reason in the pur- suits of philosophy, is to destroy the just subordination of impulses and passions to the dictates of the understanding. Our emotions depend not upon the essential qualities of the objects that excite them, but upon the representations that are made to the mind. The eye affects the heart ; the aspects or lights in which things are contemplated deter- mine the character of the feelings they produce. If, then, virtue and truth are capable of being distorted by the fancy and presented under false appearances, they are capable of being made the occasions of emotions foreign to their nature. It may, indeed, be conceded that the sense of ridicule is an instinct of nature, and that its appropriate qualities are

516 THE LOVE OF TRUTH.

neither truth, virtue, nor goodness, distinctively as such ; but as instances of virtue can be misrepresented to the moral sense and receive the censure wliich is due to vice, so truth can be covered in the disguise of falsehood, and provoke the laughter which is due to folly. The intrinsic dignity and importance of an object are no exemption from the shafts of raillery. The noblest painting may be seen in a fiilse light. The history of infidelity is fraught with melancholy proof that no subjects are too sublime for lev- ity, too sacred for caricature or too solemn for a jest. Could religion always be presented in its true colours — and this is the truth which it is most important to guard — it would have nothing to fear from the power of ridicule. But when piety is denounced as superstition, humility reproached as meanness, faith derided as enthusiasm, firmness despised as obstinacy, and joy in the Holy Ghost insulted as the off- spring of spiritual pride, religion may suffer from the con- tempt due only to the gross and disgusting pictures which soj)hists and buffoons have drawn of it. There are a thou- sand tricks by which wit and humour may pervert the mys- teries of the Cross, and connect them with low and ridicu- lous associations with which they have no natural affinity. Through the " fatal imposture of words," by mean and vul- gar analogies, the eccentricities of good men may be artfully exaggerated, their ignorance and frailties conspicuously set off, and true piety dexterously confounded with hypocrisy and fraud. In every age skeptics have relied more upon the power of sarcasm than upon the power of argument. The enemies of Christianity, as Dr. Paley justly remarks, have pursued her with poisoned weapons. A soj^hism may be detected, but who can refute a sneer ? When infidelity ceased to be confined to the circles of philosophers and began to court the approbation of the crowd, it abandoned whatever dignity and elegance it formerly possessed, and descended to the lowest forms of buffoonery. It dropped the mask of the sage, assumed the character of the harle- quin, relin(piished argument and betook itself to ribaldry.

THE LOVE OP TRUTH. 517

The design of tlie French philosophers was not to discuss the merits of Christianity, but to present it in false lights, to exhibit it in uncouth and revolting attitudes, to attach disgusting or ridiculous associations with its peculiar doc- trines, and to cover it with the contempt which was due only to the odious pictures themselves had drawn. It has been the trick of the profane in every age to deride pre- tensions to spiritual religion, and it requires no ordinary degree of courage to resist the contempt to which the pro- fession of vital religion is exposed in the world. When it is industriously connected with ideas of littleness, meanness and fanaticism, represented as the jjroperty of narrow spirits and of coward hearts, the temptation is very strong to be ashamed of its doctrines, its promises and its hopes. Such is the depravity of men that singular virtue is made the object of reproach, while singular vice or singular error may be the means of distinction. Hence, our Saviour brings the awful sanctions of eternity to bear upon those who are in danger of surrendering truth to a jest, their hon- est opinions to raillery and banter. He points to a shame with which sin shall be finally accompanied, more tremen- dous and appalling than all the reproaches of men, an ever- lasting contempt which shall astonish and overwhelm the guilty, when God shall laugh at his calamity and mock when his fear cometh. " Whosoever is ashamed of Me, and of My words, of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed when He comes in the glory of the Father with the holy angels."

We should particularly guard against the irregular influ- ence of shame, because its operations do not always stop at the suppression or concealment of obnoxious opinions. The rebukes of conscience must be silenced by pleas and the self-respect we have forfeited must be regained by evasions. He who is ashamed of the truth will soon proceed to con- demn it. He who is afraid to profess Christ will soon be tempted to deny Him. He that is not prepared to suffer will soon be induced to l)etray. That character alone is

518 THE LOVE OF TRUTH.

great in Avhicli the love of truth is supreme, habitually superior to the clamours of prejudice, the surmises of igno- rance and the jeers of contempt.

I have now described briefly and rapidly the character- istics of the love of truth, which was previously evinced to be a duty, and pointed out some of the dangers to which we are exposed of foregoing its claims. My design has been to commend this spirit to your hearts. It is the foundation of all solid excellence. It gives stability to character and dis- tinguishes firmness from obstinacy. It makes the man of principle. You may be distinguished in the world without it, but you never can have the approbation of your own hearts or the smile of God. You never can perfect and adorn your natures. Learn to investigate, to examine, to try the principles that are proposed to you, and make it a fixed rule to regulate your assent by no authority but that of evidence. Never be in love with opinions upon any foreign or adventitious grounds ; cleave to them only because they are the Truth. Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not. " Blessed," says Divine Wisdom, " is the man that heareth Me, watching daily at My gates, wait- ing at the posts of My doors. For whoso findeth Me find- eth life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord. But he that sinneth against Me wrongeth his own soul : all they that liate Me love death."

DISCOURSE IV,

SINCERITY,

TRUTH may be considered in two leading aspects, either as having reference to the correspondence of our convictions with the reality of things, which may be called speculative truth or truth of opinion, or as having reference to the correspondence of our expressions with the reality of our convictions, which in contradistinction from the former may be called jiractical truth or truth of life and conduct. The one protects our minds from imposition and error, the other protects our lips from treachery and falsehood. The one keeps us from being deceived, the other from deceiving. The love of truth, as a general habit, equally includes them both ; it )nakes us cautious, discriminating and attentive to evidence in the process by which our opinions are formed, and exact, prudent and scrupulous in the testimony by which we communicate our judgments to others. The love of truth, as a general habit, and as applying to our speculative inquiries, has already been sufficiently considered. It remains now to discuss the second great branch of the subject — practical truth, or truth of life and conduct.

This seems to me to include three things. The first is sincerity, which obtains whenever the signs, whatever tliey may be, by which we intentionally communicate ideas,

519

520 SINCERITY.

exactly represent the state of our own convictions. The standard of tliis species of truth is a man's own thoughts. As the design of speech is not directly and immediately to express the nature and properties of things, but our own conceptions in regard to them, he that utters his thoughts is liot wanting in veracity, however tliose thoughts may fail to correspond to the realities themselves. Distinguished casu- ists have, accordingly, defined veracity to be a moral virtue, inclining men to represent phenomena according to their own apprehensions.^ The matter of it they make twofold, immediate and remote:^ the immediate consistina^ in the correspondence of the statement Math the conviction of the speaker, the remote in the correspondence of the conviction to the thing itself. The concurrence of the two is a safe- guard against all deception from testimony. It is then per- fect and complete. With this double distinction of the matter of veracity, it is easily conceivable that a man may veraciously utter what is false and falsely utter what is true. If he affirms that to be true which he believes to be false, or affirms that to be false which he believes to be true, though

^ Thomas Aquinas, Summa, 2. 2. Quest. 110, art. 1. Dens, Tlieol., Mor. and Dog., vol. iv., p. 30G. De Veritate.

^ The distinction of Aquinas is into matter and form— the matter of a proposition being its tz-uth or falsehood abstractly considered ; the form, its truth or falsehood according to the belief of the speaker.

A proposition may obviously be contemplated in two lights^ither abstractly as a naked affirmation or denial, and then the matter of it is the thing, whatever it may be, which is asserted or denied ; or relatively, according to the jjurpose and intention of the speaker, and then the mat- ter of it is the apprehension of his own mind ; it affirms or denies, not what is, except per accidens, but what he believes. When the question is in reference to the truth of the thing, the matter, in the first aspect, is the point of inquiry; when the question is in reference to the sincerity of the speaker, the matter, in the second, is all that is important. This is, indeed, the sole matter of veracity, but not the sole matter of the proposi- tion. Hence, the distinction into proximate and remote is a convenient one, if it be borne in mind that the proximate is the essence of veracity as it respects the speaker ; the remote, of the proposition abstractly con- sidered as true or false. The most common distinction, however, is into matter and form ; the matter having reference to the proposition itself— liie form to the belief of the speaker.

SINCERITY. 521

in each case liis belief may be erroueous and things be exactly as he represents them, he is guilty of deceit — he has spoken against his mind ; the proximate or immediate matter of veracity is wanting. This proximate matter is what modern writers have denominated physical or logical, and the remote what they have denominated moral, truth. It is evident that in the former the essence of sincerity consists, and upon the latter the value of testimony, as an independent source of knowledge, depends. " If there be an agreement," says South,^ who, in his definition of a lie, has followed Augus- tin — " if there be an agreement between our words and our thoughts, we do not speak falsely, though it sometimes so falls out that our words agree not with the things them- selves ; upon which account though in so speaking we oifend indeed against truth, yet we offend not jjroperly by false- hood, which is a speaking against our thoughts, but by rash- ness, which is affirming or denying, before we have suf- ficiently informed ourselves of the real and true estate of those things whereof we affirm or deny." It is certainly incumbent upon men to guard against imposture and error ; and where their judgments have been hastily formed, with- out due attention to the evidence within their reach, or under the influence of prejudice and passion, their mistakes are not without guilt. They siii against the truth in the absence of that spirit of indifference, impartiality and candid inquiry in which the love of it consists, though they are not chargeable with insincerity or deceit in their communications to others. The difference betwixt a mistake and a lie is, that in the one case the speaker himself is deceived, in the other, he pro- poses to deceive others. A mistake always, a lie never, has the proximate matter of veracity.

The second branch of practical truth requires that our actions corresj)ond with our professions. This is called faithfulness, and consists in fulfilling the engagements and meeting the expectations which we have knowingly and voluntarily excited. This subject is being discussed under 1 Sermon on Falsehood, Prov. xii. 22.

522 SINCERITY.

the head of veracity ; but feithfuhiess is evidently a mixed virtue, combining the elements of justice and of truth. A promise or a contract creates a right in another party ; and the obligation to fulfil it arises, accordingly, not simply from the general obligation of veracity, but from the specific obli- gation which corresponds to my neighbour's right. Hence, breach of promise is something more than a lie ; it is a fraud — it cheats a man of his own.

The third thing involved in practical truth is consisteney, or harmony of character. Truth is one, and the life of the good man must be a reflection of its unity. Fluctuations and fickleness of opinion or of conduct are certain indica- tions of gross dishonesty of heart, or of gross imbecility of understanding. When a man often shifts his principles, it is not truth, but imagined interest, that he stands on ; and he who is under the frequent necessity, as the phrase goes, of "defining his position," has no position that is worth defining, and is fit for no position of any moment.

These three — sincerity, faithfulness and consistency — com- prise the whole duty of practical veracity. The opposite of the first is deceit in its Protean shapes of lying, hypocrisy and flattery ; the opposite of the second is fraud; and the opposite of the third is inconstancy or fickleness.

Before proceeding to a more detailed discussion of these subjects, it may be well to adjust a preliminary question in reference to the grounds of the obligation of veracity. Paley resolves them into contract.^ "A lie," says he, " is a breach of promise ; for whoever seriously addresses his discourse to another tacitly promises to speak the truth, because he knows that the truth is expected." To say nothing of the fact that a promise presupposes the veracity of the promisor as the measure of its engagement — that it is nothing and can be nothing except on the supposition that the promisor really conveys the purpose of his mind — the theory labours under another difficulty. It is not enough to constitute a promise that expectations are entertained; they must be ^ Moral and Political Philosophy, Book iii., Chap. 15.

SINCERITY. 523

knowingly and voluntarily excited by ourselves. It is nothing worth, therefore, to affirm that because truth is expected when we seriously address our discourse to another, therefore Ave have tacitly promised to speak it, unless it can be shown that tliis expectation has been intentionally pro- duced by our agency. We are not bound by any other expectations of men but those which we have authorized. It is idle, therefore, to pretend to a contract in the case. If Dr. Paley Iiad pushed his inquiries a little farther, he might have accounted for this expectation, which certainly exists, independently of a promise, uj)on principles firmer and surer than any he has admitted in the structure of his philosophy. He might have seen in it the language of our nature pro- claiming the will of our nature's God. It is surprising to what an extent this superficial theory of " contract " has found advocates among divines and moralists. " Upon the prin- ciples of natural reason," says South, ^ in a passage of which the extract from Paley may be regarded as an abridgment, " the unlawfulness of lying is grounded upon this, that a lie is properly a sort or species of injustice, and a violation of the right of that person to whom the false speech is directed ; for all speaking, or signification of one's mind, implies, in the nature of it, an act or address of one man to another, it being evident that no man, though he does speak false, can be said to lie to himself. Now, to show what this right is, we must know that, in the beginnings and first establish- ments of speech, there was an implicit compact amongst men, founded upon common use and consent, that such and such words or voices, actions or gestures, should be means or signs whereby they would express or convey their thoughts one to another, and that men should be obliged to use them for that purpose ; forasmuch as without such an obligation those signs could not be effectual for such an end. From which compact there arising an obligation upon every one so to convey his meaning, there accrues also a right to every one, by the same signs, to judge of the sense or meaning of ^ Sermon on Falsehood and Lying, Prov. xii. 22.

524 SINCERITY.

the person so obliged to express himself; and consequently, if these signs are applied and used by him so as not to sig- nify his meaning, the right of the person to whom he was obliged so to have done is hereby violated, and the man, by being deceived and kept ignorant of his neighbour's mean- ing, where he ought to have known it, is so far deprived of the benefit of any intercourse or converse with him."

If men once existed in a state of solitary independence, as destitute of language as of society, it is impossible to conceive how they could have established a mutual under- standing and concerted the signs which M^ere subsequently to be employed as the vehicles of thought. ' There must have been some mode of communication, or the convention in question becomes utterly impracticable. Whatever that mode might be, the obligation of veracity applied to it in order that it might be effectual, and an arrangement which presupposes, cannot be the source of, a duty. Men were either bound to represent their thoughts honestly to each other when they came together to frame an artificial lan- guage, or they were not. If they were previously bound, the obligation cannot spring from any agreement entered into at the time ; if they were not, there is no security that the terms of the agreement express the intentions of the parties, and no evidence accordingly that any real promise was made. Such are the inconsistencies incident to all explanations of the origin of society and language whicli overlook the historical facts of the Bible. Man was evi- dently created a social being and with the gift of speech. He was as much adapted, when he came from the hands of God, to intercourse with his fellows by the possession of language as by the possession of those instincts, passions and affections which make the Home, the Family and the State indispensable to his progress and development. He was born in society and for society ; it is not a condition which he has voluntarily selected from a calculation of its conveniences and comforts ; it is the condition in whicli God has placed him, and from which he cannot be divorced.

SINCERITY. 525

Language is arbitrary in the sense that there is, except to a very limited extent, no natural analogy between sounds and the thoughts they represent ; it is not arbitrary in the sense that it is purely the product of the human will ; it is not an invention, but a faculty, and, like all other faculties, capa- ble of improvement or abuse.

The account which Dr. Whewell gives, in his Elements of Morality,^ of the obligation of veracity, though it is free from the paralogisms of Paley and Soutli and the theory of contract, is not unencumbered with difficulties of its own. Among the springs of action he enumerates the need of a mutual understanding among men, speaks of this as a need rather than a desire, it being "rather a necessity of man's condition than an object of his conscious desire." " We see this necessity," he continues, " even in animals, especially in tliose wliich are gregarious. In their associated condi- tion they derive help and advantage from one another, and many of thcra, especially those that live, travel or hunt in companies, are seen to reckon upon each other's actions with great precision and confidence. In societies of men this mutual aid and reliance are no less necessary than among Ijeavers or bees. But in man this aid and reliance are not the work of mere instinct. There must be a mutual under- standing by which men learn to anticipate and to depend upon the actions of each other. This mutual understand- ing presupposes that man has the power of determining his future actions, and that he has the power of making other men aware of his determination. It presupposes purpose as its matter and language as its instrument."

It is clear that Dr. Whewell had principally in view ])romises and contracts — those purposes of our own in regard to the future which have given rise to expectations in others in conformity with which they have adjusted their plans and regulated their conduct. Mutual understanding is a lieccssiii/ only where deceit is an injury. There arc cases of falsehood in which it would be hard to prove that any shock

^ Book I., chup.ji., I 50.

526 SINCERITY.

is given to society, provided it were understood that the pre- varication in these cases is not inconsistent with the strictest integrity in those in which confidence is really important. Upon Dr. Whewell's principles, the law of veracity is not universal, embracing every instance and form in which one man communicates ideas to another; it extends only to those contingencies in which we have entered into virtual engagements. He could convict jesting and foolish talking of guilt only on the ground that they imperceptibly disturb our love of truth and undermine the security of our faith- fulness, and gradually introduce us into fraud and treachery. They are not Avrong upon his hypothesis essentially and inherently, but only indirectly and contingently.

In the next place, it is not explained how this need of mutual understanding operates as a spring of action. It is denied to be a conscious desire ; it is denied to be an instinct, by which, I suppose, he means a blind craving of our nature. What, then, is it? If it expresses simply a necessity of our condition as social, we are either conscious of this neces- sity or we are not. If we are not conscious of it, it can have no possible influence upon us. It will be to us as though it existed not. If we are conscious of it, then it must produce desire, and that desire must lead to expedients to gratify it. Speaking the truth, as the means of satisfy- ing this craving of our nature, would consequently be the suggestion of reason. This, I think, is what the learned author meant, although some expressions he has used are hardly reconcilable with it. If so, the obligation of vera- city is a deduction of the understanding from the circum- stances in which we are placed. The end to be gained is first distinctly suggested by a sense of need, and veracity is enforced as the only conceivable expedient by which it can be accomplished. Hence, the law of truth is not a primary and fundamental datum of consciousness, but a secondary and subordinate principle which requires some knowledge of our social relations in order to its development. The

SINCERITY. 527

statement of these difficulties is a sufficient refutation of the hypotliesis.

The real ground upon which the obligation of this, as ultimately the obligation of every other duty must be made to rest, is the will of God as expressed in the constitution of the human mind. Truth is natural. There are two principles or laws impressed upon every man, by wdiich he is adapted to social intercourse, and w^hich operate independ- ently of any consciousness on his part of their subserviency to the interests of society, and which manifest themselves in the form of dispositions — one prompting him to speak the truth himself, and the other to believe that others speak it. No man ever tells a lie without a certain degree of violence to his nature. Motives must intervene, of fear, or hope, or vanity, or shame ; temptations, as in the case of all other vices, must take place in order that the contradiction to our nature and the whole current of our thoug-hts or feelings involved in a falsehood may obtain. It is not the spon- taneous native offspring of the soul, it is the creature of passion and of lust. It is in consequence of this constitu- tion of the mind, with reference to truth and social inter- course, that the expectation of which Dr. Paley speaks, as always existing w^hen we seriously address our discourse to another, springs up in the breast. This expectation is only the manifestation of our natural tendency to speak the truth and to credit the statements of others. When we look at ourselves we see that God has impressed upon our souls the law of truth. We see that he has fitted us to trust at the same time in others ; and though both dispositions are indulged long antecedently to any knowledge of the im- portant bearing of such elements of our being upon the interests of society, yet the subsequent development of these relations strengthens our attachment to truth, and enlarges our views of the wisdom of God. The Author of our nature has made j)rovision for a mutual understanding among men, and not left them under the influence of a blind craving to make provision for themselves. Our

528 SINCERITY.

social affections might just as reasonably be ascribed to a vague desire of society, prompting to the invention of expe- dients for its indulgence, as our disposition to speak the truth to a vague craving for the interchange of thought. To those, therefoi-e, who M'ould ask, Why am I bound to speak the truth ? I would briefly answer. Because it is the law of our nature ; it is a fundamental datum of conscience, a command of God impressed upon the moral structure of the soul. It can be resolved into no higher principle ; it is simple, elementary, ultimate. In this view of the case it deserves further to be remarked that the obligation is uni- versal, and not restricted to promises or contracts. It is not only natural to fulfil the expectations we knowingly and voluntarily excite, but it is equally natural that in the use of signs to communicate ideas we should fairly and honestly represent the thoughts of our own minds. In every case nature prompts us to speak and expect the truth, and it is not until experience has taught us that our confi- dence is often abused that we learn to limit our credulity, and even then, " notwithstanding the lessons of caution com- municated to us by experience, there is scarcely a man to be found," as Dr. Reid has properly remarked, "who is not more credulous than he ought to be, and who does not upon many occasions give credit to tales which not only turn out to be perfectly false, but which a very moderate degree of reflection and attention might have taught him could not well be true. The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience alone that teach incre- didity, and they very seldom teach it enough."

Having now explained the ground of the ol)ligation of veracity, I proceed to consider the duties which are involved in the general law of sincerity.

This law is that the signs, whatever they may be, by which we intentionally communicate ideas should correspond as exactly as possible with the thoughts they are employed to represent.

1. The first thing here to be noted is that truth is not to

SINCERITY. 529

be restricted to speech. Language is not the only vehicle „ of thought. A greater prominence is given to it than to any other sign because it is the most common and import- ant instrument of social communication. But the same rule of sincerity which is to regulate the use of it applies to all the media by which we consciously produce impres- sions upon the minds of others. Augustin defines a lie to be the false signification of a word for the purpose of deceit, and intimates that by the term icord he means any and every significant sign, whether spoken or written, whether natural or artificial — gestures, actions, looks or ejaculations. It may be also added that the absence of any signs, or the omission to use them, mav have the effect of suffwstina: thoughts, and when we neglect them from this considera- tion we are responsible for the effect produced. A lie, then, r is compendiously " any false signification knowingly and voluntarily used," no matter what may be the instruments employed for i\\Q purpose. He who responds to the ques- tion of a traveller concerning the road by pointing in a wrong direction, who nods to a proposal which he does not mean to accept, Avho omits in a narrative a circumstance wdthout which an erroneous judgment cannot but be formed in the case, or so arranges his facts as to lead naturally and justly to inferences that are false, — he who in these, or in any other ways, consciously misleads his neighbour is as really wanting in sincerity and as truly guilty of a lie as if he had deceived by words. Appearances kept up for the purpose of deceiving, such as a splendid equipage by one whose income is inadequate to the expense, hurry and bustle in a physician without patients, a multitude of ])apers by a lawyer Avithout briefs, and all similar tricks for effect, belong to this species of dissembling. South thinks that though the principle is the same in each cjise, the term lie '' is distinctly applied to deception by words, and simulation or hypocrisy to deception by gestures, actions or behaviour. I apprehend, however, that hypocrisy, according to general usage, denotes only a partit^ular species of this deception. ^ Vol. II.— 34

530 SINCERITY.

It refers to the personation of a character that does not belong to us. We are hypocrites only as we pretend to be that which we are not.

2. The application of the law in the case of parables, fictions, tales and figurative language, such as hyberbole and irony, is not to the details and subordinate statements, but to the moral, which, as a whole, they are intended to illus- trate. Dr. Paley has strangely enumerated these under the head of falsehoods which are not lies, attaching them to the same class with the disingenuous assertions of an advocate in pleading a cause or with a servant's denial of his master. But in these cases there is evidently, in no proper sense, any falsehood at all. The fable, parable or tale, taken as a whole, may be and is regarded as a species of proposition in which the lesson to be inculcated is all that is strictly affirmed. The rest is drapery, mere conceptions of the imagination, intended to illustrate and place in commanding lights the ultimate truth to be taught. They are not pro- posed as facts, but rather as the signs and representatives of what might be facts. They are, in other words, only the language in which the proposition is enounced. When a man honestly believes the moral of his tale, whatever may be its ingredients and subordinate circumstances, he is not wanting in sincerity. The pictures of his fancy are not the things which he affirms. If, however, he should invent a story to enforce a proposition which he believes to be false, he would then violate the obligation of veracity. It is only where the end aimed at is contradictory to a man's own con- victions that these contrivances of the imagination possess either the form or matter of falsehood. Of course, if a man should assert the details of a fable, parable or fiction as facts, without believing them himself, he would be justly subject to the imputation of lying, as he might be equally subject, if he believed them, to the imputation of insanity.

3. There is a form of simulation which is resorted to for the purpose of exciting curiosity, stimulating attention, con- veying instruction or exploring and bringing to light what

SINCERITY. 531

otherwise miglit not be known. It is a species of interro- gatory by action. It has the same effect on the mind as tlie asking of a question. When our Saviour made as though He would have gone farther, He effectually questioned His disciples as to the condition of their hearts in relation to the duties of hospitality. The angels, in pretending that it was their purpose to abide in the street all night, made the same experiment on Lot. This species of simulation involves no falsehood ; its design is not to deceive, but to catechize or instruct. The whole action is to be regarded as a sign by which a question is proposed, or the mind excited to such a degree of curiosity and attention that lessons of truth can be successfully imparted. The command to Abraham to sacri- fice his son involved a series of practical interrogatories to which no other form of proposing them could have elicited such satisfactory responses. The principle holds here which obtains in reference to fictions and fables. The action is only the dress of the thought, and where the purpose in view is honourable and just, no exceptions can be taken on the score of veracity to the drapery in which it is adorned. But when it has no ulterior object, when it is not in fact a sign, it is then to be reckoned as deceit. It is to be judged of simply as it is in itself — just as the details of a fiction, if represented absolutely and as facts, are to be regarded as departures from veracity. Even if capricious simulations were not, as they are, lies, they are so much like them that he who accustoms himself to indulge in this species of con- duct must insensibly lose his impressions of the sacredness of truth, and forfeit that delicate sensibility to its claims upon which sincerity depends. It is dangerous to sport even on the verge of guilt. The least that can be said M'ith any show of reason is, that unmeaning pretences are analo- gous to foolish talking and jesting, which are not convenient. It is especially important, in tlie education of children, that we allow ourselves in no conduct which may insensibly affect them w^th light thoughts of the evil of hypocrisy. The child who sees his parents frequently feigning without reason, or

532 SINCERITY.

merely for amusement, will be a dull scholar in depravity if he should not speedily conclude that he also may feign when his interest or malice requires it,

4. The law of sincerity is not violated in those cases of

fc. silence or of partial and evasive information (which, how- ever, must al\^'ays be correct as far as it goes) in which the design is not deception, but concealment. There are things which men have a right to keep secret, and if a prurient curiosity prompts others officiously to pry into them, there is nothing criminal or dishonest in refusing to minister to such a spirit. Our silence or evasive answers may have the effect of misleading. That is not our fault, as it was not our design. Our purpose was simply to leave the inquirer, as nearly as possible, in the state of ignorance in which we found him : it was not to misinform, but not to inform at

^ all. " Every man," says Dr. Dick, '' has not a right to hear the truth when he chooses to demand it. We are not bound to answer every question which may be proposed to us. In such cases we may be silent, or we may give as much infor- mation as we please and suppress the rest. If the person afterward discover that the information was partial, he has no title to complain, because he had not a right even to what he obtained ; and we are not guilty of a falsehood unless we made him believe, by something which we said, that the in- formation was cH)m})lete. We are at liberty to put off with an evasive answer the man who attempts to draw from us what we ought to conceal." This principle is certainly recognized in the Scriptures. When Jeremiah was interro- gated of the princes in relation to the interview M'^hich he had with the king, he concealed the principal design of it, which was to recommend submission to the Chaldeans, and disclosed only the petition that the king would not remand him to Jonathan's house. Samuel was instructed by the Lord to act upon the same principle in order to avoid the danger to which he would be ex])oscd from the resentment of Saul if the real purpose of his mission to Bethlehem, when he would go to anoint David, should l)e known.

SINCERITY. 533

" And Samuel said, How can I go ? If Saul hear it, he will kill me. And the Lord said. Take an heifer with thee, and say, I am come to sacrifice to the Lord."

The principle, of course, can only be applied to those cases where we have a right to conceal ; but all partial and evasive answers when we are bound to speak the whole ^ truth, or when they are given for the purpose of deception, are inconsistent with veracity. Then a man does not hide, but lie.

It may be asked whether a direct falsehood is not lawful when it is uttered only for the purpose of concealment. Sir Walter Scott, it is well known, defended his denial to the Prince of Wales of his being the author of the Waverley Novels, on the ground that it was a matter which he was anxious to keep secret, and that he could not do it in any other way but by the course which he had pursued. In all such cases, however, the immediate end is deception ; con- cealment is only a remote one. We intend to deceive in order to conceal. We do not cover, but misrepresent our mind, which can never be lawful, however important the ends it is intended to accomplish ; and when these ends are incapable of being answered in any other way, we should take it as a clear intimation from Providence that we are required to abandon them. In the case just mentioned Scott might have been silent, might have changed the sub- ject, might have protested against the question ; and although such evasions might have been considered equivalent to a confession, yet a disclaimer on his part that he meant them in that light would have still left the matter in some degree of uncertainty. Guilt, in such cases, is not confined to the ^ party who prevaricates or lies. He who asks impertinent questions is chargeable Avith the sin of putting a stumbling- block in his brother's way. He is a tempter to evil.

Having made these general explanations, which seemed to be necessary in oi'der to an adequate comprehension of the subject, I proceed to indicate some of the modes in which the law of sincerity is evaded, after which I shall

534 SINCERITY.

discuss the question whether under any circumstances it can be dispensed with ; this being perhaps the most satisfactory method of elucidating the nature and extent of its applica- tion— more definite certainly than vague statements of what it requires, which at best are little more than repetitions of the definition.

1. The light in which Aristotle treats of truth in his Nichomachean Ethics^ is that of simplicity of conduct, and the extremes of which he regards it as the medium are vain- boasting and self-disparagement. " There are men," says he, "who arrogate to themselves good qualities of which they are entirely destitute, and who amplify the good quali- ties of which they are possessed far beyond their real meas- ure and natural worth. The ironical dissembler [I should prefer to translate the word self-disparager'], on the other hand, either conceals his advantages, or, if he cannot conceal, endeavours to depreciate their value, whereas the man of frankness and plain dealing shows his character in its nat- ural size ; truth appears in all his words and actions, which represent him exactly as he is, without addition and with- out diminution." There are forms in which these vices are as common as they are disgusting. Some endeavour to exaggerate their importance by pretending to an intimacy with the great to which they are not entitled, and others to depreciate the excellencies for which they are distinguished, only to elicit flattery and praise. In both cases it is the hypocrisy of vanity, and in both cases the actor is guilty of a lie.

The most serious form of hypocrisy, however, is that in which a man pretends to a character to which he is really a stranger. No vice is more severely condemned in the New Testament than this : " But woe unto you. Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men ; for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in." This terrible malediction from lips that were not given to the language ' Book iv., chap. 7.

SINCERITY. 535

of denunciation is repeated no less than seven times in the progress of a single discourse, and the most striking imagery, such as whited sepulchres, beautiful without but within full of dead men's bones and all unclcanness, is employed to depict the hatefulness of the sin. The only honest way of maintaining the appearance of virtue is to possess the reality. Every other method is a cheat.

2. The law of sincerity is as inconsistent with adulation and flattery as it is with hypocrisy. The hypocrite and flatterer belong to the same genus; one lies about himself, the other about his neighbour, but both are equally liars. Aflability or courtesy, an inseparable element of refined and elegant manners, is as remote, as Aristotle long ago pointed out, from flattery on the one hand as from moroseness on the other. Persons of station and influence are apt to be surrounded with a crowd of sycophants, who vie with each other in concealing their defects, exaggerating their virtues and lauding their vices. In becoming an encomiast of sin one seems to reach the last point of degradation to which a rational being can be sunk, and yet it is the point to which all flattery tends, and which many a flatterer has reached. This vice is sometimes contracted from malice, from the wdcked design of exposing the weak and credulous to ridi- cule, by possessing them with the belief that they are dis- tinguished for qualities which do not belong to them ; some- times from selfishness, from the base desire of rendering the vanity of another subservient to our purposes and schemes ; sometimes from weakness, from a sickly delicacy of temper which shrinks from giving pain or from incurring the resentment to which honest truth might give rise. There are degrees of malignity in the vice according to the motives and ends which prompt to it ; but in every form it is a dej^arture from truth, as well as a departure from that charity which meditates no wrong to another. "A man that flattereth his neighbour spreadeth a net for his feet."

3. There is another form of falsehood which in its effects is analogous to flattery, and in its nature is a species of

536 SINCERITY.

hypocrisy. It consists in pretensions to a friendship which is not felt. Tlie world thinks so little of this kind of lying that, except in flagrant and aggravated cases, it hardly takes the trouble to censure it when exposed. It has caused friendship to come to be esteemed as little more than a name.

This vice is peculiarly hateful, as it gains a confidence which is too often prostituted to the ruin of the unsuspecting and credulous. It was in the mask of friendship that the Devil entered the garden and insinuated the lie which brought " death into the world, with all our woe ;" in the mask of friendship Judas kissed his Master to betray Plim ; and in the mask of friendship Satan now comes to us as an angel of light to seduce us from our allegiance to God. There is no point of practical morality which needs more to be inculcated than the sacred duty of abstaining fi'om every species of conduct or expression that would induce men to believe that we think more highly of them than we do. The customs of society are such that, without perpetual vigilance, we are liable to deceive our neighbours upon this point. The civilities of life should never be so exaggerated as to create tlie impression of extraordinary regard where extraordinary regard does not exist. The aifectation of unusual sweetness of expression or blandness of manner ; honeyed words ; soft and insinuating tones ; a lingering pressure of the hand ; apparent reluctance to quit one's society, — all these and similar expedients are arrant lies if the victim of the tricks is, after all, nothing more than a stranger ; and yet by such tricks the confidence of thousands is flattered out of them by knaves and cheats to their utter ruin. The vice is well called 'perjidy, and those who are guilty of it are emphatically children of the Devil. " In- struments of cruelty are in their habitations. O my soul, come not thou into their secret ; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united."

4. It is hardly necessary to add, after what has been said of the nature of sincerity, that equivocation is inconsistent with its claims. It consists either in an abuse of the am-

SINCERITY. 637

biguity of language or in partial statements of the truth, ' for the purpose of producing an erroneous impression of the whole. The promise of Temures to the garrison of Sebastia, that if it would surrender not a drop of blood should be shed, was grammatically susceptible of the meaning in which he kept it. though the garrison understood it as conveying a pledge of exem23tion from punishment. He was just as truly guilty of a falsehood in burying them alive, though he shed no blood, as if he had promised, in so many words, to spare their lives. Words were not meant to conceal, but to con- vey thoughts ; and if a man takes advantage of their am- biguity to make a grammatical truth subservient to deceit, he fails to represent his own thoughts. He speaks against his mind. The idea which he excites in another is not the idea which exists in himself.

The other mode of equivocation — by partial statements — is liable to the same objection. It does not reproduce our own ^ convictions in another. Our minds are not read, touching the matter in question, by our neighbour.

Equivocation may exist in action as well as in words. »^ We have an example in the case of Ananias and Sapphira. Having sold tlieir lands, they brought a part of the price and laid it down at the Apostles' feet. They wished to pro- duce the impression that they were as liberal and magnani- mous as Barnabas and the other believers, who had sold their possessions and devoted the whole to the service of the Church. The language accordingly of their conduct was that this is the wJwle price of the land. They uttered no falsehood in words — they simply acted a cheat; and the light in which God regards such equivocation is manifested in the supernatural judgment which overtook them.

5. Mental reservations, when what is suppressed is not obvious from the circumstances, or is not necessary to pre- vent deception, are downright lies. What is kept to one's self is not signified. It is the signs which one uses, not those which he suppresses, which convey his thoughts to another ; and if those which he uses are not in correspondence with

538 SINCERITY.

his convictions, he signifies falsely, and therefore lies. That form of reservation in which the suppressed circumstances are things to be taken for granted as known, provided they are understood at the time to be known, is no real reserva- tion at all. It is only where what is suppressed is essential to the truth, and is suppressed for the purpose of deceit, that the reservation comes under the censure of the moralist. And such frauds cannot be too strongly rebuked. They are destructive of all confidence, of all intercourse by signs. Dr. Paley says that there are two cases in which false-

, hoods are not criminal. The first is " where no one is de- V ceived;" the second, "where the person to whom you speak, has no right to know the truth, or, more properly, where little or no inconvenience results from the want of confidence in such cases." These exceptions are perfectly consistent with the theory of moral obligation which confounds virtue with expediency and duty with advantage. In that every- thing depends upon the effect; and where no appreciable injury results or evident utility obtains, it is right and pro-

^ per to prevaricate with any principles or to dispense with any laws. But if there be such a thing as inherent and essential rectitude, if the distinctions betwixt right and wrong be permanent and unchanging, and if truth be one of the elements of immutable morality, the answer of Paley must be condemned by every unsophisticated heart.

1. In the first class of cases which he exempts from the operation of the law of sincerity he has fallen into the unac- countable mistake that the essence of a lie depends upon the effect actually produced. He confounds the falsehood with the deception which it occasions. The utmost that can be said, with any show of reason, is that the intention to deceive is necessary to guilt ; but the intention of the speaker and the effect consequent upon it are very different things. The abandoned liar, whose character is known to the community, has reached a point of degradation at which no one thinks of relying upon his word ; and yet it would be strange phi- losophy to say that because he had become incapable of de-

SINCERITY. 539

ceiving, he had therefore become incapable of lying, except by telling the truth. Augustin's definition, which is the one commonly 'adopted, introduces the purpose of deceit as all that is necessary to render a false signification a lie. Even this, as it seems to me, is going beyond what the truth of the case admits. The law of sincerity requires that a man who addresses his discourse to another should introduce him, as nearly as possible, into the condition of his own mind. He should represent, by whatever signs he employs, the precise state of his own feelings and convictions. The essence of a lie, consequently, must consist in a misrepre- sentation of one's self or in speaking against one's mind. " Speech was invented," says Thomas Aquinas, " for the purpose of expressing the conceptions of the heart ; when- ever, therefore, any one utters what is not in his heart, he utters what is not lawful." The intention, accordingly, which determines the species of the lie, and which gives it its essen- tial or formal criminality, is not the intention to deceive another, though that is criminal and is generally the eflPect of falsehood, but the intention to misrepresent ourselves. " Where these three things concur," says Aquinas, " that an enunciation should be false, voluntarily made, And intended to deceive, there is found material falsehood, the thing asserted not being true ; formal falsehood, there being a will to utter what is not true ; and effective falsehood, there being a desire to impress it upon others." It must be borne in mind, however, that the essence of lying consists in formal falsehood, or a voluntary enunciation of what is not true ; it derives its name from the circumstance that it consists in speaking against one's mind. If any one, consequently, utters a falsehood, believing it to be true, lie himself is not guilty of lying, though the thing itself be materially false, as he had no intention of falsehood. What is beside the in- tention of the speaker cannot enter into the specific difference of the act. In like manner, if a man should utter a truth believing it to be a lie, he would be chargeable with the moral guilt of falsehood, that being the purpose of his will

540 SINCERITY.

which determines the character of his utterance, though acci- dentally it hapjJcii'' to be true. Tliis pertains to the species of falsehood. But the purpose to mislead another by decep- tion does not pertain to the species, but to the perfection of lying. It is falsehood having its perfect work. In natural things, whatever has that which pertains to the constitution of a species is referred to that species, though some of the usual effects may be wanting. A heavy body may be sus- pended in the air and the law of gravity counteracted, yet because the descent which gravity is fitted to produce does not take place, it would be absurd to deny that the body in question is possessed of weight.

Hence, to determine the question whether a man has lied or not it is not necessary to inquire whether he has actually deceived another, but whether he has signified in contradiction to the thoughts, feelings or convictions of his mind. It is a matter of no consequence whether his falsehood has been believed or not. The moral character of his act does not depend upon his neighbour's acuteness or simplicity, but uj^on the purpose of his own heart. The intention to deceive is of course to be presumed where a man voluntarily and consciously misrepresents himself. If the signs which he employs are fitted to j^roduce a given impression, and he knows that they are so fitted — if the impression in question is one that would always be pro- duced where the signs are honestly employed — he is to be held guilty of designing to make it. But whatever might be the secret purpose of his soul, he is a liar before God if he knowingly and willingly utters, or in any other way sig- nifies, what is false. This is the essence of the sin. Other circumstances may aggravate its malignity, but this deter- mines its specific difference.

2. Dr. Paley is equally unfortunate in the principle upon which he exempts his second class of cases from the law of sincerity. The right of another to know the truth is not the ground of my obligation when I speak at all to speak nothing but the truth. It is the ground in many cases of

SINCERITY. 541

ray obligation to speak, — that may be freely confessed ; but if independently of this ground I choose upon any other con- siderations to open my lijis, the law of sincerity must apply to my discourse. The absence of the right in question on the part of my neighbour can operate no farther than to justify me in being silent ; it exempts me from all obliga- tion to signify at all. But it by no means imparts to me a right to signify falsely. The two questions, ^\•hether I am bound to speak at all in a given case, and what I shall speak, are entirely distinct. The consideration of my neigh- bour's right maybe imjwrtant in determining the first; it is of no importance to the other, except as it ma}" affect the extent of my communications. It is jircposterous and absurd to confound the absence of a right to know the truth with the existence of a right to be cheated with a lie. The ground of obligation to signify nothing but truth when one signifies at all is that it is truth; it is the law under Avhich alone I am at liberty to use signs in social intercourse. It might be questioned whether even upon considerations of expediency the principle of Dr. Paley ought not to be condemned. To say that a right to lie is the correlative of the absence of a right to know the truth, would seem to be equivalent to a very general dispensation with the law of sincerity. Each man must, in ordinary cases, determine for himself whether the right attaches to his neighbour or not, and as his veracity is suspended upon his opinions in rela- tion to this point, no one could ever be sure that he was not deceived. How is a man to know that his neighbour deems him entitled to the truth? From his neighbour's declara- tion? But that declaration has no value unless it is pre- viously known that the right in question is conceded. It may be one of those things about whi(^h, in his judgment, another has no right to know the truth. Hence, Paley's law would obviously be the destruction of all confidence. How much nobler and safer is the doctrine of the Scrip- tures and of the unsophisticated language of man's moral constitution, that truth is obligatory on its own account, and

542 SINCERITY.

that he who undertakes to signify to another, no matter in what form, and no matter wliat may be the riglit in the case to know the truth, is bound to signify according to the convictions of his own mind ! He is not always bound to speak, but whenever he does speak he is solemnly bound to speak nothing but the truth. The universal application of this principle would be the diffusion of universal confidence. It would banish deceit and suspicion from the world, and restrict the use of sio-ns to their legitimate offices.

Discourse V FAITHFULNESS

THE second branch of practical truth, which we have de- nominated Faithfuhiess, consists in making our actions correspond to our professions, in performing our engagements, and fulfilling the expectations which we have by any means knowingly and voluntarily excited. Cicero' makes faith the fundamental principle of justice, and derives the word in Latin from the correspondence it exacts betwixt words and deeds. The English term is said to be the third per- son singular of the indicative mood of an Anglo-Saxon verb signifying to engage, to covenant, to contract. The definition, however, extracted by Home Tooke from this etymology, " that which one covenanteth or engageth," is ob- viously inconsistent with the usage of the language. Faith- fulness obtains not in the making, but in the keeping, of covenants. It is not the saying, but the doing of what we have said, that constitutes, as Cicero suggests, the very essence of the virtue. Quia fiat quod dictum est contains the substance of a good definition, whatever may be said of the accuracy of the philosophy.

The engagements of men to which faithfulness extends

1 Off., i. 7, 23. Fundamentnm autem justitirfi est fides, id est, dictorum convcntorumque constantia et Veritas. Ex quo, quamquam lioc videbitur fortasse cuipiam durius, taraen audcamus imitari Stoicos, qui studiose exquirunt, undo verba sint ducta, credamusque, quia, fiat, quod dictum est, appellatara fidem.

543

544 FAITHFULNESS.

may be embraced under the heads of Promises, Pledges and Vows. These three classes, in their relations to each other, are an instance of moral climax, and furnish a beau- tiful illustration of the ascending scale of moral obligation. The pledge is more solemn than the promise, and the vow more solemn than the pledge. The peculiarities which dis- tinguish the pledge and vow from an ordinary promise im- part an additional sacredness to the duty. They are species ol' which it is the genus ; they include consequently all that it includes, and something characteristic of themselves ; and as the differences by which they are distinguished from it and from each other involve moral elements .of the highest importance, there must be a corresponding solemnity of obligation and a corresponding malignity of guilt in case of transgression. The pledge turns upon a point of hon- our, and stakes a man's reputation for integrity upon com- pliance with his engagement. As the whole virtue of a female is summed up in her chastity, so the whole character of the man for probity and uprightness is summed up in the single instance of redeeming his pledge. To break a pledge, therefore, is not only unjust, but disgraceful. The vow is of the nature of an oath ; it is an act of religious worship, and to disregard it is to be guilty of irreverence to God. There is fraud in all breaches of engagement, whether of promises, pledges or vows, that being the very essence of unfaithfulness ; but to break a promise is simply fraudulent, to break a pledge is infamous, and to break a vow is profane. He who violates a promise tramples upon truth and justice, he who violates a pledge tramples upon (iharacter, and he who violates a vow tramples upon God.

In illustrating the duty of faithfulness I shall begin with promises, and restrict myself to two points — their definitions and the grounds of their obligation.

I. According to the ordinary acceptation of the term, the essence of a promise consists in the peculiar mode of signi- fying, to the exclusion of all reference to the matter or thing signified. Whenever by the voluntary use of signs, whe-

FAITHFULNESS. 545

ther verbal or otherwise, we knowingly excite expectations in the mind of another, whatever may be the nature of the things expected, we are said to promise. The etymology of the word has perhaps contributed to the currency of this meaning. It is a paronym of jpromittere, to send ahead, as if the prominent idea were the projection of the mind of another into the future. Qui polUcentur, says Vossius, ver- bis aliquem in longum mittant, ut qui non tarn faciant quam aliquando sefacturos recipiant.

If the definition of a promise is to be restricted exclu- sively to the mode of signifying, it is manifest that prom- ises are not essentially obligatory. Whether they shall be binding or not is an accidental circumstance. There is nothing in themselves, nothing in their own nature, consid- ered simply as promises, which can give rise to the obliga- tion. They may or may not do so, but when they do so it is not because they are promises, but because of other con- siderations. This statement, though a legitimate deduction from the definition in question and from the loose language of ordinary life, is in open and flagrant contradiction to the common feeling of the race. There is not a deeper or more pervading sentiment than that of the sacred ness of cove- nants. The common sense of men is always right, though language does not always adequately represent it. There is a distinction in the signification of words analogous to that l)etween the spontaneous and reflective processes of reason. A philosopher, therefore, should not look to the meaning which floats upon the surface, and which a term has received from accidental circumstances ; he should penetrate into the hearts of men and find out the meaning which has real emphasis there. That is its true signification, and the one to which he should restrict it, which without reflection finds an echo in the soul. In the case before us the associations which are instantly awakened by the term are all of a sol- emn and sacred character. Its primary emphatic reference is only to the class of declarations which are felt to be oblig- atory. It has been applied to others in consequence of the Vol. II.— 35

546 FAITHFULNESS.

palpable resemblance in form, but this is a reflective appli- cation, which, as it does not represent, so it does not disturb the spontaneous feelings which cluster around the word. It is still univocal to the heart. If, then, in conformity with the real convictions of mankind, nothing can be regarded as strictly and properly a promise which is not essentially obligatory, the definition must include something more than the mode of signifying. It must also take account of the matter. As that is not to be considered as a deed in law — though it may be loosely called so — which conveys no right, so that should not be regarded as a promise, in the ethical sense, which creates no duty. It may have the form, but not the substance — the appearance, but not the reality. Those semblances of the thing in Avliich the language of a promise is employed, but in which the life of a promise is not found, I would call apparent promises, while those which create obligation and give rise to rights I would denominate real. Then the proposition would be universal that all real promises are binding, and binding precisely because they are promises ; and all the cases in which divines and casuists have held them to be void could be explained at once upon the simple principle that they are not cases of promises at all. They are only counterfeit coin. They have the shape, the stamp, the appearance of the true currency, but they want the gold. I would therefore define a real promise as any form of voluntary signification which has a known tendency to excite an expectation in the mind of another in regard to a matter which is possible and right. Here the mode of signifying and the thing signified, the matter and the form, both enter into the specific diflerence. It is not enough that expectations are excited, or means employed Avhicli are suited to excite them ; the things expected must be laAvful in themselves and within the competency of him that promises. But we can best vindicate the propriety of the definition by a brief examination of its parts :

1. Any mode of voluntary signification, tvithout limitation to any particular class of sigyis. This includes tacit as well

FAITHFULNESS. 547

as express promises. It is obviously indifferent by what means thought is communicated : the important thing is that it be actually done. To restrict promises to words is to make them the only language of the mind, to the exclusion of actions, gestures and signs, which may be equally made the vehicle of thought and the instruments of exciting ex- pectation.

2. The signification must be voluntary, otherwise the promise is not a moral act, and cannot be attributed to him who makes it.

3. Which has a known tendency to excite expectation. Paley makes the essence of a promise depend on the fact that expectations are excited. This is to resolve the cause into the eifect. The promise must be conceived as existing before expectations can be conceived as produced. The fact of their production depends not upon the flict that a promise has been made, but that a promise has been believed, and faith in the author is essential to the reality and obligation of a promise ; it is not simply his own act which binds the agent, but the effect it has produced. It would follow, too, that a liar could not make a promise, because he could not create expectation. The promise is clearly the act of the man that makes it, and as it comes from him independently of any influence upon others, it possesses every element that is necessary to a perfect obligation. It is indifferent whether it is believed or not ; all that is important is that, if believed, it should give rise to expectation — it should be a cause suited to produce the effect, whether it succeeds in doing so or not. The author must know that it has this tendency. He must understand the import of his signs, or they would not convey the thoughts of his mind. The expectations which the signs are fitted to excite will always be, with an honest man, the expectations he aims to produce. His language will convey his real meaning. But if he is disposed to be dishonest and evasive, he is held responsible for the known tendencies of the cause which he has put in operation. The rule of Paley, that a promise is always to be interpreted in the sense in

548 FAITHFULNESS.

which the promiser apprehended at the time that the promisee received it, results immediately from the definition we have given.

4. I have ventured to add to the definition, in regard to a matter which is j)ossible atid right. These, it is universally conceded, are conditions of the obligation of a promise. No man can be l)Ound to do what it is physically impossible that he can do, or what contradicts the principles of right. It can obviously never be his duty to do wrong, and just as little can it be his duty to exercise a power which has never been imparted to him. If he was made a man, he can only be required to do the work of a man. Now, as all the other (jases in which promises are not binding may be explained by showing that they are not promises at all, that something is wanting to complete them, or that they have been formally cancelled and annulled — as they are confessedly apparent and not real — it would contribute to simplify the whole sub- ject if those which are impossible and unlawful were reduced to the same category. Any man who will take the trouble to examine Paley's enumeration of the cases in which prom- ises are void, will see that, Avith the exception of the impos- sible and unlawful, the promise is either defective in form or has ceased to exist. A promise before acceptance — that is, before notice to the promisee — is manifestly no promise, because it wants the necessary element of signification. It is, as Paley says, nothing more than a resolution of the mind. Promises released by the promisee have just as manifestly ceased to exist. The right which was created has been relinquished, and the obligation has expired with it. Erro- neous promises are not promises, because their being was contingent — it was suspended upon a condition which has confessedly failed. If now we make possibility and lawful- ness essential to the being, as they are to the obligation of a promise, the proposition would be unlimited — that all real promises are binding, and that those are only apparent, only shadows and semblances, which entail no obligation of per- formance. These apparent promises would then be reduced

FAITHFULNESS. 549

to two classes — those which are defective in form, erabracing the three last heads of Paley, and those which are defective in matter, embracing his three first heads.

II. The next point to be considered is the ground of the obligation of promises.

The advantages of good faith are so palpable and mani- fest, it is so indispensable to the very existence of society, that the utilitarian makes out a very plausible case in re- solving the duty of it into considerations of expediency. Paley has made the best of the argument. He has set in a very clear light not only the importance but the necessity of confidence, and then concludes that what we cannot do without we must have, simply because we cannot do without it. But the truth is, its importance depends upon its recti- tude. Society is the union of moral and intelligent beings, and it is because they are moral that virtue is their security and happiness. It is the law of their nature, and of course is the condition of their prosperity and well-being.

Without detracting, therefore, in the least from what Paley has said upon the utility of confidence, we proceed to show that the real ground upon which promises are binding is, that they involve moral elements which are the immediate data of conscience. These elements are the principles of truth and justice. A man is bound to keep his promise from the twofold consideration that his own veracity and the rights of another are at stake.

1. The law of sincerity requires that the promiser should signify the purpose precisely as it exists in his own mind. He cannot mean one thing and say another without false- hood. This law, however, requires nothing more than the honest expression of present intentions.

2. But the law of truth goes farther ; it requires that a man's words shall correspond to the reality of things. It is not enough, in regard to past facts, that a man be honest and sincere in the declarations which he makes; he must have used all diligence to guard against deception and mis- take. If what we have called the remote matter of truth

550 FAITHFULNESS.

be wanting, he is culpable unless his mistake arises from causes beyond his control. The same principle holds in regard to future facts. The event must correspond to our words, unless it can be shown that though we honestly be- lieved that it would correspond when we made the declara- tion, it has failed to do so through no fault of ours. The language of a promise is absolute and assertory ; it posi- tively affirms two things — a present intention and the con- tinuance of that intention until the thing is done. It^ declares that a thing shall be, and as its existence depends upon himself, the promiser is bound to realize the fact at the appointed time. He is bound to make things consistent with his words. Hence, he who fails to keep a promise is universally detested as a liar, not because he is supposed to have been insincere at the time of making it, but because the thing has not taken ])lace according to his word. He is responsible for the want of material truth, because it was clearly in his power to produce it.

3. But what particularly enforces the obligation of a promise is the right, created by the expectation it excites, to have it fulfilled. It is distinguished from a simple resolu- tion in that it does not terminate upon ourselves. It extends to another party, and gives him a claim of justice which he did not possess before. Hence, a breach of promise is not only a lie, but a fraud.^ The connection of rights with promises is clearly discoverable in the case of contracts. There the engagement is mutual, but the transaction is only a recipro- cation of promises ; no moral elements enter into it which do not enter into every other promise. Now, there is noth- ing of which the parties to a contract are more distinctly conscious than that they have a right to demand from each other the fulfilment of their stipulations. It is true that the

^ We should remember that when we bind ourselves by a p!S)mise to give any good thing to another, or to do anything for the benefit of another, the right of the thing promised passes over from us to the person to whom the promise is made, as much as if we had given him a legal bond with all the formalities of signing and sealing ; we have no power to recall or reverse it without his leave." — WatU^ Sermon on PJalippians iv. 8.

FAITHFULNESS. 551

law recognizes the right only in the case of valuable consid- eration. But the design of the distinction is to protect men from the consequences of rash and ill-considered acts. The j)resumption is, that what has been done without a proper motive has been done tlioughtlessly and hastily. What shows that this is the spirit of the law is the fact that it always presumes a consideration where the promise has been made under such sanctions as to imply deliberation. There is no essential diiference in so far as they are promises, and consequently in so far as moral obligation is concerned, between the nudum pactum of the law and those contracts which it undertakes to enforce. The consideration is not the source of the right ; it is only the cause of the promise that gives the right. The consideration is a guarantee that the man has promised with his eyes open — that he knew what he was doing. The law interjjoses it as a security to itself that it shall not oppress the weak.

In the case of promises to do unlawful or impossible things there can obviously be no right on the part of the promisee to demand a fulfilment. It is a contradiction in terms that he can have a right to make his neighbour do wrong, and a flagrant absurdity that a creature can exact from his fellow what even God cannot enjoin. But while there is no injustice in the violation of these promises, there is enormous fraud in making them when the unlawfulness and impossibility are known at the time. The man shows himself reckless of truth and reckless of his neighbour's right. He manifests a contempt of veracity and justice. He is guilty of the same species of crime as that of him who solemnly pretends to transfer the property of another, or M'ho knowingly circulates counterfeit coin, or who forges a note or a bill of exchange. As in other cases the false- hood and fraud consist in breaking, here they consist in making the promise. The crime is the same, but it dates from a different point. The same eternal principles of right M'hich proclaim as with a voice of thunder. Thou shalt keep all real j)roniises, just as solemnly command. Thou

552 FAITHFULNESS.

shall make no unlawful engagements. In cases in which the unlaAvfulness and impossibility were not known at the time of making the promise, it may bo fairly presumed that the promise was tacitly conditioned by them, and though there may be rashness, there is nothing of fraud in engage- ments made upon mistake. The implied condition has failed, and the promise is at an end.

Before dismissing the subject of promises there are two questions of casuistry which deserve a moment's consider- ation, and which may be regarded as a test of the principles we have maintained.

The first is, whether extorted promises are binding. The second is, whether when a promise proceeds upon an unlaw- ful condition, and the condition has been fulfilled, the prom- ise is to be kept — that is, whether there can ever be a real promise which is unlawfully conditioned.

1. As to extorted promises, the only point to be settled is the subjective condition of the agent.' Did he voluntarily signify, and did he know the import of the signs he em- ployed ? If he was in such a state of agitation and alarm that he could not command the use of his faculties — if, in other words, he was deprived for the time of the essential elements of moral agency — he could no more be responsible for his acts than an idiot or a lunatic. But if he knew what he was doing, no violence of fear, no external pressure, can exempt him from responsibility. The act was voluntary, though not chosen for itself. The man was in circumstances which led him to prefer it as the least of two evils. He therefore in a moral sense deliberately promised, and the obligation is the same as in all other cases. The true secu- rity against being drawn into an engagement which we are subsequently reluctant to perform is that firm reliance upon the providence of God which enables us to look upon dan- ger with contempt, or to regard nothing as a danger which does not shake our claim upon the Divine protection. Let

' See on this subject, besides the common treatises, Taylor's Rule oi Conscience, book iv., chap, i., rule 7.

FAITHFULNESS. 553

the heart be established by confidence in. Him, and then there is no ground for the fear of evil tidings. The preser- vation of integrity should be superior to all other consider- ations, and it is a miserable confession of weakness that the love of life or limb has been stronger than the love of vir- tue. No Christian man should ever be prevailed on by the servile motive of fear to make engagements which his sense of propriety condemns. Why should he fear who has the arms of the Almighty to sustain him? What shield like that of a good conscience and the favour of God ? Of all men the true Christian should exemplify the description of the heathen poet :

4 .Justum ac tenacem propositi virum

Non civium ardor prava jubentium, Non vultus instantis tyranni Mente quatit solida, neque Auster Dux inquieti turbidus Hadrite, Nee fulminantis magna manus Jovis. Si fractus illabatur orbis Impavidum ferient ruina?.

Those circumstances in which cowardice yields and puts in the plea of extortion constitute the occasions on which the Christian hero may illustrate the magnanimity of his principles. Virtue becomes awful when it subordinates to itself the whole external world. A good man struggling with the storms of fate, unshaken in his allegiance to God, and steady in his purpose never to be seduced into wrong, is the noblest spectacle which the earth can present. There is something unutterably grand in the moral attitude of him who, with his eye fixed upon the favour of God, rises supe- rior to earth and hell, and amid the wrecks of a thousand barks around him steers his course with steadiness and peace.

2. To the other question concerning the eifect of an un- lawful condition upon the validity of a promise, I am con- strained to return a very different answer from that wliich has been given by most recent writers whom I have been

554 FAITHFULNESS.

able to consult/ Paley says/ " it is the performance being unlawful; and not any unlawfulness in the subject or motive of the promise, which destroys its validity : therefore, a bribe after the vote is given ; the wages of prostitution ; the reward of any crime after the crime is committed, ought, if prom- ised, to be paid. For the sin and mischief, by this supposi- tion, are over ; and it will be neither more nor less for the performance of the promise." " It is sometimes made a question," says Dr. Whewell,^ " supposing such an informal contract immorally made, whether, when the immoral end is answered, it is a duty to perform the rest of the contract ; for instance, if a person were elected to an office of public trust on promise of sums of money to the electors, whether, after the election, it is his duty to pay these sums. We may re- mark that the question here is not what he is to do as an innocent man, for by the supjDOsition he is a guilty one, having been concerned in an immoral bargain. If the ques- tion be, what is he to do as a repentant man, convinced of his guilt and wishing henceforth to do what is right, the answer is that he must pay. There is no reason why he should add to the violation of his absolute duty the violation of his relative duty to the promisees. If in his repentance he wishes not to complete an immoral transaction, he is to recollect that the immoral transaction is completed by his election. If he wish to mark his hatred of the offence, he may signify his meaning more clearly by expressing his repentance and paying the money than by keeping it, which may be interpreted as adding avarice and falsehood to the violation of public duties."

Upon these statements I have to remark — 1, that Paley's solution is inconsistent with the principles of his own phi- losophy. The effect of keeping such promises is to encourage

^ I am gratified in being able to state tliat Dr. Adams, late President of Cbarleston College, is an honourable exception. See his Moral Philos., p. 210.

2 Mor. Phil., B. iii., Pt. i., c. 5.

' Elements of Morality, book iii., chap. 15, I 386.

FAITHFULNESS. 555

the making of them, and upon the doctruie of general conse- quences— the evil of the example — they ought not to be kept. '^ The sin and mischief" are not over. If it were universally felt and acted on that such engagements were not binding, there would soon be an end to them. It is the very doctrine of Paley and Whewell that gives them currency in the world. 2. In the next place, Dr. Whewell's solution proceeds upon a distinction between relative and absolute duties which is purely fictitious and arbitrary. He affirms that in the case of an immoral promise there is an absolute duty to break it. " In all such cases the promisor by his promise has rejected his moral nature, and can only resume it hy repudiating his own act." But there is a relative duty to the promisee to keep it. Now, if I owe a relative duty to the promisee, he has a moral claim upon me, in the laugutige of Dr. Whewell, in which a moral claim is equivalent to an imperfect right. There is, consequently, a collision of absolute and relative duty. If, therefore, a man keeps his promise, he does his duty and yet sins ; or if he breaks his promise, he does his duty and sins; that is, the same act is both right and wrong at the same time. The absurdity is intolerable, and yet it cannot be avoided without repudiating the distinction in question. The true state of the case is, that the absolute duty is the onli/ duty involved, and the effect of it is to pre- vent the rise of the relative duty which ensues upon a lawful promise. It is the absolute principles of right which deter- mine obligation in the concrete instances of life. There never can be a duty, relative or absolute, to do a wrong thino;. It is a contradiction in terms. No man can ever have a claim upon another for a violation of the eternal prin- ciples of right. As, then, the existence of a relative duty depends, in every case, upon the lawfulness of the promise. Dr. Whewell, instead of resolving the difficulty, has quietly begged the question. He has assumed that there is a rela- tive duty to the promisee, when that is the very point in dis- pute, and vindicates his assumption by maintaining that in all cases of immoral promises it exists, though, when the per-

656 FAITHFULNESS.

formance is unlawful, the superior importance of the absolute duty supersedes it.

3. To nie it seems that the true answer is, that an unlaw- ful condition renders the promise absolutely null and void. That condition, in the language of the schools, is no moral entity ; and ex nlliiio nihil fit is as true in morals as physics. The man who stipulated to perform it was confessedly not bound ; the other party had, and could have, no right or claim upon him. His a(;t, therefore, has no moral value. The promise and its fulfilment, however, are only parts of one and the same process. If now, at the time of making the unlawful stipulation, the maker was not bound by it, the other party was equally free from obligation in relation to his promise. The promiser was bound only upon the sup- position that the promisee was bound. Now, if the making and fulfilment of a promise are parts of the same ad, and no obligation accrued at the time of making, it is clear that none can ever subsequently arise. The moral relation of the parties undergoes no changes.

4. It should further be recollected that to maintain the validity of such promises is completely to reverse the cardi- nal principle of moral government. It is to reward the wicked and to punish the righteous. There is something inexpressibly revolting in either giving or receiving the wages of iniquity. I cannot conceive of a position in which a man more openly and flagrantly sets at defiance the eternal rule of justice, or more shockingly travesties the moral ad- ministration of his God, than when he dispenses favours to the guilty upon the ground that they are guilty. This atti- tude of bold contradiction to the law of the Divine govern- ment is enough to brand with enormity the doctrine which justifies it. He cannot be right who mocks instead of imi- tating God. I have no doubt that the moral principle which I am here repudiating, and which is so generally maintained, is the prolific parent of infamy, outrage and crime. It is a devil whose name is legion. Let it be cast out from society, and many a man who has been the victim of its power will

FAITHFULNESS. 557

be found clothed and in his right mind sitting at the feet of Jesus.

One consideration which serves to uphold this species of promises is the apprehension that if, Avhen the unhiwful con- dition has been performed the other party should refuse to execute his engagements, he will be exposed to the imputa- tion of mean and interested motives. He would not be likely to receive any credit for a high sense of integrity. If he was not too conscientious to begin the sin, the pre- sumption woukl be that it was something besides conscience which kept him from completing it. This equivocal posi- tion is the penalty which repentance must pay for the crime. It is a grievous cross, but it is a cross that must be borne. It is a memorial of transgression which serves at once to pro- mote severity to ourselves and charity to others — a broken limb or a bone out of joint that keeps one in constant recollection of his fall.

I cannot dismiss this subject of promises without alluding to the peculiar interest which attaches to it, in tlie mind of the true believer, in consequence of the prominence which is given to the promises of God in the dispensation of the Gos- pel. The faithfulness of Jehovah is our only hope ; and for the purpose of alluring our confidence, as well as illustrating His own grace. He deals with His creatures in the way of covenant. He condescendingly gives them a right which emboldens their access to the throne of grace. Tlie prom- ises, all Yea and Amen in Christ Jesus, are the sure warrant" that they shall not be received with coldness nor sent empty away. Hardly a blessing is bestowed which is not appre- liended in some promise before it is enjoyed in ex})erience. A faithful and covenant-keeping God — these are the pre- cious titles by which a sinner loves to recognize the God and Father of our Loi'd Jesus Christ. The Gospel is nothing l)ut a great charter of promises ; and that man must renounce his inheritance in the covenant of grace and abjure the hope of everlasting life wlio can think or speak lightly of what the blessed God has sanctified by His own examjile. In

558 FAITHFULNESS.

reverencing the sacreclness of promises we reverence Hira who is emphatically a God to sinners only when in faith they apprehend His covenant. In the preciousness of His promises we have an illustration of the moral value of faith- fulness ; and the fidelity which we delight to attribute to Him we should endeavour to imitate in all our own engage- ments. Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. Whatsoever things are true, think on these things.

PLEDGES.

Pledges, under the Roman law, were properly securities for the payment of a debt. The thing pledged was put into the possession of the creditor, with a right to sell it and in- demnify himself against the loss in case the debtor failed to comply with his contract. If, for example, a man bor- rowed money and deposited his jewels with the lender in token that he would repay the sum, the jewels became a pledge or pawn. In war and among public enemies the security for the faithful execution of a treaty or the perform- ance of any specific stipulations was called a hostage. What- ever was pledged or pawned was, of course, possessed of such value that the desire to redeem it would be likely to be stronger than any inducements to violate faith. The funda- mental notion of a pledge, therefore, is that of a security — a protection to the promisee against injury or loss. In bar- gains of sale or contracts of debt the thing pledged was always something that the creditor might sell. In treaties among hostile armies, hostages were usually persons of con- sequence, whose redemption was of greater importance than any incidental advantages that might accrue from breach of engagement. In either case, the pledge was a distinct, tan- gible, palpable thing, and of such value as to be a real guarantee of good fiiith. Transferred from bargains and treaties to a peculiar and solemn form of promises, the pledge still retains its fundamental meaning of security, but ceases to be a tangible commoditv. In these cases it is a

F\ITHFUI,NESS. 559

man's honour which he puts in pawn as a guarantee of the faithful execution of his promise.

The language of a pledge is, I renounce all claims to integrity and honour, I am willing to be excluded from society, to be stripped of character, to be an object of con- tempt and detestation, if I am found wanting in fidelity to my engagements.

The faith which is pledged under such sanctions cannot be violated without aggravated guilt. Character is not a thing to be sported with, infamy and disgrace not trifles to be laughed at ; and he who deals with honour as a bauble will experience a penalty that may well make him tremble. It cannot be too earnestly inculcated upon the young that to break a pledge is apt to be followed by the total ruin of one's virtue. Transgression is not a transitory thing. The single act is soon done and over, but it leaves an influence behind, which, like the adder's poison, may grow and ope- rate and spread until it reaches the seat of life and triumphs in the ruin of its victim. No act of the will — it is an inde- structible and fearful law of our being — ever passes away without leaving its mark upon the character. There is a double tendency in every voluntary determination — one to propagate itself, the other to weaken or support, according to its own moral cpiality, the general principle of virtue. Every sin, therefore, imparts a proclivity to other acts of the same sort, and disturbs and deranges at the same time the whole moral constitution ; it tends to the formation of special habits, and to the superinducing of a general debility of principle which lays a man open to defeat from every species of temptation. The extent to which a single act shall produce this double effect depends upon its intensity, its intensity depends upon the fullness and energy of will which will enter into it, and the energy of will depends upon the strength of the motives resisted. An act, there- fore, which concludes an earnest and protracted conflict, which has not been reached without a stormy debate in the soul, which marks the victory of evil over the love of cha-

560 FAITHFULNESS.

racier, sensibility to shame, the authority of conscience and tlie fear of God, — an act of this sort concentrates in itself the essence of all the single determinations which preceded it, and possesses a power to generate a habit and to derange the constitution equal to that Avhieh the whole series of I'osistances to duty, considered as so many individual in- stances of transgression, is fitted to impart. By one such act a man is impelled with an amazing momentum in the ])ath of evil. He lives years of sin in a day or an hour. It is always a solemn crisis when the first step is to be taken in a career of guilt, against which nature and education or any other strong influences protest. The results are unspeak- ably perilous when a man has to fight his way into crime. The victory creates an epoch in his life. From that hour, without a miracle of grace, he is a lost man. The earth is strewed with wrecks of character which were occasioned by one fatal determination at a critical point in life, when the will stood face to face with duty, and had to make its decis- ion deliberately and intensely for evil. That act threw the whole energy of being into the direction of sin. A young man has been trained in a righteous horror of gambling ; he looks upon cards or dice with shuddering and dread. His whole soul is set against them. In an ill-omened hour he is tempted to play. The associations of childhood, his father's counsels, his mother's warnings, a sister's love, the convictions of his own judgment, the fearful consequences of the crime both in this world and that which is to come, every moral energy which conscience, religion and the love of character can summon, rise up to protest against the deed. He is staggered, he hesitates, he almost resolves to flee the temptation. But a spell is on him, the seducer pursues him, the conflict is renewed, he is in agony, and at last resolves in desperation and madness to terminate the strug- gle— he plays. From that time his character is fixed, the man is ruined.

To break a pledge is a critical act of the same kind. It is an act of concentrated potency for evil. It is a victory

FAITHFULNESS. 561

after a severe contest, and, in the triumph of evil, sensibility to shame and tenderness of conscience have been paralyzed or lost. The man feels that he is disgraced and degraded, and gives himself up to infamy and vice without a further struggle. Character is gone, and all motive for honourable effort has ceased to exist. As in the case of the female who has lost her chastity, his virtue has perished with his hon- our. It is a solemn thing to stake character upon the haz- ard of a single act, and he who has done it should feel that nothing less than the whole moral history of his being is involved in the issue. When the pledge is apprehended in its true significancy and relations, and the natural effects of a breach of it, according to the fixed principles of human nature, are duly appreciated, it will be seen to be one of those critical obligations which should be approached with somewhat of the awful reverence that belongs to the oath. It should never be made cheap. It is a security, and should only be resorted to on important occasions where important interests are at stake. But once made in regard to a matter which is possible and right, a man should die rather than forego it. Death is tolerable, but real dishonour cannot be borne.

Sacred as the pledge is, however, it can never justify wrong. After what has been said upon the subject of prom- ises, to which the pledge generically belongs, it would be unnecessary to add anything here, were it not that the feel- ings of the young are apt to mislead them upon this point, and betray them into contradictions, which, always a snare, may terminate in permanent injury to character. The alter- native seems to be dishonour or an unlawful act. Both are evils, and upon the principle of choosing the least an indi- vidual instance of transgression is preferred to a general shock of the moral sensibilities. The young man says, I had rather do this particular unlawful act than sacrifice the whole security for good Avhich I find in a delicate regard for reputation. In this predicament students in college are very often involved. They enter into combinations against legiti-

VoL. II.— 36

562 FAITHFULNESS.

mate autliority under the sanctions of a pledge. They feel that their honour is at stake, and that their faith must be redeemed at whatever sacrifice to their own prospects, the wishes of their parents or the prosjjerity of the Institution against which they have conspired. The feeling — that of the sacredness of honour — is a noble one, and should not be rudely shocked. But the point is, that true honour in this case requires that the pledge should be broken. It was a griev- ous sin to make it, but, having been made, nothing remains but the duty ^^liich extends to every instance of transgres- sion— of immediate repentance. The evil must be undone. The man who has taken a wrong step should instantly retrace it. There can, in the nature of things, be no obli- gation to persevere. Unlawful pledges, like unlawful prom- ises, create no rights ; and as the attempt to give a security for evil only deepens the crime, the pledge is only a counterfeit stipulation of honour. The principle which would attach dishonour to the breach of such unlawful enoao;ements, if legitimately carried out, would unhinge the entire system of morals. It assumes that man can set aside the law of God, that the stern prohibitions of eternal rectitude can be changed into transient commands by the will of a feeble creature, that the word of man may become superior to the word of his Maker. No ; let God be true and every man a liar, and when He speaks let us promptly obey, whatever may have been our previous engagements to evil. The effects which result from the breach of a lawful pledge, and which render it so critical, cannot obtain in this case. The spirit which here operates is the spirit of repentance ; the act is an act of virtue, and its tendency consequently is to strengthen the general principle of virtue. To keep the pledge, however, as an act of transgression, has all the influ- ences which essentially inhere in sin. We say, therefore, confidently to the young. Be cautious never to be entangled in engagements of this sort, but if in an evil hour you have been seduced into them, take the first opportunity of reassert- ing your allegiance to right.

FAITHFULNESS. 563

There is not a more touching proof of God's condescen- sion to the weakness of His creatures than the use of the pledge on His part to assure our hearts of the imniutability of His counsel. His promises, though felt to be Yea and Amen in Christ Jesus, appeal to considerations less personal and distinct — the abstract principles of truth and justice ; but the pledge is an appeal to His honour, or, in the language of Scripture, to His glory, which stands in the same rela- tion to Him that honour does to us. We cannot disbelieve without the most revolting blasphemy when God puts His character in pawn for His word. He addresses us on a ground which comes home to us with peculiar })ower. He transfers to Himself our regard for reputation, and if we instinctively shrink from whatever is branded with igno- miny and disgrace, how can we imagine that the very foun- tain of purity shall become corrupt, the very source of honour defiled ? The " glory of God " is an expression that contains the most im])ressive sanction that the imagination of man can conceive. When God plights His glory He plights His right to the love, homage and adoration of His crea- tures. He plights all claim upon their worship, veneration and obedience. He virtually engages to abdicate His throne and to be stripped of the prerogatives that belong to Him, to lose His own self-respect, to forfeit for ever His name, if He should be found unfaithful to His Word. What a secu- rity to the heirs of the promise ! How can we hesitate in committing our souls, our interests for time and for eternity, to that everlasting covenant which is charged with the glory of God ? What broader foundation could be laid for our faith ? As if it were not enough to appeal to us upon the eternal principles of truth and justice and righteousness, as if these were too abstract and impalpable to arouse our sympathies and wake up a warm and living interest, God comes to us in a relation which is pre-eminently personal, and stands before us as one who has a Name to vindicate, and puts His faithfulness on a ground which, in the case of man, a creature like ourselves, we recognize as the most

564 FAITHFULNESS.

sacred and solemn of all sanctions. As certainly as God cannot deny Himself, as certainly as His own glory is the end of all His works — the scope of every manifestation of His being — as certainly as His own great name is dear to Him, so certainly shall every pledge of His love be redeemed. Not one word of all the good things He hath spoken shall ever fall to the ground. Heaven and earth may pass away, but the Word of the Lord abideth for ever, and this is the Word which by the Gospel is preached unto us. We can- not sufficiently adore that goodness which has stooped to our infirmities, and illustrated this faithfulness by the anal- ogy of principles which address themselves with power to every human heart, and which shut us up to the alternative of faith or the most shocking and abominable imputations upon the Divine character.

I conclude the subject of our engagements with our fellow- men with a caution that cannot be too earnestly inculcated uj)on the young, and that is — they should never by facility of temper, by reluctance to give offence or anxiety to please, permit themselves to be betrayed into expressions naturally fitted to excite expectations, when it is not their purpose to come under the obligation of a promise. " It must be ob- served," says Dr. Paley,' " that most of those forms of speech which, strictly taken, amount to no more than declarations of present intention, do yet, in the usual way of understand- ing them, excite the expectation, and therefore carry with them the force, of absolute promises — such as, ' I intend you this place,' ' I design to leave you this estate,' ' I pur- pose giving you my vote,' ' I mean to serve you ; ' in which, although the ' intention,' the ' purpose,' the ' design,' the 'meaning' be expressed in words of the present time, yet you cannot afterwards recede from them without a breach of good faith. If you choose, therefore, to make known your present intention, and yet to reserve to yourself the liberty of changing it, you must guard your expressions by an additional clause, as, ' I intend at present,' ' if I do not 1 Mor. Phil., B. iii., Pt. i., c. 5.

FAITHFULNESS. 565

alter/ or the like. And after all, as there can be no reason for communicating your intention but to excite some degree of expectation or other, a wanton change of an intention which is once disclosed always. disappoints somebody, and is always for that reason wrong. There is in some men an infirmit}- A\'ith regard to promises which often betrays them into great distress. From the confusion or hesitation or obscurity with which they express themselves, especially when overawed or taken by surprise, they sometimes en- courage expectations and bring upon themselves demands which, possibly, they never dreamed of. This is a want not so much of integrity as of presence of mind."

A man's character suffers in the eyes of others, his self- respect is diminished in his own, when he finds himself ensnared into reputed obligations to which he has weakly or foolishly given rise. His ingenuousness and candour are brought under a cloud, and however he may vindicate his name, he cannot but feel that he has put a weapon into the hands of malice. " He that intends," says Jeremy Taylor, " to do himself honour must take care that he be not sus- pected— that he give no occasion of reproachful language — for fame and honour is a nice thing, tender as a woman's chastity, or like the face of the purest mirror, which a foul breath or an unwholesome air or a watery eye can sully, and the beauty is lost, though it be not dashed in pieces. When a man or a sect is put to answer for themselves in the matter of reputation, they, with their distinctions, wipe the glass, and at last can do nothing but make it appear it was not broken ; but their very abstersion and laborious excuses confess it was foul and faulty."

There is but one way of avoiding these painful predica- ments, and that is by putting a bridle upon our lips. He that offends not in word is a perfect man. Speech is a sacred prerogative ; the tongue rules the word, and Ave should see to it that our hearts rule it. Let us weigh the import of what we utter, speak with the deliberation of rational and accountable beings, speak according to our real purposes and

566 FAITHFULNESS.

thousclits, and we shall be saved the mortification and the shame of even an appearance of failure in good faith. It is an awkward thing, and humbling to a good man, to have to defend himself from the impjLitation of perfidy when malice can give any colour to the charge. As to suspect a servant is to corrupt him, so calumny often drives men to crime. They resent the injustice of mankind by becoming what they have been falsely represented to be. They make reprisals on society by practising the vices of which they have expe- rienced the shame without the guilt. Let us, then, guard with jealous care the sanctity of our faith. Let us avoid even the appearance of evil. Let us even suffer wrong- rather than give the least occasion of being suspected of falsehood, duplicity or fraud. If Achilles, who had Chiron for his master, could exult in the ingenuous simplicity of his character, how should he who has had the Son of God for his teacher and example be clothed with truth as with a garment ?

The evil of being seduced into engagements contrary to our purpose is not to be compared with that of being en- snared into those that are unlawful. To make a promise or pledge with the consciousness that the matter of it is w-rong is a most deliberate compact with the Devil ; it is selling one's self to evil. He that does so either intends to keep his word, or he does not. If he intends to keep it, he actually makes evil his good, and approximates as closely as his circumstances will allow to the father of lies, who never speaks truth except when it redeems his engagements to sin. If he does not intend to keep it, he is guilty of deliberate fraud. In either view, the making of an unlawful promise knowingly and voluntarily is an aggravated crime. Few, it is to be hoped, ever reach this pitch of wickedness. But to make an unlawful promise unconsciously is not without sin. It is always rash ; and though it is not obligatory, it places a man, when the unlawfulness is discovered, in a very painful situation. It is apt to diminish his sensibility to moral distinctions, to superinduce a sophistry which corrupts

FAITHFULNESS. 567

the heart and darkens the understanding. The very anxiety to exempt himself from censure will tempt him to prevaricate with duty, and the effort to acquit the criminal may termi- nate in a justification of the crime. To come in close con- tact with vice is always dangerous.

" Seen too oft, familiar with its face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.''

To apologize for sin is the next step to the commission of it; and to apologize for it all those will be tempted who have been entangled in unlaM'ful engagements. Let all men, but particularly the young, guard against them with a holy solicitude. Resolve never to make a promise with- out having well weighed the moral character of its matter.

Never let a formula implying obligation pass your lips unless you are sure that it relates to nothing which is incon- sistent with your duty to God or man. Whatever is not of faith is sin, and he that doubteth is damned. In every un- dertaking our first care should be to have a clear conscience. Rectitude is a sacred, an awful thing ; and as its eternal laws should never be despised by open and deliberate transgres- sion, so the very possibility of invading them by rashness and imprudence should fill us with constant vigilance and unceasing caution. " Ignorance of duty," says Jeremy Tay- lor, " is always a sin, and therefore, when we are in a per- ceived discernible state of danger, he that refuses to inquire after his duty does not desire to do it." " We enter upon danger and despise our own safety, and are careless of our duty, and not zealous for God, nor yet subjects of conscience or of the Sjiirit of God, if we do not M^ell inquire of an action w^e are to do whether it be good or bad."

To him, however, who has been rashly ensnared I would solemnly say. Do not hesitate to repent of your engagement and to nip the action in the bud. You have sinned already. Do not double the offence by the perpetration of the deed. Let no fear of reproach, no sense of self-degradation, induce you to parley with the crime. You have come too near it

568 FAITHFULNESS.

already. Your only safety is in instant retreat. If you have betrothed yourself to a harlot under the impression that she was a virgin, flee her poisoned embraces as soon as you find out her pollution. Never, never for an instant think of excusing or extenuating a wrong because you have been implicated in it. The moment you begin to debate you have soiled the purity of your conscience.

Discourse VI VOWS

THERE is a marked diiFerence between Protestant and Romish communions in their estimate of the vakie and importance of vows as an element of religious worship. The Church of Rome has perverted, and Protestants have neglected, them. The will-worship and superstition fos- tered by the one have produced a reaction to the opposite extreme in the other. In this, as in most other cases, the truth lies in moderation. It is obvious to remark that this species of devotion has entered into all religions, whether Pasran, Jewish or Christian. Wherever God and Provi- dence have been acknowledged, there, too, have been acknow- ledged the sanctity of oaths and the piety of vows. A form of worship so universal must be founded in nature, and however it may have been corrupted by the mixture of false doctrines or perverted by ignorance and superstition, there must be something in it which is consistent with rea- son, and which should be reclaimed from prostitution and restored to its right place among the functions of the relig- ious life. I have no doubt that in the Church of Rome the extravagant commendation of supererogatory works, which are productive of nothing but pain to the flesh and vanity and pride to the spirit, has detracted from the weightier matters of the law, and degraded piety from obedience to God to the punctilious observance of the uncommanded devices of men, while the doctrine of vows in its connection

569

570 vows.

with " a show of wisdom in will-worship and humility, and neglecting of th6 body," has practically destroyed in many instances all real piety of life. Among Protestants, on the other hand, the general inattention to the principle which has made the vow as universal as the oath has prevented many from apprehending, in anything like their true sacred- ness and interest, the peculiar obligations of religion. John- son's horror of a vow is well known. He looked upon it as nothing but a snare to the conscience, and had almost said that he who could not get to heaven without one deserved not to go there at all.

I have thought, therefore, that it would not be amiss to devote a little more attention to this subject than it has usually received from the Protestant pulpit, and have col- lected my thoughts under the heads of the Nature, Uses and Obligation of Vows.

I. First, then, a vow is of the general nature of a prom- ise. The Schoolmen have discussed the question whether it consists essentially in a mere purpose of the will, or whether the act of reason, which in other instances transmutes a res- olution into a promise and gives it its binding force, must here also be superinduced. The definition which confounds it with a deliberate and firm resolution, making it a mere coyiceptio boni propositi cum animi deliberatione firmata, qua quis ad aliquid faciendum, vel non faciendum se Deo ohligat, proceeds on the assumption that the only importance of signification in ordinary promises is to make known the thoughts and intent of the heart — that if men could read the purposes of each other as they are secretly formed in the mind, these purposes would instantly create obli- gations and impart rights. But this is obviously a mis- take ; there is a broad distinction betwixt a purpose and a promise. The promise is the child of the purpose, but there must be a father to beget it. There must be some- thing added to the purpose before it can bind as an engage- ment. The intervening act by which a purpose is changed is an ordination of the reason by Avhich the purpose is vol-

vows. 571

untari] y made the rule or law of a future thing to be done by ourselves. The promise sustains the same relation to our own future acts which a command or order bears to the acts of a servant. The constituting of this relation is essential to obligation ; it is explicitly enounced by signification in prom- ises among men ; it is enough that it exists in promises to God. This act or ordination of reason is simply the volun- tary determination to be considered as bound, voluntas se obligandi. Where this does not obtain either explicitly or implicitly, a resolution terminates /upon ourselves, and car- ries no other duty along with it than what is essentially involved in the matter of it. Where it is not signified there is no promise ; where it does not exist, no vow.^

2. What distinguishes the vow from every other promise is the party to whom it is made — God. By virtue of this relation it becomes an act of religious worship, and partakes at the same time of the nature of an oath. He takes a very limited view of what constitutes the worship of God who restricts it exclusively to those exercises of prayer, praise or thanksgiving which are specifically religious. Our whole life should be one great instance of devotion. It is the end, the intention — or, as the Schoolmen phrase it, the ordination — of it which determines the character of an act ; and if in all that we do we aim at the glory of God, " every action of nature becomes religious," every meal an instrument of piety, every office of ordinary life a holy oblation. It is the spirit and temper of the soul which settles the question of worship. A cup of cold water given to a disciple in the name of a disciple is not simply charity ; it is an offering acceptable to God. As in the vow the ordination of the action is to God, whatever may be the nature of the thing to be done, whether natural, civil or sj^iritual, the action becomes religious. It takes its denomination from its end. The Avriters of the Romish Church make it an act of the highest religious worship, an act of kdria, and are accord- ingly at one witlj Protestants in affirming that vows can be ^ Aquinas, Summa, 2. 2. Quest. 88, Art. 1.

572 vows.

lawfully made to God only. This, beyond all controversy, is the doctrine of the Scriptures. Hence the indignation of the Lord against the children of Israel for making vows to the queen of heaven. The crime was idolatry.

But a vow is also of the nature of an oath. Although primarily it respects God simply as the party to whom a promise is made, yet secondarily, in consequence of His rela- tions to the creature, it must also regard Him as a witness and a judge. The oath is a solemn invocation of God, in which His name is made the guarantee of the truth of what we say, or, in case of falsehood, in which we deliberately abjure His favour. We suspend our claims to the Divine protection upon our veracity. The peculiarity of its sanction is the reverence for the Divine Being upon which all its sacredncss depends. Its peculiar guilt consists in taking the name of the Lord our God in vain. All this is obviously implied in the vow, and hence it maybe compendiously defined as a promissory oath, using that phrase, not in its common acceptation as a promise to which men are the parties, con- firmed by an oath, but as a promise which is at the same time an oath. The Jews, accordingly, were accustomed to couple imprecations with their vows ; the Psalmist repeatedly employs terms of swearing and vowing as synonymous expressions.

3. The circumstance that it is God with whom we have to deal in the vow determines at once the nature of its matter and the spirit or temper in which it should be made. With- out entering into the frivolous discussions of the Schoolmen de bono tiieUori, which they made essential to the validity of vows, it is obvious that nothing can legitimately constitute the matter of our engagements which is inconsistent with reverence for His name, forbidden by His Word, hurtful to our virtue, or beyond our strength of nature or of grace. Such oblations, instead of being worship, are a mockery. I would not say (the common doctrine of the schools^) that

^ Vota vero quae sunt de rebus vanis et inutilibus sunt magis deridenda quam servanda. Aquinas, Sum. 2. 2. Quest. 88, Art. 2. Sanderson, in his little treatise de Juramenlo, takes the view wliich is adopted in the text.

vows. 573

light and frivolous promises, provided they respect things that are not essentially unlawful, are absolutely null : they, no doubt, bind the conscience, but I Avill say that they argue a contempt of God, and that it is utterly unlawful to make them. To call His awful name upon actions that are silly and ridiculous, that neither in themselves nor their tendencies have a moral significancy, is a crime of impiety and profaneness which is even as the sin of perjury. What can be his conception of God who approaches the terrible Majesty with absurd promises to walk with pebbles in his shoes, to stand for a given time upon a single foot, to lie in a particular posture or to eat with a particular implement, and imagines that these worse than childish follies are ac- cepted as proofs of extraordinary piety ? Verily, their fool- ish heart is darkened, and they have changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the image of a child, "pleased with a rattle and tickled with a straw."

To guard against profaneness in iiaaking vows, let the fol- lowing cautions in relation to the matter be observed :

(1.) If they respect an act which is specifically religious, which is directly and immediately, and not merely by virtue of the intention, an act of worship, let it be well settled that it is appointed in the Word of God. As it is the preroga- tive of the monarch to ordain the ceremonial of his court, so it belongs exclusively to God to determine by what external observances His holy name shall be honoured. Nothing is more offensive or insulting than will-worship. He takes such pleasure in obedience '' that He ])ronounces a curse," says Calvin,^ " on all acts of will-worship, however specious and splendid they may be in the eyes of men. If God abominates all voluntary services invented by us without His command, it follows that nothing can be acceptable to Him except what is appointed by His Word. Let us not, therefore, assume to ourselves such a great liberty as to pre- sume to vow to God anything that has no testimony of His ^ Institutes, Book iv., chap. 13.

574 vows.

approbation." In vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

(2.) In the next place, if the vow respects any other act, let us be certain that the act is either the elicit or imperate one of some virtue — that is, that it consists in doing some- thing positively commanded or avoiding something posi- tively forbidden, or in making that which is naturally indif- ferent conduce to our improvement. There can be no doubt about the lawfulness of engagements to j)erform our duty or to abstain from sin. All elicit acts of virtue are clearly within the scope of a vow. But the case is not as plain when it comes to the curtailment of Christian liberty. That should not be done except to save ourselves from temptation or others from offence. When an indifferent thing, by being specially sanctified to God, can promote my own piety or the piety of others, it seems to me that it can legitimately constitute the matter of a vow. Liberty is then used for the glory of God, and the use of it is manifestly consistent with His will. In the language of the schools, it becomes a greater good. This is the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas.^ " Maceration of one's own body," says he, '' by vigils and fasts, for example, is not accepted of God, except in so far as it is a work of virtue — that is, in so far as it is done with proper discretion for the purpose of restraining concupiscence without too much inconvenience to nature." The same is the doctrine of Calvin. " If a person," says he, " has fallen into any crime through the vice of intemperance, nothing prevents him from correcting that vice by a temporary re- nunciation of all delicacies, and enforcing this abstinence by a vow to lay himself under the stronger obligation." " Yet," he adds, " I impose no perpetual law on those who have been guilty of such an offence : I only point out what they are at liberty to do if they think that such a vow would be useful to them. I consider a vow of this kind, therefore, as

1 Summa, 2. 2. Quest. 88, Art. 2. See, also, Bishop Hall, Cases of Conscience, Decade iii., case 4. Bishop Reynolds on Hosea.

vows. 575

lawful, but at the same time left to the free choice of every individual."

(3.) The matter of a vow should, further, be something clearly in our own power, either according to the strength of nature or the promises of grace. In the case of com- manded duties or prohibited sins we can throw ourselves upon the everlasting covenant, and should make all our engagements in humble reliance upon its provisions. But in uncommanded instances we should measure our ability before we venture to assume so solemn an obligation. The aids of grace will be imparted only in so far as may be con- ducive to God's glory ; and as the circumstances which to- day justify a particular use of liberty may change to-morrow, no man can contract any permanent obligations in regard to these things in dependence upon God's help. He has no promise to justify such faith. Vows of this class, therefore, should always be temporary ; otherwise they become a temptation and a snare. To illustrate my meaning : there ma}' be a conjuncture of circumstances which render it highly inexpedient at one time for a man to marry. It may sub- sequently, by a change in his condition, be as evidently his duty to do so. If, now, he had contracted a vow of per- petual celibacy, he has engaged to do what he is not sure that he shall have strength to perform, and what God has nowhere promised to enable him to do. The Lord has com- manded chastity, and all His people may rely upon His grace to preserve them from uncleanness. But chastity is not virginity ; the wife is as pure as the virgin, the husband as chaste as the eunuch. We dare not, therefore, pledge ourselves to perpetual continence when it may be that God designs to protect our purity by the holy estate of wedlock. This is the class of vows Avhich entangle the conscience — those which relate to matters of indiflFerence, that only par- take of the character of virtue in the Avay of accident. Hence the advice of Taylor, " Let not young beginners in religion enlarge their hearts and straiten their liberty by vows of long continuance; nor indeed can any one else

576 vows.

without a great experience of himself and of all accidental dangers. Vows of single actions are safest, and proportion- able to those single blessings ever begged in such cases, of sudden and transient importunities."

The matter of one class of vows is the consecration of a person or thing to the service and glory of God. The thing to be done is the renunciation of all rights of property on our part and the devotion of the object, whatever it may be, to the service and glory of God. Such was Hannah's vow : " And she vowed a vow and said, O Lord of Hosts, if Thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of Thine handmaid, and remember me and not forget Thine handmaid, and will give unto Thine handmaid a man-child, then will I give him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head." Such also was Jacob's vow — he consecrated the stone and the tithes to the Lord : " And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, if God will be with me and keep me in the way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God, and this stone which I have set for a pillar shall be God's house, and of all that Thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto Thee." These are what Calvin calls vows of thanksgiving. He finds " other examjiles of them in the ancient peace-offerings, which used to be vowed by pious kings and generals entering on just wars, to be offered in case they should obtain the victory, or by persons labouring under more than common difficulties in case the Lord would deliver them. Thus we are to understand all those places in the Psalms which speak of vows. Vows of this kind may also be now used among us whenever God delivers us from any great calamity, from a severe disease or from any other danger. For on such occasions it is not inconsistent with the duty of a pious man to consecrate to God some oblation that he has vowed, merely as a solemn token of grateful acknowledgment, that he may not appear unthank- ful for his goodness." Such, it may be added, is the vow

vows. 577

implied in the very nature of the Christian profession. A man yields himself to God a living sacrifice ; he is sanctified to the Divine service and glory, renounces all right of prop- erty in himself, and dedicates his faculties and members as instruments of righteousness unto holiness. Such also is a good man's consecration of his children to the Lord ; they are devoted, and he feels that he hus no more right to train them for merely secular ends than an ancient Jew had to use the vessels of the sanctuary for the ordinary purposes of life. It is nothing less than sacrilege to treat them in any other way than as holy to the Lord. The vow of personal consecration made in baptism is repeated in every recep- tion of the Lord's Supper. The sacraments are seals of a covenant by which God certifies His promises to us, and by which we solemnly pledge an absolute allegiance to Him. Every Christian man, therefore, can justly appropriate the language of David with all the comfort and consolation it imparts : " Thy vows are upon me, O God ;" and with the Apostle he rejoices that he is not his own, but is bought with a price.

11. Having sufficiently indicated the nature of vows, I proceed to the question of their use. Is it or is it not expe- dient to make them? Of course the discussion must be confined to those which are lawful and proper, which are consistent with the will of God, not rashly made nor dis- proportioned to our powers.

There is but little force in the objections, in so fiir as such vows are concerned, that they curtail our liberty, multiply temptations and are without warrant from the example of Christ and His Apostles. There is no abridgment of liberty in strengthening the bonds of duty, no necessary peril in what nothing but depravity can convert into an instrument of sin, and no reflection upon Christ, whose whole life was a vow, nor upon the Apostles, who were body and soul de- voted to the work of the Lord. That is not freedom which absolves fi'om obligation, that is not a snare which is only made so by our voluntary neglect, and that is not unchris- VoL. II.— 37

678 vows.

tian wliicli aims at the perfection of Christian life. The truth is, the whole question concerning the utility of vows turns upon the spirit and temper in which they are made. They have no absolute efficacy in themselves ; there is no charm by which the mere making of them shall be an instru- ment of good. All depends upon the state of mind which prompts them, the purpose and ends for which they are made. Here, as in everything else, the maxim of the Apos- tle holds good : Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.

1 . If vows are made in the spirit of bribes, if they pro- ceed from low and degrading thoughts of the Godliead, and are presented as inducements which have an intrinsic value in the court of Heaven, they are insults to Deity and inju- ries to us. God maintains no intercourse of barter and traffic with His creatures, and those who look upon His covenants as the interchange of reciprocal benefits are puffiid up with pride, and have already fallen into the con- demnation of the Devil. All things come of Him, and it is only of His own that we can give Him.

2. In the next place, those who look upon vows as in- stances of extraordinary merit eviscerate them of all their tendencies to good. There is no righteousness but in obe- dience to God, and as the vow is only an acknowledgment of duty, coupled with a fixed resolution to perform it, there is nothing more in it than the honesty of a debtor who admits the debt and makes arrangements to discharge it. So far are those vows which respect uncommanded instances from possessing extraordinary merit that the sole merit or moral excellence which belongs to them is derivative and secondary ; it springs from their relation to commanded duties. They are the merest puerilities except as they are ordained to the ends of virtue. They become kuvful only Avhen they are assumed as the instruments or means of en- forcing prime obligations. They are like the ancient phylac- teries, memorials of duty rather than duties themselves. To treat them, therefore, as proofs of extraordinary righteousness is to reverse the relation of means and end, and to substitute

vows. 579

the sign for the thing signified. He that enters into engage- ments of this sort, with the secret feeling that he is pleasing the Lord of hosts with the display of unwonted zeal, may expect the confounding rebuke that "obedience is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." It is the preposterous notion that there is something more than God requires, a righteousness of supererogation, in these instances of vows, that has corrupted the whole subject and made it stink in the nostrils of humble piety. This dead fly has polluted the whole box of ointment. The Divine law is the standard of moral perfection, and nothing is good which does not express the spirit and temper of this perfect standard. There is no going beyond it; there may be a fearful falling short of it. Whatever expedients we employ to impress this law upon the conscience and to engrave it in the very texture of the will, they are good or otherwise according to their tendencies to secure the result. The man is righteous or unrighteous, holy or sinful, according as his heart is in union and sympathy with the holy command- ment. The effect of exalting supererogatory observances above simple obedience, and treating him pre-eminently as a saint, whatever may be the general temper and disposition of his mind, who excels in ascetic devotions, has been to degrade religion from its noble eminence as a reasonable service to the emptiest show of fooleries. Vows conceived in such a spirit are as fatal to prosperity as the mildew or pestilence. They are a high conspiracy against heaven, an impious and daring attempt to reverse the order which God has established, and to make His will subordinate and sec- ondary to the little contrivances of man. It is to subvert morality and to convert religion into superstition. Hence Taylor, in his Holy Living, in order to obviate this tend- ency to pervert the vow into will-worship, has very reason- ably advised, " that every vow of a new action be also accompanied with a new degree and enforcement of our essential and unalterable duty. Such was Jacob's vow, that (besides the payment of a tithe) God should be his

580 vows.

God, that so he might strengthen his duty to Him, first in essentials and precepts, and then in additionals and acciden- tals. For it is but an ill tree that spends more in leaves and suckers and gums than in fruit, and that thankfulness and religion is best that first secures duty and then enlarges in counsels."

3. Vows that are made in conformity with the spirit of the Gospel, with proper views of the majesty and goodness of God and of the weakness and ill-desert of man, made in faith and as the honest expressions of sincere worship, are undoubted helps to piety. These are not the vows which become hindrances and snares.

(1.) In the first place, they obviously strengthen the general bonds of duty. They consecrate the offices of life. They diffuse the influence and savour of the Divine name around moral and civil observances, and attach the sacred- ness of religion to everything which they touch. The vow introduces a new sanction, and the sanction which of all others is dearest to the Christian heart — reverence for the glory of God. It pronounces the Divine name, and makes that to be specifically religious which before was only natural or civil, and thus superinduces what Augustin calls a " blessed necessity to good." It confirms the will by a direct sense of the majesty and holiness of God. It is, indeed, the general spirit of religion concentrated on a single act. As the pecu- liar motive of the vow is reverence for God, it is manifest that every instance of fidelity strengthens the principle until it is matured into the stability of habit.

(2.) In the next place, vows are conducive to piety by in- creasing the sense of union with God. They keep alive the consciousness that we are His and that He is ours. David, when overwhelmed by afflictions and oppressed by dangers, often established his heart with the reflection that the vows of his God were upon him. The feeling was, that God had a peculiar interest in him as one devoted to His service, and that the Deity was not likely to abandon His own property as a spoil to men of violence and blood. We keep aloof

vows. 581

from the Throne of grace when we distrust our right to be found there ; nearness of access is in proportion to the feeling of intimacy betwixt God and the creature. It is precisely this feeling which the vow cherishes. This is eminently the case with that general vow of consecration which is involved in the very notion of the Christian profession ; its language is, My beloved is mine and I am His. We know that God careth for His own ; and in proportion as we cherish the conviction that we belong to Him, will be the frequency of our approaches to His seat and the strength of our reliance on His name. It is the prerogative of faith to appropriate God and the promises of the covenant ; and whatever has a tendency to increase the feeling of proj^riety reacts upon faith, and strengthens that very feature of it by which it is made the instrument at once of comfort and of growth in grace. There is no privilege, no exaltation of blessedness, com2:)arable with that by which a sinner is permitted to avouch the Lord to be his God. Everything of good, whether for this world or that which is to come, is embraced in the compendious declaration, I will be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee. The vow corresponds to this promise, and presents the man as an oblation to the Lord, holy and acceptable through Jesus Christ. It is an exercise of faith which strengthens faith.

(3.) In the third place, vows in exercising specific vir- tues contribute to the habit of them, and, through the inti- mate connection which obtains among them, fortify the general principle of integrity. Calvin recognizes four ends to which our vows may be rightly directed — two referring to the past and two to the future. " To the time past belong those vows by which we either testify our gratitude to God for benefits received, or, in order to deprecate His wrath, in- flict punishment upon ourselves for sins we have committed. The former may be called vows of thanksgiving ; the latter, vows of penitence." The vows which he refers to the future " have for their object, partly to render us more cautious of danger, partly to stimulate us to the performance of duty."