Skip to main content

Full text of "The collected writings of James Henley Thornwell"

See other formats 


OP  THE 

Theological   Seminary, 

PRINCETON,    N.  J. 

sec 


^**'*^^>  -Dwsion, 

f^'»^fJ)      Sectior 


Bool, 


.Mo..,.,. 


v/.   I 


■i^^-C7AHEiVcbi6- 


J,  .kl.  I'lnun^-x^tuT-^C^ 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1870,  by 

CHARLES    GENNET, 

in  trust,  as 

Treasurer  of  Pcblication  of  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian 

Church  in  the  United  States, 

in  the  office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  'Washington. 


PREFACE  BY  THE  EDITOR. 


1.  These  collected  writings  of  James  Henley  Thoen- 
WELE  will  probably  fill  six  volumes,  of  which  four  will 
contain  all  his  Theological  works,  and  be  published  by  the 
Presbyterian  Cliurch  in  the  United  States.  The  remaining 
two  will  consist  of  very  valuable  miscellanea,  but  it  is  not 
yet  determined  under  whose  auspices  as  publishers  they 
shall  be  given  to  the  public.  Some  of  these  are  metaphys- 
ical and  some  few  political ;  the  major  portion  are  sermons 
and  sketches  of  sermons,  addresses,  etc.,  etc. 

Of  the  four  volumes  to  be  issued  by  the  Presbyterian 
Committee  of  Publication  at  Richmond,  the  First  may  pro- 
perly be  entitled  Theological  ;  the  Second,  Theological 
AND  Ethical;  the  Third,  Theological  and  Conteo- 
VEESiAL ;  the  Fourth,  Ecclesiological. 

The  present  volume  contains  sixteen  Lectures  in  Theology, 
never  before  printed,  besides  three  separate  articles  published 
during  the  author's  lifetime.  All  these  constitute  his  dis- 
cussion of  that  portion  of  Theology  which  relates  to  God 
and  to  Moral  Government  essentially  considered,  or  to  the 
same  as  modified  by  the  Covenant  of  Works.  To  this  vol- 
ume, by  way  of  appendix,  are  added  his  Inaugural  Dis- 
course, his  Questions  on  the  Lectures  to  his  classes,  his 
Analysis  of  Calvin's  Institutes  and  his  Examination  Ques- 
tions thereupon. 

The  next  volume  will  discuss  that  portion  of  Theology 
which  relates  to  Moral  Government  as  modified  by  the 
Covenant  of  Grace.     These  two  volumes  are  not  a  treatise 


IV  EDITOR  S   PREFACE. 

ou  Theology  written  by  our  distinguished  j)rofessor,  but 
consist  of  all  that  he  left  behind  him  upon  those  topics, 
gathered  together  since  his  decease  by  the  hand  of  friend- 
ship, and  systematized  as  well  as  possible  according  to  his 
conception  of  the  science  of  Theology.  The  sixteen  Lectures 
may  be  reckoned  his  very  latest  productions.  Upon  some 
of  the  topics  in  the  second  volume,  what  we  have  to  present 
the  reader  will  be  some  of  his  earlier  writings ;  there 
is  not  one  of  them,  however,  but  bears  the  same  impress  of 
genius — not  one  of  them  but  is  instinct  with  the  same  unc- 
tion of  the  Spirit  of  truth  and  love. 

Accompanying  what  the  second  volume  will  contain  upon 
the  Doctrines  of  Grace,  there  will  be  found  a  partial  discus- 
sion of  the  Morals  which  necessarily  flow  out  of  those  doc- 
trines. Dr.  Thornwell  did  not  write  on  the  other  two 
departments  of  Ethics — Justice  and  Benevolence — but  he 
wrote  and  published  a  separate  volume  of  seven  Discourses 
on  Truth.  The  place  assigned  to  them  in  this  collection  of 
all  his  writings  is  judged  to  be  logically  the  most  suitable 
one. 

The  third  volume  will  contain  an  elaborate  discussion  of 
the  Canon,  the  Authority  of  Scripture,  Papal  Infallibility, 
the  Mass,  the  Validity  of  Popish  Baptism,  and  the  Claims 
of  the  Romish  Church  to  be  reckoned  any  Church  at  all. 
In  the  discussion  of  Popish  Baptism  the  author  ^^^as  led  into 
a  thorough  consideration  of  the  Christian  doctrine  of  Justifi- 
cation, and  hence  that  whole  argument  might  well  have 
been  placed  in  the  second  volume.  Connected  as  it  was, 
however,  by  other  ties  with  the  Romish  controversy,  it  was 
judged  best,  after  mature  reflection,  to  place  it  in  the  volume 
of  the  Theological  and  Polemic  writings. 

The  discussion  of  the  Canon  and  of  Papal  Infallibility  ap- 
peared first  in  the  newspapers,  where  Dr.  Thornwell  was 
forced  to  defend  himself  against  Bishop  Lynch.  His  assail- 
ant having  quit  the  field,  he  prosecuted  the  discussion  for  a 
time,  and  then  published  both  sides  of  the  controversy  in  a 
volume  which  is  now  out  of  print.     These  questions  have 


editor's  preface.  V 

been  made  to  assume  in  our  time  a  fresh  interest,  and  we 
shall  hasten  to  present  to  the  public  Dr.  Thornwell's  very 
masterly  and  learned  contributions  to  their  elucidation. 

In  the  fourth  volume  will  be  gathered  whatever  else  Dr. 
Thorn  well  has  left  behind  him  touching  the  question  of  the 
Church. 

2.  The  editor  is  responsible  for  the  correction  of  numerous 
clerical  errors  in  the  manuscript  lectures  and  typographical 
ones  in  the  printed  pieces ;  for  the  arrangement  and  classifi- 
cation of  the  matter ;  for  the  Table  of  Contents ;  for  the  In- 
dex ;  and  for  the  side-headings  of  the  Theological  Lectures, 
excepting  those  belonging  to  Lecture  I.,  which  are  Dr. 
Thornwell's.  These  side-headings  were  undertaken  in  order 
to  make  the  remaining  lectures  correspond  in  that  particular 
with  the  first  one.  It  is  hoped  they  may  sometimes  assist 
beginners  in  Theology  somewhat  better  to  comprehend  the 
abstruser  parts  of  these  Lectures. 

3.  In  the  preparation  of  these  volumes  the  editor  has  been 
indebted  for  counsel  and  encouragement  to  his  three  col- 
leagues, Drs.  Howe,  Plumer  and  Woodrow,  to  Dr.  Pal- 
mer of  New  Orleans,  and  to  Stuart  Robinson.  For  im- 
portant assistance  rendered  his  thanks  are  due  to  Dr.  T. 
DwiGHT  WiTHERSPOON  of  Memphis.  To  Dr.  J.  L.  Gi- 
rardeau of  Charleston  he  is  under  special  obligations  for 
the  large  drafts  which  he  has  kindly  allowed  to  be  made 
continually  upon  his  learning,  judgment  and  taste,  and  for  a 
vast  amount  of  actual  labour  by  which  he  has  assisted  to 
prepare  these  writings  for  the  press.  Dr.  Thornwell's 
friend,  loving  and  beloved,  as  well  as  the  editor's,  this  has 
been  with  him  of  counse  a  labour  of  love ;  yet  it  is  proper 
here  to  record  this  public  acknowledgment  of  the  toil  he  has 
without  stint  bestowed  upon  these  works.  There  are  two 
other  persons  without  whose  aid  this  task  could  never  have 
been  performed.  They  may  not  be  named  here;  but  the 
author,  whilst  he  was  with  us,  was  their  revered  and  beloved 
friend,  and  the  severest  and  most  protracted  literary  drudgery 
for  his  sake  has  been  joyfully  performed  by  them.     Faith- 


vi  editor's  preface. 

fully  have  they  wrought  in  erecting  this  monument  to  our 
illustrious  dead. 

There  is  still  a  debt  of  obligation  to  be  acknowledged. 
Soon  after  the  war,  informal  arrangements  with  the  Messrs. 
Carter  of  New  York  were  entered  into  for  the  publication 
of  these  works.  It  was  then  expected  to  collect  from  the 
friends  of  Dr.  Thornwell  the  means  of  stereotyping  them, 
and  to  present  the  plates  to  his  widow.  Mr.  Robert  Carter 
claimed  that  he  was  one  of  this  class,  and  as  a  contribution 
generously  gave  his  beautiful  plates  of  Thornwell  on  Truth. 
When  it  was  finally  concluded,  however,  to  adopt  the  octavo 
form  for  these  collected  writings,  those  plates,  being  in  duo- 
decimo, were  returned  to  their  liberal  donor,  and  a  new  edi- 
tion has  since  aj^peared,  upon  which  the  customary  royalty  is 
paid  to  Mrs.  Thornwell.  Matters  stood  thus  when  Dr. 
Baird  of  the  Richmond  Committee  expressed  a  strong  desire 
for  our  Church  to  own  and  publish  herself  the  works  of  her 
beloved  son,  and  the  idea  commended  itself  so  strongly  to 
the  editor's  feelings  and  judgment  that  he  frankly  solicited 
of  the  New  York  publishers  a  release  from  his  engagements 
to  them.  It  was  unhesitatingly  and  very  politely  granted. 
Very  recently  the  same  gentlemen  were  asked  to  allow  the 
Discourses  on  Truth  to  make  part  of  this  collection.  The 
answer  was  in  these  short  and  pithy  terms :  "  Your  letter 
was  received  this  morning,  and  we  accede  at  once  and  cor- 
dially to  your  request."  Not  many  words  are  needed  to  ex- 
press a  deep  sense  of  so  much  kindness  so  kindly  done. 

It  is  proper  to  say  that  while  the  stereotype  plates  of  this 
collection  will  belong  to  our  Church,  the  family  of  the  de- 
ceased will  receive  from  the  Committee,  who  bear  all  the 
expenses  of  printing,  binding,  etc.,  a  very  liberal  royalty  on 
all  sales  in  'perpetuo. 


CONTENTS. 


THEOLOGICAL    LECTURES. 


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  lY. 

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   DELIVERED    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 

^r5,f.i'.f-.t.f  ;^^f  .t,f  ^/f 

>-H'-   -f  «#  ;<i^  ;»^  -.iii  -if  ^'  ^'  ..# 

■ 

•  ,'1  ^  I  ^I  *  >•  *^  'i   'i   *\  *j    ''I   '  :    *  s, 

1  *'#  f  -i  *  t  *.* 

%k\   4>  vy.  ..j^  j%  =:#                 ••   J-' 
W    .^  4  .|i  c*.  ,^  i-S.  ,#.  H.  -j^ 
n    '*^  ^f;  .i^  Hifs  .-;•'  ?*■  r^"'***  vf 

%'^-]i  ^4' '4*  '4' 

•■14.    •* 

■=■      ,■•;•    .  -»■      -*,-       !g)    ,  «■ 

^  f  ^'  ^  4  -^  4.  I'  •/,  i-  ^>  ^' 

<'  j^  4'.*  .4  v<i  -%  f  '4'# 

■_-f.  \:f  '^-  "i  U  ';! 

,>i»  •#..«•  #  ••'4' -4^ 

w  Ji 

i^-  n-  *  :•■ 

*'i  ■•f^'i-'t'i  .4'i'  ;i^' 

^'^•M-i^4';«- 

'.SV  4- 

J^- 

/Hi'H'H' 

t^f;f'i,f  >;t;f  [i'Tf  ;f 

u.  \i;i  ■i'H^*;t^Ht^^' 

ff  ;rH''*.^''^^ 

«■  '4 

n 

i1  •     *    * 

;*ltj*it 

:f  f  .^'  #'  t  r  ^'  ^'  :i  ^'  ^  # 

1^' 

ii.  1     V;  • 

rf  H'  9?-  {! 

!■■  '  i;    i,    i.    «■    A,    ^     i,     i     i-    ».    ,1.  *^    >.«•  ■  >*■-     *■  ■>*.  >•*-  sifc    ..4.  ■■'■A,    .>.    'X,  -a-  :'•«.  ■•«,  ■■«    -j*.  .-'i*.  .•«•■'«,  a«.  ?•«:    ►*;  .«:  ^:i  iS 

^-  *^'  ^4 '  f '  ^'  '4  f*^  ^4  H'  'vi 

n-U^ 

11 

^  K' 

■i|.^f  ^:f 'j.H  :^  H''-i  H'l 

4'4:^''4A'i- 

Hji 

n^ 

■^'KK^  !l  J":l!^  J  ^I't;^' 

/^',l:i  ;t;1\^' 

•^' 

*  if 

m 

I  \'i-  i  f  i  ^'.tV    f^'j-  ^.  .!•  4- >f  3|^ '4  ^f 'i  •4.  f . 'I   f  ^A-  4'^'  ;^i^  ^Ik  jf%  ^'^^  r^'  f  :r^ 

I-  %1'ii'i^  '-i'  'n.  \t  %  'i  '4'  '&r  ^4  "i^  '4  '4^  Jt  U>  M  'i  ^^i  >t  ::^  '  i>  J  *i  H-  -i^  r4^  -^  Vt-  ..,  . ,  ■  A  ^ 
I  ^4  J-  1'  'i  '4'  ^i-  H  '4  H  ^^  4  'i  ^^  ^^-  ^  rf'  4  y  H'  ^*  ^^  '-^  ^^-  -^  •^'  '^^  ■^'  H-  B''  i-^'  H*y-  ^*-  '^'il' 


t  <  ?  L  « 'I  .1.:.  M 


'^■'i  M^^ 


'J  .V\i. 

'y-i'i 


'it  -4  ''i 


^4'  ■»■  ^  -^  m  I 

"A    ^4     "'     '.I     •:.!     t  : 


■',«   '■  i   '-, 


H:  Vf  '^■ 
]i    '*■    II 

%■  'A-  ;i 
U  \«-  % 
%  \.i  '4 

"jk-  '4-  ;i  ■ 
U  'i  % 

H^  .'i^  .^ 
'*    4^    4' 


'.i-  a  ^i-  ^4 

:;!  ;i  '^  H^ 

'i  'i  U  '4 


ff  }*'  H  ;t  ?V  ^^^'  ■  ■ 

U^  Irf-  H'  '^-  H-  '^l^'  v4;   i^'