The Presbyterian and Reformed Review

AM PRES BR1 . P624
Presbyterian and
reformed review.

. 13

Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2016 with funding from
Princeton Theological Seminary Library

https ://arch i ve .org/detai Is/presbyterian refo 1 351 warf

THE PRESBYTERIAN
AND REFORMED REVIEW

No. 51— July, 1902.

I.

THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR

THEISM.

T is not difficult to understand the influence exerted by the

JL Kantian philosophy during the last few decades. To an
individual or a generation, engrossed in the study of science and
indisposed to metaphysical speculation, averse to materialism and
skepticism and moving in the direction of faith, the standpoint
of Kant offers much attraction. It combines two signal advan-
tages. It authenticates the concepts employed in science ; it
provides an independent basis for religion. In both these
respects its superiority as a working philosophic theory to posi-
tivism is obvious. The late Professor Huxley enthusiastically
extolled Hume as of all philosophers the most satisfactory to
a scientific mind, But Hume deprives science of its metaphysi-
cal foundations ; he denies philosophical validity to the idea of
causation, and resolves the universe into unrelated atoms. It
seems infelicitous that a speculation which invalidates the
notions indispensable to scientific reasoning should be regarded
with, approval by men devoted to the interpretation of nature.
The Kantian doctrine is preferable in that it expressly vindicates
the concepts which underlie our mathematical and our inductive

science.

The other advantage mentioned is of even greater consequence.
“ Our most holy religion,” says Hume, in the Essay on Miracles ,
“ is founded on faith, not on reason.” Kant uses similar lan-
guage : “I must abolish knowledge, to make room for belief.”
His meaning, however, is entirely different. To Hume, religion
is a superstition, a product of custom and imagination ; to Kant,

342

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

it is an indefeasible possession of man as a moral being, asso-
ciated with his dearest interests, having its roots in his deepest
experiences. It is not strange that, in the reaction from the
unbelief which reached its culmination about the middle of the
nineteenth century, the moral faith of Kant should have com-
mended itself to many, as conserving the practical elements of
religion without involving its theoretical difficulties. One whose
mind is open to the mystery of the universe, whose temper is
devout and reverential, may naturally be attracted by a philos-
ophy which puts him in possession of the world of transcendent
reality, making its motives and hopes and consolations present
and potent, and which at the same time sets aside theoretical
problems as irrelevant. To many persons — to all persons, in
certain moods — it is a satisfaction to be able to separate the emo-
tional and volitional aspects of religion from its thought aspects,
making it a purely spiritual and ethical experience. The
Kantian philosophy legitimates both the scientific and the relig-
ious views of the world ; it enables one to hold the two concur-
rently, without concern as to their reconciliation. The spheres
of knowledge and of faith being different, the two cannot come
into collision. The freer scope afforded to the religious nature
is the chief explanation of the extent to which a revised and
modified Kantianism has replaced, of recent years, the positivism
so influential a generation ago.

It is through no lack of appreciation of the truth which it
contains, and through no failure to recognize the salutary ten-
dencies which it embodies, that many who approach these ques-
tions from the point of view of metaphysics, or from the point of
view of theology, find themselves unable to rest satisfied with
this position, reasonable and impartial as it seems. This phase of
Kantian tradition emphasizes the negative and skeptical side of
the system from which it is derived, The inability of the mind
to penetrate to essential reality ; the limitation of knowledge to
the sphere of phenomena ; the merely regulative character of
our higher beliefs — these are the elements which it appropriates.
The other side of Kant’s teaching — that which seemed to his great
idealistic successors to contain his real meaning — his assertion of
the law-giving energy of reason, it neglects. We may describe
this prevalent and popular mode of thinking as an improved
version of empiricism ; it furnishes a better basis for knowledge
than can be given by a seusationalistic theory ; it is more sym-
pathetic toward religion than was the older empiricism ; but it
is just as emphatic as was Hume in restricting knowledge to the
realm of sensible experience. One who is not prepared to aban-

THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR THEISM. 343

don the task of philosophy as hopeless, who believes that it is
legitimate to inquire into the ideal significance of the world, as
well as to observe and classify its facts, cannot regard with com-
placency a view which holds in such light esteem the endeavor of
the speculative reason.

How just is the discontent of the theologian with this dispar-
agement of ideal thought one realizes as one ponders such a
eulogistic statement as the following : “The present spread of
Kantian philosophy,” says Paulsen, “on the whole, proceeds

from a desire to reconcile science and religion On the

side of religion, we may welcome as a hopeful sign a movement
that is rapidly gaining strength in Protestant theology. I refer
to the attempt to give the dogma a new place and significance in
Church life. A former view regarded the dogma as the expres-
sion of theoretical truths. These truths, it held, can and must
be scientifically demonstrated by means of exegetical and his-
torical proofs or ontological and cosmological arguments, or they
can and must be interpreted by abstruse speculation. For the
new movement, however, the dogma has the significance of a
formula that does not bind the understanding as much as the
will. It does not contain demonstrable predications of historical
and natural reality, but articles of faith in values that are univer-
sally recognized, that satisfy the heart and determine the will.
By rejecting scholastic philosophy Luther rejected the artificial
union between faith and knowledge. The modern view follows
his precedent. It seeks to free Protestant theology from the
intellectualism of orthodoxy, from the intellectual mania for
demonstration and system, Avhich again controlled it soon after
the .Reformation, and to base Church life on the Gospel of salva-
tion by faith and charity.”*

The labor of the theologian is certainly quite superfluous upon
such an estimate of his functions. According to this view,
dogmas are not statements of truth, but awkward attempts to
express, under forms of logic, experiences of emotion and of
volition which cannot properly be thus expressed ; these formula-
tions have no significance for the intellect ; they are of value only
so far as they meet the demands of the heart and of the will.

The inextinguishable attraction which the ultimate problems of
being have for the human mind appears in the fact that, however
hostile to such inquiries the spirit of an age may be, attempts at
a theoretical interpretation of the world are never wholly lacking.
The positivistic and Neo-Kantian depreciation of reason has not

* Paulsen, Introduction to Philosophy, pp. 12, 13.

344

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

sufficed, in our day, altogether to suppress such attempts. It is
noteworthy that one of the most ambitious of these has arisen in
the unfriendly environment of the English associationaiism — the
“Synthetic Philosophy” of Spencer. The theory so popular
at present, especially among men of science interested in philos-
ophy, to which the vague term “ monism ” is often applied, is
the pantheism of Spinoza translated into modern language. The
pessimistic view of life, unhappily current even in the most
favored times and countries, has found in recent years an ex-
positor as definitely metaphysical as Schopenhauer himself —
Hartmann’s Philosophy of the Unconscious being, like The World
as Will and as Idea , a theory in regard to the nature of the
World-ground. The most interesting, at least for our present
purpose, of these various forms of contemporary metaphysics
are those which derive their inspiration, and in large measure
their content, from the greatest of the followers and critics of
Kant — Hegel. Inasmuch as the current agnosticism shelters itself
to so great an extent under the authority of Kant, it is fitting
that there should arise protests against it cast in the forms of
that idealistic rationalism which received at the hands of Hegel
its most influential expression. The energy with which the
Hegelian type of thought has asserted itself during the last
score of years, will not seem strange to one who considers that it
is the natural and historical antithesis of the exaggerated moral-
ism which was the negative side of Kant’s teaching, and which
has wrought as a subtle and pervasive force of disintegration in
so much of the thought of the present day.

The truth which Hegel championed is that of the rationality
of the world, the genuineness and veritableness of the thinking
process — a truth which i3 the complement of the Kantian moral-
ism, and which must be conjoined with it, if we are to attain a
true theory of the validity and integrity of knowledge.

Is the form of idealism worked out by Hegel of value as a
defense against agnostic negations ? In particular, is it available
for the particular uses to which it is sought to be applied ? It
must be remembered that the problem with which the school of
Hegel, as at present represented among us, is chiefly concerned
is the problem of theism. Their fundamental doctrine may
perhaps be stated in this way : Keality, in its very nature, logi-
cally and necessarily implies an infinite and omniscient intelli-
gence. This is an ontological or, more strictly, an epistemologi-
cal argument for the being of God. Analysis of the act of
knowledge reveals, it is urged, certain universal and necessary

THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR THEISM. 345

conditions, not dependent upon individual reason or will, but
recognized as valid for every rational being and in every con-
ceivable universe ; these prerequisites alike of knowledge and of
existence are manifestations of Absolute Reason, immediate
expressions of divine thought. “ Unconscious or vaguely cog-
nizant as the mind may be of the ultimate basis of its own
activity, yet in all thinking, in all mental action, in all inquirv
and reasoning, there is involved the assumption of the ultimate
unity of being and thought,’1* there is involved an implicit
assertion of the final reality on which all intelligence rests.
This is a more cogent statement of the ontological argument
than that which has ordinarily been given, and the seriousness
and acuteness with which this line of thought is followed out by
the class of thinkers referred to entitles them to the respectful
attention of all who are interested in the problems of being and of
knowledge, which are the common possession ot philosophy and of
theology.

One’s answer to the question whether any help is to be had
from ITegel toward the construction of a philosophical theism
will depend on one’s opinion as to the general interpretation to
be placed upon his philosophy. The view stated by Prof. Flint,
in his Anti-T/ieistio Theories ,f is that held by many highly com-
petent authorities. Hegel “ starts,” Prof. Flint tells us, “ with
the absolute first — the simplest notion of reason — pure being,
and thence derives all knowledge and evolves all reality in a con-
tinuous process of reasoning from abstract and implicit to con-
crete and explicit” ; he “ represents the absolute reality as the
result or completion of a process of development”; his “ only
idea of God is that of a God gradually evolved from unconscious-
ness to consciousness.” If this be true, there is no room for dis-
cussion ; it would be absurd to expect pantheism so undisguised
and unmitigated to be anything but mischievously perverting in
its influence upon Christian thought. According to this, God is
not an Absolute, Self-conscious Spirit, but the result of a process
of development ; He attains self-consciousness only in the con-
sciousness of man ; He is Spirit only in the finite spirit ; He is
dependent upon man and upon nature for His realization, and, as
nature and man are subject to laws of development, He attains
realization only gradually and approximately as this develop-
ment proceeds —the whole conception is the complete negation of
theism. Hegel’s Logic certainly seems, at first sight, to establish
beyond dispute the accuracy of this account. It begins with

* Caird, Philosophy of Religion, p. 246. f Page 457.

346 THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

pure being, and proceeds through successive categories to the
Absolute Idea, in which the process finds its completion ; God
is the last term ot the development.

Yet the question arises whether, as the Logic deals only with
categories of thinking, bare abstractions, it is intended to have
any concrete reference ; whether the dialectical movement is to
be regarded as the development of God, or as a logical exhibi-
tion and arrangement of our thoughts about God. Regarded as
an evolution of the Absolute, an attempt to show how God
comes into being, the Logic is so futile and perverse an inconse-
quence as to be unworthy of consideration — how can logical con-
cepts be imagined by any one capable of evolving reality out of
themselves ? But understood as a thought-scheme of the world,
the suggestiveness of this ingenious and subtly reasoned argu-
mentation cannot be disputed. Is it not better to interpret the
Logic in a way that makes it reasonable and sensible than in a
way which makes it grotesque ?

W e can more readily perceive the scope and meaning of this
first part of Ilegel’s system if we note its relation to the other
two parts — the Philosophy of Nature and the Philosophy of
Spirit. Since Nature and Spirit or Mind comprise the whole of
the concrete reality manifested in experience, it is evident that
the L^ogic does not deal with concrete experience, but with the
forms of pure thinking which are conditional for it. Kant in his
Transcendental Analytic borrows from the ordinary formal logic
the scheme of the categories ; Hegel attempts the profound and
difficult task of determining, by an independent analysis, what
the conceptions are which underlie our thought of the world,
and how they stand related to each other, not chronologically,
but in rank and value. The u priori element of the Trancen-
dental Analytic is subjected to an investigation far more search-
ing than that which Kant applied to it, and the result is a logical
outline or skeleton which exhibits, in systematic arrangement
and derivation, the constructive or relational elements, whose
validity Kant established, but which were not critically exam-
ined by him.

One can hardly conceive a more daring, and at the same time
a more admirable, task than that which Hegel sets himself in
this undertaking. If the universe is the embodiment of
thought, why should it be impossible to abstract the form from
the matter, the logical relations from the physical content of
nature and the psychical content of mind? Whether within the
compass of human power or not, this is the purpose of the
Logic. Pure being, which stands as the first term of the series,

THE EP1STEM0L 0 GIGA L ARG UMENT FOR THEISM. 347

is not represented as containing potentially all the succeeding
terms, so that they are to be regarded as derived from it, but
each category is exhibited as inadequate, and as requiring for its
completion one that is higher ; we are thus led from the several
categories of “ Being ” to those of “ Essence,” and then to
those of “ Idea,” ending with what has been presupposed
throughout — the supreme category of the Absolute Idea, or
self-conscious Spirit. The movement is not from a first princi-
ple, as Prof. Flint understands, but toward one ; the order of
exposition is the reverse of the order of thought. The outcome
of the argument is that we are compelled, by the necessities of
thinking, to conceive the highest principle of things as self-active
mind ; this is established by an examination of the most impor-
tant concepts which we employ in our thought of the world,
showing that each is defective, that they all look forward to
something higher, and that we can rest only in the all-com-
prehending and all-explaining conception of a Self-determining
Intelligence. This is not a pantheistic representation, nor is it a
deriving of reality from thought, but it is a supremely valuable
suggestion for theistic philosophy, since it maintains that an
analysis and comparison of the categories of thinking demon-
strates that the final principle of thought, presupposed in all
lower principles, is self-conscious, self-active Intelligence.*

The process by means of which we pass in the Logic from each
imperfect category to the next which transcends it, is a continu-
ous application of the triple movement — of Thesis, Antithesis and
Synthesis — which is, in the view of Hegel, the true and necessary
process of thought, inevitably resulting from the nature of self-
consciousness. What is it that we do in the act or process of
becoming aware of anything ? The mind places the thing before
itself as an object ; it objectifies itself, so to speak, in it ; and
then, by a reflective and synthetic return of thought, the mind
unites the object to its experience, and incorporates it with its
previous possessions. Three steps or moments may be distin-
guished—the subject, or ego, as it is at the outset ; the object,
which negatives or opposes the existing consciousness ; the syn-
thesis, which unites the new with the old in a higher product.
This rhythm is to Hegel a universal norm which he applies every-
where. It need hardly be pointed out that the contradiction is
not the contradictory opposition of formal logic, which is mere

* Hegel himself was quite aware of the error involved in this way of represent-
ing the world development. He repeatedly insists that what appears in it as the
third and' last member of the dialectical movement described is in truth rather the
first. Lotze, 3ietaphysics, Section 88.

348

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

negation and adds nothing new, but is real opposition, in which
there is an additional element, which needs to be taken up into
the original statement in order to make it complete. In the
dialectic of the Loyic each conception reveals its inadequacy
in the fact that an exception or contradiction presents itself,
and it is necessary to rise to a more comprehensive thought
capable of uniting the two partial truths in a higher state-
ment. This principle of negativity is the characteristic idea
which runs through the entire Hegelian system, and one who
thoroughly grasps it will have in his possession a key which
unlocks many of the difficulties encountered. That this is a genu-
ine principle, which applies in the most varied and practical
manner throughout the whole range of our experience, is obvious.
When we address ourselves to the study of an important and
difficult book, or to the observation of manners and institutions
with which we are unfamiliar, the first necessity is that we merge
ourselves in that which we are seeking to understaDd, that we
objectify or alienate ourselves in it ; after we have done that,
and have thus gotten hold of the new matter, we can return to
ourselves in reflection and introspection, and assimilate whatever
in what we have acquired is worth retaining. We often fail to
do justice to what we study and observe because we do not go
thoroughly out of ourselves, but so carry along our own prepos-
sessions and judgments that the ^elf-alienation is incomplete ; we
assume the function of critics prematurely, before we have gotten
the facts or the point of view. The life of society and the
phenomena of history furnish constant illustrations of this law of
negativity. Certain standards of taste in art or literature prevail
at a particular time ; protests soon begin to appear, which indicate
the incompleteness of the accepted canons. Moral practices are
criticised by reformers, political institutions are assailed by radi-
cals, dogmas are subverted by liberal thought. These oppositions
all call for a higher synthesis which shall take what is true in the
newly manifested tendencies and use it to correct the inadequacy
of the old. All progress, whether of the individual or of soci-
ety, is accomplished through the encountering and the surmount-
ing of opposition, and the movement is rhythmical through the
three stadia of which we have spoken.

In this scheme of thought determinations, it should be observed
that each member of the series is true and valid as long as it
remains in its proper place and is assigned to its appropriate func-
tions. We think correctly in the use of the categories which
stand under the head of “ Being ” as long as we are in the stage
of thought to which these categories pertain — the stage of imme-

THE E PISTE MOL 0 GICA L ARG UHENT FOR THEISM. 349

diate perceplion, of direct apprehension of individual objects.
But as soon as we pass beyond this stage and think of things as
related, and not merely as existing apart from one another, we
employ concepts of a higher order — such as substantiality, causa-
tion and reciprocal action. Moreover, a system of forces, acting
and interacting causatively, implies some unifying and originating
agency ; this, Hegel says, we must think of as self-active ; and
the type and reality of self-action is intelligence. Thus the dia-
lectic ends with the Idea — Self-conscious Reason, which is pre-
sented not as the result, but as the presupposition of the whole
process. Philosophy is constantly falling into the error of taking
a lower category and making it do duty for a higher. The Bleatic
pure Being, Spinoza’s infinite Substance, Spencer’s Unknowable
Force, even the Great First Cause of the cosmological argument,
as it is often stated, — these are inadequate concepts under which
to think the universe ; we need a higher principle of explanation,
such as we discover in our conscious and voluntary life. Criti-
cism of the constructive and relational elements of thought, such
as that which Hegel undertakes, has for its purpose the determin-
ing of the place and value of the various principles employed in
the classifications and explanations of science and of philosophy.
In the light of such a criticism, it is apparent, for example, that
the mechanical categories, upon which all schemes of naturalism
lay such stress, are incapable of the task to which they are
put ; that they do not apply to reality in its higher manifestations ;
that they belong in the physical sphere, and that concepts of a
higher order must be invoked when we rise to the higher — the
psychological and ethical — manifestations of experience.

As the analysis of self-consciousness thus furnishes Hegel with
his method of procedure, it also suggests to him the analogies
under which the Absolute Beino; is to be conceived.

And here we need to take account of a peculiarity of the Hegel-
ian system from which important consequences may be expected
to follow, namely, the undue prominence given to the purely cog-
nitive aspects of experience. The attempt to construe the universe
as the self-development of Absolute Reason renders it necessary
to abstract the cognitive element in consciousness from the ele-
ments of emotion and volition, and to contemplate the world solely
on the side of thought as embodying rational concepts. The ques-
tionable features of the Hegelian metaphysics are mainly due to
this misleading simplification. This account of knowledge is some-
times extravagantly asserted of the individual consciousness.
Thus Caird, in his Philosophy of Kant, affirms that “ if we could

350

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

know the whole conditions of an object, apart from perception,
we should know its reality and Green declares that “ the sus-
pension of thought in us means also the suspension of fact or
reality for us,” that “ mere feeling, as a matter unformed by
thought, has no place in the world of facts, in the cosmos of pos-
sible experience,” and that, accordingly, “ any obstacle which it
seemed to present to a monistic view of the world may be allowed
to disappear.” f This means that we can experience the world
through cognition alone, that thought constitutes nature in the
sense that all the components of nature are present within the
sphere of thought,' the conditions under which we think an
object being equivalent to the conditions under which we
know an object. Mr. Bradley’s criticism of this position is deci-
sive. “ If we take up anything considered real, no matter what
it is, we find in it two aspects. There are always two things we
can say about it ; and if we cannot say both, we have not got
reality. There is a ‘ what’ and a ‘ that,’ an existence and a
content, and the two are inseparable. That anything should be,
and should yet be nothing in particular, or that a quality should
not qualify and give a character to anything, are obviously impos-
sible. If we try to get the ‘ that ’ by itself, we do not get it.
For either we have it qualified or else we fail utterly. If we try
to get the 1 what ’ by itself, we find at once that it is not all. It
points to something beyond, and cannot exist by itself and as a
bare adjective. Neither of these aspects, if you isolate it, can be
taken as real, or indeed, in that case, is itself any longer They
are distinguishable only, and are not divisible.” “We main-
tain,” he adds, “ another than mere thought.”:}: It seems,
indeed, too obvious to admit of question that the world, as known
by finite mind, is more than a system of relations, that it includes
something to be related, a background of content or matter, which
our thought qualifies and interprets. In the case of the Absolute
Being there can. of course, be no datum of presentation, such as
sensations are to us, but does it follow that we are justified in
taking the other factor in knowledge — the combining, relating
intelligence — as completely representative, and conceiving the
Absolute after its analogy alone ? Is God nothing but a system
of thought determinations ? Is there nothing in Him answering
to feeling in us? Nothing answering to will in us— the verv
essence of our personality? What right have we to construct
our idea of the Absolute on the basis of a single mode of our
experience ? It may be replied that the Hegelian theory does not

* Edward Caird, Philosophy of Kant, Vol. I, p. 51.

+ Prolegomena to Ethics , p. 51. t Appearance and Reality, pp. 162, 163.

THE EPISTEM OL 0 GICA L AUG UMENT FOR THEISM. 351

do this, that its “ thought ” is intended to include these other
factors also. The thought of a Perfect Being, we may be reminded,
is will, it is only imperfect knowing that knows one thing and
wills another ; in God knowing and willing are the same. This
scholastic sense of “ thought,” which makes it the synthesis of
thought and will, is, we are told, the proper interpretation to put
upon the term. Prof. Royce has expended much ingenuity and
skill in defending his intellectualistic ontology against the charge
of overlooking the element of will. In his address on “ The Con-
ception of God,” delivered in 1895 at the University of Cali-
fornia, after stating that he purposes “ to define Avhat we mean
under the name God ” by means of using what tradition would
call one of the divine attributes — the attribute of Omniscience, or
of the Divine Wisdom,* he adds, “ We need to see from the out-
set that this conceived attribute of Omniscience, if it were to be
regarded as expressing the nature of a real being, would involve
as a consequence the concurrent presence in such a being of
attributes that we could at pleasure express under other names ;
such, for instance, as what is rationally meant by Omnipotence,
by Self-consciousness, by Self-possession — yes, I should unhesita-
tingly add, by Goodness, by Perfection, by Peace.” “ In order to
have,” he continues, “ the attribute of Omniscience, a being
would necessarily be conceived as essentially world-possessing —
as the source and principle of the universe of truth — not merely
as an external observer of a world of foreign truth. As such he
would be conceived as omnipotent, and also in possession of just
such an experience as ideally ought to be ; in other words, as
good and perfect.”! In Prof. Royce’s more recent work, The
World and the Individual , the line of thought followed in the
Address is presented in greater detail ; the identity of the concep-
tion of God as “ an Absolute Experience transparently fulfilling a
system of organized ideas” with the conception of God as an
Absolute Will is argued, as in the Address, on the ground that
the realization of ideas involves selective attention. The fulfill-
ment of meaning is impossible without conscious selection and
exclusion among possibilities. Spinoza was wrong in asserting
that from the divine point of view all that is possible is real ;
“ the exclusion of bare or abstract possibilities does not tend to
impoverish, but rather to enrich, our consciousness of what is real,
for it is by exclusion of vain possibilities that we become able at
once to define a conscious purpose and to get it fulfilled in a precise
way ; the life in which anything whatever can consistently hap-
pen, and in which any purpose can be fulfilled in any wav, has

t Ibid., p. 13, .

* The Conception of God , p. 7.

352

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

in so far no character as a life.”* * * § Selective attention, however, is
what we mean by will. It follows that Omniscience, properly
conceived, includes the other divine attributes. Whether the
attribute of knowledge may properl v be held to connote, after
this manner, the attribute of Will is perhaps chiefly a matter of
nomenclature ; the important question is whether we reach, along
this path, a view of the relation between God and the world with
which we can rest satisfied, which sufficiently distinguishes depen-
dent and finite existence from the transcendent Power from which
it proceeds, and in particular which secures to the human will its
due prerogatives. On these points Prof. Royce’s language is
somewhat ominous. 1 ‘ The freedom of each finite moral individual
is part of the Divine freedom “ the self-consciousness of each
finite indvidual is a portion of the Divine Self-Consciousness the
individual experience is identically a part of God’s experience —
i.e., not similar to a portion of God’s experience, but identically
the same as such portion; “this individual’s plan is identi-
cally a part of God’s own attentively selected and universal
plan.”f “ Our theory does indeed unite both your act and
the idea that your act expresses, along with- all other acts and
ideas, in the single unity of the Absolute Consciousness.” ^ What
is this but to assert that there is but One Thought and One Will,
within w'hich all thoughts and volitions of individual finite beings
are comprehended ? According to this there is no aniverse of
free personalities; we are but fragments of the One Sole Being. §
As to the traditional concept of the creation of the world, “ the
paradoxes and errors involved in it ” are obvious. “The theol-
ogy which conceives the relation between God and the World, and

* The World and the Individual , First Series, p. 452.

t The Conception of God , pp. 273, 292.

\ The World and the Individual , First Series, p. 464.

§ In the second series of Aberdeen lectures, forming the second volume of The
World and the Individual, the freedom of the individual will is argued on the
ground of its uniqueness as an expression, in each person, of the Divine plan.
“ Our idealistic theory teaches that all individuals and lives and experiences win
their unity in God, in such wise that there is indeed but one absolutely final and
intregrated Self, that of the Absolute. But our idealism also recognizes that in
the one life of the divine there is indeed articulation, contrast and variety. So
that while it is indeed true that for every one of us the Absolute Self is God, we
still retain our individuality, and our distinction from one another, just in so far
as our life-plans, by the very necessity of their social basis, are mutually con-
trasting life-plans, each one of which can reach its own fulfillment only by
recognizing other life-plans as different from its own” (p. 289). “For us the
Self has indeed no Independent Being ; but it is a life, and not a mere valid law.
It gains its very individuality through its relation to God ; but in God it still
dwells as an individual, for it is a unique expression of the divine purpose” (p.
286).

TIIE EPISTEMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR THEISM. 353

between the world and the individual, as primarily a causal rela-
tion subordinates the individual to the particular in theory, and
the significant to the relatively insignificant in practical doc-
trine.”* As applied to this or that fact in the world, we may
indeed employ the category of cause, but we cannot explain the
world as a whole in this way. Causal connections subsist only
between particular parts; “the conception of causality does not
apply to the whole of reality itself.” The free, self-originating
activity which calls into existence a creation numerically distinct
from the Creator is, in the view of this reasoning, an inadmissible
supposition. The immanence of God is pressed to such an extreme
as to annul His transcendence.

Other representative exponents of this school of thought are
even less satisfactory in their exposition of the relation between
God and the universe. The descriptive or defining phrase applied
to the Absolute by the brothers Caird is “ the unity of thought
and being.” This may be understood to signify an indeterminate
incognizable principle, serving simply the purpose of unification,
explicable in terms neither of subject nor of object, practically
identical with the Infinite Substance of Spinoza, a “ veiled divin-
ity,” as Dr. Martineau said,f Kant’s “ unity of apperception”
raised to Divine honors. Passages may be cited from the Philos-
ophy of Religion and from the Evolution of Religion in support of
this interpretation, A more concrete sense is, however, no doubt
intended — that of Absolute Reason, in which man and nature find
their unity. How is this immanent Reason related to the mem-
bers of the antithesis which it unites ? Principal Caird rejects
the concept of creation, as applied to the relation between God and
the world, on grounds similar to those adduced by Prof. Royce ; it
suggests “ a relation which, in the first place, is a merely external
and, in the second place, a purely arbitrary one.”:}: “ To see in

the world a manifestation of absolute wisdom, both the existence
of the world and all that is in it must be traceable to something
in the nature of God, and not to mere arbitrary will and power.Ӥ
“ That which God creates, and by which He reveals the hidden
treasures of His wisdom and love is still not foreign to His own
infinite iife, but one with it.” || “ We do not think as individual

beings, but as passing over to and sharing in a universal thought or
reason.” T “We might even say that, strictly speaking, it is not
we that think, but the universal reason that thinks in us.”** This

* The World and the Individual, p. 444. || Philosophy of Religion , p. 257.

| Nineteenth Century, April, 1895. 1 Ibid., p. 131.

f Philosophy of Religion, p. 143. ** Ibid., p. 158.

354

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

language approximates dangerously to a pantheistic identification
of the world with God, a submergence of individual intelligences
in the Universal Intelligence. “ It is no mere pious metaphor,
but a simple expression ot the facts to say that all our life is a

journey from God to God All our secular consciousness

can be only the explication or, if we prefer the Spencerian word,
the differentiation of the primitive unity presupposed alike in
consciousness and self-consciousness.”* “We begin, indeed, with
a consciousness of the finite, of finite objects as such, and of the
self as a finite subject, as if these were res complete — things
rounded and complete in themselves ; but we come to ourselves,
that is, we discover what objects truly are and what we ourselves
are, only when we become conscious that they live and move and
have their being in God.”f Prof. Royce defines God as “ the
All-Knowing Moment or Instant,”:}: thereby, as we have seen,
representing the Divine Thought as the containing Whole, of which
all finite thoughts are parts. The sense of all-inclusive compre-
hension is equally conveyed by the mode of statement employed
by the writers of whom we are speaking ; the “ unity of thought
and being ” admits no real existence outside itself; all finite things
— whether material objects or individual selves — have their true
being in God.

The theory of “ the eternal consciousness,” developed in the
Prolegomena to Ethics of the late Thomas Hill Green, is an in-
structive illustration of the tendency inherent in this type of
speculation to eliminate the vital elements of personality from the
conception both of God and of man. That a spiritual principle
is presupposed in knowledge, and that a spiritual principle is
manifest in nature, and that the correspondence and interrelation
of man and nature testify to a spiritual principle from which both
are derived — this is a line of thought whose pertinence and effec-
tiveness as an argument for theism may be gratefully conceded.
One need not desire a more convincing statement than the follow-
ing : “ The question how ic is that the order of nature answers to
our conception of it, is answered by recognition of the fact that
our conception of an order of nature and the relations which form
that order have a common spiritual source.” § What hinders
our conceiving this common spiritual source in conformity with
the Christian doctrine of God? As Prof. Veitch expresses it,
“ What are the objections to the view that there is a Deity, above
nature and finite mind, distinct from them really and numerically.

* Evolution of Religion, Vol. I, p. 166. t The Conception of God, p. 186.
t Ibid. - § Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 35.

THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR THEISM. 355

jet related to them as free cause, i.e., a God conceived as Con-
scious Will and Intelligence, after the highest form of Causality
we know ?* There would be no objections if the facts of voli-
tion were allowed equal weight in the construction of this theory
with the facts of cognition. But the consideration of these prob-
lems exclusively or predominantly from the point of view of
knowledge induces an excessive tendency to unification. The
concession of a distinct substantive reality to nature, and, still
more, of a genuine ethical individuality to man, precludes the
centralization of being in a single Self ; in order to maintain this
centralization, the material or sense side of nature is refined away
into thought relations, and the free acts of man are deprived of
their character as preferential and initiative, and all finite exist-
ence is then resolved into the immediate utterance or reproduction,
in time, of an eternal consciousness. “We can attach no mean-
ing to ‘ reality,’ as applied to the world of phenomena, but that
of existence under definite and unalterable relations ; and we find
that it is only for a thinking consciousness that such relations can
subsist.”! “ The attainment of knowledge is only explicable as
a reproduction of itself in the human soul by the consciousness for
which the cosmos of related facts exists — a reproduction of itself
in which it uses the sentient life of the soul as its organ.”!
“ Human action is only explicable by the action of an eternal
consciousness, which uses them (e. y\, all the processes of brain and
nerve and tissue, all the functions of life and sense) as its organs,
and reproduces itself through them.” § If God and man and
nature are only thoughts, the logical necessity which governs
thought obtains everywhere ; God is as destitute of freedom as
man, since He is not a Bational and Sovereign Will, but an Eternal,
Self-distinguishing Consciousness — “ the Logical Subject which
serves to unify the collective groups and series of cosmical phe-
nomena.” ||

That the process of cognition is an inadequate analogy under
which to represent the relation of God to the universe, will hardly
be questioned by one who considers how inevitably it conveys the
suggestion of the dependence of God on the world. The Idea
externalizes itself in nature, in order to return to itself again in

higher realization ; just as the mind, in knowing an object, dis-

tinguishes the object from itself, and then takes it up as a new
element into its experience. The world is thus a means to the
Divine Self-realization, a necessary condition indeed of the

* Thought and Being, p. 287. t Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 72.

t Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 53. I Ibid., p. 86.

| Upton, Lectures on the Bases of Religious Belief, p. 322.

356 THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

Divine Self-consciousness. “ It is onlv bv this mediation through
consciousness or finite spirit, by which it renders itself finite, that
it comes to itself or to self-consciousness.”* The world is an
essential moment in the life of God. It is necessary for God to
create. “ Without the World, God were not God.” “God, in
His Essential Being itself, must posit this reality, this external
existence, which we call Nature.” f These statements do not
justify the charge, not infrequently brought against Hegel, that
he makes the world necessary to God, in the same sense and to
the same degree that God is necessary to the world — as though
one might say, indifferently, “ God created the world,” or “ The
W orld created God.” Spirit is the prius ; the finite world is
posited by it. In our own knowing, the subject is more than
correlative to the object ; it transcends the opposition of subject
and object in the unity of self-consciousness. “ God is the
unity of the natural and the spiritual ; Spirit is, however, Lord
of nature, so that the two do not occupy a position of equal dig-
nity in this unity, the truth being rather that the unity is Spirit.”;}:
Yet it is not easy, in the face of such statements as those quoted
above, to refuse assent to Prof. Flint’s verdict that Hegel “ repre-
sents the absolute reality as the result or completion of a process
of development,” that his “ only idea of God is that of a God
gradually evolved from unconsciousness to consciousness.” The
analogy of our finite cognition is followed by Hegel in the con-
struction of his system, and this makes the conception of an
enlarged and enriched life, as the result of the self-estrangement
of the Absolute Spirit in nature, almost inevitable.

Escape from this is sought in the elimination of time predicates
as inapplicable to Absolute Being. What appears to our finite
consciousness as a process in time may, from the eternal point of
view, be realized as complete. It is difficult to state this in such
a way as to avoid reducing nature and history to an illusion. In a
well-known passage of the larger Logic , Hegel describes the world
development in these terms : “ Within the range of the finite we
never see or experience that the End or Aim has been really
secured. The consummation of the infinite Aim, therefore, con-
sists merely in removing the illusion which makes it seem yet
unaccomplished. Good and absolute goodness is eternally accom-
plishing itself in the world ; and the result is that it needs not
wait upon us, but is already by implication, as well as in full
actuality, accomplished. It is this illusion under which we live.
It alone supplies at the same time the actualizing force on which

* Hegel, Philosophy of Religion, English translation, Yol. I, p. 206.

(■ Ibid , Vol. II, p. 75. \ Ibid., Yol. I, p. 208.

THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR THEISM. 357

the interest in the world reposes. In the course of its process
the Idea makes itself that illusion, by setting an antithesis to
confront it ; and its action consists in getting rid of the illusion
which it has created. Out of this error does the truth arise.”*
The objection that the Absolute is subjected to the limitations of
time development is certainly effectually guarded against by this
representation, but what substance of truth and fact remains in
the world of our experience ? To our apprehension nothing is
more real than the distinctions between the various stages of an
event — the beginning of growth and its maturity, the incipiency
of an undertaking and its completion, youth and old age, hope and
possession, effort and achievement — the meaning of life lies in
these differences, and without them we should have no interests or
motives. Our sense of reality is shocked when it is suggested
that this lapse of events in time is only apparent, that what seems
to us change is not such in truth, that for the Supreme Being
everything has been completed once for all.f A similar sacrifice
of the finite world is made by T. II. Green when he says : “ We
must hold that there is a consciousness for which the relations of
fact, that form the object of our gradually attained knowledgej
already and eternally exist. flow can these relations already
exist if they have not yet been brought to pass? To an Omni-
scient Mind they may be present ideally, but they cannot be
present actually, except on the supposition that the temporal pro-
cess is a mere form of our apprehension, which has no basis in the
truth of things.

Is it possible to construe the relation of God to the world after
the analogue of the cognitive consciousness without infringing
either upon the independence and self- completeness of the Abso-
lute or upon the actuality of finite experience ? If the reality of
the time process in nature be conceded — as it is, for the most
part, by Hegel — the conception of a developing God, of a Deity
attaining self-realization through objectification in nature, is an
almost necessary consequence ; and if this be not conceded, the
actuality of the world is sacrificed.

“ The Infinite Spirit,” says Caird, “ contains, in the very idea
-of its nature, organic relation to the Finite “ the idea of God

* Wallace, Logic of Hegel , p. 304.

f “ That terrible term Predestination , which hath troubled so many weak heads
to conceive, and the wisest to explain, is in respect to God no prescious determination
of our Estates to come, but a definitive blast of His Will already fulfilled, and at
the instant that He first decreed it ; for to His Eternity, which is indivisible and
all together, the last Trump is already sounded, the reprobates in the flame, and
the blessed in Abraham’s bosom ” ( Religio Medici, First Part, section XI).

f Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 75.

24

358 THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

contains in itself, as a necessary element of it, the existence of
finite spirits “ the nature of God would be imperfect if it did
not contain in it relation to a finite world.”* Are these state-
ments justifiable ? Have we a right thus confidently to affirm
that God must create ? Are such d priori dicta as to what is or
is not compatible with Infinite Perfection ' becoming our estate of
finitude ? Spinoza reasoned that God must bring to pass precisely
such a world as does actually exist, and that no other was possible ;
that was scarcely more presumptuous than this domgatic affirma-
tion of the necessity of the creation. A metaphysic based on the
psychology of knowledge tends to limit God by making Him
dependent on the world, just as our intelligence is dependent on
the object of perception.

From the standpoint of pure thought, it is impossible to under-
stand the presence of evil in a world which is the self-expression
of a Perfect Being. Spinoza was true to the requirements of his
logic when he declared that such words as error, imperfection,
wickedness are suitable only from the human point of view ; that
regarded absolutely, “ sub specie seternitatis," nothing can be prop-
erly characterized in such terms, since from the diviue point of
view everything is good. All rationalistic systems are under the
necessity of explaining away evil, moral as well as natural.
Hegel’s famous saying, “ What is real is rational,” taken literally,
is a flagrant example ; it asserts an optimism as crude and im-
moral as that of the Essay on Man. In defending himself against
his critics, Hegel disavowed the natural meaning of his words,
and explained that by “ the real ” he meant “ the truly real ” —
that which belongs to the structure and essence of things — so that
the assertion is not that everything actual, everything which estab-
lishes itself as a fact, is ipso facto rational, but only that the
universe as a whole is the product and expression of reason. f
The presence of evil is reconciled with the rationality of the
universe by Hegel on the ground that it exists as a metaphysical
necessity ; it is a stage in the development of spirit ; it is the
opposition which spirit surmounts and reconciles in its progress
toward freedom. This is by no means a bald denial of the fact
of sin ; so far as it asserts that character is fortified and purified
by the successful resistance of temptation, it is a truism ; as an
explanation of the mystery of evil it is futile, since it leaves out
of account the essential nature of moral evil as the choice of a
perverse and responsible will.

* Philosophy of Religion , pp. 243, 252.

f Introduction to the Larger Logic , Wallace’s trans., p. 8.

THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR THEISM. 359

This evasion of the real issue may be observed in many writers
of the Hegelian school. “ The lower nature is, it is true, the
seeming opposite or contradictory of the higher, but it is that
very opposition which constitutes it the means to the realization of
the higher.”* “ The higher self can only realize its freedom by
the strain or opposition of tendencies which have the character of
natural necessity, and by the annulling or absorption of that neces-
sity.”! “If we can trace any progress in the teaching of Jesus
as it is recorded in the Synoptic Gospels, it is only that, with the
increasing pressure of .the conflict and the growing consciousness
of the evil with which he has to contend, there comes a deepening
sense of the necessity of such conflict with evil, and of all the
suffering it brings with it, to the highest triumph of good.”!
“ The sense of the division of man from God, as a finite being
from the infinite, as weak and sinful from the omnipotent good-
ness, is not indeed lost ; but it can no longer overpower the con-
sciousness of oneness It is not an absolute opposition, but

one which presupposes an indestructible principle of unity, that can
and must become a principle of reconciliation. Ӥ The doctrine
of these passages is that the opposition of evil is a necessary con-
dition of goodness, and that it is a temporary opposition, certain
to be overcome in the process of development. This makes evil
either unreal or an element in the life of God. Ouce assumed to
be present, evil may, no doubt, be transmuted into good, but why
should it be present ? The conception of evil as a normal phase
of growth, as a metaphysical and speculative necessity, empties it
of its ethical content. Such a view arises out of the attempt to
explain the world as a rational evolution, in disregard of the
disturbing potentialities resident in the will of finite personalities.

Writers of the Hegelian school are accustomed to make frequent
use of the word “ spiritual.” The view of the world which they
present is, in their estimation, appropriately characterized by this
term. It may be admitted that the claim is not unfounded. The
forms of space and time, the categories of substance and caus-
ality, of which naturalistic theories make so much use, are
replaced in the idealistic speculation by concepts of a higher
order. The explanation of things is sought, not in a physical
principle, nor in an abstract logical generalization, but in a con-
crete spiritual attribute — that of rationality. It is not strange
that a worthier view of reality should be had through the employ -

* Principal Caird, The Philosophy of Religion , p. 286.

t Ibid., p. 287.

X Edward Caird, The Evolution of Religion, Yol. II, p. 138.

g Ibid., p. 147

360

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

ment of an interpreting and constructive iead derived from self-
consciousness tlian in the use of postulates and data taken from
the lower aspects of experience.

Yet, inasmuch as rationality is not the whole of spirit, it need
he no surprise that difficulties, such as those we have considered,
should arise. A completely adequate world-theory must take
into account, and must duly satisfy, all the great tendencies’of our
nature. It must recognize the emotional and volitional factors of
experience, as well as the intellectual ; it must conceive the uni-
verse from the point of view of will and of moral feeling, as well
as from the point of view of thought It is because the Hegelian
system fails to do this that it falls short, in important respects, of
solving the speculative and the practical problems which philos-
ophy encounters.

The conception of the supernatural is peculiarly repugnant to
this type of thought. This is not because the physical frame-
work of nature is looked upon with exaggerated reverence as
essentially inviolable, but for the precisely opposite reason that the
material aspect of things is so thoroughly subordinated to their
inner meaning that it ceases to have any independent claims.
The naturalistic objection to the supernatural is that it contravenes
the uniformity of nature ; the Hegelian objection is that the con-
ception is without significance, since what we call “ natural ” is
in realit}' thought or, in other words, spirit, and, nature being
itself spiritual, we do not need to look for Spirit in a sphere above
nature. The denial of the supernatural is a natural consequence
of the assumption that the universe is to be interpreted in terms
of thought alone. Thought is necessitated ; it follows logical
laws ; it admits no breach of continuity. If nature and man and
history — all finite existence — are a dialectic evolution of Absolute
Reason, each object and event and act being a moment in the pro-
cess of the Supreme Mind, no relation between God and man, such
as the word supernatural connotes, is possible. A supernatural
realm is conceivable only on the supposition that God is Sover-
eign Will, as well as Absolute Reason, and that man has a genuine
power of self-determination, which may assert itself in revolt and
disobedience ; when these ethical conditions are duly recognized,
the supernatural realm is seen to be, not a contradiction of the
rational order, but a completion of it, bringing it into accord with
the demands of the heart and of the conscience as well as of the
intellect.

The Hegelian philosophy of religion can make no place for
miracles. “ This anthropomorphic and miraculous super-
naturalism,” says Pfleiderer, in his Gifford lectures on “ The

THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR THEISM. 361

Philosophy and Development of Religion,” “ calls forth the reac-
tion of naturalism. We need to escape from this vicious circle in
the idealism of a truly religious view of the world, which finds

the divine life everywhere present and active in the world

In this spiritualized view of nature lies a rich compensation for
the loss of miracles , which no longer have any place in a world of
continuous development governed by law.”* “ Any attack upon
the principle of Positivism, which seeks to establish special
exceptions to the course of nature, must be a failure. A super-
naturalism which tries to survive alongside of naturalism, dividing
the kingdom with it, will soon have taken from it 1 even that
which it seemeth to have.’ The only hope of a successful issue
is to carry the war into the enemy’s quarters, and to maintain what
Carlyle called a Natural- Supernaturalism — i.e, the doctrine, not
that there are single miracles, but that the universe is miraculous. ”f

The law of continuity forbids that any unique or special charac-
ter should attach to Christianity ; it falls under the general law of
organic development. “ The way in which, in the thought of
His disciples, the ordinary limitations of finitude and humanity
.... gradually drop away from their image of Christ has in it
something which, though unexampled in degree, yet agrees in
kind with the ordinary process by which the ideal reveals itself in
and through the real.”:]:

The difficulty which Hegel experienced in carrying out his
design of establishing dogmatic Christianity, by means of his
philosophy, upon a basis of reason arose largely, it will be remem-
bered, in connection with the historical element, the element of fact.
Why should an eternal and necessary moment in Thought express
itself in a single act or person ? The Incarnation and the Atonement
are acts of eternal and universal validity ; why should they be
conceived as having happened once only, and in the case of one
individual ? The pressure of this difficulty is felt by all who
attempt to include Christianity within a process of idealistic evo-
lution. The unique character of its facts and doctrines is lost ;
it differs from other religions, and from other expressions of genius
and truth, only in degree. Even the supreme fact of the Chris-
tian revelation, the resurrection of Jesus, if it can be credited at
all, ceases to have an evidential value. “ The evidence of the
Christian law of life through death, and the possibility of obeying
it ... . need not rest for us on the believed fact of the resurrec-
tion of Christ It is not on such a foundation that we can

base our faith The spiritual life is, or ought to be, its

* The Philosophy and Development of Religion.

\ Evolution of Religion , I, p. 319. \ Evolution of Religion, IJ, p. 229.

362 THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

own evidence ; and every secondary support that can be given to
it, even if it were the visions of a St. Peter and a St. Paul, must
prove treacherous. ’ ’ *

As an antithesis of “ natural,” we may welcome the word
“ spiritual ” as affirming the immanent agency of God in the
world of nature and of man, but when construed as excluding
the immediacy of personal relation which the term “ super-
natural ” designates, we may discern the product of a mistaken
philosophic method, which lays too great stress upon the logical
evolution of thought, neglecting the emotional and volitional sub-
state of experience.

What verdict should be rendered upon a speculative tendency
in which good and ill are so intimately commingled ?

As a protest against the depreciation of reason, and a vindica-
tion of the rationality of the world ; as affirming the primacy of
mind over matter, of spirit over nature ; as exalting self-con-
scious reason above all lower categories of thinking, and all less
adequate principles of explanation ; as furnishing to philosophical
theism considerations which fall little short of demonstration ; as
affording a type of ethical doctrine and a formulation of the ethi-
cal end, which combines the practical common sense of utilita-
rianism and the disinterestedness and ideality of the Kantian
imperative ; as suggesting rubrics of aesthetic and historical clas-
sification curiously fruitful as applied to art, and history, and social
institutions — for such high services as these the Hegelian idealism
deserves abundant honor and gratitude.

But the excessive intellectualism of the method renders inevita-
ble dangers such as those we have pointed out. The theory of
knowledge is not an adequate basis for metaphysics. We are
feeling and acting as well as knowing beings. The descent of
Hegelianism into pantheism — even into the coarse materialism of
Feuerbach — is nothing strange. Strauss and Bauer, in Hew
Testament criticism, are its natural products. The full proof of
theism cannot be attained by so one-sided a method. The laws of
logic and the laws of being do indeed correspond ; mind is per-
fectly correlated to nature, and nature is thoroughly apprehensible
by mind. Why this coincidence, except it be that both proceed
from a common source ? This is irrefragable evidence of God as
All Knowing, in His attribute of Omniscience. But the moral
and spiritual attributes of God cannot be established upon epis-
temological grounds alone ; we must reason from the total nature
of man and not from a part of it. The vague utterances of Hegel-

* Evolution of Religion, II, pp. 240, 241.

THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL ARGUMEMT FOR THEISM. 363

ian thinkers as to the personality of God and the personality of
man ; the awkwardness of their attempts at a theodicy ; their
unwillingness to admit any element of the supernatural — these are
defects of grave moment.

Of all the great historic systems, this most demands the exercise
of a discriminating and critical judgment. The reader of the
fascinating, thought-provoking, but elusive speculations of Pflei-
derer, and Green, and Royce, and the brothers Caird, needs to keep
preeminently in mind the injunction, “ Prove all things ; hold fast
that which is good.”

Johns Hopkins Univeksity.

Edward H. Griffin.

II.

CHARACTER IN LANGUAGE.

LANGUAGE is defined by one of our chief authorities as
“ the expression of ideas by words or significant articulate
sounds, for the communication of thoughts;” and by another as
“ the expression of thoughts and feelings by means of the articu-
late sounds of the voice.” Prof. Whitney abbreviates these defi-
nitions, and calls it “ articulate utterance for the expression of
thought.” While these definitions do not prescribe, neither do
they distinctly preclude, the very meagre and mechanical view of
language which prevails in this intensely practical age. It is all
too common to consider language as merely a necessary and
burdensome medium of exchange, like silver and copper coins,
and to look upon the great variety of languages as an unmitigated
evil. As some progress has been made toward the unifying of the
coinage of different countries, so a strong vote might be called out
in favor of a Congress to consider the unification of language.
Hence the Utopian scheme for a Yolapiik. As well proceed on
mechanical principles to construct a palm tree out of brown paper
and green silk, and ask it to take root in the sand and bear fruit.
Just as well design a typical human face and prescribe it to be
adopted by every member of the human family. Language is a
growth, and a manifestation of something within, and these very
varieties furnish a series of pictures of the history and character
of the peoples who spoke or speak them.

Baron von Bunsen — Chevalier Christian Charles Josiah Bunsen
— one of the truly great names of the nineteenth century, mani-
fested his genius in the discovery of the paramount importance of
comparative philology as an instrument in historical investigation
— an instrument whose use is yet in its infancy, but which has
already added materially to our knowledge of the facts of the
past. Modern geological science has unraveled the history of
countless thousands of ages of our earth’s crust, embedded in layer
upon layer of storied rocks, and one wonders at the unsuspected
simplicity of the science as he watches a Hugh Miller or an
Arnold Guyot turn over page after page of this wonderful volume
of the Book of Nature. Archbishop Trench seized upon this

CHARACTER IN LANGUAGE.

365

analogy, appropriating from an unnamed American author the
phrase “ fossil poetry,” as applied to language, and led the way
in showing how rich our own language is in “fossil poetry,” “ fossil
history,” and in valuable hidden records in other departments, only
waiting to be dug out. He has had many followers on both sides
of the Atlantic, who have brought in rich spoils from their expe-
ditions among words, new and old. As is often the case with met-
aphor, the simile proves but a feeble expression of the treasures
turned up by the linguistic pick and spade. If the geologist, from
a single tooth or a bit of a broken shell, can locate a stratum and
read in it the history of a geologic epoch, how much more should
the philological historian trace the footprints of events in the
forms of expression born in the throes of those very occurrences !

If language is the expression of thought and feeling, and
thought and feeling are the very vital breath and heart- beat of
character, why should we not apply ourselves to deciphering and
reading off the abundant records of character so clearly presented
to us in the significant forms of language? Let this, then, be our
purpose in this article — to study character in language. And here
at the outset, as we analyze the phrase, we find an embarrassment
of riches, and have to set aside a broad and very suggestive
department of the subject, namely, the study of personal charac-
ter in the language of individuals. The artist often sets a mirror
before his face and leaves us. his own ideal of himself. The
author, with not a particle of this egotism, leaves an indelible
portrait of his own character in the special type of his language.
All the way down from Moses and Homer to Count Tolstoi and
Ian Maclaren, writers in every tougue have been depicting their
own individuality, each in his own particular niche in the Temple
of Fame, and it should require no Roentgen rays to see the indi-
vidual through his words. It would be a pleasing study thus to
draw out our understanding of the characters that have embalmed
themselves among the spices of their own compositions. And
another chapter would give us an analysis of the character of
many of our contemporaries, from a careful weighing of the
favorite words and phrases of each, as we observe them in the
pulpit, in the press or in conversation. But from the inviting
coves and inlets of this picturesque shore, we must turn our prow
out into the deeper waters and broader expanses of national charac-
ter as represented in language and dialect.

Whatever be our theories as to the origin of language, there
can be no question that language as we know it now, in the living
present or in the recorded past, is a development. Moreover, to
aid our study of the process, we find existing languages arrested at

366 TEE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

various stages of the development, to serve as specimens and illus-
trations; just as all the geological processes that have gone to
build up the earth’s crust may now be seen at work at one point
or auother on the earth’s surface, and as the marsupial mammals
and the birds and fishes of Australia stand as illustrations of an
earlier era than exists among the fauna of other continents.
These successive stages of development furnish us a scientific basis
for the classification of languages, and this classification should
guide us to some extent in our survey of the languages as we
observe the character they exhibit. Another principle of classifi-
cation, and one which appeals strongly to the imagination, is the
genealogical method. We can distribute all the languages among
the descendants of the three sons of Noah, and find in the tenth
chapter of Genesis the names of most of the prominent nations of
antiquity. But the application of this principle is too much a
matter of speculation, the data are too slight to cover the whole
problem, and many languages of wide extent and great importance
are left to go begging for a proper place in the tables. The best
classification of languages is the true philological one which goes
on the basis of their internal structure. Profs. Max Muller and
W. D. Whitney have made this system familiar. It distributes
all languages into three principal groups, the Monosyllabic, the
Agglutinative, and the Inflected ; and their degree of advancement
is indicated in the order of the three names.

The Monosyllabic is the lowest order, from a linguistic stand-
point. The characteristic of this group is that the language con-
sists practically of roots, not properly inflected, and with no
organic relation 1o each other. The Chinese language is the great
representative of this class. Or, to speak more accurately, the
numerous dialects and languages of the Chinese empire belong to
this class, and constitute the bulk of its members. They claim
attention by reason of the vast numbers of people they represent,
and of the hoary antiquity of the languages, practically in the
condition in which they now exist.

The Agglutinative are those languages in which the roots are
intact and unchanged throughout their use, but are modified in
their signification by the addition of a number of syllables, each
of which is without meaning by itself, but maintains the same
significance to whatever root it may be attached. This class
includes all that large and important family of languages called
the Turanian, whose home is Central Asia. These form the modi-
fications by the addition of suffixes, piling them up, one upon
another, till their number and complexity of meaning is some-
times amazing. There are, however, languages in South Africa

CHARACTER IN LANGUAGE.

367

constructed on similar general principles, but having their modify-
ing syllables as prefixes instead of suffixes.

The properly Inflected languages are those which have been
involved in the truly progressive history of the world, and they
include the two great groups commonly called the Semitic and
the Aryan or Indo-European languages. The peculiarity of these
is that the roots are not only modified by prefixes and suffixes,
but the roots themselves are much affected and altered in form,
and the modifying syllables or letters are not uniform in their
significance, and are so intricately interwoven with the root and
welded to it as to appear often to become an integral part of it.

In the geographical location of these three great groups of
languages we have suggested to us an important principle which
lies at the basis of the philosophy of history. This principle is
poetically expressed in the familiar phrase, “Westward the star
of empire takes its way 1” Whether it be from a natural inertia
in the human character, allowing the earth in its easterly revolu-
tion to slip along a little each day under man’s feet, or whether it is
a current derived by induction from the daily revolution of tbe sun
overhead, or whatever explanation may be given to it, fact it
is that the grand trend and inclination and actual movement of
history and of the nations has been toward the west. All true
progress has been in that direction. From the original cradle of
the race wave after wave of emigration has carried human activity
farther and farther toward the setting sun. Immense populations
have been somehow produced eastward of this starting point, but
it has been a retrograde sort of motion. It has lost its own
records of its origin, and it has stood still while the world has
gone on toward the west. Here then we may base our first gener-
alization of character as indicated in language. The nations using
the Monosyllabic tongues are characterized by extreme conser-
vatism and hang back in the far East, with practically no change
from age to age. The Agglutinative languages are spoken by
nations whicli in a very general sense may be called migratory or
transitional. They have touched the borders of true history from
time to time, but are not for the most part remembered with any
great gratitude or affection. While the Inflected languages have
ever been the powerful expression and instrument of those peoples
that have created a connected and significant historp, and among
whom science and literature, liberty and religion have received
an approximately adequate treatment, and have paid large divi-
dends in the form of progress and prosperity.

China stands for unqualified, sullen, dogged conservatism, and
her language is a fitting garb for such a character. But the

368

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

spirit of retrogression and uncompromising conservatism is not
bounded by the Pacific Ocean, but in prehistoric ages made its
way to the islands of the sea, and even across to the great conti-
nent lying still farther to the East, there to perpetuate itself in
savagery, and bide its time till the Westward-roving progressive
element had girdled the globe and offered its beneficent influences
to the benighted aborigines of the New World. When the two
extremes had come thus face to face and their territories over-
lapped, there could be no question as to the result, and the eflete
and moribund surrendered almost without a struggle and withdrew,
leaving the progressive element in undisputed possession of the
new continent. With the languages of those tribes we have but
little to do either practically or theoretically. The quaint, fan-
tastic, and dainty forms of some of their words, which we have
preserved in a multitude of proper names throughout the United
States and Canada, are suggestive mementoes of the wild, roman-
tic and often tender and pathetic life out of which they sprang.
Whatever was noble, or generous, or brave among them has been
packed down, not only in myth and song, but in the ambitious
and high-sounding names and titles which they assumed to them-
selves or gave to the white man, the only permanent residue of
these uncultured tongues. A closer examination of these dialects
would show them to be fit types of the tribes themselves — unreliable,
narrow, sly, wholly at variance with one another, and as untrans-
latable as the insoluble enigma of the existence, life and extinc-
tion of that strange people.

But to return to the Chinese people and their strange tongue.
Proud, jealous and self-centred, they have preserved an ancient
and only partially developed language, which from its difficulty
and peculiarity is a more effective barrier against foreigners than
their own great wall ever could be. The cumbrousness of its
method of representation suggests the idea of great breadth and
volume ; but the fact is that the number of ideas capable of accu-
rate expression in it is comparatively small, thus corresponding to
the narrowness and stiffness which appears in the character of the
people. The language consists of a number of separate indi-
vidual syllables, incapable of any true organic relation to each
other. And as the number of these syllables is quite limited, the
genius of the language allows each one to be multiplied by a con-
siderable variety of accents or intonations of the voice, to repre-
sent a number of different ideas. These syllables are grouped
together in series which by courtesy may be called sentences, but
without any of that delicate syntactical relation to one another
which gives such flexibility and power to Western speech. It is

CHARACTER IN LANGUAGE.

369

— to borrow a simile from zoology — the amoeba among the lan-
guages, consisting of an aggregate of homogeneous cells with no
members and with scarcely any structure. To carry out the
simile, the languages of the second group, the Agglutinative, may
be classed as the Articulata, with their successive rings firmly
attached to each other, and through each other to the head, each
retaining, however, its own shape and special functions. And the
Inflected languages are the Vertebrates, with their symmetrical
and firmly knit frames, their well-balanced limbs and organs, and
their thoroughly developed organism. The Chinese language is,
like the amoeba in natural history, away back where it was four
thousand years ago, arrested in its natural course of development,
and handed down through scores of generations unchangeable as
the slant of their eyes or the pattern of their shoes.

When we turn to our second group, the Agglutinatives, and
examine the Turanian languages, we shall come at once upon the
Turkish as the most splendid specimen of its kind, and the most
widespread language of Asia this side of China. The regularity,
capacity and versatility of its verb has been fully set forth by
Max Muller in his lectures on the Science of Language. This
elaborately concatenated verb, with its numerous participles and
gerunds, together with a rare accumulation of adverbs and parti-
cles, renders this language incomparable as a medium for sententi-
ous narrative and for dry humor, with inexpressibly terse and pat
turns of expression and extremely delicate shades of significance.
Those -who are acquainted with the people whose language this is,
need hardly be reminded of the suitability of this to the national
characteristics. The simplicity together with great elaborateness
of its syntax and the rigid logic of the structure of the sentence,
winding up, like the Latin, with one strong finite verb which
controls the whole, needs but the suggestion to present an analogy
to the democratic and almost patriarchal simplicity of their
social system, in which, however, is involved an elaborate and
powerful political system, culminating in an absolute monarchy.
Its absolute regularity and unity, both in the conjugation of its
verbs and in the declension of its nouns, appears like an analogy
to its attempt to grasp the grand doctrine of the unity of the
divine Being, while its rejection of the threefold distinctions of
gender may be not inappropriately mentioned in connection with
its antipathy to the doctrine of the Trinity. In its long undu-
lating sentences there seems to be the redolence of the rolling
steppes of Central Asia, whence the language came. And its
vocabulary regarding pastoral and agricultural affairs, and concern-
ing outdoor life in general, is peculiarly rich and varied. Its

370

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

decided preference for gerunds and participles, as over against the
frequent use of the finite verb, is a palpable allusion to the national
avoidance of sharp decisions and finished actions ; and the putting
off from period to period of the final winding up of the sentence
reflects, not accidentally, the colossal proportions attained by the
habit of procrastination. It would be perhaps invidious to carry
the analogy further to the facility the language exhibits in the
art of appropriating to its own use the wealth of its neighbors, for
if that practice come under the condemnation of dishonesty or
rapaciousness, it may prove the worse for some other languages
which have been vastly enriched in the same way. This utilita-
rian method is at least in keeping with the free and easy habits
and the practical economical sense which characterizes the people.

Having thus glanced at a single example of each of these two
great classes of languages, we must pass on to the more strictly
historic and progressive languages, in which our own interest
naturally centres, viz., the Inflected languages. These are by no
means homogeneous, but constitute two great and wholly distinct
groups, the Semitic and the Aryan or Indo-European.

In the former name, the Semitic, we come across a trace and
reminder of the genealogical method of classifying languages,
which has contributed to philological science this convenient term,
by which are recognized a large and important group of languages
which have no other general, characteristic and distinguishing
title. This family of tongues is very compact, in geographical
location, in history, and in characteristic qualities, all its branches
having strong resemblances and affinities to each other. This
family is naturally divisible into three branches : the Northern, or
Phenician, with the dialects of its colonies ; the Middle, or
Hebrew, with its cognate dialects, Chaldee, Syriac, etc.; and the
Southern, or Arabic. Modern research has brought to light so
much in the Assyrian records that shows characteristic differences
from the Hebrew group, that it may prove necessary to classify
that as a separate and fourth family, containing practically the
Assyrian alone. These Semitic languages have two striking
peculiarities. One is the general uniformity of their triliteral
roots, and the other is the structure of the verb, widely different
from anything in the Aryan languages, being very poor in moods
and tenses, and compensating for it to some degree by a peculiar
wealth in what are called species or conjugations, by which a
single root is so modified as to present various phases of meaning,
active and passive, causative, intensive, reciprocal, etc. The verb
also holds a strongly dominant position in their syntax.

The Phenician language has gone into history chiefly noted

GHA RA CTER IN LANG UA GE.

371

for two facts : first, that to it the Greeks and Latins owed their
alphabets, and through them all the European languages have
become indebted for their means of expression ; and secondly, that
from the Phenicians sprang that great Carthaginian colony and
empire which was the great rival of Rome for hundreds of years
in the struggle for supremacy in the Western Mediterranean.
What we know of these Phenician peoples gives the impression
that the stern and massive in their character was well depicted in
the rugged features of their long extinct tongue.

The youngest branch of this group is the Arabic, reckoning the
Koran, in the seventh century of our era, as among its earliest and
purest classics. Aside from the few existing remnants of the
Syriac, the Arabic is practically the only surviving representative
of the Semitic languages ; but it makes up in breadth of supremacy
what it lacks in age, for it is the spoken and largely the only
language of between one and two hundred millions of people.
Comparatively young as it is, it has outlived the people of whom
it was characteristic. With small exceptions those who use it
now are unworthy of so noble an inheritance. Its characteristics
point to a people who walk like shades through our imagination
— a people of broad culture and scientific accuracy, of brilliant
imagination, balanced, however, with dignified and practical quali-
ties. While Europe was asleep in the early mediaeval times, this
magnificent language was the repository of existing learning and
the active medium of research, and rich interest did it pay on the
treasures entrusted to it. It has laid huge blocks in the very
foundations of the temple of science, and it thrilled with Christian
religious thought and feeling before the languages of modern
Europe had waked into being. There is something pathetic in
seeing such a noble language practically abandoned while still in
its vigor to the wandering shepherd of the desert and to the wily
slave-hunter in the African forests, or at best serving as a quarry
for the building material of less original languages.

Of all this Semitic group of languages, the one which most
especially and most personally interests us is the Hebrew. This
was the vehicle of the earliest divine revelations, and of their
permanent record and transmission to all ages. When Koah
atoned for the folly of his intemperance by pronouncing that suc-
cinct and comprehensive prophecy in the last verses of the ninth
chapter of Genesis, he indicated that the richest blessing of Shem
was to be the revelation which God would impart to him, but
which in the end should fall to the inheritance of Japheth, as it is
this day. And it is a significant and interesting fact that the
Semitic tribes have given birth to the three great monotheistic

372

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

religions of the world’s history. With Judaism and Christianity
the Hebrew language with its kindred dialects have had a most
intimate and important relation, and it is not without reason that
Christian scholars in all ages have been deeply interested in this
language, which being dead yet speaks. Beside the spiritual
truth that it directly reveals to us, the individual characteristics
of the language reflect those of the vigorous characters among
whom it was developed. Its dignity, repose and almost childlike
simplicity point to that placid patriarchal period of which Abra-
ham and Melchizedelc are the types. The square, massive symbols
which now represent the written language seem typical of the
rigid, clear-cut moral distinctions which it taught to the human
race, and of the grand and rugged character of a Moses and a
Samuel and an Elijah. The splendid rhetoric of Job and Solomon
show something of the poetic power of the people and of- their
wonderful speech, while the tender and intense expressions of the
Psalms depict the romantic and unparalleled character of David,
and carry the language to some of its most marvelous heights.
Its solemn periods, resonant with the impassioned remonstrances
of the fiery but self-restrained ana holy prophets, are among the
most sublime utterances of which human speech has shown itself
capable. Truly the Divine Spirit chose no mean instrument
through which to communicate spiritual truth to the minds of the
earlier dispensation.

In the centre of all human history, the fulfillment of all proph-
ecy and the type of the reconciliation of God with man, stands the
cross of Jesus Christ, and on that cross is an inscription announc-
ing the name of the sufferer and, with an unintentional expression
of the truth, the reason of His suffering, because he was the King
of God’s chosen people. There is something very significant in the
three languages in which that inscription was written — Hebrew,
Latin and Greek. We may call them the three sacred tongues : the
three most intimately connected with the history of God’s people
from the earliest times till now. They stood at that central point
in history as representative of the past, the then present and the
future. The Hebrew pointed to the records of the hoary past,
and called to witness the long line of prophets, whose one great
theme had been this matchless exhibition of divine love. It
called to mind the elaborate but enigmatical ritual of outward
forms and bloody sacrifices, whose days were numbered and whose
doom had been pronounced by those blameless lips, now parched
with dying thirst. The Latin signified the present mighty but
crumbling political power that ruled the world. It was the proud
representative of human learning, human law and human conquest.

CHARACTER IN LANGUAGE.

373

And it was the language which for well nigh a score of centu-
ries was to tyrannize over the larger part of the nominal body of
Christ on earth. The Greek stretched out its nervous finger
toward the future. It indicated the Gospels to be written, and
the Epistles and the blazing Apocalypse. It pointed to the Coun-
cils and the Creeds of successive centuries. It signaled silence
that the anticipating ear might catch the echo of the sonorous
chants and hymns wafted down successive ages of one-lialf of the
Christian Church. And it rested in confident assurance of peren-
nial youth and of constant study, because it was the chosen bearer
of the divine evangel.

The linking together of these three favored languages must
form our transition from the venerable Semitic tongues to that
other family of languages so intimately connected with our own
life and our own history, the great Aryan family of tongues. The
name Aryan is said to signify that which pertains to the light,
and so the title itself tickles our vanity, and we consider ourselves
pretty near the top of the Avave. German scholars have invented
the name Indo-Germanic as somewhat descriptive of the strip of
territory occupied by these languages, stretching from central India
with a northwesterly sweep clear to the Avesternmost bound of
Europe. Scholars of other countries have resented the needless
egoism and have substituted “Indo-European,” which is more
accurate and more satisfactory. Whatever is most vigorous, most
valuable and most progressive in history has photographed itself
on the languages of this group, and they come to us highly
charged and ready to flash a flood of light on historical and eth-
nological investigations. From some postulated original starting-
point these languages, or the tribes who used them, began migra-
tions in tAVO directions. Those that followed the prescribed west-
erly course went on to prosperity and success. But here also there
was a retrograde current which backed down through Persia into
India, there to plant one of the oldest and one of the most typical
of these varied languages, the Sanskrit. Starting then from the
southeasternmost bound, we have first this ancient and sacred lan-
guage, with its several modern descendants or representatives, then
the Persic group and then the Armenian, on or near the pivotal
point, while to the West Ave have, in successive tides of emigra-
tion and growth, the Greek and Latin, the Keltic, Teutonic,
Lithuanian and Slavic. The Eastern branch exhausted itself in
its earliest effort, giving birth to the wonderful Sanskrit, the
eldest sister in all the Aryan family. This, though long gone out
of use, has fortunately been well preserved, to be compared with
its own modern descendants, and Avith all the cognate languages
25

374 THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

to the farthest bound of Europe. Its characteristics would seem
to correspond to those of the region and climate in which it arose.
Keen, logical, flexible, elaborate, it tells us more of the character
of the people who used it than all the actual descriptive and his-
toric records in existence. It would seem a pity that it could not
have flourished in a period or a region more favorable to perma-
nence and to practical usefulness in the world’s history. The
Persian language, like the Persian character, is of a lighter sort,
running rather to aesthetics than to logic and science. It is emi-
nently suited to the expression of poetry, although the ideal of
poetry among Persian writers is based on principles wholly differ-
ent from those held farther west. As the Persian language has
enriched itself from the treasures of the Arabic, so it has also
furnished very abundant materials to the Turkish, especially in
the line of poetry. The Armenian language, so far as its litera-
ture is concerned, is almost from the beginning thoroughly Chris-
tian, and the fidelity and studiousness of its earlier scholars pro-
duced one of the most valuable of the older versions of the Holy
Scriptures. The language exhibits the characteristic national
self-reliance in its inexhaustible resources for the construction of
new words, as occasion arises, out of existing native material,
without drawing on other languages.

Before taking up individually particular members of the Euro-
pean family of nations, it may be well to note some general dis-
tinctions and contrasts observable in speech, and indicating more
or less clearly some distinguishing points in character.

The first, and perhaps the most obvious contrast is between
the Eastern and Western languages. In the former there is a
stateliness, a deliberate, self-conscious ponderosity, in keeping
with the leisurely manner of life and thought. This is in contrast
with the sharp, crisp, impatient, almost hasty habit of the
Western tongues. Their intensely practical character predomi-
nates, and makes even the aesthetic to be subject to the utilitarian.
This is particularly noticeable in the length of the sentence. The
Oriental sentence inclines to be long, comprehensive, balanced
and dignified ; while the Occidental cuts up his thought into brief,
terse, and even elliptical sentences, saving time, which he counts
as money, and sparing laborious thought, in order to economize it
in other ways. This contrast may be observed between the
ancient and the modern languages, perhaps as strikingly as between
the East and the West.

Another point of contrast between the Eastern and Ancient lan-
guages, on the one hand, and the Western and Modern, on the
other, is the existence in the former and the abandonment in the

CHARACTER IN LANGUAGE.

375

latter of two distinct dialects or types of language, one for litera-
ture and the other for ordinary life and conversation, — a high style
and a common or vulgar, one for the learned and the other for the
ignorant. The reason for this is obvious in the differing extent
of a reading knowledge. In the W est, in modern times, everybody
is expected to know how to read, while in the East, as in ancient
times, such knowledge is exceptional. The writer in the East
addresses himself to the learned, and naturally drifts into a style
more lofty and sententious than that used in common conversation.
Whereas in the modern W est the object of literature is to reach
and influence the masses, and this must be done in a language
which the masses are familiar with, while at the same time the
very training necessary to acquire the simplest power of reading
brings the pupil in contact with the best standards, and raises in
him a desire to bring his own language into conformity with them.

Another line of division among the languages, which, however,
can hardly be drawn as a geographical one, and which perhaps has
no very clear and explicable significance as regards national charac-
ter, is in regard to accent and emphasis in words and sentences. In
this respect there are all grades and degrees, ranging from the
Turkish, on the one hand, in which the syllables in a word and in
a sentence can often hardly be distinguished from each other in
the force or stress of the voice, and consequently also in the
length or quantity, to the English at the other extreme, which
picks out one syllable from two, three or even four or five words,
and gives the whole emphasis of the clause to that one, abbre-
viating and even sometimes apocopating the other syllables in
varying degrees. Between these two extremes we fiud such
medial examples as the Greek, which gives one accent to almost
every word, carefully indicating it in the writing, and thus encour-
aging the habit of the voice to give a special force to that syllable.
If we insist on a psychological explanation of this phenomenon, it
may be suggested that it is owing to a difference in the intensity
of thought. The languages where accent is slight are spoken by
peoples of a phlegmatic and even perhaps somewhat languid
temperament, while the prevalence of sharp accent is found among
the nervous and sanguine temperaments of commercial and pro-
gressive races.

In another line interesting peculiarities may be observed by
noticing the influence of conquest on the language of the con-
quering nation, and on that of the conquered. In some cases we
shall find the conqueror enforcing his language upon the subdued
races, while in other cases quite the opposite result follows. The
example of Alexander the Great carrying the Greek language

376 THE PR ESB 7TERIAN AND REFORMED RE VIE W.

wherever his triumphant little armies went, and planting it per-
manently in large regions of Western Asia, is perhaps the most
familiar one; and the providential value of this phenomenon in
preparing the world for the spread of the Gospel is also often
alluded to. The partially successful efforts of the Turks to sub-
stitute their own language for those of nations they subdued is
another example in the same line ; as is also the history of many
parts of England’s colonial empire, and the same result may
follow in due time even in India. On the other hand, we have a
very striking example of the opposite result in the history of the
bold and aggressive Normans. When they swooped down upon
the northern coast of France, and established themselves there in
a permanent Norman kingdom, they soon lost their ancestral
tongue and quietly adopted that of their adopted home. And
stranger still, when they crossed the Channel and brought the Eng-
lish under their power, they made no attempt to saddle the French
language upon the Anglo-Saxons, but turned about and themselves
became true Englishmen, in speech as well as in manners, paying
well for the privilege by an infusion of new blood, and by the
introduction into the language convenient and much needed terms.
It would seem much easier to state such facts as these than to
give a philosophical reason for them, but it may be suggested that
the different result in these different cases is perhaps owing to a
difference in the degree of cultivation already attained by the
language of the conquering party. The Norman brought with
him a wholly uncultured language and found the French in a more
forward state, and the less disciplined was easily crowded out.
Another instance of somewhat the same results is that of the
Vandals coming into the Roman Empire, and to some extent the
Goths also. They found the Latin language fortified in the secure
entrenchments of an immense literature and thoroughly estab-
lished usage, and the most natural thing was to yield and accept it.

One other striking contrast should be noticed, which has not often
been observed, between the languages of the North and of the
South. Those of the North are full of consonants, so closely
packed together that a vowel sometimes has hard work to crowd
itself between, while those of the South are overflowing and bub-
bling with vowels, and use as far as possible the soft and liquid
consonants, scrupulously avoiding all harsh combinations of rough
consonants. We may take the Russian, the Scandinavian and the
German as examples of the former, and the modern Greek and
Italian to illustrate the latter. There seems to be a true relation
between this fact and the proportion of thought and feeling. The
consonants represent thought, and the vowels stand for emotion.

CHARACTER IN LANGUAGE.

377

This contrast may be observed in the enunciation of individual
speakers. The clear, logical and profound thinker will strike out
his consonants with a sharp ring, while the emotional nature will
express itself more in the liquids and vowels. A careful study of
the national characteristics of the peoples named above will give
at least a general justification to this theory.

Space forbids that we should take up in detail the great lan-
guages of Europe to study their national features in full, and we
must only name specimens. The Greek language furnishes a good
example, because it has two distinct phases, the ancient and the
modern, and it is not difficult to see how these reflect the chang-
ing character of the nationality. The ancient with its long and
flowing periods, its complex syntax and great variety of verbal
form, in tense and mood and voice, brings before us the calm and
dignified, self-cultured, isolated, philosophic character with which
history makes us familiar. The modern dialect, with its shorter
sentences, its simplified structure and its rejection of many parts
and forms as unnecessary, indicates the more practical, economical
and realistic character, with more of culture among the masses
and less of exceptionally high development of individuals. No
language in the history of the world can compare with the Greek
in the length of its continuous literary activity, and it is a wonder-
ful fact that the changes in the language are comparatively very
small. If a comparison of languages were to be instituted on
the basis of simplicity and complexity of vowel sounds, the
modern Greek would stand at the extreme of simplicity, for that
language has only five elementary sounds, a, e, i, o, ou , and it
preserves these in their pure and unmodified form as nearly as it
is possible for human enunciation to do so. The revival of this
language as a vehicle for vigorous contemporaneous and original
literature since the days of Koraes, has certainly more than an
accidental relation to the resuscitation of the people under im-
proved political and social circumstances.

Alongside the Greek in classic literature stands the Latin, but a
few lines will not suffice to set forth the mental, moral, social, legal,
political, military and historical characteristics of this wonderful
speech. For hundreds of years it ruled the world as no other
language has ever done. The genius of the people who brought
it out from an obscure province in central Italy and spread it over
the known world has been widely and well sung. While it is
charged with a lack in the liues of delicacy and sentiment, it
should not be forgotten that for a millennium and a half it gave
adequate expression to the deepest religious feeling of all of
Christian Europe, and has preserved for us some of the loftiest and

378 THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

tenderest embodiments of Christian thought. The breadth of its
applicability, and its wealth in each department, have made it the
storehouse from which all the modern tongues of Europe have
supplied their needs. Whatever is strong and noble and daring
and exact in military matters, whatever is clear and logical in
philosophy, whatever is sharp and discriminating and suggestive
and comprehensive in science, whatever is high and flowing and
impressive and rhetorical and pathetic in oratory, whatever is
noble and pure and stimulating in patriotism, has had its expres-
sion, its illustration and its embodiment in this splendid language.
The decline and fall of the empire has largely shut us out from
observing the amazing deeds and qualities of that wonderful
people, but in the literature of the Latin language the record of
these will go dow n to the latest generation.

And what shall we say in a few lines of the great and growing
languages of modern times — of the phlegmatic German, with its
patient delving scholarship, with its sonorous nasals and guttu-
rals, with its rich domestic and religious poetry ? What of the
gay, vivacious, conversational French, with its graphic descriptive
power, its Keltic volatility, its practical grasp and application of
every scientific truth and discovery, with its courtesy and its
suavity, with its self-asserted universality in diplomatic and inter-
national relations ? And what of the softer, poetic and musical
Italian, dreamy and sympathetic as the gloriously tinted skies of
its native clime? They all speak forth not what the dictionary
and the grammar tell you, but they throb Avith the inner life and
soul of the people who talk them. They are, far more than any
mere guide-book elaboration, a true picture and description of the
nations that have cast them in the mold of their own experience.

We cannot close without a word about our own English tongue,
the most powerful, progressWe and effective language of modern
times, Avith its 250,000 words and its unparalleled literature. In
a hundred years the number of those who use it has increased
from less than forty millions to more than three times that num-
ber. With its immense vocabulary and its utterly lawless pro-
nunciation, it presents serious difficulties to those who Avould learn
it ; but it holds out rich rewards to those Avho perseArere and suc-
ceed. With very little native power to form new Avords and
compounds out of its own material, it has borroAved right and left
from sources neAV and old, but has impoverished none. Its logic
and science it clothes in revivified forms of the Latin and Greek,
but its poetry and its deepest feelings it expresses in those Anglo-
Saxon tones Avhich Ave learn at our mother's knee. It Aveleomes
new and practical terms and phrases, but for its standard of purity

CHARACTER IN LANGUAGE.

379

in thought and expression it goes hack to that incomparable trans-
lation of divine truth which has been the molding influence in
the life of the people. That English is the language of the future
in the Christian and progressive world is not the dream of an
enthusiast ; it is the irresistible conviction of every careful student
of modern history. It faithfully reflects the solid, practical com-
mon sense of that mingled race which has made such a singular
record on both sides of the Atlantic. It is to be studied, not
alone by itself, but under the focused light of the characteristic
qualities represented in all the languages of the world.

Marsovan, Turkey. EDWARD RlGGS.

III.

THE PRINTING OF THE WESTMINSTER
CONFESSION.

IV. In Modification.

IT is not merely in its pure form, as it came from the hands of
the Assembly of Divines, that the Westminster Confession
has been put into circulation. Perhaps we may even say that
during these later years it is not in its pure form that it has been
most widely influential. If we wish to attain a complete view
of the extent of its dissemination we must attend therefore as
well to the modifications of it which have been published. With
the nature of these modifications we have here nothing directly
to do. We have merely to note the formal fact that modified
forms of the Westminster Confession have been produced and
sent out into the world.

These modified forms are not very numerous ; but they began
to be made very early in the history of the document, and they
have usurped its place in the case of a very large portion of its
constituency. Indeed, it was only in a modified form that the
Westminster Confession received the authorization of the very
body at whose behest it was prepared. That it was put into cir-
culation in an unmodified form at all was due to the Scotch Church
“ stealing a march,” so to speak, on the English Parliament. And
it might almost be said that it is only in a modified form that it is
in use to-day outside the limits of immediate Scotch influence. In
all the large American Presbyterian Churches, for example, it is
not the Westminster Confession precisely as the Assembly of
Divines framed it, but the Westminster Confession in some
respects modified, that has been adopted as their standard of faith.
We must certainly bear in mind that there are modifications and
modifications. Some may merely touch the periphery of the circle
of doctrines which the document teaches, and may affect even its
external form in only a minute manner. Some, while introducing
a considerable amount of change in its form, may penetrate very
little or not at all into the substance of its doctrine. Others may
profoundly affect its whole point of view and revolutionize its

THE PRINTING OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. 381

whole teaching. As a matter of fact, the Westminster Confession
has been made the subject of modifications of all these sorts.
But it is chiefly the less serious varieties of modification that have
been introduced into it ; and it is in its most slightly modified
forms that its wider influence has been gained.

The production of modified forms of the Westminster Confes-
sion is of course the result of the existence from the very time of its
publication of bodies of Christians who felt that it was expected
of them to adopt it as the expression of their faith, but who
found it in this or that point unacceptable to them, and were led
to cut the knot by so far modifying it as to adapt it to their uses.
It must be remembered that the Westminster Confession was the
product of a national, or perhaps it would be speaking more prop-
erly to say of an international, movement. It was not the con-
struction of a chance body of Christians voluntarily gathered
together with a view to formulating their peculiar tenets. It was
drawn up by a Synod appointed by the Parliament of England
and assisted by delegates from Scotland, the task of which was to
prepare a scheme of uniformity in religion for the Three King-
doms. It came into the world, therefore, as a national Confession.
As such it was adopted by the Church of Scotland, and as such it
was published by the Parliament of England. It was impossible
for any body of Christians in the Three Kingdoms to avoid
attending to it.

Moreover, it did in effect express the reasoned faith of the
great mass of British Protestants. It was impossible for any body
of them to refuse to take some account of it without bringing
their orthodoxy under the suspicion of their brethren. A cer-
tain moral pressure was thus brought to bear upon the Prot-
estant bodies of Great Britain and its colonies by the confessed
excellence and generally representative character of the docu-
ment, which almost compelled them to give it at least a modified
acceptance. But fairly representative as it was of the substance
of the general Protestant faith, there were minor points of teach-
ing in the document against which this or the other party was
bearing passionate protest. It was the very essence of the Inde-
pendent contention that was struck at in the Westminster doctrine
of Church organization and government. And what was the dis-
tinction of the Christian congregations who spoke of themselves
as those “ baptized upon profession of their faith,” except their
peculiar views on the subjects and mode of baptism ? As it was
inevitable that these Christians should have to face the unspoken
demand that they should orient themselves with respect to the
Westminster Confession, it was equally inevitable that they should

382 THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIE »f.

wish to set forth forms of it in which their peculiar views should
find recognition or at least meet with no open contradiction.
Thus, from the first, Independent and Baptist recensions of the
Westminster Confession, at least, were foregone conclusions — un-
less, indeed, the document should fall dead from the press. And the
early production of these recensions is the proof that, despite the
untoward turn of circumstances which rendered impossible of
attainment the main object of the Assembly of Divines — the
institution of uniformity of religion in the Three Kingdoms on a
sound Reformed basis — the Westminster Confession did not fall
dead from the press. Every great branch of Non-Conformists in
England adjusted itself to it and gave it, in a form adapted to its
special opinions on minor matters, the cordial testimony of public
acceptance. Thus the Westminster Confession in its substance
became in fact practically the common Confession of the entirety
of British non-prelatical Christianitv.

The earliest modification of the Westminster Confession was the
work of the English Parliament itself, acting in the Independent
interest, and was produced even before the Confession was authori-
tatively published in England. It was thus and thus only in fact
that the Confession was offered to the English Churches by the
constituted authorities. The edition of the Confession published
by Parliament at the end of June, 16-18, under the title of Articles
of Christian Religion , approved and passed by both Houses of Par-
liament, after advice had with the Assembly of Divines by authority
of Parliament sitting at Westminster — the only edition of the
Confession published by the authority of the State — is in effect
the Independent recension of the Confession. The growing Inde-
pendent influence had sufficed to secure that ail that was offensive
to that party should be exscinded from the document before it was
put forth as the lawfully ordained public Confession of Faith of
the Church of England. The chief bone of contention here
concerned, of course, the organization of the churches into a
Church, provided with a series of courts clothed with authorita-
tive jurisdiction. With this was involved the whole subject of
Church discipline. And more remotely there came to be connected
with it the question of a limited toleration, not so much of diver-
gencies in doctrine as of differences in Church organization, gov-
ernment and forms of worship. To meet the case thus raised the
Parliament simply struck out of the document the whole series of
sections treating of Church government and discipline. Other
changes were made : but they were minor and in a true sense
incidental.

It was accordingly upon this Parliamentary recension that the

THE PRINTING OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. 388

Independent divines built when, ten years later (1658), they met
at the Savoy to frame a Declaration of their faith. They intro-
duced many minor variations in phraseology, recast a whole chap-
ter— that on Repentance — and indeed inserted a whole new chap-
ter— on the Gospel ; and here and there they sharpened or height-
ened the expression of the doctrines taught in the document.
But only in the two points of Church government and “ disci-
pline ” and of “ toleration ” did they modify greatly its teaching.
Their modified Confession had little prolonged circulation or influ-
ence, it is true, among the Independent Churches of England ;
these are found generally continuing to use the unaltered West-
minster formularies. But in the Hew World it made for itself a
richer history. Adopted both by the Massachusetts (1680) and
Connecticut (1708) Churches as their standard of belief, it consti-
tuted for many years the public Confession of American Congre-
gationalists, and indeed lighted the pathway of these Churches
down almost to our own day. It is interesting to observe, however,
that the American Congregationalists in adopting the Savoy
recension resiled from its introduction into the document of the
principle of “ toleration,” thus bidding us to take note that its
introduction by the English Independents was rather incident to
their position than a settled principle of Independent belief.
Independents suffering disabilities and Independents in position to
inflict disabilities for religion’s sake, took opposite views of the
relation of the civil magistrate to religious teaching. It was
reserved to Presbyterians, after all, to make the “intolerant”
teaching of the Westminster Confession a really constraining
ground for modifying the document. The Independent modifica-
tions turned, as on their hinge, rather on matters concerned with
Church courts : all else was incidental to this and liable to varia-
tions and the shadows cast by turning.

Meanwhile the English Baptists had been defining their relation
to the Westminster Confession and had published a modification
of it of their own (1677). As good Independents, they naturally
took their start from the Savoy Declaration (1658), still further
interpolating and filing it, and, of course, incorporating into it
their own views as to baptism. It cannot be said that this Baptist
recension exhibits quite the same degree of skill and learning
that characterized the work done by the Savoy Synod : but it
does exhibit equal fervor of religious feeling and equal devotion
to the Reformed faith. In it the influence of the Independent
recension of the Westminster Confession attained its height, and
through it perhaps the Westminster teaching itself has reached its
widest dissemination. For no more than its parent document did

381 THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

this Baptist recension remain the property of its English framers :
it too crossed the sea, and in 1712 became the standard expression
of the faith of the American Baptists, who have grown into a
great host. If the "Westminster divines had done nothing else
than lay down the lines upon which the great Baptist denomina-
tion has built its creed, its influence on the Christian faith and life
of the masses would have been incalculably great.

In the new conditions of political life in free America the defini-
tion of the Westminster Confession of the relations of the civil
magistrate to the Church could not fail to be thrown forward into
a fierce light. As we have seen, the English Independents had
already, somewhat incidentally, exscinded the “intolerant’’
features of the Confession and had been followed in this by the
Baptists : though the American Congregationalists, occupying
themselves the seat of the civil magistrate, had restored the objec-
tionable principle. The fact is that in the seventeenth century
“toleration” was rather a sentiment of the oppressed than a
reasoned principle of Christian ethics : while unrestricted “relig-
ious liberty ” had scarcely risen on the horizon of men’s thoughts.
Whatever was done toward freeing the Westminster Confession
from “ intolerant principles ” in that age was therefore fitful and
unstable, and rather a measure of self- protection than the consis-
tent enunciation of a thoroughly grasped fundamental principle.
Thus it happened that the American Presbyterians were the first
to prepare modifications of the Westminster Confession which
turned on the precise point of the duty of universal toleration, or
rather of the fundamental right of unrestricted religious liberty.
The first of these modifications in the interests of the principle of
religious freedom and the equality of all forms of religious faith
before the law, was that made by the Presbyterian Church in the
United States of America in 1788. The Associate- Reformed
Church followed in the same pathway in 1799 ; and the United
Presbyterian Church has continued this testimony in its own way
ever since its formation in 1858. Thus it has come about that
practically the whole body of American Presbyterians has cleansed
the Westminster Confession from every phrase which could by
any form of interpretation be made to favor intolerance and has
substituted the broadest assertion of religious liberty.

It will have been observed that no one of the modifications thus
far adverted to in any way affected the scheme of doctrine of the
Confession. The Independents, Baptists, American Presbyte-
rians alike gave the heartiest assent to the Reformed faith as set
forth in this Confession ; and it was only because they recognized
in its form of sound words the expression of their fundamental

THE PRINTING OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. 385

belief that they busied themselves with adjusting it in minor
matters to their opinions and practices. The opening nineteenth
century saw the rise, however, in what was then the extreme
western portion of the United States, of a body of Christians
who by inheritance were so related to the Westminster Confes-
sion that they found it difficult to discard it altogether, but who
in their fundamental theology had drifted away from the Reformed
faith, to which it gives so clear and well-compacted an expression.
By this combination of circumstances there was produced at last
a modification of the Westminster Confession, which was directed
not to the adjustment of details of teaching that lay on the peri-
phery of its system of doctrine, but to the dissection out of it of
its very heart. An Arminianized Westminster Confession is
something of a portent : yet it is just this that the Cumberland
Presbyterians sought to frame for themselves (1814), and to
which, having in a fashion framed it, they clung for nearly three-
quarters of a century.

Of course the Confession thus formed was never satisfactory even
to its framers. To Arminianize the Westminster Confession with
any thoroughness would leave to it only the general literary tone of
its phraseology and its outlying definitions of secondary impor-
tance, while all that is really distinctive of it as a Confession of
Faith would be extirpated. It required, however, about seventy
years for the Arminian leaven placed in the Confession by the Cum-
berland Presbyterians to leaven the whole lump. The first rework-
ing they gave it, though definitely directed to eliminating from it
its formative doctrine — the Reformed doctrine of the sovereignty of
God — left the larger part of the document intact. Every direct
statement of the doctrine of the divine determination of human
destiny was expunged, but the general tone of the document
remained untouched. The result was felt by the Cumberland
Presbyterians themselves to be eminently unsatisfactory, They
perceived that the casting out of what they called “ the boldly
defined statements ” of foreordination was insufficient for their
end, and only succeeded in bringing the document into conflict
with itself ; for, as they truly said, “ the objectional doctrine with its
logical sequences pervaded the whole system of theology formu-
lated in that book.” They perceived equally that their own
Arminianizing principle was not given its full logical develop-
ment by the substitution of statements announcing it for the
Reformed statements expunged from the Confession. It was thus
inevitable that the Confession prepared by them in 1814 should
sooner or later be further “modified,” and the revolution then
begun be made complete. The time seemed to be ripe for this early

386

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

in the ninth decade of the century : and in 1883 an entirely new
Confession was adopted by the Cumberland Presbyterians which
is so drastic a 1 4 modification ” of the Westminster Confession as
to retain nothing of its most distinctive character and very little
even of its secondary features. In this document “ modifica-
tion ” has stretched beyond its tether and become metamorphosis.

In the course of the two hundred and fifty years that have elapsed
since its formulation the Westminster Confession has thus been
sent out into the world in some half-dozen modifications. Some
of these modifications concern so small a portion and so subordi-
nate an element in the document that it becomes doubtful whether
the publications in which they are embodied should not be rather
treated as editions than as modifications of it. The Parliamentary
edition of 1648 and the Confessions of the American Presbyte-
rian Churches belong to this class : and we have accordingly listed
them among the editions of the Westminster Confession in the
bibliographies published in The Presbyterian axd Reformed
Review for Octpber, 1901, and January, 1902. That we include
them also in the list of modifications presentljT to be given is in
the interests of a complete enumeration of these modifications in
one place and need create no confusion. Others of these modifi-
cations, while so far transforming the document that they can-
not be treated as mere editions of it, are yet fully conservative
of the whole system of doctrine taught in it and retain its gen-
eral structure and the greater part of its very phraseology. In
this class belong the Savoy Declaration of 1658 and its descend-
ants in the Boston Confession of 1685 and the Saybrook Confes-
sion of 1708, on the one hand, and in the Baptist Confession of
1677 on the other. The Cumberland Presbyterian recensions stand
in a class by themselves as an extreme case of modification,
striking at the very heart of the Confession and able to result in
nothing other than its destruction.

In the following notes we have brought together as full an
account of these several modifications as seemed necessary in
order to trace the diffusion of the Westminster Confession in the
new forms thus given it. We have not attempted to record all
the editions in which the several modifications have been issued;
but have contented ourselves with referring the reader, when possi-
ble, to sources of information in which they can be traced. Only
in the case of the Cumberland Presbyterian Confessions, whose
history has not hitherto been thoroughly worked out, have we
sought fullness of record.

THE PRINTING OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION 387

NOTES TOWARD A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE
WESTMINSTER CONFESSION.

IV. Modifications.*

[a. The Parliamentary Recension, 1648] “ Articles | of | Christian
Religion, | Approved and Passed by both Houses | of Parlia-
ment, | After Advice had with the Assembly | of | Divines
| by Authority of Parliament sitting at | Westminster. |
London: | . . . . June 27, 1648 ” — (Schaff).

4to, pp. — . For an account of this edition, see Mitchell, The Westminster
Assembly, etc., pp. 379 and 526 ; and Minutes , p. 412 sq. (especially 416); Shaw,
History of the English Church During the Civil Wars, etc., I, 365 ; Schaff,
Creeds of Christendom , I, 753, and especially 758-9. There are copies in the
British Museum, “116, f. 19”; E. 449 ”; “ T. HI'”; and also in the Bodleian.
Cf. the account of it given iu The Presbyterian and Reformed Review, Octo-
ber, 1901, pp. 221-224 (No. 8).

The dealing of the Parliament with the work of the Westminster Assembly
constitutes a very excellent anemometer for measuring how the political wind was
from time to time blowing. When the text of the Coufession was reported to the
Commons, the Independent influence was rising ; delays in dealing with it were
made ; and by the time that the work of reviewing it was completed, the Indepen-
dents were strong enough to secure the discarding from the document of all in it
that provided for church courts and church discipline. The Parliamentary edition of
the Confession published in the midsummer of 1648 is, therefore, distinctively the
Independent recension of the formulary, and was received as such by the Indepen-
dent party. The Independent divines met at the Savoy ten years later, accord-
ingly, speak of it as their own recension and make complaint that it had been
practically superseded by the Presbyterian recension in the use of the Churches.
The account they give of the proceedings of Parliament in framing their redaction
of the document is worth quoting. The Parliament, they say, “thought it not
convenient to have matters of Discipline and Church-Government pub into a
Confession of Faith, especially such particulars thereof, as there were, and still
are controverted and under dispute by men Orthodox and sound in Faith. The
30th cap. therefore of that Confession, as it was presented to them by the Assem-
bly, which is of Church-Censures, their Use, Kindes , and in whom placed : As
also cap. 31. of Synods and Councels, by whom to be called , of what force in their
decrees and determinations. And the 4th paragr. of the 20tli cap. which detei-
mines what opinions and practices disturb the peace of the Church, and how such
disturbers ought to be proceeded against by the Censures of the Church , and
punished by the Civil Magistrate. Also a great part of the 24th cap. of Marriage
and Divorce. These were such doubtful assertions, and so unsuitable to a Confes-

*Our indebtedness for aid in making out these notes has been, more than in
former portions of our task, rather to books than to individuals. We have freely
used the material offered us in Schaff’s Creeds of Christendom and Williston
Walker’s Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism ; as well as in the
introductions and prefaces to the editions of the modifications recorded. For the
descriptions of the editions of the Cumberland Presbyterian Confession we are
indebted especially to the kindness of the Rev. Prof. J. V. Stephens, D.D , of
Lebanon, Tenn., who has with great generosity supplied us with ample materials
for a tolerably complete history of these formularies : for much guidance in
studying the United Presbyterian Coufession we are indebted to the Rev. Dr
James PIarper, of Xenia, Ohio. Other obligations are acknowledged in the course
of the notes themselves.

388

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

sion of Faith, as the Honorable Houses in their great Wisdom thought fit to lay
them aside : There being nothing that tends more to heighten dissentings among
Brethren, then to determine and adopt the matter of their difference, under so
high a title, as to be an Article of our Faith.” ( Preface to the Savoy Declaration
— -written by John Owen — as given by Williston Walker, The Creeds and
Platforms of Congregationalism, New York : 1893, p. 363.)

The changes made by the Parliament for their recension are enumerated by Dr.
Mitchell ( loc . cit. ), and are set down in the margin of Mr. W m. Carruther’s edition
of the original text of the Westminster Confession (see The Presbyterian and
Reformed Review, October, 1901, p. 658, No. 137). They are as follows :

Chap, xx, l 4. Omit the whole section.

Chap, xxiii, $ 4. Instead of “to pay them tribute and other dues,” read “to
pay them their dues.” Instead of “the magistrate’s just and legal authority,”
read “ the magistrates’ just and legal authority.” Instead of “ obedience to him, ”
read “obedience to them.” Omit “much less hath the Pope .... other pre-
tence whatsoever.”

Chap, xxiv, $ 4. Omit “The man may not marry .... them of her kin.”

Chap, xxiv, $ 5. Omit the whole section.

Chap, xxiv, ? 6. Omit the whole section.

Chap. xxx. Omit the whole chapter.

Chap. xxxi. Omit the whole chapter.

This Parliamentary recension of the Confession was printed only in one edition
and appears to have had little circulation. It was returned to, however, by the
Savoy divines in 1658, and through their rehabilitation of it obtained a new life and
influence in both England (in the Baptist Creed of 1677) and in America (through
the Boston and Saybrook recensions of the Savoy Declaration).

[b. The Savoy Recension , 1658] “ A j Declaration ' of the | Faith
and Order | Owned and practised in the J Congregational
Churches | in | England ; | Agreed upon and consented unto |
By their | Elders and Messengers j in | Their Meeting at the

Savoy, October 12. 1658. | | | London: | Printed

by John Field, and are to be sold by | John Allen at the Sun
Rising in Pauls | Church-yard, 1658 ” — (Walker).

4to, pp. [xxx], 64. Four editions appeared at London in 1659 ; others followed
in 1677, 1688, 1729 ; Ipswich, 1745 ; Oswestry, 1812. There are copies of the
early editions in the libraries of the Massachusetts Historical Society, of Harvard
University and Princeton Theological Seminary (the edition : London | Printed
for D. L. | Anti are to be sold in Paul’s Churchyard, Fleet | Street, and West,
minster Hall, 1659). It has been reprinted in Hanbury’s Memorials . iii, 517-
548, and Williston Walker's The Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism,
354-408. Compare also A. H. Quint, Congregational Quarterly, July and Octo.
ber, 1866 (viii, 241 sq., 341 sq.), and Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, iii, 707-
729. Williston Walker, op. cit., pp. 340 sq., gives a list of the editions and
some record of the best literature upon it, and an excellent account of its history.
There is a Latin version, by Prof. Johannes Hoornbeek, Utrecht, 1662.

When Independency became ascendant in England the Congregationalist divines
naturally desired to put forth a confessional statement which would more closely
express their views than the Westminster formularies did, and the more so that the
Parliamentary recension of the Westminster statement had obtained no circulation
and only the Scotch editions of the Westminster Confession and those taken from
them were accessible. Accordingly in 1658 a movement was set on foot, emanating
apparently from those especially in the confidence of Cromwell, to call the Inde-

THE PRINTING OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION 339

pendent Churches of the kingdom into conference for the purpose of fiaming a
statement of their faith. The Synod, consisting of Messengers of about one
hundred and twenty churches, met at the Savoy on September 29, 165S, and the
duty of preparing and proposing a Confession was entrusted to a committee con-
sisting of Thomas Goodwin, John Owen, Philip Nye, William Bridge, Joseph
Caryll and William Greenhill, every one of whom except Owen had been a mem-
ber of the Westminster Assembly. It was natural that the Westminster Confession,
and that in its Parliamentary form, should be made the basis of their work : and
they in fact confined themselves to preparing a revised edition of that formu-
lary. They themselves give a very lucid account of their procedure, in the
preface which they prefixed to the document — written, it is said, by John Owen.
They say :

“ In drawing up this Confession of laith, we have had before us the Articles of
Religion, approved and passed by both Houses of Parliament , after advice had
with an Assembly of Divines , called together by them for that purpose. To which
Confession, for the substance of it, we fully assent, as do our Brethren of New
England, and the Churches also of Scotland , as each in their general Synods have
testified.

“A few things we have added for obviating some erroneous opinions, that have
been more broadly and boldly here of late maintained by the Asserters, then in
former times ; and made some other additions and alterations in method , here and
there, and some clearer explanations, as we found occasion.

“ We have endeavored throughout, to hold to such Truths in this our Confession,
as are more properly termed matters of Faith ; and what is of Church-order we
dispose in certain Propositions by it self. To this course we are led by the Example
of the Honorable Houses of Parliament, observing what was established, and what

omitted by them in that Confession the Assembly presented to them So

that there are two whole Chapters, and some Paragraphs in other Chapters in their
Confession, that we have upon this account omitted ; and the rather do we give
this notice, because that Copy of the Parliaments, followed by us, is in few men’s
hands ; the other as it came from the Assembly, being approved of in Scotland,
was printed and hastened into the world before the Parliament had declared their
Resolutions about it ; which was not till June 20. 1648. and yet hath been, and
continueth to be the Copy (ordinarily) onely sold, printed and reprinted for these
eleven years.

“ After the 19th cap. of the Law, we have added a cap. of the Gospel , it being
a Title that may not well be omitted in a Confession of Faith : In which Chapter,
what is dispersed, and by intimation in the Assemblies Confession with some little
addition, is here brought together, and more fully under one head.

“That there are not Scriptures annexed as in some Confessions (though in
divers others it’s otherwise) we give the same account as did the Reverend Assem-
bly in the same case : which was this ; The Confession being large, and so
framed, as to meet with the common errors, if the Scriptures should have been
alleadged with any clearness, and by shewing where the strength of the proof
lieth, it would have required a volume.” ( A Declaration of the Faith and Order
Owned and Practiced in the Congregational Churches in England Lon-

don, 1658, pp. xx-xxii ; as reprinted by Williston Walkee in The Creeds and
Platforms of Congregationalism, New York, 1893, pp. 362-3.)

The Savoy Declaration is thus put forward distinctly as merely a recension of
the Westminster Confession, and as omitting from it only matters of Discipline and
Church Government, conceived as having no proper place in a Confession of
Faith. It is represented as not only preserving but emphasizing its whole doi-
trinal scheme, and as retouching its doctrinal definitions only for the sake of giving
more distinct explanations of the doctrines there expounded or of bringing them
26

390

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

into more pointed opposition to errors grown more rampant since their first
enunciation.

The text of the Savoy Declaration in its relation to the Westminster Confession
can he most conveniently studied in its reprint by Professor Williston Walker
(op. cit.) who has carefully indicated by black-faced type and footnotes all its
variations from the earlier document. Cf. also Dr. Quint’s and Dr. Schaff’s pre-
sentations (opp. cit.). The following list of the variations will enable the reader
to reconstruct the Declaration from the Westminster Confession, and to form an
estimate of the amount and nature of the modifications made by it.

Chap, i, $ 2. Omit “The Gospels according to.”

Chap, i, \ 2. Add “the” before “inspiration.”

Chap, i, § 8. Omit “ the” from “time of the writing.”

Chap, i, § 10. Instead of “ the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture,” read “ the
holy Scripture delivered by the Spirit ; into which Scripture so delivered, our
Faith is finally resolved.”

Chap, ii, 4 2. Instead of “ the alone foundation,” read “the alone Fountain.”

Chap, ii, \ 2. Instead of “whatsoever .... Obedience he is pleased to require
of them,” read “whatsoever .... Obedience, as Creatures, they owe unto the
Creator, and whatever he is further pleased to require of them.”

Chap, ii, § 3. Add at end : “ Which Doctrine of the Trinity is the foundation of
all our Communion with God, and comfortable Dependence upon him.”

Chap, iii, 4 t>. Last clause, insert “or” between “redeemed by Christ’’ and
“effectually called.”

Chap, iv, $ 1. Insert “out” between “make” and “ of nothing.”

Chap, v, § 1. Instead of “to” before “ his infallible ’’ read “unto.”

Chap, v, £ 4. Insert “in” after “Providence” (by mere printer’s slip ?).

Chap, v, $4. Instead of “it” before “extendeth,” read “his determinate
Counsel.”

Chap, v, 4 4. Instead of “and that not by a bare permission, hut such as hath
joined with it a most wise and powerful binding and otherwise ordering and
governing of them,” read “(and that not by a bare permission) which also he
most wisely and powerfully boundeth, and otherwise ordereth and governetb.”

Chap, v, 4 4. Insert “most” before “holy ends.”

Chap, v, 4 5. Instead of “unto” after “support,” read “ upon.”

Chap, vi, 4 1. Instead of “Our first parents, being seduced by the subtilty and
temptation of Satan, sinned in eating the forbidden fruit. This their sin God was
pleased, according to bis wise and holy counsel, to permit, having proposed to
order it to his own glory,” read “God having made a Covenant of Works and
Life, thereupon, with our first parents and all their posterity in them, they being
seduced by the subtilty and temptation of Satan, did wilfully transgress the Law
of their Creator, and break the Covenant in eating the forbidden fruit.”

Chap, vi, 4 2. After “By this sin they,” add “ and we in them.”

Chap, vi, \ 2. After “fell from,” omit “their.”

Chap, vi, 4 3. After “They being the Root,” insert “and by God's appointment
standing in the room and stead.”

Chap, vi, 4 3. After “was imputed and,” omit “the same death in sin and.”

Chap, vii, 4 1. Instead of “ never have any fruition of him as their blessedness
and reward,” read “ never have attained the reward of life.”

Chap, vii, 4% 5 and 6. Substitute for these two sections the following: “5.
Although this Covenant hath been differently and variously administred in
respect of Ordinances and Institutions in the time of the Law, and since the
coming of Christ in the flesh ; yet for the substance and efficacy of it, to all its
spiritual and saving ends, it is one and the same ; upon the account of which various
dispen-ations, it is called the Old and New Testament.”

Chap, viii, 4 1. After “only begotten Son,” add “according to a Covenant made
between them both.”

THE PRINTING OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. 391

Chap, viii, $ 3. After “the Divine,” add “in the Person of the Son.”

Chap, viii, $ 3. Add “also” before “put all Power.”

Chap, viii, $ 4. After “did perfectly fulfil it,” add “and underwent the
punishment due to us, which we should have borne and suffered, beiDg made sin
and a curse for us.”

Chap, viii, $ 4. Instead of “endured,” read “enduring.”

Chap, viii, $ 5. Instead of “Justice of His Father,” read “Justice of God.”

Chap, viii, $ 6. Instead of “ unto the Elect,” read “ to the Elect.”

Chap, ix, ? 1. Instead of “natural liberty, that is neither,” read “natural
liberty and power of acting upon choice, that it is neither.”

Chap, ix, ? 1. Iustead of “determined to good.” read “determined to do good.”

Chap, ix, £ 4. Instead of “which was good,” read “which is good.”

Chap, x, $ 3. Omit “ through the Spirit.”

Chap, x, \ 4. Instead of “yet they never truly come uuto Christ,” read “yet
not being effectually drawn by the Father, they neither do nor can come unto
Christ.”

Chap, xi, $ 1. Instead of “but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of
Christ unto them,” read “but by imputing Christ’s active obedience unto the
whole Law, and passive obedience in his death for their whole and sole righteous-
ness.”

Chap, xi, $ 3. Omit “thus” before “justified.”

Chap, xi, $ 3. After “justified and did,” add ‘‘by the sacrifice of himself, in
the blood of his Cross, undergoing in their stead the penalty due unto them.”

Chap, xi, | 3. Instead of “His Father’s justice,” read “God’s justice.”

Chap, xi, $ 4. Add “personally” after “justified.”

Chap, xi, 5. Instead of “and not have the light,” read ‘‘and in that condition
they have not usually the light.”

Chap, xiii, $ 1. Instead of “who,” read “that.”

Chap, xiii, $ 1. Insert “ united to Christ ” before “ effectually called.”

Chap, xiii, § 1. Transpose “through the vertue of Christ's death and resurrec-
tion” immediately after “created in them.”

Chap, xiii, ? 1. Insert “also” before “further.”

Chap, xiii, $ 1. Add “through the same vertue” after “personally.”

Chap, xiii, $ 1. Insert “all” before “true holiness.”

Chap, xiv, $ 1. Instead of “sacraments and prayer,” read “Seals, prayer and
other means. ”

Chap, xiv, $ 3. Instead of “This Faith .... but gets the victory,” read
“This Faith, although it be different in degrees, and may be weak or strong, yet
it is in the least degree of it different in the kind or nature of it (as is all other
saving grace) from the faith and common grace of temporary believers ; and
therefore, though it may be many times assailed and weakened, yet it gets the
victory.”

Chap. xv. The whole Chapter is rewritten so as to run as follows :

“Of Repentance Unto Life and Salvation.

“ Such of the Elect as are converted at riper yeais, having sometime lived in the
state of nature, and therein served divers lusts and pleasures, God in their effect-
ual calling giveth them Repentance unto life.

“II. Whereas there is none that doeth good, and sinneth not, and the best of
men may through the power and deceitfulness of their corruptions dwelling in them,
with the prevalency of temptation, fall into great sins and provocations; God
hath in the Covenant of Grace mercifully provided, that Believers so sinning and
falling, be renewed through repentance and Salvation.

“ III. This saving Repentance is an Evangelical Grace, whereby a person being
by the holy Ghost made sensible of the manifold evils of his sin, doth by Faith in

392

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

Christ humble himself for it with godly sorrow, detestation of it, and self-abhor-
rency, praying for pardon and strength of Grace, with a purpose, and endeavor by
supplies of the Spirit, to walk before God unto all well-pleasing in all things.

“ IV. As Repentance is to be continued through the whole course of our lives,
upon the account of the body of death, and the motions thereof ; so it is every
mans duty to repent of his particular known sins particularly.

“ V. Such is the provision which God hath made through Christ in the Covenant
of Grace, for the preservation of Believers unto salvation, that although there is
no sin so small, but it deserves damnation ; yet there is no sin so great, that it shall
bring damnation on them who truly repent ; which makes the constant preaching
of Repentance necessary.’’

Chap, xvi, # 1. Instead of “intention’’ read “intentions.’’

Chap, xvi, $ 7. Insert “to’’ before “others.”

Chap, xvii, $ 2. Omit “flowing’’ after “election” (printer’s slip ?).

Chap, xvii, $ 2. After “ Jesus Christ ” add “and union with him, the oath of
God.”

Chap, xvii, $ 2. Instead of “ the spirit ” read “ his spirit.”

Chap, xvii, § 3. Instead of “Nevertheless” read “And though.”

Chap, xvii, $ 3. Instead of “come to be deprived of some measure of their
gi aces and comforts, ” read “ come to have their graces and comforts impaired.”

Chap, xvii, $ 3. Add at end : “yet they are and shall be kept by the power of
God through faith unto salvation.”

Chap, xviii, $ 1. Instead of “hypocrites” read “temporary believers.”

Chap, xviii, g 1. Instead of “estate” read “state.”

Chap, xviii, $ 1, Instead of “a state of grace ” read “ the state of grace.”

Chap, xviii, $ 2. Iustead of “founded upon .... day of redemption,” read
“ founded on the blood and righteousness of Christ, revealed in the Gospel, and
also upon the inward evidence of those graces and to which promises are made, and
on the immediate witness of the spirit, testifying our Adoption, and as a fruit
thereof, leaving the heart more humble anti holy.”

Chap, xviii, $ 4. Omit “and” after “ contenance.”

Chap, xviii, § 4. For “never utterly” read “neither utterly.”

Chap, xix, g 1. After “God gave to Adam a Law,’’ add “of universal obedi-
ence writteu in his heart, and a particular precept of not eating the Fruit of the
Tree of Knowledge of good and evil.”

Chap, xix, g 2. Instead of “This Law .... delivered by God,” read “This
Law so written in the heart, continued to be a perfect Rule of righteousness after
the fall of mau, and was delivered by God.”

Chap, xix, $ 3. Omit “ as a church under age.”

Chap, xix, \ 3. Iustead of “All which ceremouial laws are now abrogated under
the new Testament,” lead “All which Ceremonial Laws being appointed onely
to the time of Reformation, are by Jesus Christ the true Messiah and onely Law-
giver, who was furnished with power from the Father for that end, abrogated and
taken away.”

Chap, xix, \ 4. Omit “ as a body politic.”

Chap, xix, \ 4. Instead of “not obliging any other, now, further than the general
equity thereof may require,” iead “ not obliging any now by vertue of that institu-
tion, their general equity onely being still of moral use.”

Chap, xix, $7. Instead of “ requireth ” read “required.”

Chap. [xx]. At this point an entirely new chapter is inserted as follows :

“Of the Gospel a.vd of the Extext of the Grace thereof

“The Covenant of Works being broken by sin, and made unprofitable unto life,
God was pleased to give unto the Elect the promise of Christ, the seed of the
woman, as the means of calling them, and begetting in them Faith and Repent-

THE PRINTING OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. 393

ence : In this promise the Gospel, as to the substance of it, was revealed, and was
therein effectual for the conversion and salvation of sioners.

“ II. This promise of Christ, and salvation by him, is revealed onely in and by
the word of God ; neither do the works of Creation or Providence, with the Light
of Nature, make discovery of Christ, or of Grace by him, so much as in a general or
obscure way ; much less that men destitute of the revelation of him by the Promise
or Gospel, should he enabled thereby to attain saving Faith on Repentance.

“III. The revelation of the Gospel unto sinners, made in divers times, and by
sundry parts, with the addition of Promises and Precepts for the'obedience required
therein, as to the Nations and persons to whom it is granted, is meerly of the Sov-
eraign will and good pleasure of God, not being annexed by vertue of any promise
to the due improvement of mens natural abilities, by vertue of common light re-
ceived without it, which none ever did make or can so do : And therefore in all
ages the Preaching of the Gospel hath been granted unto persons and nations, as
to the extent or straithing of it, in great variety, according to the counsel of the
will of God.

“IV. Although the Gospel be the onely outward means of revealing Christ and
saving Grace, and is as such abundantly sufficient thereunto ; yet that men who
are dead in trespasses, may be born again, quickened or regenerated, there is more-
over necessary an effectual irresistible work of the holy Ghost upon the whole soul,
for the producing in them a new spiritual life, without which no other means are
sufficient for their conversion unto God.”

Chap, xx [xxi], § 1. Instead of “ the curse of the moral law ” read “the rigor
and curse of the Law.”

Chap, xx [xxi], ? 1. Add “ fear and ” before “sting of death.”

Chap, xx [xxi], ? 1. Add “for the substance of them ” after “ Believers under
the Law.”

Chap, xx [xxi], §1. Add “the whole Legal administration of the Covenant of
Grace ” after “the yoke of the Ceremonial Law.”

Chap, xx [xxi],? 2. Instead of “or beside it in matters of faith or worship ”
read “ or not contained in it.”

Chap, xx [xxi], $ 3. Instead of “lust do thereby destroy ” read “lust, as they do
thereby pervert the main designe of the Grace of the Gospel to their own destruc-
tion ; so they wholly destroy.”

Chap, xx [xxi], ? 4. Omit the whole section.

Chap, xxi [xxii], ? 1. Insert “ just ’’ before “ good.”

Chap, xxi [xxii], ? 1. Instead of “limited to” read “limited by.”

Chap, xxi [xxiij, ? 2. Instead of “creature” read “creatures.”

Chap, xxi [xxii], ? 3. Instead of “ religious ” read “ natural.”

Chap, xxi [xxii], ? 3. Instead of “and that” read “ but that.”

Chap, xxi [xxii], ? 3. Instead of “ and if vocal in a known tongue ” read “and
when with others in a known tongue.”

Chap, xxi [xxii], ? 5. The section is recast as follows: “The reading of the
Scriptures, Preaching, and hearing the word of God, singing of Psalms, as also the
administration of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, are all parts of religious wor-
ship of God, to be performed in obedience unto God with understanding, faith,
reverence, and godly fear : Solemn Humiliations, with Fastings and Thanksgiving
upon special occasions, are in their several times and seasons to be used in a holy
and religious maner. ’ ’

Chap, xxi [xxii], ? 6. Insert “in ” before “truth.”

Chap, xxi [xxii], ? 6. Instead of “or wilfully ” read “nor wilfully.”

Chap, xxi [xxii], ? 7. Omit “due” before “proportion.”

Chap, xxi [xxii], ? 7. Add “ by Gods appointment ” before “be set apart.”

Chap, xxi [xxii], ? 7. Instead of “in his word” read ‘‘ by his word.”

Chap, xxi [xxii], ? 7. Instead of “by a positive ” read “ in a positive.”

394: THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

Chap, xxi [xxii], \ 7. Add at the end “the observation of the last day of the
week being abolished.’’

Chap, xxi [xxii], $ 8. Omit “of’’ after “ ordering.”

Chap, xxii [xxiii], § 1. Omit “upon just occasion."

Chap, xxii [xxiii], §1. Insert “ iu truth, righteousness and judgrueut ” after
“swearing.”

Chap, xxii [xxiii], $ 2. Instead of “and dreadful ” read “ or dreadful.”

Chap, xxii [xxiii], $ 3. Add “ warranted by the Word of God ” after “ Whoso-
ever taketh an oath.”

Chap, xxii [xxiii], $ 3. Instead of “imposed bylawful authority” read “law-
fully imposed by Authority.”

Chap, xxii [xxiii], $ 5. Add “ which is not to he made to auv Creature, hut to
God alone” alter “A vow.”

Chap, xxii [xxiii J, \ (> Omit the entire section.

Chap, xxii [xxiii], \ 7 [6]. Omit “No man may .... In which respects.”

Chap, xxiii [xxiv], $ 1. Instead of “them that are good ’ read “ them that do
good.”

Chap, xxiii [xxiv], \ 1. Instead of “managing” read “management,’’

Chap, xxiii [xxiv], $2. Omit “piety.”

Chap, xxiii [xxiv], $3. Substitute for this section the following: “III. Al-
though the Magistrate is bound to incourage, promote, and protect the professor
and profession of the Gospel, and to manage and order civil administrations in a
due subserviency to the interest of Christ in the world, and to that eud to take
care that men of corrupt mindes and conversations do not licentiously publish and
divulge Blasphemy and Errors iu their own nature, subverting the faith, and inev-
itably destroying the souls of them that receive them : Yet iu such differences
about the doctrines of the Gospel, or ways of the worship of God, as may befall
men exercising a good conscience, manifesting it iu their conversation, and holding
the foundation, not disturbing others in their ways or worship that differ from
them ; there is no warrant for the Magistrate under the Gospel to abridge them of
their liberty.”

Chap, xxiv [xxv], title. Omit “and divorce.”

Chap, xxiv [xxv], $ 3. Omit “only” before “in the Lord.”

Chap, xxiv [xxv], \ 3. Omit “ notoriously.”

Chap, xxiv [xxv], $ 3. Instead of “heresies” read “Heresie.”

Chap, xxiv [xxv], $ 4. Omit last sentence: “The man may not .... of her
own.”

Chap, xxiv [xxv], 5, 6. Omit both sections entirely.

Chap, xxv [xxvi], $ 2. Substitute for the section the following: “II. The
whole body of men throughout the world, professing the faith of the Gospel and
obedience unto God by Christ according unto it, not destroying their own profes-
sion by any Errors everting the foundation, or unholiness of conversation, are. and
may be called the visible Catholique Church of Christ, although as such it is not
intrusted with the administration of any Ordinances, or have any officers to rule
or govern in, or over the whole Body.”

Chap, xxv [xxvi], \\ 3, 4. Omit both sections entirely.

Chap, xxv [xxvi], g 5, (3). Instead of “nevertheless there shall be always a
Church ou earth to worship God according to his will,” read “ Nevertheless Christ
always hath had, and ever shall have a visible Kingdom iu this world, to the end
thereof, of such as believe in him, and make profession of his name.

Chap, xxv [xxvi], $ 6, (4). Add at the end “ whom the Lord shall destroy
with the brightness of his coming.”

Chap, xxv [xxvi], g (5). Add at the end of the chapter the following section :
“ V. As the Loid in his care and love toward his Church, bath iu his infinite wise
providence exercised it with great variety iu all ages, for the good of them that

THE PRINTING OF TEE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. 395

love him, and his own Glory : so according to his promise, we expect that in the
later days, Antichrist being destroyed, the Jews called, and the adversaries of the
Kingdom of his dear Son broken, the Churches of Christ being inlarged, and
edified through a free and plentiful communication of light and grace, shall enjoy
in this world a more quiet, peaceable and glorious condition then they have enjoyed.”

Chap, xxvi [xxvii], § 1. Omit “by” before “Faith.”

Chap, xxvi [xxvii], § 1. Add “although they are not made thereby one person
with him ” after “ by his Spirit and [by] faith.’’

Chap, xxvi [xxvii], $ 1. Omit “ with him ” after “fellowship.”

Chap, xxvi [xxvii], $ 2. Instead of “ Saints by profession ” read “All saints.’’

Chap, xxvi [xxvii] $ 2. Insert “though especially to be exercised by them in
the relations wherein they stand, whether in Families or Churches, yet,” after
“ which communion.”

Chap, xxvi [xxvii], § 3. Omit the entire section.

Chap, xxvii [xxviii], §1. Instead of “ instituted by God ” read “instituted by
Christ.”

Chap, xxvii [xxviii], \ 1. Instead of “to represent Christ” read “to represent
him.”

Chap, xxvii [xxviii], $ 1. Omit “as also to put a visible difference between
those that belong, unto the Church and the rest of the world.”

Chap, xxvii [xxviii], $ 1. Instead of “to engage them ” read “to engage us.”

Chap, xxvii [xxviii], §2. Instead of “ the effects ” read “ and effects. ”

Chap, xxvii [xxviii], $ 4. Instead of “the Supper of the Lord ” read “ the Lord’s
Supper. ’ ’

Chap, xxvii [xxviii], $ 4. Instead of “ ordained ” read “called.”

Chap, xxviii [xxix], $ 1. Omit “not only for the solemn admission of the party
baptized into the visible Church but also.”

Chap, xxviii [xxix], § 1. Instead of “unto him” read “unto the party bap-
tized.”

Chap, xxviii [xxix], $ 1. Instead of “ sacrament ” read “ Ordinance.”

Chap, xxviii [xxix], $2. Instead of “sacrament” read “Ordinance.”

Chap, xxviii [xxix], $ 2. Omit “ thereunto” at end.

Chap, xxviii [xxix], $ 4. Add at end “ and those only.’’

Chap, xxviii [xxix], $ 7. Omit at beginning “ The Sacrament of.”

Chap, xxix [xxx], $ 1. Instead of “ Church ” read “ Churches.”

Chap, xxix [xxx], $ 1. Add “and shewing forth ” after “remembrance.”

Chap, xxix [xxx], § 1. Add “of” after “sealing.”

Chap, xxix [xxx], $ 1. Omit “as members of his mystical body” at the end.

Chap, xxix [xxx], $ 2. For “ sins” read “sin.”

Chap, xxix [xxx], §2. For “commemoration” read “memorial.”

Chap, xxix [xxx], §2. For “abominably” read “abominable.”

Chap, xxix [xxx], $2. For “one ’’read “own.”

Chap, xxix [xxx], £ 3. Omit “to declare his word of institution to the people.”

Chap, xxix [xxx], § 7. For “ Bread and Wine ” read “ Bread or Wine.”

Chap, xxix [xxx], §8. Omit “ although ignorant .... Wherefore.”

Chap, xxix [xxx], $ 8. Instead of “against Christ ” read “ against him.”

Chap, xxix [xxx], §8. Add at end “yea, whosoever shall receive unworthily,
are guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord, eating and drinking Judgement to
themselves.”

Chap. xxx. Omit whole chapter.

Chap. xxxi. Omit whole chapter.

Chap, xxxii [xxxi], title. Instead of “men” read “man.”

Chap, xxxii [xxxi], § 1. Instead of “torments” read “torment.”

Chap, xxxiii [xxxii], §2. Instead of “refreshing which shall come from ” read
“ glory with everlasting reward in.”

396

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

Cliap. xxxiii [xxxii], § 3. Omit “ day of” before “Judgement.”

It was the misfortune of the Savoy Declaration to be published at the end in-
stead of at the beginning of the dominance of Independency in England, and it
quickly passed y>ut of sight. The attacks upon it by Baxter and Du Moulin
seemed only like slaying the dead. But in New England it wTas destined to have
the career denied it in the land of its birth. The Congregationalists of New Eng-
land, after adapting it to their own views with regard to the relations of Church
and State, erected it into as much a norm of sound doctrine as it was possible for
Independents to possess ; and for many years it continued to be the recognized stand-
ard of the Congregationalists of America. The forms in which it was given this
important position are to be immediately enumerated. Even in England also a
much wider influence than could have been hoped for it in its original form was
obtained for it iu a derived form, — in that Confession of Faith prepared by theBap-
tists in 1677, and ever since more widely honored by the Baptist Churches of both
England and America than any other formulary. Of this, too, we shall shortly
give some account.

[bb. 11 le Boston form of the Savoy Recension , 1680] 11 A | Confes-
sion | of | Faith [ Owned and consented unto by the | Elders
and Messengers | of the Churches | Assembled at Boston in
New England, | May 12, 1680. | Being the second Session of

that | Synod. | | | Eph. iv. 5 . . . . | Col. ii. 5

| | | Boston ; | Printed by John Foster.

1680 (Walker).

8vo, 5j x 3j inches, pp. vi, 65, with Cambridge Platform. Subsequent editions
are numerous, e. g., Boston, 1699, 1725, 1750, 1757 : also in the Magnalia, Lon-
don, 1702; Hartford, 1853-5; the Results of Three Synods, etc., Boston, 1725;
The Original Constitution, Order and Faith of the New England Churches, etc.,
Boston, 1812; The Cambridge and Saybrook Platforms, etc., Boston, 1829;
Ratio Discipline by T. C. Upham, Portland, 1829 ; Report on Congregationalism ,
etc., Boston, 1846 ; The Cambridge Platform, etc., by Nath. Emmons, Boston,
1855. A full list of editions is given by Williston Walker, The Creeds and
Platforms of Congregationalism (New York, 1893), p. 409 : he also reprints the
whole preface from the editio princeps and gives au illuminating historical
account : see him also, p. 410, for a list of the relevant literature.

The task laid on that assembly of the Massachusetts Churches which has been called
the “ Reforming Synod ” of 1679-1680, so far as doctrine is concerned, consisted
chiefly in bearing testimony to the unpolluted faith of the second generation of the
Massachusetts Churches. Iu the circumstances in which it wrought, it was
inevitable that the Synod should turn to the Savoy Declaration for an expression
of the faith which they held iu common with their British brethren : and the more
so that the two leading members of the Committee to which the task of drawing
up the Confession was entrusted. Mather and Oates, had been in England at the
time that the Savoy Declaration had been framed and were in close touch with its
authors. It was the Savoy Declaration, therefore, only slightly altered to adjust
it to the New England theory of the relation of the Church and State, that was
reported to the Synod and adopted by it as the creed of the Massachusetts
Churches. How the whole matter stood with them will be best set forth by a short
extract from the Preface prefixed to the Confession, when it was printed.

“There have been those who have reflected upon these Ne w English Churches
for our defect in this matter [that is to say in published creeds], as if our Princi-
ples were unknown ; whereas it is well-known, that as to matters of Doctrine we
agree with other Reformed Churches : Nor was it that, but what concerns Worship

THE PRINTING OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. 397

and Discipline, that caused our Fathers to come into this wilderness, whiles it was
a land not sown, that so they might have liberty to practice accordingly. And it
is a ground of holy rejoycing before the Lord, that now there is no advantage left
for those that may be disaffected toward us, to object anything of that nature
against us. For it hath pleased the only wise God so to dispose in his Providence,
as that the Elders and Messengers of the Churches in the Colony of Massachusets
in New England, did, by the Call and Encouragement of the honoured General
Court, meet together Sept. 10, 1679. This Synod at their Second Session, which
was May 12, 1680, consulted and considered of a Confession of Faith. That which
was consented unto by the Elders and Messengers of the Congregational Churches
in England , who met at the Savoy (being for the most part, some small variations
excepted, the same with that which was agreed upon first by the Assembly at
Westminster, and was approved of by the Synod at Cambridge in New England ,
Anno 1648, as also by a General Assembly in Scotland) was twice publickly read,
examined and approved of : that little variation which we have made from the one,
in compliance with the other may be seen by those who please to compare them.
But we have (for the main) chosen to express our selves in the words of those
.Reverend Assemblyes, but so we might not only with one heart, but with one
mouth glorifie God, and our Lord Jesus Christ” ( Preface , etc., as given by
Walker, op. cit., p. 439).

This Confession was reported to the General Court of Massachusetts and (January
11, 1680) approved by that body and ordered “ to be printed for the benefit of these
churches in present and after times.” By certain local churches ( e . g., the Old
South of Boston and the First of Cambridge) it was utilized as a local creed. It was
accepted as the faith of the churches of Connecticut in 1708. As late as 1865 it
was reaffirmed as substantially embodying the faith to which these churches are
pledged, by a Council, as representative of American Congregationalism as any
body of delegates can be. At present it is perhaps practically forgotten in the
Congregational Churches : and since 1884 has fallen into desuetude even in the Old
South Church of Boston.

As the Preface itself witnesses, the only variation of importance from the Savoy
Declaration which the document registers is a return to the teaching of the West-
minster Confession in the matter of the relation of Church and State. The follow-
ing are the divergences from the Savoy Declaration, in detail (the chapter and
section numbers are those of the Westminster Confession : those enclosed in square
brackets alone being those of the Savoy Declaration) :

Chap, v, $ 1. West, and Savoy, “even to the lpast”: Boston, “even unto the
least.”

Chap, v, § 1. Savoy, “according unto West, and Bost., “according to.”

Chap, xiii, $ 1. Savoy, “They that are united to Christ, effectually called ”:
West, and Bost., “They who are effectually called.”

Chap, xiii, $ 2. West, and Savoy, “abideth”: Bost., “abide.”

Chap, xvii, \ 2. West, and Savoy, “and of the seed”: Bost., “and the seed.”

Chap, six, % 2. West, and Savoy, “upon Mount Sanai”: Bost., “on Mount
Sanai.”

Chap, xix, 'i 3. Savoy, omit “ as a church under age ” : Westminster and Boston,
insert.

Chap, xxiii [xxiv], $ 3. Boston here rejects the new section framed at the Savoy
and inserts a new § 3, based in part on Westminster, Chap, xx, $ 4, which had
been omitted by the Parliamentary and Savoy recensions alike. This new Boston
section runs as follows : “III. They who upon pretense of Christian liberty shall
oppose any lawful power, or the lawful exercises of it, resist the Ordinance of God,
and lor their publishing of such opinions, or maintaining of such practices as are
contrary to the Light of Nature, or to the known Principles of Christianity,
whether concerning faith, worship, or conversation, or to the power of godliness,

398

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

or such erroneous opinions or practices, as either in their own nature, or in the
manner of publishing or maintaining them, are destructive to the external peace and
order which Christ hath established in the Church, they may lawfully be called to
account, and proceeded against by the censures of the Chinch, and by the power
of the civil Magistrate ; yet in such differences about the Doctrines of the Gospel,
or Wayes of the Worship of God, as may befal men exercising a good conscience,
manifesting it in their conservation, and holding the foundation, aud duely ob-
serving the Rules of peace and order, there is no warrant for the Magistrate to
abridge them of their liberty.”

Chap, xxvi [xxvii], g 2. Into this new section framed at the Savoy, Boston
inserts the words “they and their children with them ” after the word “conver-
sation”— “doubtless,” as Dr. Walker says, “influenced by the Halfway Coven-
ant.”

Chap, xxvi [xxvii], $ 2. Boston adds at end, “Although as such it is not intrusted
with any Officers to rule or govern over the whole body.”

Chap, xxviii [xxix], $ 2. Savoy omits “thereunto” at end: Westminster and
Boston insert.

Chap, xxix [xxx], \ 1. Westminster and Savoy, u unto the end Boston, “to
the end.”

Chap, xxix [xxx], $ 3. Savoy omits “to declare his word of institution to the
people”: Westminster and Boston insert.

Chap, xxxii [xxxi], \ 1. Westminster and Savoy, “for souls”: Boston, “(f
souls.”

[bbb. The Saybrook form of the Boston-Savoy Recension , 1708]
A | Confession | of | Faith | Owned and Consented to by
the | Elders and Messengers | Of the Churches j In the Col-
ony of Connecticut in | New England. | Assembled by Dele-
gation I at Say-Brook I September 9th, 1708 I I Eph.

iv. 5 .... | Col. ii. 5 . . . | . . . . | . . . . | | New-

London in N. E. | Printed by Thomas Short, | 1710.

16mo, 5|x3j inches, pp. 116. Subsequent editions are: New London, 1760 ;
Bridgeport. 1810; Hartford, 1831, 1838 ; in Congregational Order, etc., Middle-
town, 1843. Copies of the edd. of 1710 and 1810 and of the Congregational
Order are in the library of the. Theological Seminary at Princeton. For the edi-
tions and literature see Williston Walker, op. cit., p. 464 : in the subsequent
pages he gives a full historical account and reprints the Preface (pp. 517-520).

A movement for a united Confession of Faith for the churches of the colony of
Connecticut was definitely inaugurated “att a meeting of Sundry Elders” as
early as 1703 (Walker, p. 498), and when the Synod of Saybrook was called in
1708 the provision of such a Confession was naturally made one of its duties. Of
course it was the Confession of the Massachusetts Churches since 1680 that was
recommended by it for this end. In the Preface prepared for the document, after a
sketch of the history of creeds in general, the attitude of the Synod is outlined as
follows :

“Among those of latter times Published in our Nation most worthy of Repute
and acceptance we take to be the Confession of Faith, Composed by the Reverend
Assembly of Divines Convened at Westminster, with that of the Savoy, in the
substance and in expressions for the most part the same : the former professedly
assented and attested to, by the Fathers of our Country by Unanimous Vote of the
Synod of Elders and Messengers of the Churches met at Cambridge the last of the
6th Month, 1648. The latter owned aud couseuted to by the Elders and Messen-
gers of the Churches assembled at Boston, May 12th, 1680. The same we doubt

THE PRINTING OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. 399

not to profess to have been the constant Faith of the Churches in the Colony from
the first Foundation of them. And that it may appear to the Christian World, that
our Churches do not maintain differing Opinions in the Doctrine of Eeligion, nor
are desirous for any reason to conceal the Faith we are perswaded of: The Elders
and Messengers of the Churches in this Colony of Connecticut in New England >
by vertue of the Appointment and Encouragement of the Honourable the General
Assembly, Convened by Delegation at Say Brook, Sept. 'dth, 1708. Unanimously
agreed, that the Confession of Faith owned and Consented unto by the Elders and
Messengers of the Churches Assembled at Boston in New England , May 12th,
1680. Being the second Session of that Synod, be Recommended to the Honour-
able the General Assembly of this Colony at their next Session, for their Publick
Testimony therelo, as the Faith of the Churches of this Colony, which Confession
together with the heads of Union and Articles for the Administration of Church
Government herewith emitted were Presented unto and approved and established
by the said General Assembly at Neio Haven on the I4H1 of October, 1708. This
Confession of Faith we offer as our firm Perswasion well and fully grounded upon
the Holy Scripture, and Commend the same unto all and particularly to the people
of our Colony to be examined, accepted and constantly maintained ” (Preface, etc.,
in Walker, op. cit., pp. 518-519).

The General Court of the Colony, meeting at New Haven, October 1708, or-
dained that “all the Churches within this government that are or shall be thus
united in doctrine, worship, and discipline, be, and for the future shall be owned
and acknowledged established by law.” Accordingly the symbols adopted at Say-
brook were printed once and again (1710, 1760) at the expense of the colony and
distributed throughout the colony. This establishment continued in effect until it
was silently repealed by the omission of all reference to it in the revision of the
statutes in 1784.

The Saybrook Confession doubtless was not intended to differ in any respect from
that of the Boston Synod. But during the process of printing — it was the first
book printed in Connecticut — certain slight variations crept in. The following
list will indicate these (the chapter and section numbers follow those of the West-
minster Confession, those included in square brackets alone being those of the
Savoy Declaration):

Chap, ii, $ 2. Westminster, Savoy, Boston, “not standing”; Saybrook, “nor
standing.”

Chap, v, $ 6. Westminster, Savoy, Boston, at end, “others ”: Saybrook, “them ”
— “a change,” comments Dr. Walker, “of some importance.’’

Chap, viii, $ 7. Westminster, Savoy, Boston, “proper to”: Saybrook, “proper
in.”

Chap, xi, § 1. Savoy, Boston, “ obedience unto ” : Saybrook, “ obedience to.”

Chap, xii, $ 1. Saybrook omits “in ” after “ vouchsafeth. ”

Chap, xvi, $ 5. Saybrook reads “judgements ” for “judgement” at end.

Chap, xviii, $3. Westminster, Savoy, Boston, “his calling”: Saybrook, “their
calling.”

Chap, [xix, $ 2. “ on ” as in Boston.]

Chap, [xix, $ 3. Add “ as a church under age ” as in Boston.]

Chap, xix, $3. Saybrook reads “ worshiping ”.

Chap, [xx], title. Saybrook reads “Graces.”

Chap, [xxiii [xxiv], $ 3. As in Boston.]

Chap, xxiv [xxv], § 2. Saybiook omits “of” after “ preventing.”

Chap, xxv [xxvi], § 1. Saybrook omits “is” before “ the Spouse.”

Chap, xxv [xxvi], \ 1. Saybrook adds “and ” after “all.”

Chap, [xxvi [xxvii], $ 2. Insert “they and their children after -them” as in
Boston] .

Chap, [xxvi [xxvii], $ 2. Insert sentence at end as in Boston.]

Chap, [xxviii [xxix], \ 2. Add “thereunto ” as in Boston.]

400

TEE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

Chap, [xxix [xxx], \ 3. Add sentence as in Boston ; bat with “instruction ” in-
stead of “institution,” by printer’s error.]

[c. The Baptist Recension , 1677] A | Confession | of Faith, |
put forth by the Elders and Brethren j of many | Congregations
I of 1 Christians | (Baptized upon Profession of their Faith)
| in | London and the Countrey. | The Third Edition. | [Texts
here from Bom. x. 10 and John y. 39] | London : Printed by
S. Bridge in Austin Fry- | ers, for Eben. Tracy at the Three
Bibles on | London Bridge. Will. Marshall at the Bible [ in
Xewgate-Street. And John Marshall at the | Bible in Grace-
Church-Street, 1699.

24mo, pp. [24 ; unnumbered, for title, preface and contents], 106 [2] ; 4j x 24
inches (block of type). Earlier editions appeared 1677, 168S, 1689, and later
editions 1719, 1720, 1791 +. It was adopted in America by tbe Baptist Associa-
tion that met in Philadelphia, September 25. 1742, and was shortly afterwards
printed by Benjamin Franklin : then in the following edition : “A | Confession of
Faith, | put forth | by the | elders and brethren | of many Congregations of Chris-
tians; | (Baptized upon Profession of their Faith) | in London and the Country |

I Adopted by the Baptist Association met at | Philadelphia | September 25,

1742. | With two additional articles, viz : Of Imposition of Hands, | and Singing of
Psalms in Public Worship. | A new edition. | [Texts from Ro. x. 20, and Jno. v.
39] | Burlington, | Printed for W. W. Woodward, Philadelphia, | By S. C. Ustick, |
1810.” | 24mo, pp. ix, 71 -j- 40 (the last forty pages containing “A Short Treatise
Concerning our Discipline ”). An edition was printed at Pittsburgh (S. Williams),
1831. It has been reprinted by Crosby, Hist, of English Baptists, etc. (London,
1740), III. Append, ii, pp. 56 — iii : and by Uxderhill, Confessions of Faith in
illustration of the History of the Baptist Church of England in the Seventeenth
Century (Knolleys Society, London, 1854), pp. 169-246. See Schaff, Creeds of
Christendom, I, 855-6, and III, 738, where are given large extracts from it, illus-
trating its relation to the Westminster Confession. It was translated into Welsh,
1721, and again by the Rev. Joshua Thomas, of Leominster (the painstaking and
careful historian of the Baptists), in 1791. In his preface, Mr. Thomas speaks of
the Confession of 1677 as differing in nothing, so far as substance is concerned,
from the earlier Baptist Confession of 1644, fourth ed. 1652, but altered in form,
“ in order to make it more like tbe Confessions of Faith of the Presbyterians and
of the Independents, except in the matter of Baptism and a few other things”:
“it was printed in Welsh,” he adds, “in 1721: Since then seventy years have
elapsed The present edition is altogether a new translation.”

This Confession, both in England and America, is still in high repute among the
Baptists. It was greatly esteemed by the late Charles Spurgeon, who published it
in cheap form for use among his followers. This “Spurgeou's Edition ” has been
admirably reprinted in America in a beautiful little pamphlet, as follows :

Thirty-two Articles of Christian | Faith and Practice : j Baptist
Confession of Faith, | With Scripture Proofs, | Adopted by
| The Ministers and Messengers | of the | General Assembly,

| which met in London in 1689. | With a | Preface by the
Kev. C. H. Spurgeon. | Wharton, Barron & Company, j 10
E. Fayette St., Baltimore, Md. | 1890.

16mo, pp. 44. The laudatory preface by Mr. Spurgeon is dated in 1S55, which

TIIE PRINTING OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION!. 401

doubtless marks the date of the first issue “ in a cheap form ” of “this most ex-
cellent list of doctrines.”

In the preface prefixed to the Baptist Confession its authors explain that the older
Confession, “put forth about the year 1643 ” was no longer “commonly to be
had” and the time had arrived for a republication of the faith of the Baptist
churches ; and “ finding no defect in this regard ” — that is, in regard to the expres-
sion of the great truths of the Gospel — “in that fixed on by the Assembly, and
after them by those of the Congregational way, we did readily conclude it best to
retain the same Order in our present Confession ” ; and also to follow the example
of “those of the Congregational way’’ in departing very little from the very
words of the Assembly’s Confession. In effect this Confession is nothing other than
the Savoy Declaration somewhat freely interpolated with additional sentences and
clauses, and adapted to the use of the Baptists by an adjustment of its doctrine of
Baptism. The minor alterations introduced run through the whole document and
are very numerous ; but not only do they not change its substance but they leave
it the same Confession even in form.

We shall not attempt to mark here all the changes, but the following list will
indicate their nature by a sufficient display of samples, and will include all of auy
real significance. The numbering of the chapters will follow those of the Savoy
Declaration which this Confession simply repeats :

Chap, i, §1. Prefix “The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain and
infallible Rule of all Saving Knowledge, Faith and Obedience

Chap, ii, \ 1. Remodel at opening, thus : “The Lord our God is but one ouely
living, and true God ; whose subsistence is in and by himself, infinite in being
and perfection, whose Essense cannot be comprehended by any but himself ; a
most pure spirit, etc.”

Chap, ii, $ 3. Remodel, thus: “In this Divine and Infinite Being there are
three subsistences, the Father, the Word (or Son), and Holy Spirit, of one sub-
stance, power and eternity, each having the whole Divine Essense, yet the Essense
undivided, the Father is of none. . . . proceeding from the Father and the Sou,
all infinite, without beginning, therefore but one God, who is not to be divided in
Nature and Being but distinguished by several peculiar, relative Properties, and
personal Relations ; which Doctrine. ...”

Chap, iii, § 1. Remodel, thus: “God hath decreed in himself, from all
eternity, by the most wise and holy Councel of his own Will, freely and unchang-
able (sic), all things whatsoever comes (sic) to pass ; yet so as thereby is God
neither the Author of sin, nor hath fellowship with any therein, nor is violence
offered to the will of the Creature, nor yet is the liberty, or contingency of second
Causes taken away, but rather established, in which appears his Wisdom in dis-
posing all things, and Power, and Faithfulness in accomplishing his Decree .”

Chap, iii, ? 3. Expanded as follows : “By the Decree of God, for the manifesta-
tion of his glory, some Men and ADgels are pre-destinated or fore-ordained to
Eternal Life, through Jesus Christ, to the praise of his glorious grace ; others
being left to act in their sin to their just condemnation, to the praise of his glori-
ous justice.”

Chap, iii, $ 5. The closing clause is modified thus : “ Without any other thing
in the creation as a condition or cause moving him thereunto.”

Chap, iii, $ 7. Omitted, and 8 made $ 7.

Chap, iv, $ 1. Transpose “ in the beginning ” to the commencement of the para-
graph and omit “ out of nothing.”

Chap, v, § 5. Add at end : “ So that whatsoever befals any of his Elect is by his
appointment, for his glory, and their good.”

Chap, vi, £ 1. Rewritten, with a return to the Westminster Confession at the
end, thus : “ Although God created Man upright, and perfect, and gave him a

402

T11E PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

righteous Law, which had been unto Life had he kept it, and threatened Death upon
the breach thereof ; jet he did not long abide in this honour; Satan using the
subtilty of the Serpent to seduce Eve, then by her seducing Adam, who without
any compulsion, did wilfully transgress the Law of their Creation, aDd the Com-
mand given unto them, in eating the forbidden Fruit ; which God was pleased
according to Ms wise and holy Councel to permit, having purposed to order it, to
Ms own glory.”

Chap, vi, $ 3. Add at end : “being now conceived in Sin, and by nature children
of Wrath, the servants of Sin, the subjects of Death, and all other miseries, spir-
itual, temporal and eternal, unless the Lord Jesus set them free.”

Chap, vi, $ 6. Omit altogether.

Chap, vii, § 2. Omit altogether.

Chap, vii, §§ 4, 5. Replaced by a new $ 3, thus : “This Covenant is revealed iu
the Gospel ; first of all to Adam in the promise of Salvation by the Seed of the
Woman, and afterward by further steps, until the full discovery thereof was corn-
pleated in the New Testament ; and it is founded in that Eternal Covenant transac-
tion, that was between the Father and the Son about the Redemption of the Elect;
and it is alone by the Grace of this Covenant, that all of the Posterity of fallen
Adam, that ever were saved, did obtain Life and blessed Immortality ; Man being
now utterly incapable of acceptance with God upon those terms on which Adam
stood in his state of Innocency.”

Chap, viii, $ 6. Instead of “work of Redemption .... wrought” real “Price
of Redemption .... paid.”

Chap, viii, g 8. Add at end : “and all by free, and absolute Grace, without any
condition foreseen in them, to procure it.”

Chap, [viii, $$ 9, 10.] Two sections added, thus: “$ 9. This Office of Mediator
between God and Man, is proper onely to Christ, who is the Prophet, Priest, and
King of the Church of God ; and may not be either in whole or any part thereof
transferr’d from him to any other. \ 10. This number and order of Offices is neces-
sary ; for in respect of our ignorance, we stand in need of his prophetical Office ;
and in respect of our alienation from God and imperfection of the best of our ser-
vices, we need his Priestly Office, to reconcile us, and present us acceptable unto
God : and in respect of our averseness, and utter inability to return to God, and
for our rescue and security from our spiritual adversaries, we need his Kingly
Office, to convince, subdue, draw, uphold, deliver, and preserve ns to his Heavenly
Kingdom.”

Chap, x, $ 1. Omit “ all ” and “ and those only.”

Chap, x, $ 3. Restore the Westminster clause : “ through the Spirit.”

Chap xiii, $ 3. Add at end : “pressing after an Heavenly L:fe, in Evengelical
Obedience to all the Commands which Christ, as Head and King, in his Word
hath prescribed to them.”

Chap, xvii, $ 1. Instead of “ They ’’ at the beginning read “ Those instead of
“ his ” before “ Beloved ” read “ the add after “ Spirit,” “ and given the pre-
cious Faith of his Elect unto and add at end : “ seeing the Gifts and Callings of
God are without Repentance (whence he still begets and nourisheth iu them Faith,
Repentance, Love, Joy, Hope, and all the Graces of the Spirit unto immortality)
and though many storms and floods arise and beat against them, yet they shall
never be able to take them off that Foundation and Rock which by Faith they are
fastned upon ; notwithstanding, through unbelief and the temptations of Satan,
the sensible sight of the light and love of God, may for a time be clouded and ob-
scured from them, yet he is stiil the same, and they shall be sure to be kept by
the Power of God unto Salvation, where they shall enjoy their purchased Possession,
they being engraven upon the Palm of his Hands, and their Names haviug been
written in the Book of Life from all Eternity.”

Chap, xvii, g 3. Substitute for the new closing clause of Savoy the following :

THE PRINTING OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. 403

“yet they shall renew their repentance and be preserved, through faith in Christ
Jesus, to the end.”

Chap, xxiii, § 3. Instead of “neither may any man ....’’ to the end, read :
“for that by rash, false, and vain Oaths, the Lord is provoked, and for them this
land mourns.”

Chap, xxiii, § 4. Omit all after “ reservation.”

Chap, xxiii, §§ 5, 6. Compressed (with some minor adjustments) into one §5.

Chap, xxiv, § 3. Substitute the following : “Civil Magistrates beingset up by God,
for the ends aforesaid, subjection in all lawful things commanded by them, ought
to be yielded by us in the Lord, not only for Wrath, but for Conscience-sake; and
we ought to make Supplications and Prayers for Kings, and all that are in Author-
ity, that under them we may live a quiet and peaceable Life, in all godliness and
honesty.”

Chap, xxiv, § 4. Omit altogether.

Chap, xxvi, § 1. Instead of “ which is invisible ” read “ which (with respect to
the internal work of the Spirit and Truth of Grace) may he called Invisible.”

Chap, xxvi, § 2. Instead of “ The whole body of men ” read “All persons.”

Chap, xxvi, $2. Instead of “Catholique Church of Christ” read “Saints.”

Chap, xxvi, § 2. For “although . . . .” to the end, substitute “and of such
ough*t all particular Congregations to be constituted.”

Chap, xxvi, § 4. Instead of the opening sentence, read ; “ The Lord Jesus Christ

is the Head of the Church, in whom, by the appointment of the Father, all Power

for the Calling, Institution, Order, or Government of the Church is invested in a
supreme and soveraign manner, neither can the Pope,” etc., as in Savoy.

Chap, xxvi, § 5. Omit, and insert eleven new sections, §§ 5-15, in which the whole
Independent doctrine of the Church is developed : § 5. The constitution of par-
ticular churches by the call of individuals by the Spirit and the command of the
Lord that they company together ; § 6. The character of the members as “ Saints by
calling”; § 7. The endowment of each particular church for its function ; $8. The
officers of each church ; § 9. The mode of induction into office ; § 10. The work of
the pastor ; §11. Lay preaching ; § 12 The right of discipline; § 13. The duty of
patience; §14. Communion among the churches; §15. Advisory Councils. The
whole chapter is reprinted by Schaff, op. cit., Ill, pp. 738-741, and may be there
consulted.

Chap, xxvii, § 2. Returns to Westminster at beginning, reading “ Saints by Pro-
fession,” instead of “All Saints ” with Savoy.

Chap, xxvii, §2. After “ which Communion ” insert “according to the Rule of
the Gospel.”

Chap, xxvii, §2. After “extended to all” insert “the Household of Faith,
even all.”

Chap, xxvii, § 2. Add at end : ‘ ‘ Nevertheless their Communion one with another
as Saints, doth not take away or infringe the Title or Propriety which each man
hath in his goods and possessions ” — thus returning to Westminster, ^ 3 ad jin.

Chap, xxviii. Entirely rewritien, with new title, thus :

“ Of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

“§1. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, are Ordinances of positive and soveraign
Institution, appointed by the Lord Jesus the only Law-giver, to be continued in
his Church to the end of the world.

“ § 2. These holy Appointments are to be administered by those only, who are
qualified and thereunto called according to the Commission of Christ.”

Chap, xxix, § 1. Instead of “Sacrament” read “Ordinance.”

Chap, xxix, §1. Instead of “and seal .... regeneration,” read “of his fel-
lowship with him, in his Death and Resurrection ; of his being Engrafted into
him.”

Chap, xxix, § 1. Omit the clause “ which Ordinance . . . .’’to the end.

404

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

Chap, xxix, $ 2 sq. The order of (lie sections is so altered that § 2 of the Savoy
becomes § 3 ; § 3 becomes § 4 ; g 4 becomes \ 2, while $£ 5, 6, 7 are omitted. The
whole runs as follows in its remodeled form :

“ §2. Those who do actually profess Repentance toward God, Faith in, and Obedi-
ence to our Lord Jesus, are the only proper subjects of the Ordinance.

“ $ 3. The out ward Element, to be used in this Ordinance, is Water, wherein the
Party is to be baptized, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Spirit.

“ $ 4. Immersion, or Dipping of the Person in Water, is necessary to the due
Administration of this Ordinance.”

Chap, xxx, $ 1. Remodel at the beginning so as to read: “ The Supper of the
Lord Jesus, was instituted by him, the same Night wherein he was betrayed, to be
observed ’’

Chap, xxx, § 1. Instead of “ the sealing of all benefits thereof unto true believ-
ers ” read “ Confirmation of the Faith of Believers in all the Benefits thereof.”

Chap, xxx, $2. Instead of “Sacrament” read “Ordinance.”

Chap, xxx, $4. Omit down to “ The denial . . .

Iu the American form of this Confession — as set forth under the authorization of
the Baptist Association, met at Philadelphia, September 25, 1742 — there were in-
serted into it two additional chapters. One of these, “Of Singing of Psalms in
Public Worship,” was given place as chapter xxiii ; the other, “Of Laying on of
Hands,” as chapter xxxi — the chapter numbers throughout being adjusted to these
insertions. The former treats the “ singing the praises of God ” as a duty enjoined
oil the Church : by the “ laying on of hands ” is meant just “confirmation.”

[d. American Presbyterian Recension , 1789] The j Constitution |
of the | Presbyterian Church | in the | United States of
America I containing | the | Confession of Faith, | the | Cate-
chisms, | the | Government and Discipline, | and the | Direc-
tory for the worship of God, | Ratified and adopted by the
Synod of INTew York | and Philadelphia, held at Philadelphia
| May the 16th, 1788, and continued by adjourn- | ments
until the 28th of the same month. | Philadelphia : | Printed
by Thomas Bradford, | In Front- streer,, fourth Door below
Market-street. | M DCC LXXXIX.

12mo, pp. [vii], 205 ; 5^ x 2f inches (block of type.) Numerous subsequent edi-
tions, which are listed in The Presbyterian and Reformed Review for
January, 1902, pp. 76 sq., which see.

The preparation of a “Constitution” for itself by the Presbyterian Church in
the United States of America was a measure undertaken preparatory to the division
of the Synod, which had hitherto been the governing body of the young Church, and
the erection of a General Assembly, which latter body met for the first time in
1789. The original Synod had in 1729 adopted the Westminster Confession and
Catechisms under the terms of a “ Declaratory Act,” announcing “the said Con-
fession and Catechisms to be the confession of their faith, excepting only some
clauses in the twentieth and twenty-third chapters, concerning which clauses the
Synod do unanimously declare, that they do not receive those articles in any such
sense as to suppose the civil magistrate hath a controlling power over Synods with
respect to the exercise of their ministerial authority, or power to persecute any
for their religion, or iu any sense contrary to the Protestant succession to the
throne of Great Britain” ( Records of the Presbyterian Church , 1729, p. 93).
As the time approached, however, for the constitution of the General Assembly,

THE PRINTING OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. 405

“ the Synod took into consideration the last paragraph of the twentieth chapter of
the Westminster Confession of Faith ; the third paragraph of the twenty-third
chapter; and the first paragraph of the thirty-first chapter; and having made
some alterations, agreed that the said paragraphs, as now altered, be printed for

consideration And the Synod agreed that when the above alterations in

the Confession of Faith shall have been finally determined on by the body, ....
the said Confession thus altered .... shall be styled ‘The Confession of Faith
. ... of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America’” ( Records ,
etc., 1787, pp. 539-40). Accordingly the next year the proposed alterations were
consummated, and it was ordered “ that the Westminster Confession of Faith, as
now altered, be printed in full .... as making a part of the Constitution ”

( Records , etc., 1788, p. 546). The volume of 1789 was the result, and this altered
form of the Westminster Confession has remained ever since the Confession of
Faith of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, and has as such
also naturally become the Confession of Faith of its daughter Church, the Presby-
terian Church in the United States.

The following are the modifications thus made by the Presbyterian Church in
the United States of America :

Chap, xx, $ 4. Omit at the end, “and by the power of the Civil Magistrate.”

Chap, xxiii, $ 3. The entire section is remodeled so as to read : “Civil magis-
trates may not assume to themselves the administration of the Word and Sacra-
ments ; or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven ; or, in the least
interfere in matters of faith. Yet as nursing fathers, it is the duty of civil magis-
trates to protect the Church of our common Lord, without giving the preference to
any denomination of Christians above the rest, in such a manner that all ecclesi-
astical persons whatever shall enjoy the full, free, and unquestioned liberty of
discharging every part of their sacred functions, without violence or danger. And,
as Jesus Christ hath appointed a regular government and discipline in his Church,
no law of any commonwealth should interfere with, let, or hinder, the due exercise
thereof, among the voluntary members of any denomination of Christians, accord-
ing to their own profession and belief. It is the duty of civil magistrates to
protect the person and good name of all their people, in such an effectual manner
as that no person be suffered, either upon pretense of religion or of infidelity, to
offer any indignity, violence, abuse, or injury to any other person whatsoever : and
to take order, that all religious and ecclesiastical assemblies be held without mol-
estation or disturbance.”

( lvip. xxx, \ 1 Add and it belougetb to the overseers and other rulers of
the particular churches, by virtue of their office, and the power which Christ has
given them for edification and not for destruction, to appoint such assemblies ; and
to convene together in them, as often as they shall judge it expedient for the good
of the Church.”

Chap, xxxi, $ 2. Omit the entire section.

In addition to these modifications, the Presbyterian Church in the United States
of America (but not its daughter Church, the Presbyterian Church in the United
States, commonly known as “ the Southern Presbyterian Church ”) in 1886-7struck
out the last clause of chap, xxiv, $ 4: “The man may not .... of her own
the object being “ to remove any obstacle that may have existed to the marrving
of a deceased wife’s sister, ” but the real effect being to remove the erection of
affinity into a bar to marriage of precisely the same reach as consanguinity.

[e. Associate Reformed Recension , 1799] The | Constitution | and
| Standards | of the j Associate- Reformed Church | in North
America. | New York : | Printed by T. & J. Swords, No. 99
Pearl-street. | 1799.

8vo, pp. 614, 6f x 3^ inches (block of type). There are numerous subsequent
27

406

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

editions, for which see the list in The Presbyterian and Reformed Review,
January, 1902, p. 116 sq.

On the constitution of the Synod of the Associate-Reformed Church. October 31,
1782, the Westminster Confession and Catechisms were declared to be its doctrinal
standards; but a ‘’Declaratory Act’’ was added excluding from this adoption
“the following sections of the Confession of Faith, which define the power of civil
government in relation to religion. Chap, xx, ? 4 ; Chap, xxiii, $ 3 ; Chap, xxxi,
§ 2,’’ (Scouller’s History of the United Presbyterian Church, etc , p. 165). At
the Synod’s meeting, May, 1799, the sections thus excepted were modified, as well
as Larger Catechism Q. 109, and the Confession and Catechisms thus modified
were declared to be the doctrinal standards of that Church, in the terms of the
following act: “The Westminster Confession of Faith, with the Catechisms,
Larger and Shorter, having been formerly received by the Synod, with a reserva-
tion for future discussion of the doctrine respecting the power of the civil magis-
trate in matters of religion ; and the said doctrine being now modified in a
manner more agreeable to the Word of God, to the nature of the Christian Church,
and to the principles of civil society, The Synod do explicitly receive the afore-
said Confession and Catechisms, with the doctrine concerning the civil magistrate
as now stated in the twentieth, twenty-third, and thirty-first chapters of the Con-
fession, as the system of doctrine which is built upon the foundation of the Apos-
tles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone. And the
Synod do hereby declare, that the aforesaid Confession and Catechisms, as herein
received, contain the true and genuine doctrine of the Associate Reformed Church ;
and that no tenet contrary thereto, or any part thereof, shall be countenanced in
this Church ” ( The Constitution, etc., p. 8).

The modifications thus made in the Westminster Confession by the Associate-
Reformed Church of North America are the following :

Chap, [xx, ? 4. For “ power" read “ powers ’’ in first line : doubtless uninten-
tional preservation of a bad reading.]

Chap, xx, $ 4. Modify the last sentence, so as to read : “And for their publish-
ing of such opinions, or maintaining of such practices, as are contrary to the light
of nature, or to the known principles of Christianity, whether concerning faith,
worship, conversation, or the order which Christ hath established in his Church,
they may be lawfully called to account, and proceeded against by the censures of
the church : and in proportion as their erroneous opinions or practices, either in
their own nature, or in the manner of publishing or maintaining them, are des-
tructive to the external peace of the Church, and of civil society, they may be also
proceeded agaiust by the power of the civil magistrate.”

Chap, [xxiii, § 3. Omit “the” before “administration of the word”: doubtless
unintentional variation.]

Chap, xxiii, g 3. Modify from the first clause on — from the word “yet” — so as to
read as follows : “yet, as the gospel revelation lays indispensible obligations upon
all classes of people who are favoured with it, magistrates, as such, are bound to exe-
cute their respective offices in a subserviency thereto, administering government
on Christian principles, and ruling in the fear of God, according to the directions
of his word ; as those who shall give an account to the lord Jesus, whom God hath
appointed to be the judge of the world Hence, magistrates, as such, in a

Christian country, are bound to promote the Christian religion, as the most valu-
able interest of their subjects, by all such means as are not inconsistent with civil
rights ; and do not imply an interference with the policy of the church, which is
the free and independent Kingdom of the Redeemer ; nor an assumption of
dominion over conscience.”

Chap, xxxi, § 2. Substitute the following: “The ministers of Christ, of them-
selves, and by virtue of their office ; or they with other fit persons, upon delegation
from their churches, have the exclusive right to appoint, adjourn, or dissolve such

THE PRINTING OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. 407

Synods or Councils : though, in extraordinary cases, it may be proper for magis-
trates to desire the calling of a Synod of ministers and other fit persons, to consult
and advise with about matters of religion ; and in such cases, it is the duty of the
churches to comply with their desire.”

At the same time there was an amendment made of a single word in the 109 Q.
of the Larger Catechism : “tolerating a false religion ” being altered into “ author-
izing a false religion.”

[f. The United Presbyterian Recension , 1858] The Confession of
Faith agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines at West-
minster, as received by the United Presbyterian Church of
North America, with references to the proofs from the Holy
Scriptures. Philadelphia : William S. Young, 1028 Race
Street. Pittsburgh : William S. Rentoul. 1859.

18mo, pp. 94. See The Presbytekian and Reformed Review, January,
1902, 119, No. lxxxiv.

The | Subordinate Standards | of the | United Presbyterian
Church | of | North America, j Published by authority of
the General Assembly. | [Copyright secured according to
law.] | Pittsburgh : j United Presbyterian Board of Publica-
tion. I 1867.

16mo, pp. v, 593 + 76 + 24 -f 12. Many other editions ; see The Presby-
terian and Reformed Review, January 1902, p. 119, No. lxxxv sq.

The United Presbyterian Church of North America is the result of a union
effected in 1858 between the two churches known as The Associate-Reformed
Church and The Associate Presbyterian Church. This union brought into one
General Assembly the great body of American “Seceders.” The Associate-
Reformed Church had modified the Westminster Confession (see above under
e) at Chap, xx, § 4, xxiii, 3, xxx, 2. The Associate Presbyterian Church had
retained the Westminster Confession unaltered, but in its “Testimony” had,
without passing judgment on the doctrine of the Confession, expressed its
own view of the relation of Church and State in a manner which shows that
it was much the same as that of the Associate-Reformed.

In this document, which was a term of communion, it had said: “We do
therefore assert, that, as the kingdom of Christ is spiritual, acknowledging no
other laws and no other rulers than he lias appointed in it, so the civil magis-
trate, as such, is no ruler in the Church of Christ ; and has no right to interfere
in the administration of its government. He is bound to improve every oppor-
tunity which his high station and extensive influence may give him, for pro-
moting the faith of Christ, for opposing the enemies of this faith, for supporting
and encouraging true godliness, and for discouraging whatever in principle or
practice, is contrary to it. But to accomplish these ends it is not warrantable
for him to use any kind of violence either towards the life, the property or
the consciences of men. He ought not to punish any as heretics or schismatics,
nor ought he to grant any privileges to those whom he judges professors of
the true religion, which may hurt others in their natural rights. His whole
duty as a magistrate respects men, not as Christians, but as members of civil
society. The appointed means for promoting the kingdom of Christ are all of

a spiritual nature If any article of our Confession of Faith seems to

give any other power to the civil magistrate, in matters of religion, than
what we have now declared to be competent to him, we are to be considered

408

TEE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

as receiving it only in so far as it agrees with other articles of the same Con-
fession, in which the spiritual nature of the Church is asserted, and the keys
of the kingdom of heaven denied to belong to the civil magistrate; and in
so far as it agrees wTith this declaration of our principles.”

When the two Synods came together it was agreed that the Westminster Con-
fession should he printed intact, while modifications of it at xx, 4, xxiii, 3, xxxi>
2, should be printed in a parallel column alongside of these sections of the orig-
inal. Misunderstanding was further guarded against by publishing in ‘‘The
Testimony of the United Presbyterian Church ” — which is of equal authority
with the Confession itself — not only an article on ‘‘The Headship of Christ,” in
which the spiritual nature of the Church is insisted upon, but also (in the
Introduction) a comprehensive Declaration covering the wrhole subject. This
Declaration is as follows: ‘‘To these Westminster Standards (including the
Confession of Faith, Catechisms — Larger and Shorter — the Form of Presby-
terial Church Government, and Directory for the Public Worship of God), we,
as a church, declare our adherence, as containing a true exhibition of our
faith as a branch of the Church of Christ. In making this declaration of
adherence, we are not to be understood as giving our unqualified approba-
tion of the principles respecting the power of the civil magistrate, as they
are set forth in chap. 20tli, sec 4th ; chap. 23d, sec. 3d ; chap. 31st, sec. 2d, of
the Westminster Confession. The language there employed has been vari-
ously interpreted, and by many thought to be inconsistent with that ‘ lib-
erty of conscience’ and that ‘distinct government in the hands of church
officers’ which the Confession, itself recognizes. For this reason we have
deemed it a duty, without passing any judicial opinion in relation to the
meaning of these parts of the Confession, to exhibit in a parallel column
the acknowledged doctrine of this Church — leaving it to every reader to form
his own opinion as to the agreement or disagreement between the views thus
set forth. This course we have been led to adopt, from a desire to avoid
doing violence to that feeling of veneration, which all true Presbyterians cher-
ish for this standard of faith to which the Church, under God, is so much
indebted ; and, at the same time, to discharge a duty that is resting upon us,
to exhibit clearly and fully what we believe to be the principles of divine
truth on this subject” ( Subordinate Standards, etc., p. 540).

It might have been expected that, for these new statements of doctrine, to
be printed alongside of the text of the Confession at the designated points,
the sections prepared by the Associate-Reformed Church in 1799 would be
adopted. On the contrary, however, entirely new sections were drawn up,
in which (especially in that printed alongside of xxiii, 3) the influence of the
modifications prepared by the Presbyterian Church in the United States of
America in 1788 is apparent. These United Presbyterian modifications are as
follows (we have used the edition of Ihe Subordinate Standards, etc., printed
in 1867 ) :

Chap, xx, § 4. “ And because the powers which God hath ordained, and the

liberty wiiicli Christ hath purchased, are not intended by God to destroy, but
mutually to uphold and preserve one another ; they who upon pretense of
Christian liberty, shall oppose any lawful power, or the lawful exercise of
it, whether it be civil or ecclesiastical, resist the ordinance of God. And for
the publishing of such opinions, or maintaining such practices as are con-
trary to the light of nature or to the known principles of Christianity,
whether concerning faith, worship or conversation, or to the powrer of godli-
ness ; or such erroneous opinions or practices as, either in their own nature or
in the manner ofpublishing or maintaining them, are destructive to the extea-
nal peace and order which Christ has established iu the Church ; they ought
to be called to account and proceeded against by the censures of the Churc h

THE PRINTING OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. 409

if they belong to her Communion, and thus he amenable to her own spiritual
authority. And as the civil magistrate is the minister of God for good to the
virtuous, and a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil, he is
therefore bound to suppress individuals and combinations, whatever may be
their avowed objects, whether political or religious, whose principles and
practices, openly propagated and maintained, are calculated to subvert the
foundations of properly constituted society.”

Chap, xxiii, § 3. ‘‘The civil magistrate may not assume to himself the
administration of the Word and Sacraments, or the power of the keys of
the Kingdom of heaven, or in the least interfere to regulate matters of faith
and worship. As nursing fathers, magistrates are bound to administer their
government according to the revealed principles of Christianity, and improve
the opportunities which their high station and extensive influence afford in
promoting the Christian religion as their most valuable interest and the good
of the people demand, by all such means as do not imply any infringement
of the iuherent rights of the Church ; or any assumption of dominion over
the consciences of men. They ought not to punish any as heretics or schis-
matics. No authoritative judgment concerning matters of religion is compe-
tent to them, as their authority extends only to the external works or practices
of their subjects as citizens, and not as Christians. It is their duty to protect
the Church, in such a manner that all ecclesiastical persons shall enjoy the
full, free and unquestioned liberty of discharging every part of their sacred
functions without violence or danger. They should enact no law which
would in any way interfere with, or hinder the due exercise of government
or discipline established by Jesus Christ in His Church. It is their duty, also,
to protect the person, good name, estate, natural and civil rights of all their
subjects, in such a way that no person be suffered upon any pretence to vio-
late them ; and to take order that all religious and ecclesiastical assemblies be
held without molestation or disturbance. God alone being Lord of the con-
science, the civil magistrate may not compel any under his civil authority to
worship God contrary to the dictates of their own consciences, yet it is com
petent in him to restrain such opinions, and punish such practices, as tend to
subvert the foundations of civil society and violate the common rights of
men.”

Chap, xxxi, § 2. “We declare that as the Church of Jesus Christ is a king-
dom distinct from and independent of the State, having a government, laws,
office-bearers and all spiritual powers peculiar to herself, for her own edifica-
tion ; so it belongs exclusively to the ministers of Christ, together with other
fit persons, upon delegation from their churches, by virtue of their office and
the intrinsic power committed to them, to appoint their own assemblies and to
convene together in them, as often as they shall judge it expedient for the
good of the Church.”

In Q. 109 of the Larger Catechism, the alteration made by the Associate-
Reformed Synod of 1799 is not retained, but the Westminster “tolerating”
is reverted to.

[g. The Cumberland Recension , 1814] [g1. 1815] The [ Constitu-
tion | of the | Cumberland Presbyterian Church, | in the |
United States of America : | containing | the Confession of
Faith, a Catechism, | the Government and Discipline, | and
the Directory for the | Worship of God. | .Ratified and
adopted by the Synod of Cumber- | land, held at Sugg’s
Creek, in Tennessee | State, April the 5th, 1814, and con-
tinued by | adjournments, until the 9tli of the same month. |

410

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

Nashville, T. | Printed by M. & J. Norvell, | for the Pub-
lishers. | 1815.

12mo, pp. vi, 154 ; 5§ x 2§ inches (block of type) ; neatly bound in leather.
There is a page of errata on the back of the title-page : then come the address
“To the Christian Reader,” occupying two pages ; a Table of Contents occupy-
ing two pages ; and then the Text of the Confession with the proof-references
(but not the passages) inserted at the end of each chapter. The Catechism is
a modified Shorter Catechism: the Westminster Larger Catechism was not
retained in the Cumberland formularies. There are copies of this edition in
the libraries of Prof. J. V. Stephens, D.D., of Lebanon, Tenn., and of the Rev.
Henry C. McCook, D.D., of Philadelphia. A description of this edition has
been printed by Dr. McCook in the Journal of the Presbyterian Historical
Society for December, 1901 (vol. I, No. 2), p. 209. Compare also the full
account of its origin given by Prof. Stephens in an article, entitled The Evolu-
tion of the Confession of Faith of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, printed
in the Cumberland Presbyterian Quarterly for April, 1902.

The Cumberland Presbytery, which was constituted in 1810, retained the
standards of the Presbyterian Church as its constitution, with an express per-
mission, however, of liberty in the matter of Predestination. The compact
entered into by the founders of this new body, February 4, 1810, included the
following paragraph: “All candidates for the ministry who may hereafter be
licensed by this Presbytery, and all licientiates and probationers who may
hereafter be ordained by this Presbytery, shall be required, before such licen-
sure and ordination, to receive and adopt the Confession and Discipline of the
Presbyterian Church, except the idea of fatality, which seems to be taught
under the mysterious doctrine of Predestination. It is to be understood, how-
ever, that such as can clearly receive the Confession without exception, shall
not be required to make any” ( A Circular Letter issued by order of the
Cumberland Presbytery in 1810, pp. 11, 12 ; cf. Stephens, l.c.). At the spring
meeting of the Presbytery, 1813, provision was made for its division into three
Presbyteries and the formation of a Synod, to convene for the first time in the
ensuing October, and Messrs. Finis Ewing and Robert Donnell were appointed
“a committee to draft a complete, though succinct account of the rise, doc-
trines, etc., of the Cumberland Presbytery.” On October 6 the report of this
committee was made to the Synod, and the report was approved and ordered
to lie printed in the Third American edition of Buck’s Theological Dictionary,
where it duly appeared on the issue of that book (Philadelphia : W. W. Wood-
ward, 1814, pp. 38G-389). In this report the declaration of the relation of the
new church to the Presbyterian standards made by the Cumberland Presbytery
in 1810 was repeated, but the indeterminate position there taken up as to the
doctrine of Predestination is evacuated by the addition of the positive declara-
tion that the Cumberland Presbyterians “dissent from the Confession ....
in 1st. That there are no eternal reprobates. — 2d. That Christ died not for a
part only, but for all mankind. — 3d. That all infants, dying in infancy, are
saved through Christ and the sanctification of the Spirit. — 4th. That the Spirit
of God operates on the world, or as co-extensively as Christ has made atonement,
in such a manner as to leave all men inexcusable.” There is the germ of a new
creed here; and of a new creed which should not run on precisely the same
lines with the Westminster Confession. In the presence of this declaration of
doctrine the retention of the unaltered Westminster Standards as the norm of
doctrine of the Church were a gross inconsistency. We cannot be surprised,
therefore, to learn that at the same meeting the Synod made provision for the
drafting of a new creed. On October 7, 1813, the following minute was
adopted : “After much deliberation the Synod came to the following resolu-

THE PRINTING OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. 4 11

tion, to wit : The period having come when a distinct Confession of Faith,
Catechism and Discipline appear to be necessary for the distinct society of the
Cumberland Presbyterians ; Resolved , therefore, that William McGee, Robert
Donnell, Thomas Calhoun and Finis Ewing be appointed a committee to draw
up and prepare for the press a Confession, Catechism and Discipline in con-
formity to the avowed principles of this body, to be ready by the next meeting
of this body.”

‘‘This committee,” we are told, ‘‘simply read over the Westminster Confes-
sion, item by item, changing or expunging such expressions as did not suit
them. This process was repeated” (Foster, A Sketch of the History of the
Cumberland Presbyterian Church, in the “American Church History Series,”
xi, 305) The report was made to the Synod at a meeting held in April, 1814 :
“The committee appointed by the Synod for the purpose of compiling a Con-
fession upon the avowed principles of this body, being enquired at, reported
that they have complied with the order and proceeded to read.” The result was
the adoption of the above-named Confession by a unanimous vote. “Messrs.
Finis Ewing and Hugh Kirkpatrick have mutually agreed to print the Confes-
sion of Faith of the Cumberland Presbyterians, at eighty-seven and one-half
cents per copy, upon good writing paper, neatly bound and lettered, to which
the Synod was unanimously agreed.”

In the preface of this book, addressed “to the Christian reader,” the Synod
said : “With respect to the Confession, it will be seen the Synod have adopted
many whole chapters of the old [Westminster] almost verbatim. In others
they have retained part and expunged part, sometimes adding a section, or a
part of a section, to make the sense more full and more compatible with their
ideas of the gospel. They have endeavored to erase from the old Confession
the idea of fatality only, which has long since appeared to them to be taught
in a part of that book. But, notwithstanding the Synod have ventured to
model, to expunge and to add to the Confession of the General Presbyterian
Church, yet they are free to declare that they think, in the main, that to be an
admirable work, especially to be performed so shortly after Roman supersti-
tion and idolatry had almost covered the whole Christian world.”

[g3. 1821] The j Constitution | of the | Cumberland Presbyterian
Church, | in the | United States of America : | containing |
The Confession of Faith, A Catechism, the | Government
and Discipline, and I the Directory for the [ Worship of God.

I Ratified and adopted by the Synod of Cumberland, held j
at Sugg’s Creek, in Tennessee State, April the 5th, | 1814,
and continued by adjournments, until the 9th of | the same
month. | Russellville : | Printed by Charles Rhea, | for the
Publishers. ] 1821.

8vo, pp. 4 unnumbered, with the one at the back of title-page blank, 137.
and 3 unnumbered at the back of the book, containing table of contents;

x 31 inches (block of type) ; neatly printed and bound in leather. This is
substantially a reprint of the 1815 edition in somewhat larger type. The same
rule is followed in reference to the proof-texts. Russellville is a small town in
Kentucky, about 140 miles southwest of Louisville. There are copies in the
libraries of Dr. Stephens, of Lebanon, Tenn., and Dr. McCook, of Philadelphia.
A description of this edition has been printed by Dr. McCook, loc. cit., p. 210.

[g3. 1830] The | Constitution | of the | Cumberland Presbyterian
| Church, | in the U, States of America : | containing | The

412

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

Confession of Faith ; A Catechism ; | The Government and
Discipline ; A | Directory for the Worship of God. | Second
Edition. | Revised and Adopted by the | General Assembly
at Prince- | ton, Ky. May 1829. | Fayetteville : | Printed by
Ebenezer and J. B. Hill, j 1830.

Pp. iv, 177, and 3 unnumbered at back, containing table of contents ; 4 x
2£ inches (block of type) ; bound in leather ; proof-texts, as in former editions,
only cited. The place of printing, Fayetteville, is a small town in Tennessee,
about 75 miles south of Nashville. This edition owes its origin to the division
of the Synod and the organization of a General Assembly, which took place in
1829. It is called the “second edition,” doubtless in contrast to the Synodical,
editions, which together are counted as one, because the first edition, that is
form, of the “Constitution.” At the meeting in 1829 a Committee was appointed
“to revise and prepare for publication those parts of the Form of Government
of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, which require alteration, in order to
adapt them to the constitution of a General Assembly.” This Committee sub-
mitted a report which was approved ; and the Rev. Robert Donnell and Samuel
Harris were appointed “to superintend the publication of 5000 copies,” the
edition appearing in 1830. This edition differs from the former in the “Form
of Government,” where Chap, x, “Of the Synodical Assembly,” is so modified
as to make the Synod a subordinate instead of the highest Church court, and
two chapters are added, one on “The General Assembly ” and one on “ Com-
missioners to the General Assembly.”

There is a copy of this edition in the library of Dr. Stephens, of Lebanon,
Tenn. ; and a description of it is published by Dr. McCook in the Journal of
the Presbyterian Historical Society for March, 1902 (vol. I, No. 3), p. 2 4.

[g4. 1834] The [ Constitution | of the | Cumberland Presbyterian
Church, j in the | United States of America : | containing |
The Confession of Faith, The Catechism, and A | Directory
for the Worship of God: | together with the | Form of Gov-
ernment and Discipline, | As Revised and Adopted by the
General Assembly | at Princeton, Ky. May, 1829. | Third
Edition, j Nashville : | Printed by James Smith j 1834.

16mo, pp. 334, and 3 unnumbered at the back, containing the table of con-
tents ; 4| x 3 inches (block of type) ; well printed and bound in leather. In
the heading of the “ Preface” the words “to the First Edition” are omitted : and
the note, previously occurring at the bottom of the first page of the address “ To
the Christian Reader,” explaining the omission of the Larger Catechism no
longer appears. This is the first edition in which the proof-texts are printed in
full (and not merely cited by reference, as in earlier editions, except in part of
chap, xvii, on the Perseverance of the Saints, in which chapter some of the
texts are given at large in the earlier editions). In both the 1834 aDd the 1837
editions Mr. Smith added a note of explanation in reference to “the keys of the
kingdom,” as found in the Confession of Faith, chap, xxx, section ii. The
General Assembly approved the note as it appeared iu the 1834 edition. The
same note appeared in all subsequent editions, so far as is known, until the
Revised Confession appeared (1883).

No authority can be found authorizing Mr. Smith to print an edition of the
Confession, though it is probable that the General Assembly did give its sanc-
tion, from the fact that Mr. Smith was at that time editing and printing the

TEE PRINTING OF TEE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION 413

Cliurch paper. He was well prepared, in those days, with a steam press to do
good work. Mr. Smith was of Scotch descent ; a very able minister, and died
in Scotland during the Civil War, whither he had gone by the appointment of
President Lincoln upon some mission.

There are copies of this edition in the library of Dr. Stephens, Lebanon,
Tenn., and in the Library of Congress, Washington (kindly reported by
Allen R. Boyd, Esq., Secretary of the Library) ; and a description of it is
printed by Dr. McCook, l.c., p. 254.

[g5. 1887] The | Constitution | of the | Cumberland Presbyterian
Church, | containing | The Confession of Faith, Catechism, |
and A Directory for the Worship of God: | together with
the [ Form of Government and Discipline, | As Revised and
Adopted by the General | Assembly at Princeton, Ky. |
May 1829. | Fourth Edition. | Nashville : | Printed at
Smith’s Steam Press. | 1837.

Pp. 296, and 3 unnumbered at the back, containing the table of contents ;
4x9f x 2§ inches (block of type) ; well printed and bound in leather. This is a
reprint of the 1834 edition. Observe the omission from the title-page, of the
words “in the United States of America.” There is a copy of tins edition in
the library of Dr. Stephens, of Lebanon, Tenn., and it is described by Dr.
McCook, l.c., pp. 254-255.

[g6. 1843 J The | Constitution j of the | Cumberland Presbyterian
Church | in the | United States of America. | Containing |
The Confession of Faith ; the Catechism ; | and A Directory
for the Worship of God. | Together with the Form of | Gov-
ernment and Discipline. | Revised and Adopted by the
General Assembly, | at Princeton, Ky., May, 1829. j Pitts-
burg : | Printed by Arthur A. Anderson. | 1843.

Pp. 178, and 12 pages at the back of the book, containing “General Rules
for Judicatories” and table of contents; 4^ x 2| inches (block of type). The
prefatory matter is identical with that of the editions of 1830, 1834, 1837,
except that references to Mr. Smith’s History in two footnotes in the edition of
1837 are omitted. The footnote on the Larger Catechism reappears. The main
difference between this edition and its immediate predecessors is indicated b}r
a footnote on p. 80 : “ Note. The reader will perceive that we have merely
given the chapter and verse in the Scripture references. 1st. Because in read-
ing the references it is more satisfactory to us to have the Bible in our hand,
and from the references to turn to the chapter and verse, and examine it in its
connection. It is a little additional labor, but the compensation to the reader
is ample. 2d, We asked the opinion of several brethren who unhesitatingly
said it was the better way, not only for the reason mentioned, but in order to
reduce the price of the book in these hard times and secure for it a better circu-
lation.” To Avhom the “we” (the publishers) in this note refers cannot posi-
tively be determined, though it is altogether likely that the Rev. Dr. Milton
Bird was the responsible publisher of this edition as of the immediately subse-
quent one ; and it is also probable that he was acting in this under the author-
ity of the Synod of Pennsylvania. The Rev. Dr. B. W. McDonold, in his
Eistory of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, p. 313, says: “For several
years each Synod made its own arrangements about having the Confession of

414

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

Paitli and Catechism published.” This and the immediately subsequent edi-
tions are the only ones we have met with which seem to fall under this state-
ment.

There is a copy of this edition in the library of Dr. Stephens, of Lebanon,
Tenn. ; and Dr. McCook describes it, l.c., p. 255.

[g‘. 1844J The | Confession of Faith | of the | Cumberland Pres-
bjTerian Church | in the | United States of America |
Revised and Adopted by the General Assent- | bly, at Prince-
ton, Ky., May, 1829. | Stereotyped by J. A. James. | Pitts-
burgh : | Published by Milton Bird. | A. A. Anderson,
Printer. | 1844.

Pp. x, 286 ; x 2f inches (block of type). The proof-texts are printed in
full. This seems to be the first edition of the Cumberland Confession that was
printed from stereotyped plates. The Board of Publication of the Cumberland
Presbyterian Church, which was organized in 1847, acquired these plates and
issued editions from them. Certainly as many as four editions were issued by
the Board from them, viz. — 1848, [1850] , [1851 ], [1855], as given below. This
is the first edition bearing the title “The Confession of Faith,” etc.

There is a copy of this edition in the library of Rev. Dr. Stephens, of Leba-
non, Tenn. ; and another was reported to us by the Robert Clark Co., Cincin-
nati, Ohio (letter of January 22, 1902).

[g8. 1848] The | Confession of Faith | of the | Cumberland Presby-
terian Church | in the | United States of America | Revised
and Adopted by the General Assem- j bly at Princeton, Ky.,
May, 1829 | Stereotyped by J. A. James | Published | By Cum-
berland Presbyterian Board | Of Publication | 1848.

Pp. x, 286 ; 4£ x 2f inches (block of type); neatly printed and bound in
leather. Proof-texts are printed in full. This edition is from the same plates
as that mentioned immediately previously. There is a copy in the library of
the Rev. Dr. Stephens, of Lebanon, Tenn. ; and it is listed by Dr. McCook, as
cited, p. 256. See below under gu as to place of publication.

[g9. 1850] The | Confession of Faith | of the | Cumberland Pres-
byterian Church | in the | United States of America | Revised
and Adopted by the General Assem- | bly, at Princeton,
Kv., May, 1829 j Stereotyped by J. A. James | Published
| By Cumberland Presbyterian Board | of Publication. | [No
date].

Pp. x, 286 ; 4^ x 2| inches (block of type). This edition is printed from the
same plates from which the immediately preceding editions were printed.
Like the edition of 1848, it has nothing to show where the printing was done, but
evidently Louisville was the place. It will also be observed that this imprint
has no date. The annual report of the Board for 1849-50 shows that an edition
of 5000 copies of the Confession had been got out. Whether this was done in
1849 or 1850 cannot be positively determined, but probably it was done in 1850,
and there is reason to believe that this edition is the one thus mentioned.
There is a copy of it in the library of the Rev. Dr. Stephens, of Lebanon, Tenn.

[g10. 1851] The | Confession of Faith | etc. [as in the immediately
preceding edition].

There is a copy of this issue in the library of the Rev. Dr. Stephens, of

THE PRINTING OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. 415

Lebanon, Tenn. The condition of the plates as revealed in the printing shows
it to be a later issue than that of [1850], from which it otherwise differs in no
respect : it also seems inferrible from the report of the Board of 1851 that such
an edition was issued — though that fact is not affirmed ; the number of copies
reported in stock, however, as compared with earlier reports, appears to imply
that a new issue had been made.

[g11. 1855] The | Confession of Faith | of the | Cumberland Pres-
byterian Church | in the | United States of America | Re-
vised and Adopted by the General Assem- | bly, At Prince-
ton, Ky., 1829. | Stereotyped by J. A. James. | Published |
By Cumberland Presbyterian Board ] Of Publication | [No
date].

There is a copy of this edition in the library Dr. Stephens, Lebanon, Tenn.
The date of its issue is determined from the report of the Board. The Board of
Publication of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church was at its organization
located at Louisville, Ky., and had its work done in that city by contract.
Doubtless both this and the editions mentioned immediately before it (which
do not record the place of publication) were issued from that place.

[g12. 1860] The | Confession of Faith | of the | Cumberland Pres-
byterian Church | in the j United States of America. | Re-
vised and Adopted by the General Assem- | bly at Princeton,
Ky., May, 1829. | Nashville, Tenn.: | Board of Publication
of the Cumberland | Presbyterian Church. 1 1860.

Pp. iv, 272 ; 44 x 2f inches (block of type); excellent job of printing and
binding. The proof-texts are printed in full. On the back of the title-page is
found: “Printed by A. A. Stitt | Southern Methodist Publishing House, |
Nashville, Tenn.’’ | The Board of Publication, then located at Nashville,
reported in 1860 that new plates of the Confession had been made and that
1008 copies had been printed from these plates. Great pains were taken to
procure an exact set of plates on this occasion. All the imprints of this Confes-
sion from I860 to 1880 — of which there were at least eleven — were made from
these plates.

A copy of this edition is in the library of the Rev. Dr. Stephens, of Lebanon,
Tenn.

[g13. 1861] The | Confession of Faith | of the | Cumberland Pres-
byterian Church | in the | United States of America. | Re-
vised and Adopted by the General Assem- | bly, at Princeton,
Ky., May, 1829. | Nashville, Tenn.: | Board of Publication
of the Cumberland | Presbyterian Church. | 1861.

Pp. iv, 272; 4^ x 2f inches (block of type); excellent job of printing and
binding. From the same plates as the immediately preceding edition. There
are copies in the libraries of the Rev, Drs. Stephens, of Lebanon, Tenn., and
McCook, of Philadelphia ; and it is described by Dr. McCook in the Journal
of the Presbyterian Historical Society for December, 1901 (I, ii), p. 211.

[g14. 1864] The | Confession of Faith | of the j Cumberland Pres-
byterian Church | in the | United States of America. | Re-
vised and Adopted by the General Assem- | bly, at Prince-

416

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

ton, Ky., May, 1829. | Pittsburgh : | Board of Publication of
the Cumberland | Presbyterian Church. | 1864.

32mo, 4T95 x 2-[§ inches (block of type), pp. 272. Pages iii-iv contain the
“Preface”; pages 5-7, the “Contents”; p. 8 is blank; pages 9-167 contain
“The Confession of Faith ” with proof-texts in full ; pages 168-189, the “Cate-
chism ” ; pp. 190-234, the “ Form of Government and Discipline ” ; pages 239-
242, the “ Form of Process ” ; pages 243-272, the “ Directory for the Worship
of God.” The Publication work of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church was
carried on at Pittsburgh during the course of the Civil War : this is one of the
issues of the Confession made in this period. There are copies of this edition in
the libraries of the Theological Seminary at Princeton, and of Dr. Stephens, of
Lebanon, Tenn.

[g15- 1866] [The | Confession of Faith | etc. [as in the immedi-
ately preceding edition] | Pittsburgh : | Board of Publication
of the Cumberland | Presbyterian Church. | 1866.]

No copy of this issue has turned up: but its manufacture is reported in the
Report of the Board of Publication for 1866. So the Rev. Dr. Stephens reports.
It is possible, of course, that this issue was taken from the plates without
changing the date-line (1864).

[g16. 1867] The | Confession of Faith | of the | Cumberland Pres-
byterian Church | in the | United States of America. |
Revised and Adopted by the General Assem- | bly, at Prince-
ton, Ky., May, 1829. | Nashville, Tenn.: | Board of Publica-
tion of the Cumberland | Presbyterian Church. J 1867.

Pp. iv, 272 ; 4£ x 2f inches (block of type). This imprint is made from the
same plates described in No. 12. The imprints of 1864 and [1866] at Pittsburgh
were also made from the same plates. There is a copy in the library of the
Rev. Dr. Stephens, of Lebanon, Tenn.

[g17. 1868] The | Confession of Faith j etc. [as in the preceding
edition,] | Nashville, Tenn.: | Board of Publication of the
Cumberland | Presbyterian Church. | 1868.

From the same plates as the preceding edition. There is a copy in the
library of the Rev. Dr. Stephens, of Lebanon, Tenn.

[g18. 1869] The | Confession of Faith | etc. [as in the pre-
ceding edition] | Nashville, Tenn.: \ Board of Publication of
the Cumberland | Presbyterian Church. | 1869.

A reprint of the preceding edition : the report of the Board of Publication
shows that 1000 copies were printed off in 1869. There is a copy in the library
of the Rev. Dr. Stephens, of Lebanon, Tenn.

[g19. 1870] The | Confession of Faith | etc. [as above], | 1870.

From the same plates. A “ Manual ” of fourteen pages was bound in at the
end of this edition, and this is continued in all succeeding editions, except that
of 1872 (g':0 below, p. 417), from which the “Manual ’\is dropped. There is a
copy of this edition in the library of the Rev. Dr. Stephens, of Lebanon. Tenn.

THE PRINTING OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. 417

[g20. 1872] The | Confession of Faith, | etc. [as above]. | 1872.

From the same plates. In the library of Dr. Stephens. The “Manual” is
omitted .

[g21. 1871] The | Confession of Faith | etc. [as above], 1874.

From the same plates. In the library of Dr. Stephens. The “Manual” is
restored.

[g22. 1875] The | Confession of Faith | of the [ Cumberland
Presbyterian Church j in the United States of America. |
etc. [as in the immediately preceding editions]. Nashville,
Tenm, | Cumberland Presbyterian Publishing House. | T. C.
Blake, D.D., Publishing Agent. | 41 Union St. | 1875.

32mo, pp. 286 : same contents as the immediately preceding editions, includ-
ing addition at end of a “ Manual | of the | Cumberland Presbyterian Church,

| adopted by the | General Assembly | at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, May,
1869 ” | pp. 273-286. There is a copy in Dr. Stephens’ library and there is
also a copy in the library of the Rev. Dr. Henry C. McCook, Philadelphia, Pa.,
who has also described it, loc. cit., p. 211. This appears to be the first edition
bearing the name of Mr. Blake on the title-page.

[g23. 1878] The | Confession of Faith | of the | Cumberland Pres
byterian Church | in the | United States of America. | etc.
[as in the immediately preceding editions]. | Nashville,
Tenn.: | Cumberland Presbyterian Publishing House. | T. C.
Blake, D.D., Publishing Agent. | 41 Union Street. | 1878.

32mo, pp. iv, 5, 286. There is a copy in the Library of Congress, Washing-
ton, D.C. ; and another in Dr. Stephens’ library.

[g2b 1879] The | Confession of Faith | of the | Cumberland Pres-
byterian Church | of the | United States of America. | lie-
vised and Adopted by the General Assem- | bly, at Prince-
ton, Ky., May, 1829. | Nashville, Tenn.: | Board of Publica-
tion, C. P. Church. | 1879.

32mo, pp. iv, 286 ; 4X\ x 2x9g- inches (block of type). Same contents as in
preceding edition. There are copies in the libraries of the Theological Semi-
nary at Princeton and of Dr. Stephens, Lebanon, Tenn.

[g25. 1880] The | Confession of Faith | of the [ Cumberland Pres-
byterian Church | of the | United States of America. | etc.
[as in the immediately preceding edition], | Nashville, Tenn.:

| Board of Publication, C. P. Church. | 1880.

32mo, pp. iv ; 286 ; 4,% x 2X\ inches (block of type). Same contents as in
preceding edition. There are copies in the libraries of the Theological Semi-
nary at Princeton, and of the Rev. Dr. Stephens, Lebanon, Tenn.

In the list above given we have probably been able to enumerate most, if not
all, of ihe issues of the first form of tlie Cumberland Confession of Faith. We
have been enabled to do so chiefly by a very full catalogue and description of
editions put at our disposal by the Rev. Dr. J. V. Stephens, of Lebanon, Tenn.,
from whose notes we have drawn with the utmost freedom. Dr. Stephens has

418

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

copies of the following issues in his library, viz.: — 1815, 1821, 1830, 1834, 1837,
1843, 1844, 1848, 1850, 1851, 1855, 1800, 1801, 1804, 1807, 1808, 1869, 1870, 1872,
1874, 1875, 1878, 1879, 1880, — that is, of all the issues noted above, except that
of 1866. We have also enjoyed the benefit of communications from Dr. Henry
C. McCook, of Philadelphia, and have availed ourselves of the two papers he
has printed on the subject in successive numbers of the Journal of the Presby-
terian Historical Society (I, ii and iii). The latter of these papers is based on
information furnished chiefly by the Rev. W. A. Provine, of Columbia, Tenn.

The history of the formation of this Confession has already been outlined in
the notes under its initial issue, supplemented by those under the immediately
subsequent issues. The Constitution completed for the first Assembly (1829),
and published in its perfected form in 1830, continued to be of force in the
Cumberland Presbyterian Church until 1883, when a revised Constitution was
adopted.

The following are the principal changes introduced by the Cumberland
revision of 1813-1814 into the Westminster Confession That is, of course into
the Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian Church of the United States of
America — for it was this recension of the West minster Confession that was in the
hands of the fathers of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and from it that
they marked their divergences. No attempt has been made to record all the
variations that appear in the printed text. Many changes of punctuation occur, —
apparently, however, only accidentally ; and it is hard to believe that some of
the changes in words also are not accidental. The list given below con-
tains all the changes that are of significance and a sufficient number of the
more minute variations to serve as a sample of the whole. The text used for
the comparison is that of the issue of 1880.

Chap, i, § 1, last clause. Instead of “the Holy Scripture ” read “the whole
Scripture.”

Chap, i, § 2, first clause. Instead of “ Scripture ” read “ Scriptures.”

Chap, i, § 3. Omit “of” before “no authority.”

Chap, i, § 5. Omit “ the ” before “ efficacy.’’

Chap, i, § 8. Omit “to be ” before “translated.”

Chap, ii, §3. Omit the whole of last sentence : ‘ The Father is of none ....
the Son.”

Chap, iii, § 1. Remodel so as to read : “God did, by the most wise and
holy counsel of his own will, determine to act or bring to pass what should be
for his own glory.”

Chap, iii, §2. Remodel so as to read: “God has not decreed anything
respecting his creature man, contrary to his revealed will or written word ;
which declares his sovereignty over all his creatures, the ample provision he
has made for their salvation, his determination to punish the finally impenitent
with everlasting destruction, and to save the true believer with an everlasting
salvation.”

Chap, iii, g, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Omit entirely : but a very long note is attached
to the end of g 2 arguing the whole question of the Decree of God : this note
may be found extracted in Schaff’s Creeds of Christendom, iii, 772-3.

Chap, v, g 1. Omit “actions.”

Chap. v. g 1. Omit “according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free
and immutable counsel of his own will.”

Chap, v, g 2. Omit entirely.

Chap, v, g 3, [2]. Instead of “without, above, and against,” read “with and
above” — and observe that the proof-text for “without” is retained for
“with ” !

Chap, v, g 4. Omit entirely.

THE PRINTING OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. 419

Chap, v, § 5, [3]. Insert “the” before “manifold.”

Chap, v, § 5, [3]. Omit “or” before “to discover.”

Chap, v, § 5, [3]. Instead of “ occasions of” read “ occasions to.”

Chap, v, § 6, [4]. Omit “and exposeth them to such objects as their corrup-
tion makes occasion of sin.”

Chap, v, § 6, [4], Omit “the” before “softening.”

Chap, vi, § 1. Instead of “permit, having purposed to order it to his own
glory,” read “overrule, through Christ, for his own glory, and the good of them
that believe.”

Chap, vi, § 3. Instead of “the guilt of sin was imputed” read “by their sin
all were made sinners.”

Chap, vi, § 5. Instead of “This corruption of nature, during this life, doth
remain in those ” read “ The remains of corrupt nature are felt by those.”

Chap, vi, § 6. Omit “both original and actual.”

Chap, vii, § 3. Omit “and promising to give unto all those that are ordained
unto life, his Holy Spirit to make them willing and able to believe.”

Chap, viii, § 1. Insert “has” before “pleased.”

Chap, viii, § 1. Omit “in his eternal purpose.”

Chap, viii, g 1. Omit “and ordain.”

Chap, viii, § 1. Insert “who verily was foreordained before the foundation of
the world ” before “ to be the Mediator.”

Chap, viii, g 1. Instead of “unto whom he did from all eternity give a
people to be his seed ” read “ unto whom he promised a seed.”

Chap, viii, § 1. Insert after “called ” “by his word and Spirit.”

Chap, viii, g 1. Insert after “justified ” “ by his grace.”

Chap, viii, g 2. Instead of “ two ” read “ these ” before “ whole.”

Chap, viii, g 5. Instead of “whom the Father hath given unto him ” read
“ who come to the Father by him.”

Chap, viii, g 8. Remodel at the opening so as to read thus: “Jesus Christ
by the grace of God, has tasted death for every man, and now makes interces-
sion for transgressors ; by virtue of which, the Holy Spirit is given to convince
of sin, and enable the creature to believe and obey; governing the hearts of
believers by his word and Spirit ”

Chap, ix, g 3. Add at end “without Divine aid.”

Chap, ix, g 4. Instead of “ not only will that which is good, but doth also
that which is evil,” read “will do that which is good.”

Chap, x, g 1. Instead of “hath predestinated unto life” read “calls, and
who obey the call.”

Chap, x, g 1. Omit “ in liis appointed and accepted time.”

Chap, x, g 1. Instead of “ effectually to call by his word and Spirit ” read
'■ to bring.”

Chap, x, g 2. Omit “effectual.”

Chap, x, g 2. Omit “and special.”

Chap, x, g 2. Instead of “thing ” read “good.”

Chap, x, g 2. Instead of “ passive therein ” read “ dead in sin.”

Chap, x, g 2. Instead of “ quickened and renewed ” read “ enlightened.”

Chap, x, g 3. Instead of “Elect ” read “All.”

Chap, x, g 3. Instead of “ other elect persons ” read “others.”

Chap, x, g 3. Iusert before “who are incapable,” “who have never had the
exercise of reason, and.”

Chap, x, g 4. Omit entirely.

Chap, xi, g 1. Instead of “effectually calleth ” read “calleth (and who
obey the call).”

Chap, xi, g 4. Instead of “ God did, from all eternity decree to justify all the
elect,” read “God, before the foundation of the world, determined to justify
all true believers.”

420

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

Chap, xi, § 5. Instead of “ can ” read “will.”

Chap, xiii, § 4. Omit entirely.

Chap, xiv, § 1. Instead of “whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the
saving of their souls,” read “ whereby sinners are united to Christ.”

Chap, xiv, § 3. Omit “ many to ” in the second clause.

Chap, xiv, § 3. Instead of “through Christ ” read “ of Christ.”

Chap, xvi, § 7. Instead of “ men ” at opening read “man.”

Chap, xvi, § 7. Instead of “they are therefore sinful, and cannot please God,
or make a man meet to receive grace from God,” read “they therefore cannot
merit the favor of God.”

Chap, xvi, § 7. Omit “and ” before “yet.”

Chap, xvi, § 7. Omit “more sinful, and.”

Chap, xvii, § 1. Remodel at the opening so as to read : “They whom God
hath justified and sanctified, he will also glorify ; consequently the truly
regenerated soul will never totally . . . . ”

Chap, xvii, § 2. Omit “of the saints ” at opening.

Chap, xvii, § 2. Remodel at the beginning so as to read : “ Depends on
the unchangeable love and power of God ; the merits, advocacy and interces-
sion of Jesus Christ ; the abiding ....”*

Chap, xvii, § 3. Add at the beginning: “Although there are examples in
the Old Testament of good men having egregiously sinned, and some of
them continuing for a time therein ; yet now since life and immortality are
brought clearer to light by the Gospel, and especially since the effusion of
the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, we may not expect the true Christian
to fall into such gross sins.”

Chap xvii, § 3. Instead of “and of the world, the prevalency of corruption
remaining in them and the neglect. ...” read “the world, and the flesh,
the neglect ”

Chap, xvii, § 3. Instead of “means of their preservation ” read “means of
grace.”

Chap, xvii, § 3. Instead of “ grevious sins ” read “ sin.”

Chap, xvii, § 3. Omit “for a time continue therein, whereby they.”

Chap, xvii, § 3. Omit “have their hearts hardened” and insert “have”
after the next “and.”

Chap, xvii, § 3. Omit “ hurt and scandalize others, and bring temporal
judgments upon themselves,” and insert at end "but the real Christian can
never rest satisfied therein.”

Chap, xix, § 3. Omit “to ” before “the people.”

Chap, xx, § 1. Insert “of” before “which ” at opening of second sentence.

Chap, xxviii, § 6. Omit last clause, “to such .... appointed time.”

Chap, xxviii, § 7. Add at end: “There being no example for the repetition
of Christian baptism.”

Chap, xxix, § 2. Omit “of” between “offering up” and “himself.”

Chap, xxix, § 2. Instead of “ for all the sins of the elect ” read “ of the sins
of all the world.”

The Cumberland Confession of 1815 was obviously not adapted permanently
to satisfy the Church. The process by which it was formed was too hasty and
superficial to result in anything more than a makeshift. The document
actually produced was clearly neither one thing nor the other. All the expres-
sions in the Westminster Confession, explicitly enunciating Predestination
had been expunged : but much implying it was left. It is not remarkable that

♦There is a longish note attached to this section ; it is given in full by
Schaff, loc. cit., p. 77o.

THE PRINTING OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION 421

agitations for a r “revision” of it marked the history of the Cumberland
Church from almost the beginning. What is remarkable is that they were so
slow in making headway. Even as late as 1841 the Assembly refused to con-
sider a proposition for a revision. Again in 1845 it declined to listen to a
memorial looking to that end brought in from the Synod of West Tennessee.
In 1853-1854 the work of revision was actually attempted, but failed in its
later stages. Renewed efforts to secure revision were made in 1868. It was
not until 1881, however, that it was finally taken in hand and carried through.
At the Assembly of 1881, met at Austin, Tex., two committees were appointed,
the one to draw up the draft of the revised Confession, the other to review
and revise the work of the first. They met duly at Lebanon, Tenn., and after
completing their work, published it in pamphlet form and in the Church jour-
nals, “that criticism might be made by those desiring to do so.” These criticisms
were considered by the committees at subsequent meetings and their perfected
work reported to the Assembly of 1882. This Assembly reviewed the work
carefully, and after amending it transmitted it to the Presbyteries for approval
or disapproval. Their verdict proving favorable, the new Confession was
formally adopted at the Assembly of 1883, met at Nashville, Tenn. For a
succinct account of the agitations looking towards the revision and of the
history of the preparation of this revision, see the paper of Prof. John Y. Ste-
phens, D.D., in the Cumberland Presbyterian Quarterly for April, 1902, already
cited.

The following list of editions of this new Cumberland Confession has been
drawn up largely from materials kindly furnished by Dr. Stephens. Dr.
Stephens possesses copies of the issues of 1882, 1882, 1884, 1884, 1885, 1891,
1893, 1898 and 1901.

[gg. The Cumberland Reconstruction ( Second Form), 1883] [gg1.
1882] [The Revised Confession of Faith in First Draught,
1882].

When the committee appointed in 1881 had completed the new Confession
in first draught, the results of their labors were published in pamphlet form
and in the weekly papers of the Church for information, “that criticism might
be made by those desiring to do so.” So we are informed by the Preface to
the Revised Version. This publication was accordingly made either late in
1881 or early in 1882. There is a copy of it in the library of the Rev. Dr.
Stephens, Lebanon, Tenn.

[gg2. 1882] [The Revised Confession of Faith in its perfected
form, 1882.]

The General Assembly of 1882 received the Revised Confession in draught
from the hands of its committee, and after introducing a number of changes
into it, mostly verbal, transmitted the book to the Presbyteries for their
approval or disapproval. This implies its printing in the form given it by the
amendments of the Assembly. See Stephens, as cited, and McCook, Journal
of the Presbyterian Historical Society , March, 1902 (I, iii), p. 253, note f. There
is a copy of this issue in the library of the Rev. Dr. Stephens.

[gg3. 1883] [The Revised Confession of Faith, etc. 1883.]

“ The General Assembly of 1883, after declaring the Revised Confession
adopted, instructed the Board of Publication ‘to bring out a cheap edition of
the Revised Confession of Faith for distribution among the churches, and
that they do not stereotype said Confession until after the next meeting of
the General Assembly.’ Accordingly on August 16, 1883, the following
28

422

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

announcement appeared in the Cumberland Presbyterian : ‘ The Revised Con-
fession of Faith and the Catechism of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church
is now ready for sale. The editing and printing are finely done. They are
bound in paper : and sell at ten cents per copy ’ ” (Stephens, l. c.). No copy
of this edition has come into our hands.

[gg4. 1884] New (Revised) | Confession of Faith | and | Cate-
chism | of the | Cumberland Presbyterian Church, | A.D.
1883. | Belfast : | Published for the Committee. | 1884. |
University Printing House, Upper Arthur Street.

Pp. 40; 5f x 3f inches (block of type) ; bound in paper. The occasion for
the publication of this edition was the application of the Cumberland Presby-
terian Church for membership in the “ Alliance of the Reformed Churches
Throughout the World Holding the Presbyterian System.” This application
came before the Alliance at its Third General Council, held at Belfast, Ire-
land, June 24-July 3d, 1884. The debate on the subject is reported in the
published volume of Minutes and Proceedings, Belfast, 1884. This edition was
printed by “ The Committee” for the use of the members of the Council in
considering the application for membership. There is a copy in the library
of Prof. Stephens, of Lebanon, Tenn.

[gg5, 1884] Confession of Faith | and | Government | of the |
Cumberland Presbyterian Church | (Revised). | Adopted 1883.

| Nashville, Tenn.: | Cumberland Presbyterian Publishing
House. | 1885.

16mo ; pp. 158 ; 4| x 5 inches (block of type). This edition was actually pub-
lished in December, 1884, but (according to a custom not very rare) bears on
the title-page the date of the approaching year. The history of its issue and
its peculiarities as an edition appear from the following note of Prof. Stephens
(loc. cit.) : ‘‘The General Assembly of 1884 instructed the Board of Publica-
tion to publish the new book in permanent form ‘as soon as possible, and that
Revs. S. G. Burney, T. C. Blake and C. H. Bell, and ruling elder John Friz-
zell, shall read the proof of the same.’ By an oversight of the Assembly, no
‘Preface’ and no ‘Introductory Statement on Church Government’ had been pre-
pared for the Revised Confession. The Rev. T. C. Blake, D.D [a member of
the Editing Committee just mentioned], prepared a ‘Preface,’ and the Rev. S.
G. Burney, D.D. [the Chairman of the Editing Committee appointed to super-
vise the publication of this edition], prepared an ‘ Introductory Statement on
Church Government.’ But on account of certain expressions used by these
gentlemen, which the Board thought ought not to be printed in the book with-
out the approval of the Assembly, the publication of the Revised Confession
was delayed. It was not until December 25, 1884, that the announcement was
made by the Board, ‘ We are now filling orders for the Revised Confession.’ ”
The edition thus published contained neither a “Preface” nor an “ Introduc-
tory Statement”: those prepared by individual members of the Editing Com-
mittee being held over for submission to the Assembly of 1885. Its most dis.
tinguishing peculiarity is, however, the presence at the end of the Catechism of
an additional question and answer, made by the Rev. T. C. Blake without
authorization from the Assembly. This runs : “106. What does the conclusion
of the Lord’s Prayer teach us? The conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer — which
is, For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever, Amen —
teaches us to take our encouragement in prayer from God only, and in our
prayers to praise him, ascribing kingdom, power and glory to him ; and in
testimony of our desire and assurance to be heard, we say, Amen.”

THE PRINTING OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. 423

There is a copy of this edition in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.,
and another in the possession of the Rev. Dr. J. V. Stephens, Lebanon, Tenn.

[gg6. 1885] Confession of Faith | and | Government | of the |
Cumberland Presbyterian Church | (Revised). | Adopted
1883. | Nashville, Tenn.: | Cumberland Presbyterian Publish-
ing House. | 1885.

Pp. vi, 161 ; 4| x 3 inches (block of type). The disagreement in the Board
of Publication concerning the “Preface” and “Introductory Statement,”
which had delayed the issue of the edition of 1884 and had led it at length to
be put forth without these additions, was brought before the Assembly of 1885.
The Assembly ordered the “Preface” and “Introductory Statement on
Church Government,” which have been included in all subsequent editions, to
be inserted without referring them to the Presbyteries. The Assembly
ordered that the unauthorized Question 106 in the Catechism as published in
the preceding issue be dropped. The present edition, published after the
meeting of the Assembly of 1885 and embodying its directions, is really the
edilio princeps, in the sense of the first authoritative edition of the new Cum-
berland Confession : the text of the Confession seems to be from the same
plates, however, as the preceding. There is a copy of it in the library of Prof.
J. Y. Stephens, of Lebanon, Tenn.

[gg7. 1891] Confession of Faith, | etc. [as in the immediately
preceding edition] | Nashville, Tenn.: | . . . . | 1891.

This is an imprint from the same plates as the immediately preceding edi-
tion. There is a copy in the library of Prof. Stepnens, Lebanon, Tenn.

[gg8. 1893] Confession of Faith | and | Government | of the |
Cumberland Presbyterian Church | (Revised). | Adopted
1883. | Nashville, Tenn.: | Cumberland Presbyterian Publish-
ing House. | 1893.

16mo, pp. vi, 196 ; 4}f x 3 inches (block of type). Copyright certificate on
the back of title, dated 1884. Contains : Preface, pp. iii-vi ; Table of Con-
tents, pp. 3-6 ; Introduction, pp. 7-9 (p. 10 blank) ; Confession of Faith, pp.
11-63, with proof-texts at large ; Catechism, pp. 63-77, without proof refer-
ences ; Introductory Statement on Church Government, pp. 78-80 ; Constitu-
tion, pp, 81-106 ; Rules of Discipline, pp. 107-138 ; General Regulations, pp.
129-136; Directory for Worship, pp. 137-150; Rules of Order, pp. 151-161
(p. 162 blank) ; Indexes, pp. 163-196. It is from the same plates as the imme-
diately preceding edition, with the addition of Indices. There is a copy in
the library of Princeton Theological Seminary, and another in the library of
Prof. Stephens, of Lebanon, Tenn.

[gg°. 1896] Confession of Faith | and | Government | of the |
Cumberland Presbyterian Church | (Revised). | Adopted
1883. | Nashville, Tenn.: | Cumberland Presbyterian Publish-
ing House. | 1896.

16mo, pp. vi, 196, 4^| x 3 inches (block of type). Contents as in the imme-
diately preceding issue, from the same plates used in which it is taken. There
is a copy in the library of the Rev. Dr. Henry C. McCook, of Philadelphia,
who has described it in the Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society for
December, 1901 (I, ii), p. 211.

424

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

[gg10. 1898] Confession of Faith, | etc. [as in the immediately pre-
ceding editions] | Nashville, Tenri.: | . . . . | 1898.

This is an imprint from the same plates as the immediately preceding edi-
tion. There is a copy in the library of the Rev. Dr. Stephens, Lebanon, Tenn.

[ggn. 1899] [Confession of Faith, | etc. [as in the immediately
preceding editions] | Nashville, Tenn.: | . . . . | 1899.]

The Records of the Publishing House show that an issue was made in 1899,
but no copy of it has fallen in our way. It is, of course, possible that it was
taken from the plates without changing the date-line (1898).

[gg12. 1901] Confession of Faith | and | Government | of the |
Cumberland Presbyterian Church. | (Revised.) | Adopted
1883. | Nashville, Tennessee : | Cumberland Presbyterian
Publishing House. | 1901.

16mo, pp. vi. 203 (beginning with 3 ; i.e., there are no pages 1, 2) ; 4f x 3
inches (block of type) ; copyright certificate on the back of the title-page bear-
ing date of 1884. Contains: Preface, pp. iii-vi ; Contents, pp. 3-6; Introduc-
tion, pp. 7-9; p. 10 blank ; Confession of Faith, pp. 11-66, with proof-texts at
large ; Catechism, pp. 67-82, without proofs; Introductory Statement on Church
Government, pp. 83-85 ; Constitution, pp. 86-113 ; Rules of Discipline, pp. 114-
136; General Regulations, pp. 137-145; Directory for Worship, pp. 146-160;
Rules of Order, pp. 161-171 ; p. 172 blank ; Indexes, pp. 173-205.

This edition marks a new beginning in the manufacture of the Cumberland
Confession. From 1884 the same plates had been in use : for this edition new
plates have been made. In its contents it differs from its immediate predeces-
sors only in the incorporation of an amendment of § 47 of the “ Constitution,”
declared to have been duly adopted by the Church, at the Assembly of 1901,
by which Ruling Elders and Deacons are permitted to be elected fora term of
years instead of for life, when the particular churches so desire.

There is a copy of this edition in the library of the Theological Seminary at
Princeton.

In the recasting of their earlier Confession for the formation of the docu-
ment the editions of which have just been enumerated, the Cumberland Pres-
byterians subjected their original Confession to an exceedingly drastic process.
Its formal division into chapters was obliterated, and the paragraphs numbered
consecutively from 1 to 115 ; but the new document is more informally divided
into essentially the same series of topics, following the same order, with one
important exception. There are 36 of these topics as over against the 33 chapters
of the Westminster Confession, the increase of number being due to dividing
the material falling in the earlier document under the head of “ Effectual Call-
ing ” into two topics bearing the titles respectively of ‘‘Divine Influence” and
“Regeneration”; and similarly making two topics of “Sanctification” and
“Growth in Grace,” and of “Religious Worship” and “The Sabbath Day.”
The single alteration in the order of these topics concerns precisely the ordo
salutis. The Westminster Confession, in accordance with a distribution of the
material common (though not by any means universal) among the Reformed
Divines, treats first of the benefits conferred by God on the Covenanted, and
then of the duties required by Him of them: this Confession reverses this, and
places Repentance and Faith (and in that order — again reversing the order of
the Westminster Confession) before all the saving acts of God except Voca-
tion— thus seeking, apparently, an order of chronological occurrence. It is.

THE PRINTING OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. 425

however, in the sequence of these saving acts themselves that the real diver-
gence shows itself. These are given in the Westminster Confession, of course,
in the necessarily Reformed sequence, Effectual Calling, Justification, Adoption,
Sanctification ; while in the Cumberland Confession they take the equally
necessary Arminian order, Divine Influence, Justification, Regeneration,
Adoption, Sanctification. The fundamental nature of the revision is already
suggested by this fact. It was undertaken professedly, as the Preface informs
us, “to eliminate all the features of hyper-Calvinism ’’ — it would be as well to
leave off the qualification implied by “hyper-” — “from the Westminster
Confession ” ; and “ to set forth more clearly and logically the system of theol-
ogy believed and taught by the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.” In a
word it was supposed that the alterations formerly made in the Westminster
Confession were insufficient completely to transform it from a Calvinistic into
as high an Arminian document as was desired — though it must be recognized
that the Cumberland Presbyterians scarcely allow that they go the whole way
with Arminianism, inasmuch as they still teach the doctrine of Perseverance.
And it was felt that as it was Arminianism that was to be taught consistency
required a more drastic treatment of the document. This is certainly given it
in the new creed. In the process of Arminianizing the Confession, however,
much more is done. The text is greatly curtailed and compressed, and not, it
must be confessed, to the advantage of the style : almost all the fine old flavor
has been evaporated and a new tone of somewhat brusque and dry plainness
substituted in its stead. Enough of the phraseology of the Westminster Con-
fession is retained perhaps to keep it in the class of modifications of that docu-
ment : but it certainly is an extreme instance of modification that is here pre-
sented.

The greatness of the alteration that has been made by this recension renders
it impossible to record here the changes introduced. They are pervasive ; and
the whole document would need to be quoted to exhibit them. We must con-
fine ourselves therefore to a sample or two of how the new document deals
with the doctrines.

“ Decbees of God.

“8. God, for the manifestation of his glory and goodness, by the most wise
and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordained or deter-
mined what he himself would do, what he would require his intelligent crea-
tures to do, and what should be the awards, respectively, of the obedient and
the disobedient.

“ 9. Though all divine decrees may not be revealed to men, yet it is certain
that God has decreed nothing contrary to his revealed will or written word.

“Divine Influence.

“ 38. God the Father, having set forth his Son Jesus Christ as a propitiation
for the sins of the world, does most graciously vouchsafe a manifestation of the
Holy Spirit with the same intent to every man.

“39. The Holy Spirit, operating through the written word, and through
such other means as God in his wisdom may choose, or directly, without
means, so moves upon the hearts of men as to enlighten, reprove and convince
them of sin, of their lost estate, and of their need of salvation ; and, by so
doing, inclines them to come to Christ.

“40. This call of the Holy Spirit is purely of God’s free grace alone, and
not because of human merit, and is antecedent to all desire, purpose, and
intention on the part of the sinner to come to Christ ; so that while it is possi-
ble for all to be saved with it, none can be saved without it.

426

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

"41. This call is not irresistible, but is effectual in those only who, in peni-
tence and faith, freely surrender themselves wholly to Christ, the only name
whereby man can be saved ’’

‘‘4G. While there is no merit in faith, yet it is the condition of salvation. It
is not of the nature of good works, from which it must be distinguished ”

“ 48. All those who truly repent of their sins, and in faith commit themselves
to Christ, God freely justifies ”

“49 Though of free grace alone, it [Justification] is conditioned

upon faith, and is assured to none but penitent and true believers ’’

“51. Those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ are regenerated, or born
from above, renewed in spirit, and made new creatures in Christ ”

“56 A state of sinless perfection in this life is not authorized by the

Scriptures (sic), and is a dogma of dangerous tendency ”

“CO. Those whom God has justified, he will also glorify ; consequently, the
truly regenerated soul will not totally fall away from a state of grace, but will
be preserved to everlasting life ”

“ Civil Government.

“85. God, the Supreme Lord and King of all the World, has ordained civil
officers to be under him over the people, for his own glory and the public
good ; and to this end, has armed them with power for the defence of the inno-
cent and the punishment of evil-doers.

“86. It is lawful for Christians to accept civil offices when called thereunto,
in the management whereof they ought especially to maintain piety, justice
and peace, according to the wholesome laws of each Commonweahh.

“87. Civil officers may not assume to themselves the administration of the
word and the Sacraments, or in the least interfere in matters of faith ; yet it is
their duty to protect the Church of our common Lord, without giving prefer-
ence to any denomination of Christians. And as Jesus Christ has appointed a
government and discipline in his Church, no law of any Commonwealth should
interfere therewith, but should provide that all religious and ecclesiastical
assemblies shall be held without molestation or disturbance.

“88. It is the duty of the people to pray for magistrates, to obey their lawful
commands, and to be subject to their authority for conscience’ sake.”

Besides the literature cited in the course of the notes above, the following
may be profitably consulted on the Cumberland Presbyterian Creeds : —
Sciiaff’s Creeds of Christendom, I, § 99, pp. 813 sq., Ill, pp. 771 sq.; David-
son’s History of the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky (New York, 1847), pp-
223 sq.; McDonold’s History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church (Nash-
ville, 1888), pp. 98 sq. and 45S sq.; Foster’s Sketch of the History of the Cum-
berland Presbyterian Church (New York, 1894), Yol. SI of the “American
Church History Series,” pp. 303 sq.; Chrisman’s Origin and Doctrines of the
Cumberland Presbyterian Church (Nashville, 1875); Howard’s Creed and Con-
stitution of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church (Nashville, 1885); Miller’s
Doctrine and Genius of the Cumberland Pi-esbyterian Church (Nashville, 1892).
Further bibliographies are given by Schafl and Foster.

Princeton.

Benjamin B. Warfield.

IY.

FREE-WILL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL PSY-
CHOLOGY.

THERE are two famous labyrinths, says Leibnitz, in which
the human reason has wandered : one relating to necessity
and freedom, and the other to the constitution of matter. Into
both of these our subject invites us to venture.

At the time of the Fall, according to Milton, the spirits of the
lower world relieved the tedium of their existence by reasoning
together of “ fixed fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute,” and
judging from recent literature interest in the discussion has con-
tinued down to the present day. We are frequently told, indeed,
that the problem is insoluble, or of no practical importance, or
purely scholastic, or due to the whimsical notions of a few meta-
physicians, or that it has been settled or dropped by modern phil-
osophy. But it continues to be discussed.

The chief reason, doubtless, for present interest in the question
is its supposed ethical bearing — the fear among advocates of free-
will that a general acceptance of the determinist creed would be
disastrous to morality. The philosopher, happily, knows better
than to allow his philosophical belief unduly to influence his con-
duct ; but if the doctrine of the extreme determinist be generally
accepted, the results no doubt would be unfavorable to morality.
If it should come to be commonly believed that the will is an
impotent factor in the game of life, that all of a man’s actions
are determined not by him but for him, either by heredity or
physical environment, the logical, and no doubt to a great extent
the actual, result would be a weakening of moral restraints and a
paralysis of moral effort. Mr. A. J. Balfour has reason for his
fear that if the creed of “ naturalistic determinism be adopted
certain emotions hitherto found serviceable in the promotion
of virtue, such as repentance, moral indignation, and moral
admiration evoked by the heroic or the saintly, will at a stroke
be reduced, if they are to survive at all, to the position of
amiable but unintelligent weaknesses.”* Dr. Martineau, again,
enters a protest against the view of Prof. Sidgwick that the

* Foundations of Belief , p. 25.

428

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

free-will problem is not of any vital importance for etbics.
The fascination of the problem, he confesses, arises to him from
“ its profound connection with the very roots of our moral and
spiritual convictions.* And having established the authority
of conscience and the reasonableness of theistic belief, he feels
constrained to vindicate free-will lest the whole structure of
morals and religion which he has reared should topple in ruins.
The literary critic no less than the ethical philosopher has a
quarrel with the determinist. If man, as a recent critic of Zola
has expressed it, “ is fatally the product of a certain hereditary
temperament, which unfolds itself in a certain physical, intellec-
tual and moral environment,” he is not as interesting a subject for
literary treatment as he is if considered as a free being who forms
his own character. Says Mr. Paul Elmer More : f

“ The ordinary fault of naturalism is the lack of interest, so that we see the gen-
uine naturalist constantly seeking to attract readers by all sorts of illegitimate
allurements of the animal senses. Juan Valero curtly asks : ‘ How can such
novels interest when they present a temperament and not a character — a mere
machine which moves in accordance to physiological laws?’ ”

The sombre pessimism which pervades much of our modern lit-
erature is but the dark shadow cast by a fatalistic philosophy.
The trinity of spiritual beliefs, God, Freedom and Immortality,
generally stand or fall together ; and where these are lost, hope and
aspiration will die, life will be looked upon as controlled by blind
fate, and the only solace for the miseries of existence will be that
life “ ends soon and nevermore shall be.”

The determinist creed has found a powerful ally in the science
which investigates the connection between mind and brain. That
this connection is an intimate one cannot now be denied by the
strictest spiritualists in philosophy. Idealists, who hold that body
is in some sense a mental construction, do not doubt that the for-
tunes of mind and of the body as so constructed are closely
bound up together. That the part of the body most closely con-
nected with the thinking or reasoning functions is the cranial
cavity in the upper part of the head seems to us so self-evident
as to require no scientific proof ; but the fact was not always
recognized. Aristotle, strangely enough, believed that the abdo-
men was the seat of the intellect. The researches of modern
physiology and psychology have proved beyond a doubt that the
mental life is in some way associated with the tissues of the brain
especially with the gray matter which composes its rind or cortex.
The tendency of modern investigation of the connection, between

* Study of Religion , Vol. II, p. 185.

| “The Novels of George Meredith,” Atlantic Monthly , October, 1899, p. 492.

FREE-WILL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 429

mind and brain is doubtless toward a materialistic and mecbanical
explanation of the facts of mind. Genetic psychology, proceed-
ing upon the theory that all higher and more complex phenomena
of mind are the products of lower and simpler forms of mental
life, seeks to establish an unbroken connection between the devel-
oped mind of the man and the rudimentary mind of tbe animal.
The evolutionist goes a step further and finds the germ of con-
sciousness in the vegetable cell or even in the properties of the
inorganic atom. Physiological psychology again — a science still
in its infancy, but a very lusty infant — favors the construction of
mental facts under mechanical categories. The intimate connec-
tion between mind and brain has been a truism of science since
the time of Descartes, but has received new emphasis in recent
years through the researches of Maudslev, Carpenter, Weber,
Fechner, Wundt and others. It has been shown that many of the
simpler mental processes are connected with definite portions of
the brain cortex ; that diseased brain tissue causes an impairment
of the mental powers ; and Fechner, the father of “ psycho-
physics,” or metric physiological psychology, has attempted to
bridge the gap between mind and matter by showing that the
relation between the physical stimulus and the resulting sensation
can be expressed in a mathematical formula.

The currents of modern psychology have thus been setting
strongly in the direction of materialism. In its origin mind is
the product of material particles organized in the form of brain
cells, while its processes are the result of molecular movement in
the brain. In its origin and history, and it would seem in its
destiny, the conscious life is inextricably bound up with matter
and its laws. If soul is a phase or product of a complicated
arrangement of highly evolved matter, the belief in its substantial-
ity, its freedom, or its continued existence would seem to be absurd,
if not impossible. The eclipse of spiritual beliefs with which
philosophy is thus threatened was well described over thirty years
ago by one who has been popularly regarded as a champion of
materialism. Said Prof. Huxley :

“The consciousness of this great truth (that the physiology of the future would
extend the realm of matter and law over the mental sphere) weighs like a night-
mare, I believe, upon many of the best minds of these days. They watch what
they conceive to be the progress of materialism, in such fear and powerless anger
as a savage feels when during an eclipse, the great shadow creeps over the face of
the sun. The advancing tide of matter threatens to drown their souls ; the tight-
ening grasp of law impedes their freedom ; they are alarmed lest man’s moral
nature be debased by the increase of his wisdom.”*

The doctrine of materialism which has thus been reinforced by

* “The Physical Basis of Life,” Fortnightly Review , Feb., 1869.

430

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

modern science is a theory of the universe which has had its
representatives in all periods of philosophic thought. In its
thoroughgoing form it is a ruthless application of “ Occam’s
razor” in the interests of philosophic unity, cutting away the
excrescences of supposed spiritual existence. Matter, motion,
force are everything. Mind is but a phase, phenomenon or mani-
festation of highly organized matter. Following the lead of phys-
ical science we seem to gain the whole world of knowledge but to
lose the soul ; for the notion of a soul or spirit as anything distinct
from or independent of a special arrangement of matter is a super-
stition, the relic of an outworn creed — “ The world is made of
ether and atoms and there is no room for ghosts.” It is an
interesting fact that the earlier materialists, Democritus and Epi-
curus, left room in their theory for certain kind of freedom. The
primitive atoms, which by hypothesis moved only in straight
and parallel lines, were endowed with a species of freedom to
account for their declination or swerving when combining to
form individual things. Again, if pleasure is man’s highest good,
as Epicurus held, man must be free to choose that course of
action which promises the greatest pleasure. Modern materialism,
whether in its crude or more refined form, is distinctly inimical to
free-will. If man is a machine, as La Mattrie, pushing Des-
cartes’ automaton theory of animals to an unexpected conclusion,
declared, or if “ the brain secretes thought (including volition) as
the liver secretes bile,” according to the famous dictum of
Cabanis, freedom in any form is of course a chimera.

A theory of the universe which would reduce mind to a form of
matter or a mode of motion has of course its philosophical as well
as its ethical or sentimental objections. The more complete
becomes the mechanical explanation of the world in terms of
matter and motion, the more insistent becomes the teleological
demand, flow explain the mechanism? The questions, Whence?
For what purpose ? will continue to be asked and materialism can
offer no reply. Again, the materialist in the very assertion of his
creed seems to become involved in a logical paradox. When he
declares, “ I know that matter alone exists,” he is in the familiar
dilemma of the man of the logical text-books who says, “lam
now uttering a falsehood,” or “I am keeping silence.” His
statement must be false in order to be true. The affirmation of
the existence of anything — say, matter or molecules — is an activity
of mind. The more positive, therefore, the materialist is in the
assertion of his creed, the more deeply is he involved in contradic-
tion. He would seem to be doubly inconsistent when he not only
confesses his faith, but seeks to affect the brains of other people

FREE-WILL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 43 1

so that their brain-processes shall turn out the creed of material-
ism. Those who remain obdurate will reply that since knowledge
under the view in question must be simply the product of the
fortuitous concourse of thoughtless atoms, an arrangement of
brain molecules corresponding to the spiritualistic creed is as
“ valid ” as an arrangement corresponding to Ihe materialistic
creed, if, indeed, any question of validity can be raised between
them.

The logical difficulties in holding the materialistic or “ man-
machine ” doctrine have been illustrated by a recent writer, to
whom Dr. Van Dyke has called attention in his admirable chapter
on “ Liberty.”* Says Mr. Henry Beauchamp :

“ I am an automaton — a puppet dangling on my distinctive wire, which Fate
holds with an unrelaxing grip. I am not different, nor do I feel differently, from
my fellow-men, but my eyes refuse to blink away the truth, which is, that I am
an automatic machine, a piece of clockwork wound up to go for an allotted time,
smoothly or otherwise, as the efficiency of the machine may determine. Free-will
is a myth invented by man to satisfy his emotions, not his reason. I feel as if I
were free, as if I were responsible for my thoughts and actions, just as a person
under the influence of hypnotism believes he is free to do as he pleases. But he is
not ; nor am I. If it were once possible for a rational being to question this fact,
the discoveries of Darwin must have set his doubts at rest.

‘‘ And yet it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that we are nothing else than
irresponsible automata, whose actions and thought are pre-determined to the
minutest detail.

“ What is crime? A crime is an action threatened by the law with punishment,
says Kant ; and freedom of action or free-will is a legally necessary condition of
crime. But the law of heiedity conclusively demonstrates that free-will and free-
dom of action stand in the category of lively imaginings. Therefore crime, as the
law understands it, is non-existent, since no imputabilitv can be recognized when
a man is not responsible for his actions. Therefore the law is not justified in
inflicting punishment. ’’f

Plainly our “ automaton” is right in saying that the theory is
destruction of freedom and moral responsibility. But why does he
declare with some show of indignation that punishment is unjusti-
fiable ? If all actions are strictly mechanical, the acts of the
collective automaton can as little be criticised as unjustifiable as
those of the individual. Moral categories, such as right and
wrong, justifiable and unjustifiable, must be everywhere abohshed.
Why, again, does the distinctive wire by which our automaton is
controlled compel him to act in so strangely unautomatic a man-
ner ? Instead of being content to “ dangle,” as we should expect
him to do, he looks abroad upon his fellow-puppets with pity not
unmixed with indignation and cries aloud in the pages of the Fort-
nightly Review: “Ho, ye brother-automata! Don’t you know

* Gospel for an Age of Doubt, pp. 210-212.

f ‘ Thoughts of a Human Automaton,” Fortnightly Review , March, 1892.

-±32 THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

that you are making fools of yourselves ? Reform your auto-
matic thoughts and dangle the way I do.” Readers of Mr. Beau-
champ’s essay may find a grim comfort in reflecting, with Mr.
Balfour, that a belief in freedom, from the evolutionistic stand-
point, has been one of the conditions of success in the struggle
for existence, and that consistent determinists will in the long run
be eliminated by a process of selective slaughter, and leave the
field to the better-equipped advocates of freedom.

Latter-day philosophers with a materialistic bias generally hide
the grosser features of materialism under the modest vail of agnos-
ticism. Prof. Huxley, for example, seeks to escape from the con-
sequences of a materialism which, as he says, “ may paralyze the
energies and destroy the beauty of a life, ’ ’ by taking refuge in
the skeptical philosophy of Hume. He slays doubt with doubt.
If we know matter as it really is, and further can perceive in
cause and effect not simply a sequence but a necessary sequence,
he sees no escape from utter materialism and necessarianism.
But, he asks, “ after all, what do we know of this terrible 1 mat-
ter, ’ except as a name for the unknown and hypothetical cause of
states of our own consciousness?* We know nothing really of
the true nature either of matter or spirit, nor of any necessary
connection of one thing with another. So it follows that “ the
materialistic position that there is nothing in the world but mat-
ter, force and necessity, is as utterly devoid of justification as the
most baseless of theological dogmas.” Between the bald mate-
rialism, which says that mind is sublimated matter, and the re-
fined materialism, which says that from all we know of mind and
matter the former is the product of the latter, but adds in an aside,
we know nothing of either, there seems very little to choose. In
the one case, mind is the result of the play of material atoms ; in
the other, it is merely a combination of atoms of sensation, a
string of beads without the string. In neither case can we assert
the existence of the freedom or reality of spirit, and in both cases
the laws of what we call the mental life must be the laws of
mechanical causation.

But is there no escape from the materialistic frying-pan except
into the agnostic fire ? The new psychology itself supplies at
least a partial answer. The modern psychologist, studyiug
psychology as a “natural science,” starts out, we may roughly
say, with two fundamental postulates. The first is taken from
physiology, and is “ Thought is a function of the brain.” Every
mental process has as its cause or accompaniment some corre-
sponding change in the central nervous system. In a word, “ the

* “ The Physical Basis of Life,” Fortnightly Review , February, 1869, p. 143.

FREE-WILL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 433

materials of the consciousness are the products of cerebral
activity ” (Huxley). The second postulate is taken from physics,
and is the doctrine of the conservation of energy, or rather an
inference from it. There is no loss of energy out of the mate-
rial world, and no influx of energy from without. The sum of
energy in the physical world is always constant.

The first postulate may be criticised on its own account. The
function of an organ in the physiological sense is its activity,
what it does, and results in some physical movement or some
chemical change. It is the function of the hand to grasp, of the
liver to secrete bile, of the heart to maintain the circulation of the
blood. In the strict physiological sense, then, the function of the
cells and fibres of the brain is not to think but to receive, trans-
form and transmit incoming nerve currents. But waiving this
verbal objection, let us examine the relation between mind-pro-
cess and brain-movement implied in the formula, “ Thought is a
function of the brain.” The plain meaning is that brain-process
always precedes and produces thought-process ; in short, that
“ the materials of consciousness are the products of cerebral
activity.” Those who hold that mind is in any sense a product
or property of matter must hold this view, and it has the advan-
tage of agreeing in part with the view of the ordinary conscious-
ness. The ordinary man believes that the igniting of a match is
the cause of his sensation of light, or if he has a smattering of
physiology and psychology he traces the process through vibra-
tion in the ether, chemical change in the rods and cones of the
retina, irritation of the optic nerve and excitement of the cortical
centre — all of which is followed by the sensation of light. But
the ordinary man believes also in a reciprocal action of mind
upon body — that the wish, for instance, to raise his hand is not
only father to the thought, but is the real cause of those move-
ments in the brain centre, nerves and muscles which result in the
action. If, however, mind is subordinate to matter, this recipro-
cal influence plainly must be denied. The purpose of the states-
man, the benevolence of the philanthropist, the hatred of the
murderer, the idea of the artist cannot have the slightest influence
upon the expression of these mental phenomena in the material
world ; otherwise there would be an influx of energy from with-
out into the material, and the servant would become master.

We are brought thus to what we have called the second postu-
late of physiological psychology, — the conservation of physical
energy ; and we find that it is the rock upon which the first postu-
late, the brain-function theory, is wrecked. Let us listen to Prof.
HofFding :

434

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

“The supposition that a causal relation may exist between the mental and the
material is contrary to the doctrine of the ‘ persistence of energy for at the point
where the material nerve-processs should be converted into mental activity, a sum
of physical energy would disappear without the loss being made good by a corre-
sponding sum of physical energy.

“Of course there is always one way of escape : to deny the doctrine of energy.
This doctrine is not experimentally proved, and, as we have seen, cannot, strictly
speaking, ever be proved. But according to the general rules of methodology, we
may not, in framing our hypotheses and iu judging of them when framed, enter
into conflict with leading scientific principles. And in modern natural science, the
doctrine of energy is such a leading principle. If, therefore, an hypothesis is in
conflict with this doctrine, the fact tells at once against it.”*

After examining the theories of dualism, materialistic and monistic
spiritualism, Holfding states, though only as a “ provisional hy-
pothesis,” his own view :

“ Only the fourth possibility, then, seems to be left. If it is contrary to the
doctrine of the persistence of physical energy to suppose a transition from the one
province to the other, and if, nevertheless, the two provinces exist in our experi-
ence as distinct, then the two sets of phenomena must be unfolded simultaneously,
each according to its laws ; so that for every phenomenon in the world of con-
sciousness there is a corresponding phenomenon iu the world of matter, and con-
versely (so far as there is reason to suppo-e that conscious life is correlated with
material phenomena).

“Both the parallelism and the proportionality between the activity of con-
sciousness and cerebral activity point to an identity at bottom We have

no right to take mind and body for two beings or substances in reciprocal relation.
We are, on the contrary, impelled to conceive the material interaction between the
elements composing the brain and nervous system as an outer form of the inner

ideal unity of consciousness It is as though the same thing were said in

two languages.’’ f

This “ new Spinozism,” as it has been called, is held in differ-
ent forms, sometimes as the metaphysical “ double aspect ” theory
of one substance with two parallel but unconnected attributes, but
more often as the more modest empirical theory of “ psycho-
physical parallelism,” and may be said to be the dominant
theory among psychologists to-day. At first sight it seems
rather favorable to free-will. If the mental series goes along
bv itself, not influenced or controlled by the physical series, but
governed by its own laws, mind may conceivably be endowed
with the power of initiating action. When we examine more
closely, however, we see that the freedom possible under the
theory is a vanishing quantity. In the first place, mind can have
no influence over bodily action ; all the deeds done in the body are
determined by physical antecedents, governed strictly by physical
law. And secondly, even in the closed circle of the thought-life
there seems to be no room for freedom. Every psychical process

* Outlines of Psychology , pp. 55 and 58.
t Op. cit., p. 65.

FREE-WILL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY.

435

Has some physical process as its concomitant, and the cause or
antecedent of this physical process is to be found in the physical
world. The inference seems inevitable that mind must look
always to the material world for the clue to its own activities,
and that the conscious life, while theoretically independent of
matter, is nothing but a passive spectator of its own processes,
borne along upon the stream of physical causation and unable to
influence its own course.

The double-aspect theory may meet the demands of the doc-
trine of the persistence of energy, but there are other claimants
to be satisfied before it can be accepted as the last word upon the
psycho-physical problem.

1. There is the seeming paradox that concomitant phenomena
which are wholly shut off from each other’s influence, are yet
but the two aspects of a fundamental unity. First there is a
great gulf fixed between the mental and the material, and then,
as if to atone for this arbitrary divorce of what in nature seems
joined together, it is hinted that after all states of consciousness
and the modification of brain-cells are two sides of the same
thing. Leaving out of account the doctrine of the persistence
of energy, with which, it would seem, the physiological psycholo-
gist as such has nothing to do, the facts of his science apparently
confirm the common belief in (1) the interaction, and (2) the real
distinction, between mind -processes and brain-processes. Both
of these the theory in question denies.

2. The relation between the two sets of facts, the mental and
the molecular, which go along in a parallel series, is not like the
relation between the movements of the central- observatory clock
and of another clock synchronized with it by electrical connec-
tion, but like that between two clocks so constructed in the begin-
ning as always to keep time together. It is Leibnitz’s “ preestab-
lished harmony ” over again. Only in the present theory nothing
is said about any preestablishment.

3. There is no evidence that the physical series and the psychi-
cal series are always concomitant or parallel. This objection to
the double-aspect theory is strongly urged by Prof. Ziehen.* To
Wundt’s theory that there is a conscious concomitant to all move-
ments of organized matter, Ziehen objects that there is no evi-
dence for this except in the case of the brain, and that even in
the narrow sphere of molecular brain movement “numberless
material processes of the cortex take place without the concomi-
tance of psychical processes. ”f On the other hand, to the ques-

* Introduction to Physiological Psychology. See the last chapter.

t Page 275.

436

TEE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

tion whether “ material processes in the central nervous system
accompany a ll psychical phenomena,” his answer is “decidedly
negative.”* He finds psychical factors for which there is “no
material basis,” and instances “ the projection of our sensations
into space and time, a psychical fact for which we were unable to
obtain any psycho-physical explanation. ”f The view which
Ziehen himself adopts is called “ critical monism,” and is really
the Kantian doctrine. The psychical series is shown to be the
primary series, and the psycho- physical dualism to be only a
semblance.

4. If there is no interaction between consciousness and the
physical world, gaps are left both in the physical and in the men-
tal series which are wholly unaccounted for. Take first the
mental series. I am writing, let us suppose, at my desk, with
my thoughts engrossed with the subject of this paper. Suddenly
the firebell rings, and my thoughts are at once far away from my
subject and occupied with curiosity or anxiety as to the locality
of the fire, and a desire to join the crowd running to the scene of
the excitement. What is the link in the transition from abstract
speculation to eager curiosity or anxiety ? Surely none can be
found unless we go for it into the physical sphere — the fire, the
bell, the vibrations in the atmosphere, the excitement of the
appropriate lortical centre. But all these, according to our
theory, have absolutely no effect upon consciousness. The psy-
chical series finds in itself the laws of its own changes. Plainly
there is here a gap or break in the conscious life which nothing
but the effect of a physical event will account for, and the whole
life of thought, emotion, sensation and volition will be filled with
similar instances of wholly unexplained and inexplicable discon-
tinuity.

The facts of bodily movement are equally inexplicable without
the intervention of a psychical agent. Let us borrow an illustra-
tion from Dr. Martineau :

“ A lady who is a social favorite is in lively conversation at a dinner-party five
or six miles from her London home. A servant hands to her a telegram: ‘The
child has fallen downstairs ; he is seriously hurt.’ A convulsion of horror passes
over a face just bright with laughter, agitates her pulse, takes away her breath :
but, with the self-control of benevolent tact, she contrives to withdraw with just
adequate explanation ; orders her carriage and flies to her boy ; but on the way
goes round to her physician’s door to take him with her ; and even remembers that
there may be need of a surgeon too, and bears the delay till she can return pro-
vided with both forms of skill. Reaching home at last and going straight to the
child’s room, she covers the flutter of fear and pity with a bright look and com-
forting words, till the way is prepared for the friendly doctors ; and when it
proves to be a broken arm, she insists on being their attendant whilst it is set, that

* Introduction to Physiological Psychology, page 2. \ Page 277.

FREE-WILL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 437

she may strengthen his heart and quiet his cries, though herself feeling as if she
■were being torn limb from limb.’’*

If we believe that there is no interaction between mind and
brain, we must believe that, provided only the nerve and brain
mechanisms had been the same, the mother would have gone
through all the bodily movements necessary to bring help to her
child had there been no conscious meaning assigned to the words .
of the telegram, no affection, no solicitude, no eager desire, no
clear calculation of the means to be employed. The conscious
factor must be wholly eliminated, in accounting for the result, if
the brain has “ an automatic action, uninfluenced by states of
consciousness.” All the complicated actions which followed the
receipt of the telegram might have been performed without the
aid of consciousness, just as the frog whose spinal chord has been
severed will draw up its foot when it is touched with acid. Con-
sciousness is simply the fly upon the wheel imagining that it is
driving the coach. But does not this account ignore the really sig-
nificant thing in the whole history — the meaning ascribed to the
telegram ? The words, if read without being understood, might
be a signal for action of some kind. But what action ? This would
not be decided until a meaning had been attached to the words — until
the signal had been interpreted. Doubtless any action, however
complicated, if performed habitually upon the reception of a given
stimulus, will approximate to the type of reflex action; but that
the course of conduct in question, wholly new and requiring at
each step both careful calculation and quick decision, can be
accounted for without the conscious factor, is as hard to believe as
is “ the production of molecular motion by consciousness.”

Both members of the psycho-physical parallelism seem to fall
into hopeless discontinuity when the links of inleraction which
bind them together are broken. The gaps in both series must be
filled in by metaphysical assumption not warranted by psycho-
logical experience. Our ordinary modes of thinking and speaking-
must also largely be modified, as we are warned by Prof. Wundt.
When we speak, for instance, of the influence of mind over body,
we must “ always mean, if we do not say, that the word 1 influ-
ence ’ is not to be taken sensu stricto : ”f for no causal nexus must
be asserted between incomparable phenomena. On the other
hand, it is improper, strictly speaking, to say that the sun or the
electric spark causes the sensation of light, for, on the theory of
Wundt, “ we must even suppose .... that it is not the physical
stimulus which occasions the sensation, but that this latter arises

* Study of Religion, Yol. ii, p. 238.

f Lectures on Animal and Human Psychology, page 449.

C9

438 THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

from some elementary psychical jjrocesses lying below the limen
of consciousness When we read a little later that “ soul ” has
been banished from psychology “ as a metaphysical surplusage
for which psychology has no use,”f and remember the “ elemen-
tal psychical processes lying below the limen of consciousness,”
which were assumed to account for our sensations, we see how
hard it is even for a psychologist to avoid assumptions, and how
hard it is to be consistently un metaphysical.

The theory of a psycho-physical parallelism, in view of its
difficulties, will hardly be accepted as the last word upon the prob-
lem of mind and brain. If we are to believe, however, in a real
interaction between the mental and the physical spheres — between
states of consciousness and molecular motion — what becomes of
the doctrine of the conservation of energy? We must remember
that while this is one of the most certain of the empirical general-
izations of modern science, it is applicable strictly only to the
transformation of one kind of physical energy into another.
Energy expended in one form will reappear in another form or
other forms in an equivalent amount, and under proper conditions
might be changed back again into the original form without in-
crease or loss. But states of consciousness cannot be expressed
in numerical terms of more or less, and are wffiolly incomparable
with any form of physical force. As to the mode in which physi-
cal processes and mental processes influence each other, we are,
and it would seem must remain, wholly ignorant ; but this should
not lead us to deny the fact of their mutual influence. All physi-
cal causation is a mystery, but it is none the less certain that the
impact of one billiard ball is the cause of the motion of another.
We do not know how the volition to move the hand starts the
discharge down the motor nerve, or how the agitation of nerve
fibre and brain cell produces the sensation. But that in both cases
the causal relation exists is, apart from metaphysics, as little to be
denied as is the causal relation between any two phenomena in the
physical world.

The physiological psychologist may rightly plead for the liberty
to pursue his investigations and form his conclusions unhampered
alike by metaphysical assumptions and by the generalizations of
other sciences. His inferences must be based upon the phe-
nomena of his own science, not upon the conclusions of another
science. It is then, of course, the business of the philosopher to
review the results of the separate sciences and to reconcile them, if
he can. In the meantime he will protest against allowing a prin-

* Lectures on Animal and Human Psychology, page 450. The italics are ours.

t Page 454.

FREE-WILL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY, 439

ciple of physics, applicable properly only to the correlation of
physical forces, to prejudge the whole question of the relation
between matter and mind.

It may be that we are no nearer than ever to the true answer to
this question. u Ignoramus," we must modestly admit, even if
we are not prepared to add, ‘‘ Ignorabimus Perhaps we shall be
compelled to believe, as Prof. Tyndall has suggested, that the
“ mystery of Mind, which has hitherto defied its own penetrative
power, .... may ultimately resolve itself into a demonstrable
impossibility of self-penetration.” Meanwhile, it is safe to assert
that the investigations of modern science which lie on the border-
land between physiology and psychology have not made any less
tenable our faith in the reality of spirit or of its attribute of free-
dom. We may still believe the testimony of consciousness, that
we have power on our own selves and on the world, and may con-
fidently trust in the great realities of

“ That true world within the world we see,

Whereof our world is but the bounding shore. ’ ’

Ossining, N. Y. Wm. HALLOCK JOHNSON.

(

Y.

THE ATONING SAVIOR OF THE SHIAHS.

RTHODOX Mohammedanism has no doctrine of vica-

rious atonement. Though ostensibly confirming the Scrip-
tures as previous revelations, it repudiates the fundamental truth
of the law of Moses and of the Christian system, that “ without
the shedding of blood there is no remission.” Notwithstanding
this Islam retains animal sacrifices and gives them a definite place
in its ritual. The sect of Shiahs in Persia and India have, how-
ever, engrafted on Islam a well-developed doctrine of vicarious
atonement in which Imam Husain, the sacrifice of Kerbala, is the
savior of sinners. The Shiah beliet on this subject has, I
believe, never been presented in detail, so that I trust the charm
of novelty will give interest to the subject.

I. First, let us consider the original doctrine of Islam with
regard to sacrifices. Mohammedans offer sacrifices on two special
occasions. One is the Qurban Bayram, or Id-ul-Azha, the Festival
of Sacrifice ; the other is the Aqiqah, on the birth of a child.

The Festival of Sacrifice was first instituted in imitation of the
great Day of Atonement. During the first year of the Hegira,
Mohammed at Medina, in his efforts to conciliate the Jews, kept
this fast, and was undoubtedly familiar with its expiatory signifi-
cance. Afterward, when he broke with the Jews and changed
tne Kcbla from Jerusalem to Mecca, he substituted the Festival of
Sacrifice on the tenth day of the twelfth month — Zul Haja — the
time at which the heathen Arabs were sacrificing animals at their
pilgrimage. Mohammed took two rams and went forth before his
people at Medina. Sacrificing one of them, he said: “ O Lord,
I sacrifice this for my whole people, all those who bear witness to
Thy unity and my mission.” Then sacrificing the other ram, he
said: “ 0 Lord, this is for Mohammed and the family of Mo-
hammed.”* This is an evident imitation of the Jewish high
priest sacrificing “ first for his own sins and then for the peo-
ple’s.” On his last pilgrimage to Mecca, Mohammed sacrificed
sixty-three camels in the valley of Mina — one for every year of his
life. The victim on the Festival may be a camel, cow, sheep,

See Hughes, Dictionary of Islam.

THE ATONING SAVIOR OF THE SHIAHS.

441

goat or buffalo, and it is offered not only at Mecca during the
Hajj but in every place, and is tbe special obligation of every
free Mussulman when he arrives at the age of maturity. In all
cases the sacrifice is eaten ; one-third may be given to the poor,
one- third to friends, and one-third reserved for the family. The
camel sacrificed by the Crown Prince of Persia at Tabriz is
divided by the attendants.

The Aqiqah is a usage of the Sunnis, but does not appear to be
customary among Shiahs. It is described by Hughes as a sacri-
fice made for a child when it is from one to five weeks old. It
consists of one goat for a girl and two for a boy. The head of
the child is first shaved and rubbed with saffron. The weight of
the hair in silver is given to the poor, and while the friends eat
the goat the following prayer is offered: “ 0 God ! I offer to
thee, instead of my own offspring, life for life, blood for blood,
head for head, bone for bone, hair for hair, skin for skin. In the
name of the great God I sacrifice this goat.” Finally, the bones
are carefully burnt.

Some other occasions for sacrifices will come to view in consid-
ering the significance of Mohammedan sacrifices, to which we now
pass. The meaning of this rite is not explained fully in the
Koran.

(1) Sacrifices are regarded as a memorial of the willingness
of Abraham to offer his son, who is generally supposed to be
Ishmael. The Hyatul-Kaloob,* translated by Rev. James L.
Merrick, a former missionary in Tabriz, says: “ When Ibrahim
was about to sacrifice Ismael, the Most High made a black and
white sheep his substitute, which had been pasturing for forty
years in Paradise, and was created not in the course of nature but
by the direct power of God, to be offered instead of him on whose
life such important events depended. Now every sheep sacrificed
at Mina, till the day of judgment, is a substitute or commemora-
tive of the substitute for Ismael.’ ’

(2) Sacrifice signifies personal dedication to God, with the idea

of approaching near to Him. This accords with the root meaning
of the word Qurban. So Sheikh Abdul Ilaqq, in his Commen-
tary on the Mishkat,! says, “ The sacrifice is that which is
slaughtered with the object of obtaining nearness to God.” The
idea of dedication is brought out in Surah, xxii, 36, 38: “ Unto

the professors of every religion have we appointed certain rites, that
they may commemorate the name of God on slaying the brute
cattle which he hath provided for them. Your God is one God,

* The Life and Religion of Mohammed , by Merrick, p. 28.

f Hughes, Dictionary of Islam, p. 552.

442 THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

wherefore resign yourselves wholly unto him.” This idea is
forcibly stated in the words used by the offerer when he sacrifices
the victim. Turning its head toward Mecca, he says: “ In the
name of the great God ! Verily, my prayers, my sacrifice, my
life, my death, belong to God, the Lord of the worlds : for I am
the first of those who are Muslim ” (i. e., resigned). Dedication
seems also to be implied in the service of sacrifice on the birth of
a child.

(3) Sacrifice is regarded as a thank-offering, as in Surah, xxii,
38, 39 : “ Wherefore commemorate the name of God over them.
Thus we have given you dominion over them, that ye may return
us thanks.” Such also are the frequent sacrifices made for
recovery from sickness or for the birth of a son, which are often
offered in fulfillment of a vow. Not seldom they are presented at
the local shrines. Peace-offerings are sacrificed in the highway by
the friends of pilgrims returning from the Hajj, in gratitude for
their safe arrival.

(4) Other sacrifices are of a precatory nature. In case of seri-
ous sickness a sheep is brought into the house and led around the
patient. It is then taken out and sacrificed, in the hope that its
life may be accepted in his stead. In some cases the number of
victims is multiplied. A sacrifice of this nature is yearly offered
at the village of Ispanjan, near Tabriz. When the severe spring
wind prevails which is destructive of crops and fruits, an ox is
taken to a neighboring mountain and slain. Its blood flows into
a well which has been devoted to that purpose. The villagers
believe that the wind is propitiated. A scene in the Miracle or
Passion Play of Muharram depicts the bringing of victims to
avert calamity.* In the plain of Kerbala Imam Husain is met by
Zahir and other chiefs, bringing some lambs. They say: “ Peace
be unto thee, thou King of the empire of faith, thou offspring of
the chosen of God, and rose-bush of the meadows of truth ! May
Zahir and his party be a sacrifice for thee ! O ye chiefs, slay your
lambs as offerings to Husain, the priest of the universe!” The
chiefs laying down their sheep for slaughter, Husain says :
“ Withhold your hands, all of you, 0 ye Arabs. What is the
reason that each of you intend to slay a lamb ?” Zahir : “ May
I be a ransom for thee, 0 thou enlightener of heaven and earth,
thou fresh plant of the orchard of her ladyship Zahrah (Fatima) !
They intend to shed the blood of these animals at the dust of thy
sacred feet, to avert misfortunes and calamities and accidents.”
Husain orders the lambs to be numbered. They are found to be

* Col. Felly’s translation of The Miracle Passion Play of Hasan and Husain,
p. 244.

THE ATONING SAVIOR OF THE SHIAHS.

448

seventy-two, just the number of bis party. He forbids the sacri-
fice, saying that he and his retinue are the willing victims.

(5) Another idea in sacrifices is that of merit, rendering a ser-
vice to God which will put Him under obligation. Every good
work is regarded as suab or merit. Surah, xxii, 38, says of sacri-
fices : “Ye receive advantage from them.” Zaid Ibn Arqam.
relates* that the companions said : “0 prophet, what are the
rewards for the sacrifices of camels and sheep that have wool?”
He said : “ There is a good reward also for every hair of their
wool.” A Khutbah quoted by Sellf says, “ If you sacrifice a
fat animal, it will serve you well and carry you across the sirat ,”
or bridge to Paradise.

(6) Sacrifices are made to men as tokens of respect and honor.
When the Shah makes public entrance to a city, each Ivand-khuda,
as well as the heads of the Sayids, Dervishes, etc., sacrifices a
sheep before him. The original purpose in this custom may have
been thanksgiving for his propitious arrival, but now the sole
thought appears to be to honor the king. Similar honor is given to
any dignitary only in a less measure. It is even customary for a
shepherd by the wayside to bring one of his flock into the road
before any passing foreigner, with knife in hand ready to slay the
victim if protest is not made, and if bakhshish is forthcoming to
remunerate him.

(7) The idea which seems to be excluded by Mohammed from
the doctrine of sacrifices is that of expiation. It is agreed by
all students of Islam that the Koran does not contain the doctrine
of atonement ; the shedding of blood is nowhere said to be for
remission of sins. In Surah, xxii, 39, it is said, “ Their flesh is
not accepted of God, neither their blood, but your piety is
accepted of him.” The piety is explained by the Arabic com-
mentator A1 Baizawi to mean “ the sincerity and intention of your
heart.”

It is true that a good deal is said in the Koran concerning expia-
tion. The same terms are used as in the Hebrew, — e. g ., “ Kafara ”
(to cover), “ fidyah,” a ransom, — and with the meaning of expia-
tion for sin. For example, “ 0 Lord, forgive us therefore our sins
and expiate our evil deeds for us ” (Surah, iii, 194). But they
are never used with reference to the shedding of blood in sacri-
fices.:}: The expiatory, act according to the Koran, is some work of
charity or religious observance or penance. For a false oath,
the “ expiation shallbe to feed ten poor persons with such mid-
dling food as ye feed your own families with, or to clothe them,

* Hughes, Dictionary, p. 552. \ Compare Hughes, Dictionary, p. 11&.

f The Faith of Islam, by Rev. Edward Sell.

444 THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

or to set free a captive. But lie who cannot find means shall fast
three da}7s ” (Surah, v, 91). “For the killing of game on the
pilgrimage, in expiation thereof he shall feed the poor, or as the
equivalent of this he shall fast, that he mav taste the ill conse-
quence of his deed. God forgiveth what is past.” In brief,
according to Mussulman theology, the atonement for sins is made
by the works of the law, the performance of worship, fasting,
almsgiving and pilgrimage. For example, it is said that if any
one repeats on a festival five selected Surahs of the Koran, God
will pardon the sins of fifty years that are past and of fifty years
to come. A tradition narrates that Mohammed said he hoped
that the Fast of Ashura would cover the sins of the coming year.
From another point of view, no atonement by rites is necessary.
Repentance and faith obtain pardon. “ If they repent and
amend, then let them be. Verily God relenteth. He is merciful ”
(Surah, iv, 20). A tradition says,- “ An incessant sinner has not
sinned who has asked pardon, although he may have sinned
seventy times a day, because asking pardon is the coverer of
sin.”

It is evident that Mohammed rejected the doctrine of sacrificial
atonement from his system. Not only so, but in his representa-
tions of the Mosaic dispensation he eliminates the doctrine. In
enumerating the duties under the covenant of the children of
Israel (Surah, ii, 82), he omits all reference to the sin or trespass
offerings. In the account of the red cow, so strangely perverted
from the Scripture account (Num. xix ; Surah, ii, 66-70), the idea
of expiation for sin is not included. The atoning death of Christ
is repudiated. His death is denied. “ They slew him not and
they crucified him not, but they had only his likeness. They did
not really slay him, but God took him up to Himself ” (Surah,
iv, 157). Though another Surah (iii, 47, 48) says, “ God said, 0
Jesus, I will cause thee to die and will take thee up to myself,”
leaving the matter somewhat in doubt, yet most commentators
and received traditions maintain that Jesus did not die. Instead
of Him one of His disciples or one of His enemies was crucified
by mistake, God having transferred Christ’s appearance to that
person. This person is called Titian, or Judas, who allowed him-
self to be taken, or Simon of Cvrene.f The crucifixion of Jesus
was a fiction to Mohammed, as to the Basilidians and Carpocra-
tians. The cross was an abhorrence to him. It is said that he
destroyed everything brought into his house with that figure upon
it. According to the Mishkat, the prophet said : “ I swear by
heaven, it is near, when Jesus, the son of Mary, will descend

Dictionary of Islam, p. 451.

f See Sales’ Notes on Koran.

THE ATONING SA VI OR OF THE SHIAHS.

445

from heaven upon your people, a just king, and he will break the
cross and kill the swine.”

The rejection by Mohammed of the doctrine of the atonement,
while claiming to republish the previous revelations of Moses and
Christ, especially in view of the fact that he must have known
the Mosaic doctrine of expiatory sacrifice from the Jews at
Medina, is strongly urged* as a signal evidence that Mohammed was
a conscious impostor and deliberately omitted to testify to this
cardinal doctrine, that salvation by atonement might not appear to
have the divine sanction in any dispensation. Dr. Wherry gives
several reasons why we may suppose Mohammed ignored this
doctrine. f It contradicts Mohammed’s idea of divine sover-
eignty. God is the compassionate, the merciful, and is all-sover-
eign in this attribute, so that He can forgive according to His
good pleasure without the necessity of an atonement. On this point
Prof. Henry Preserved Smith says : \ “In the case of Mohammed
there seems to be no consciousness that justice could conflict with
mercy. There is no theory of atonement. Expiation is nowhere
brought into relation to the wrath of God.” Mohammed’s later
opposition to the Jews led him to eliminate Jewish doctrine and
may have caused him to reject sacrifices for sin.

II. Notwithstanding the silence of the Koran and the apparent
opposition of Mohammed to the doctrine of vicarious sacrifice, it
is a remarkable fact that the idea has found a place in the system
of Islam. An accepted tradition in the Mishkat-ul-Masibih gives
an account by Ayeshah of Mohammed’s conversation while sacri-
ficing. She relates that he said :§ “ Man has done nothing on the
day of sacrifice more pleasing to God than the spilling of blood ;
for verily the animal sacrificed will come on the day of resurrec-
tion, with its horns, its hair, its hoofs, and will make the scales of
his actions heavy, and verily its blood reacheth the acceptance of
God before it falleth upon the ground.”

But it is especially among the Shiahs that the idea of atonement
has gained a place and in reference to the death of their Imams.
Often, when trying to set forth the story of the cross to the Shiahs
of Persia, they reply: “ In like manner the blood of the Imam
Husain avails for us as an offering to God.” Sometimes, too, they
bring out the idea that Christ’s death was but one, whereas
Husain and his retinue of the holy seed of the prophet all shed
their blood for the salvation of their people. Extending the
application still further, the sufferings and violent deaths of the

* Dr. Wherry’s Commentary on the Koran, Yols. I, p. 319, II, 61, III, 165.

t Vol. II, p. 60.

X The Bible and Islam, pp 122-125. § Dictionary of Islam, p. 552.

446

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

Imams Ali, Hasan, etc., are made to have expiatory efficacy.
The Mujtihids of the Sheikhi sect especially exalt the Imams to
the highest point of dignity and attribute to their actions the
greatest efficiency.

This doctrine has an historical origin which demands brief con-
sideration. Ali became Khalifa in succession to Abu Bekr, Omar
and Osman. Shiahs claim that he had neen appointed by Mo-
hammed as his successor and should have been the first Khalifa,
the rightful Imam, and have been succeeded by Hasan and
Husain, his sons by Fatima, the daughter of the prophet. Ali
was assassinated at Kufa by the sword of Mulzam, and Hasan was
poisoned by his seventieth wife, at the instigation, as is alleged, of
Muavia, the supplanting Khalifa at Damascus. Husain was led bv
the promises of the fickle people of Kufa to march from Medina
to receive the Khalifate. He was left without assistance by the
Kufans and with his company of seventy-two soldiers was sur-
rounded by the army of Yezid, son of Muavia, under Umar and
Shamr, and slain on the plain of Kerbela. Among those who
perished was his brother Abbas, his sons Ali Akbar and Ali
Asghar, and Kazim, the son of Hasan, while the sister and wife of
Husain were led away captive to Damascus.. The martyred seed
of the prophet became the centre of a devotion and veneration
which has increased and developed through the centuries. Their
adherents formed the Shiah sect. Its most characteristic feature
is t e commemoration of the events of Kerbela in the month of
Muharram — in the Passion Play, the Lamentations of the Mar-
seyakhans, the self-tortures of the mourner-gangs and the bloody
procession of Ashura, with its wild and frenzied devotees cutting
themselves with swords and pouring out their blood even unto
death.

The unsuccessful attempt of Husain to attain to the Khalifate
has been transformed into a voluntary martyrdom, nay more iuto
a sacrificial and vicarious offering of his life and that of his family
for the sins of his followers, bringing into Mohammedanism the
doctrine of substitutionary atonement. It does not seem certain
that the Shiahs by their older traditions claimed for the deaths of
the Imams any expiatory efficacy. For example, in the Hayat-
ul-Quloob,* written in 1676, it is said that Mohammed foretold
the death of Husain and his family, and gave Umm Salmah some
of the dust of Kerbela, which he said would become blood when
the massacre occurred. He said, also, “A sect of my religion will
visit your graves in reverence of me, and I will give them salva-
tion on the day of judgment.”

* Life of Mohammed , by Merrick, p. 181.

THE ATONING SAVIOR OF THE SHIAHS.

447

This merely predicts the death, but a tradition found in Sell* is
to the effect that Mohammed said ot Husain: “ He will die for
the sake of my people.” Now popular tradition and invention
have embellished the facts with a thousand additions. These can
be well ascertained in the tragedies of the Passion Play, which are
acted with impassioned fervor in the first ten days of Muharram.
The plays are not to be regarded as historical nor even as repre-
senting approximately the events. They may, however, be relied
upon as setting forth the doctrinal beliefs of the Shiahs at the
present day. Let us examine these Passion Plays, to ascertain
their doctrine concerning the deaths of the Imams.

Tradition and imagination have developed the subject so as to
cover the course of time from the eternal counsels of God to the
final judgment. Whenf God, before the creation of heaven and
earth, and 2000 years before Adam was formed, created Moham-
med, Fatima, Ali, Hasan and Husain, he showed them a standard
and asked, Who will bear it? The others declined. Husain took
it up. God said, The conditions are that you should be beheaded
and your family chained and thirsty and persecuted. Husain
accepted the conditions. Then God said, “ For this cause all
mediation and atonement will be by you.”

When Hasan and Husain were children they came to Mohammed,
on Qurban Bayram, and said, “ 0 grandfather, the Arab children
have put on good clothes, we have none ; therefore we are sorrow-
ful.” Then the prophet was sad because he could not buy them
clothes. At that time Gabriel came down, and said, “ 0
prophet, God sends you greeting. Why are you sad ? Take
these two suits of clothes, one for Hasan and one for Husain. I
have brought them from heaven.” Their color was white, and
the children did not admire them. Then Gabriel brought a pan
of water from Paradise, and said, “ Whatever color you wish
thev will become.” The prophet asked Hasan, “ What color do
you want?” He chose green, and Husain red. Gabriel, pouring
out the water, wept. The prophet said. “ Why do you weep?”
Gabriel answered : 1 1 Because Hasan will die of poison and

Husain will be red in his own blood at Kerbala.”:}:

Mohammed is declared to have consecrated Husain as a sacrifice
from his childhood. Gabriel visited him and said :§ “ O messen-
ger of the gracious God, consider the sinful state of thy poor
people and make Husain a propitiation for their sins, that the
Lord of ali beings may, in the Day of Judgment, have mercy on
all of them for Husain’s sake.” Mohammed is willing, saying :

* Faith of Islam , p. 94. \ Tradition’s source unknown.

t Tradition’s source unknown. § The Miracle Play, by Col. Pelly, p. 23.

448

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

“ Alas, O Gabriel ! for the misery of my people. Though Husain
is the light of my eyes, I will, in order to save my people from
the wrath to come, make Husain a propitiation for their sins.”
Gabriel: “Well done; for such generosity, since thou makest
Husain a man of sorrow on behalf of thy people, no doubt God
will forgive all of them in that day, for the Imam’s meritorious
blood’s sake.” Later, Mohammed tells Husain of this divine
purpose, saying : * “ 0 Husain, come hither, all the inhabitants of
the two worlds, whether men or Jinns, are sunk in sin and have
only one, Husain, to save them.” Husain : “ What is thy order,
grandfather? I am quite ready to obey it.” The Prophet:
“ Hear child, I am going to tell you the story of Iverbala. Wilt
thou go submissively, wilt thou suffer troubles or not ?” Husain:
“ What do you mean ?” The Prophet : “0 Husain, thou must
voluntarily give thy head to the dagger.” Husain: “ With all
my heart. I 'will give my own head for the salvation of my
people. Nay, I will even make the throat of my infant son
Asghar a target to the arrow of God’s decree for them.” The
Prophet : ‘ ‘ Thou must give up the two hands of Abbas, thy
brother. Though it grieve thee much, thou must offer thy son,
Ali Akbar, also.” Husain : “ For the sake of God, I will most
readily do so.” Husain’s foreknowledge of the events is set forth.
On his departure from Medina he narrates in detail the approach-
ing calamities. f When the time draws near his willingness for the
appointed work is emphasized. He says : “ Oh ! How blessed the
morn when I shall joyfully behold myself surrounded on all sides
by the army of Yezid in the plain of Iverbala ! For a long time
I have been anxiously wishing for that day.” “ Husain’s throat
longs to meet the cutting dagger of the inhabitants of Kufa.
How glad am I to become a sacrifice for mankind !” “I will
stretch my throat before the dagger, seeing it is the will of the
friend that I should obey his voice.”

The purpose of the sacrifice is continually set forth to be “ the
salvation of our sinful followers.” Fatima says to Husain, “ He
who wishes to save men from everlasting flames must undergo
the troubles of Iverbala.” Husain says, “ It is not grievous that
I and all my companions should be slain, since the thing is done
for the salvation of the people.” “ The crown of intercession is
fitted for our heads only.”

Husain sets himself forth as the substitute and expiation. He
says “ The helpless people of the prophet of God have no rock
of salvation to fly to for a refuge except Husain. They have no
advocate with God on the Day of Judgment except Husain. The

* The Miracle Play, by Col. Pelly, p. 88. f P. 210. J Pp. 210-211.

THE ATONING SAVIOR OF THE SHIAHS.

449

way of salvation is shut up against them on account of their
manifold sins ; and, except Husain, none can make a proper atone-
ment or propitiation for transgression. Who can save the people
of God from the wrath to come, seeing the empire of faith has no
other king but Husain?” “I am willing to be killed for the
sake of God’s people, that I may intercede for all in the great
plain of last account.” “ The treasure of eternal happiness shall
be at my disposal as a consequent reward.”

As if this redemption was actually accomplished and ready to
be applied, Hurr, a warrior sent by Yezid, who, like the dying
thief, turned to the side of Husain and fought for him like a
valiant champion, says as he rushes to death : “I have letter-
patents sealed with Husain’s seal that I am saved in both
worlds.”

To guard against the thought that Husain was overpowered by
thirst or by his enemies, two incidents are related. A dervish
appears with a cup of water, drawn by the piteous cries of Sukai-
nah, Husain’s little daughter. Husain says to him :* “ Know, 0
young man, that we are never in need of the water of this life.
If I will, I can make the moon or any other celestial orb fall
down on the earth ; how much more can I get water for my chil-
dren. Look at the hollow made in the ground with my spear ;
water would gush out of it if I were to desire it. I die
parched and offer myself a sacrifice for the sins of my people, that
they should be saved from the wrath to come.”

Besides this, Jafar, the king of the Jinns, with his troops, comes
to Husain’s assistance after the death of his followers, saying :
“ 0 king of men and Jinns, O Husain, peace be on thee ! 0

judge of corporeal and spiritual beings, behold I have come out
with troops of Jinns to lend thee help.” Husain rejects the offer,
saving: “ Return thou, Jafar, to thy home.” “What have I to
do with the empire of the world or its tempting glories.” “ I
have washed my hands of life, I have guided myself to do the
will of God.”

When Husain came before his enemies he said to them :f “ Do
not think that I am at a loss ; with a sweep of my hand I could
turn 5000 of you into hell.” “ When he was sitting near his
tent and the opposing force came up to him, he waved his hand
and 500 of them were instantly killed.”

In the death scene Husain, already wounded, cries out: “O
God, have mercy in the Day of Judgment on my people for my
sake.” He prays for the presence of the prophet. Mohammed
appears and says : “ Sorrow not, dear grandchild, thou shalt be a

* Passion Play, Yol. II, p. 81, seq.

\ Oral tradition.

450

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

mediator, too, in that day.” Husain answers: “ I would ofter
my soul not once or twice, but a thousand times for the salvation
of thy people.”* In the climax the shameless Shamr stands over
the fallen Imam, and addresses him : “ See how the dagger waves
over thee. It is time to cut thy throat.” Husain dies, uttering
the following prayer: “ 0 Lord, for the merit of me, the dear
child of the prophet ; 0 Lord, for the sad groanings of my mis-
erable sister ; O Lord, for the sake of young Abbas, rolling in
his blood ; I pray thee, in the Day of Judgment, forgive, 0 merciful
Lord, the sins of my grandfather’s people, and grant me, bounti-
fully, the key of the treasure of intercession.”

In the above quotations not only the sufferings and death of
the Imam Husain, but those of his relatives are stated to be
expiatory. This appears more fully in the acts devoted to their
deaths. Of Ali Akbar, Husain says: “ I sacrifice him for the
sake of the beloved. Intercession for sinners is the great price of
his blood. Yes, Ali Akbar is a ransom for many nations.”
“ Oh, Ali Akbar, I know I am offering thee a sacrifice for the
sins of mankind.” Zainab, the sister of Husain, too, is a willing
sufferer. “ I, the sorrowful one, have also consented to be in bonds
.of affliction and trial and to walk barefooted and bareheaded
through the streets of Damascus for the sake of the sinners of our
people, since all our sufferings tend to the happiness of our sinful
people.” The whole family is thus regarded as offering itself a
propitiatory sacrifice. Some Mujtihids even distribute the merits
of their atonement to different classes of men, saying that Husain
made atonement for grown men, Abbas for men thirty years of
age, Ali Akbar for youths of eighteen, Ali Asghar for children,
and Zainab and Kulsum for women.

The doctrine, fully developed with regard to these martyrs, is
by a natural logic carried back and applied to the deaths of the
first and second Imams and the pains of the prophet and Fatima.
To these all are attributed vicarious expiation. Mohammed, on
his deathbed at Medina, is represented as saying to Ali : “ Thy
martyrdom will be the means of salvation to my people, in raising
thee to the high office of intercessor for them.” Ali: “ O
Prophet, I am ready to be afflicted with all sorts of ills for the
sake of thy holy people’s salvation.” The Prophet : “ 0 Fatima,
thou must offer Hasan a ransom for my people.” So Ali, as he
dies at Kufa from the sword-stroke, makes a last prayer: “ 0
thou beneficent Creator, the sole, the almighty God, I adjure thee
by that pearl- like tooth of thy chosen and glorious prophet which
was knocked out with a stone in the battle of Ohod ; and by the

* Miracle Play , Yol. II, p. 81 seq.

THE ATONING SAVIOR OF THE SHIAHS.

451

fracture which Fatima suffered in her side ; and by the tearful
eyes of his distressed family;” and “ for this head of mine cloven
asunder with the sword of tyranny, and for the sake of my body
rolling in its own blood, forgive thou mercifully the sins of my
Shiahs, and in the Day of Judgment pardon thou all them that
love me.” *

But in this work of expiation none has the merit of Husain.
For a popular tradition says, u At the last judgment Moslems will
stand in tiers. The first tier God will send to heaven as righte-
ous, i. e., their good works having overbalanced their evil works.
For the second and third tiers Mohammed will mediate, and will
attempt it for the fourth tier. But God will refuse, saying, They
deserve hell. Then Husain will point to his standard and plead
by the blood of Kerbala, and God will pardon the multitude.

III. The Imam Husain Ibn Ali is thus a rival of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Millions of our fellow-men attribute to his death
the effects that we attribute to our Lord’s. They regard his death
as more memorable and important than any fact of his life, or
than any truth he taught. Year by year they commemorate it
with a series of unique religious ceremonies. They constantly
present to the missionaries his atonement as a foundation of hope
in contrast with the Gospel. They thus challenge comparison be-
tween his death and that of Christ. While we might throw aside
this claim as undeserving of attention, yet since millions in Persia
and India cling to such a faith, it is interesting to make a com-
parison between the passion of the Imam and that of the Messiah.
Let it not seem superfluous to show the inferiority of the Imam of
Arabia to the Prophet of Nazareth, of the sacrifice at Kerbala to
the crucifixion on Calvary. I shall follow the account as found in
Ockley’s History of the Saracens , Irving’s Successors of Mohammed
and Osborne’s Islam under the Arabs. While we cannot be sure
of the facts, yet we find the history contrasts greatly with the tra-
ditional embellishments of the Passion Play.

Jesus left Galilee, for Jerusalem “ to suffer many things and be
killed.” His definile purpose was to give His life for His sheep.
He went to seek a cross. Husain left Medina bearing letters of
invitation from 140,000 Kufans to come and lead a revolt against
Yezid, expecting to win for himself the Khalifate, the crown of
the Moslem world. He was seeking aggrandizement through
human instrumentalities. Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem,
going as a lamb to the slaughter. Husain crossed the desert,
expecting to meet large reinforcements and conquer. The Kufans,
who a short time before were ready to welcome his entrance with

* Miracle Flay , Vol. I, pp. 87, 151, 141.

452

T11E PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

enthusiastic hosannas and make him king, were now saying,
“ We have no Khalifa but Yezid.” Jesus, betrayed by Judas,
was met in the garden of Gethsemane by a band of soldiers and
officers with swords and staves ; Husain, with his armed companv
of thirty-two foot soldiers and forty horsemen, was surrounded on
the banks of the Euphrates by 3000 horsemen. Jesus said to
them, “If ye seek me, let these go their way.” Husain gave his
friends the privilege of departing, saying: “ These troops seek
no life but mine. Tarry not with me to your destruction, but
leave me to my fate.” Jesus’ disciples all forsook him and fled ;
Husain’s followers said : “ God forbid that we should survive
your fall. We have devoted our lives to you.” Jesus healed the
ear of Malchus, saying : “ Put up again thy sword into its place,
for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.”
“ Mv kingdom is not of this world ; if my kingdom Avere of this
world, then would my servants fight.” Husain permitted and
encouraged all his followers to engage io murderous single combats
and even bound on Ali Akbar the famous zul-fakar, the sword of
Ali, with which Ali Akbar slew more than thirty men. Abbas
fought with his sword in his mouth Avhen his hands were cut off.
Husain, “ faint with thirst and wounded, fought with desperate
courage and sleAV several of his antagonists.” He preferred to
live, and proposed that he be allowed to return to Mecca, be
given a safe conduct to Yezid or allowed to go and fight against
the idolaters. Umer wished to give opportunity to Husain to flee,
but feared the vengeance of Obeidullah, as Pilate feared Carsar.
During the crucifixion the dying thief turned to Jesus and said.
“ Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom,” and
Christ answered : “ This day shall thou be with me in Paradise.”
In the beginning of the attack Hurr, a captain, came over to
the side of Husain, saying: “I desire to sacrifice myself for
thee.” Husain answered : “ May God grant you a happy martyr-
dom ; you will enter Paradise a free man Jesus was anointed
shortly before His death Avith precious ointment, and said :
“ She hath done it for my burial. Yerily I say unto you, Avhereso-
ever this Gospel shall be preached in the Avhole world, there shall
this also Avhich this woman hath done be told for a memorial of
her.” Husain entered his tent, washed and anointed himself and
perfumed himself witn musk. One asked him the meaning of
this action. He replied : “Alas ! there is nothing betAveen us and
the black-eyed houris, but that these people came down upon us
and kill us.”

Jesus in His anguish cried out, “ I thirst!” and Avas gi\'en
vinegar to drink. Imagination has pictured Mohammed de-

THE ATONING SAVIOR OF THE SHIAHS.

453

scending from heaven to Husain with a cup of water or a Persian
dervish arriving on the same errand, but the chronicler, with
a more pathetic touch, shows us Husain trying to assuage Ali
Akbar’s thirst by inserting his tongue in his mouth ; and when
he attempted to reach the Euphrates, of which even the un-
clean beasts and the infidels freely drank, he was shot in the
mouth with an arrow, and returned to the tent with the blood
pouring from the wound. Jesus under His load of suffering cried
out, “ My God, my God, why hath thou forsaken me?” Husain
said: “ 0 God, dost thou withhold help from us?” When his
infant Abdullah was killed in his arms, he said : “ Lord, give me
strength to bear these misfortunes.” Jesus commended his sor-
rowing mother to the care of the beloved disciple. Husain
remembered his old nurse and recommended her to Zeinab. He
also said: “ Sister, show to Sukainah, my daughter, always the
tenderness of a mother. Be kind to my child after me.” Jesus
prayed for his murderers and crucifiers : “ Father, forgive them,
they know not what they do.” When the enemies of Husain
attempted to set fire to the tents and the women cried out in
alarm, Husain said: “ What! Would you bum my family?
Cursed Shamr ! The fire of Jehannam be thy portion!” To
another he said : “ May thy mother be childless.” To still
others: “Thy impudence exceeds all bounds; may thy mother
sit in mourning for thee.” “ A thousand curses from God be on
Obeidullah Ibn Ziyad, the unprincipled mean fellow.” When
Abdullah was smitten, Husain took a handful of the blood and
threw it toward heaven, exclaiming: “ 0 Lord, take vengeance
•on the wicked.” During the fight he asked for a truce to pray at
noonday. He imprecated the Kufans as follows : “ Let not the
dews of heaven distill upon them and withhold thou from them
ithe blessings of the earth, for they first invited me and then
•deceived me.”

Jesus gave up his life, saying: “It is finished. Into thy
hands I commend my spirit.” Husain, left alone by the death
of his companions and exhausted by his wounds, fought on till,
wounded on the hands and the neck, he was thrust through with a
spear and fell, covered with thirty- three wounds and thirty-four
bruises. The head was severed from the body and taken to
Kufa and Damascus. The trunk was trampled under the horses’
hoofs and crushed in the earth. The soldiers took his spear and
the rest of the spoils and divided them among themselves, remind-
ing us of how they parted Jesus’ garments among them. The
trunkless head of Husain was presented to Obeidullah, tne gov-
ernor, who smote it on the mouth with his staff, as the high priest
30

454

TBE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

buffeted and smote Jesus with tbe palms of his hands. For three
days the body of Husain remained exposed to the inclemency of
the weather and the attacks of wild beasts and vultures, but
preserved, as they believe, by miracle from being touched by
them. Then the inhabitants of a neighboring village, ashamed
that the body of a grandson of the prophet should be so exposed,
buried it in the plain of Kerbala, where it remains in a shrine — a
place of pilgrimage of millions of devoted followers. How
striking the contrast in the case of Jesus ! His body was taken
and with honor and bv loving hands was placed in a rock-hewn
sepulchre. Three days passed and He burst the oars of the tomb
and ascended to the right hand of power. In the one case there
is the shrine of a dead Imam — crumbling dust — a symbol of
defeat ; in the other, the empty sepulchre of a risen Christ, the
symbol and evidence of triumph.

These similarities and contrasts are founded on the traditional
narratives of the Shiahs, which are somewhat historical. Mingled
with these are accounts of miraculous events that show evidence
of imitation of the Gospel narratives. As at Christ’s death the
sun was darkened, and darkness was over all the land from the
sixth to the ninth hour, the vail of the temple was rent, the earth
quaked and the rocks were rent ; so the Shiahs declare that the
sun was eclipsed so that the stars appeared at noonday, the earth
was darkened three days, the sides of the heavens turned red
and looked like clotted blood, the heavens rained blood, all the
drinking vessels in the world were found filled with blood, and
clotted blood was found under every stone that was turned up in
Jerusalem. The place where the head of Husain lay was covered
with emanations of light. As Judas and Pilate and Herod met
with violent deaths, so those engaged in the murder of Husain
met with misfortune, soon fell sick and most of them died mad.

We have drawn the parallel between the two narratives. We
have studied the story of the death of the Shiah mediator in contrast
to that of the Christ, the Saviour of the world. Let us make a
resume of the points. Husain sought earthly dominion ; Jesus
said, “ My kindom is not of this world.” The one sought his own
aggrandizement ; the other to give His life a ransom for others.
The one died overpowered in spite of his own and his followers’
exertions ; the otner said : “I have power to give my life and to
take it again ; none of you taketh it from me, but I lay it down of
myself.” The one died smiting to the dust his opponents, having
covered the plain with their blood ; the other having commanded,
“ Put up the sword into the sheath; they that take the sword
shall perish with the sword.” The one prayed God to curse his

THE ATONING SAVIOR OF THE SHIAHS.

455

enemies, the other for their forgiveness and salvation. The one
died as a brave and courageous man, pious after his fashion ; the
other died with such a wonderful bearing that the centurion said,
“ Surely this was the Son of God.” The body of the one
remains in the dust ; that of the other was resurrected and glori-
fied and lives in immortal life.

But the parallel extends still further. While in most cases a
birth, a coronation or a victory has been the origin of a memorial,
in the case of Husain and Jesus, their deaths are the centres of
religious celebrations. To the Christian the Lord’s Supper is the
most important ordinance, to the Shiah Mohammedan the celebra-
tions of the month of Muharram surpass all others in the hold
they have on their hearts and lives. Here we have an oppor-
tunity to contrast the religions and compare the ideals acting on
the adherents of the beheaded Imam and the crucified Christ.

How is Husain’s death commemorated ? In the Persian Passion
Play — the Takia— the whole scene of his sacrifice at Kerbala is
represented by actors taking the part of each historic character.
The incidents are brought vividly before the people, who are
affected to tears of sorrow or cries of rage according to the changes
in the scenes. Spectacles* in the streets keep the interest alive.
Processions of men and women march in irregular mass through
the streets and bazaars. Some bear national banners and religious
emblems. At one place a band of boys chants the mournful tale
of Husain’s death. At another a squad of men, barefooted and
naked down to the waist, follows a leader clashing cymbals. Some-
have chains or cat-o’ -nine-tails of iron or leather tipped with
steel, with which they lacerate their backs. Others use large-
clubs, while many pound themselves with their fists until their
breasts and backs are black and blue with sores. At night they
repair to the mosques. They anoint their heads, faces and beards
with filthy black ointment and bare their feet and breasts. A
Mollah takes the lead, and with singing of dirges and frantic
intonations of the words “ Shah Husain,” and beating of their
breasts, they continue a night-long lament. Their frenzy thus
wrought up, they are prepared for the Ashura or tenth of the
month. In the morning they are clothed in white, the crowns of
their shaven heads are cut, the blood flows down in profusion ;
wild excitement takes hold of them ; swords are placed in their
hands ; they start in procession through the street, flashing their
swords in the air, ever and anon gashing their heads and raising
the now wild and frenzied cry, “ Shah Husain ! Shah Husain ! ”
There appears also a richly caparisoned riderless horse, eloquent

* For full descriptions see the writer’s Persian Life and Customs.

456 THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

of the absence of the fallen Husain, or perhaps a spotless white
dove, perched upon a saddle, representing the plumed messenger
which, dipping its wings in the blood of the slain, carried the sad
news to the sacred cities. Next follows a mounted company of
babes, strapped to the horses, their heads bleeding and their gar-
ments red from the cruel sword cuts. What a spectacle ! A
length of barbarous fanaticism which recalls the prophets of Baal
— a celebration which yearly ends in the death of some partici-
pants in many of the cities of Persia. So do the devotees of
Husain commemorate his death.

H ow solemn, simple and edifying, how much more rational and
consistent with a divine institution, is the sacrament of the Lord’s
Supper ! In it the plain emblems of our Saviour’s broken body
and shed blood call to remembrance Calvary and the crucifixion,
drawing our souls to a new exercise of faith and love ; and seal to
us the benefits of Christ’s sacrificial death. To the Christian the
communion is a eucharist — a thanksgiving feast of divine love ;
the cross is a symbol of pardon, a foretaste of the Paradise in
which he will sing the new song, “ Worthy is the Lamb that
was slain to receive glory and honor and power and blessing.”

To the Shiahs, notwithstanding their elaborated doctrine of
propitiation through the sacrifice of the Imam, Kerbala remains an
“ anguish ” and an “ affliction.”* Noptean of victory closed their
sad celebration, no glad resurrection anthems swell forth in notes
of triumph. But mourning, wailing and lamentations, curses
and bitterness, a frenzy of passionate grief are unrelieved by any
consolation. The black garments worn during the month are fit
symbols of their condition. They chant the dirge of disappoint-
ment. They cannot but regard Husain’s death as a calamity, as a
triumph of his enemies. They would rather he had succeeded in
seizing the Khalifate and transmitting it in succession to his de-
scendants. Their attempt to steal the livery of Jesus to clothe
Husain in is vain. The suffering atoning Saviour of the world
will convince them of his divine preeminence and draw them, as
all men, unto Himself.

Tabriz, Persia. S. G. WlL^OX.

* Arabic words Kerb = anguish, and bnla = affliction.

YI.

REVIEWS OF

RECENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

I.— APOLOGETICAL THEOLOGY.

Magic and Religion. By Andrew Lang, Author of 3fyth, Ritual
and Religion; Custom and Myth , etc. 8vo, pp. x, 316. Longmans,
Green & Co., 39 Paternoster Row, London, New York and Bombay :
1901.

Into this volume Mr. Lang has gathered a series of papers. The most
of them bear on the problem of the origin and early history of religion and
tend to strengthen the hypothesis set forth in his Making of Religion , which
was published in 1898 and favorably reviewed in this journal at the time
( vol. ix, p. 744). That hypothesis is stated by an unfriendly critic — Mr. Hart-
land — as follows : “ Apparently it is claimed that the belief in a supreme being
came, in some way only to be guessed at, first in order of evolution, and was
subsequently obscured and overlaid by belief in ghosts and in a pantheon of
lesser divinities.” That is to say, Mr. Lang, setting himself against the
current of popular speculation, supposes that belief in a supreme being,
instead of arising as an evolution from a precedent ancestor worship or anim-
ism, antedated those forms of belief. He was led to this conclusion, he tells us
(p. 224),“ first, by observing the reports of belief in a relatively supreme being
and maker among tribes who do not worship ancestral spirits ; ” and ‘ ‘ secondly,
by remarking the otiose unworshipped supreme being, often credited with the
charge of future rewards and punishments, among polytheistic and ancestor-
worshipping people.”

In defense of himself against Mr. Hartland’s inuendo, Mr. Lang replies
that it is true enough that he holds that belief in “ a creative being
(not a spirit, merely a being), before ghosts are worshipped,” “came
in some way only to be guessed at.” “ But,” he adds, “ if I am to have an
hypothesis like my neighbors, I have suggested that early man, looking for
an origin of things, easily adopted the idea of a maker, usually an unborn
man, who was before death and still exists. Round this being crystallized
affection, fear and sense of duty; he sanctions morality and early man’s
remarkable resistance to the cosmic tendency, his notion of unselfishness.
That man should so early conceive a maker and father seems to me very
probable; to my critics it is a difficulty. ... No speculation seems more
inevitable ” (p. 225). Readers of our review of Mr. Lang’s Making of Relig-
on (ix, 744) will remember that in this we are quite of Mr. Lang’s mind. That

458

TI1E PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

man should instinctively “ project himself upon the heavens ” seems to us so
inevitable, in fact, that we can account for the difficulties which his critics
find with Mr. Lang’s postulation of an anthropomorphic religion for early
man only by a fatal one-sidedness in their methods— a one-sidedness which,
in a word, forgets the subject in absorption with the object. It is not, after
all, “primitive religion ” in the abstract that we are in search of, but the
primitive religion of man. And the primitive religion of man can never be
reached by methods which leave out of consideration man himself, the pro-
ducing cause of the thing we are investigating.

Now, what we are saying amounts, of course, to suggesting that the
so-called “ anthropological method ” requires to be supplemented by the
“ psychological method,” in order that we may attain satisfying results in
this sphere of investigation. No one will rise from reading the discussions
of the origin and early forms of religion by our leading anthropologists, with-
out a strong conviction that what is needed by these writers is a funda-
mental study of the psychology of religion. The scoff implied in Mr. Hart-
land’s professed inability to conceive how man could arrive directly at belief
in a man-like supreme being grates a little on our susceptibilities. It is all
very well to collect the phenomena of religion as they appear in the life of
races and peoples and tribes, and to seek from these to construct a phenomo-
logical schema of the course of religious development. Knowledge of how
religion arises in the individual mind is, nevertheless, an indispensable pre-
requisite to the safe interpretation of these phenomena. No more here than
in other spheres of investigation is it other than pseudo-science to seek to
interpret phenomena apart from the constitutive factor by which they were
produced.

We are not saying that “ the anthropological method ” is useless and can
lead to no sound conclusions. On the contrary we welcome Mr. Lang’s in-
vestigations in this sphere just because “ the anthropological method ” has in
his hands led to sound conclusions: conclusions which we think, on “anthro-
pological ” grounds pure and simple, must stand. Though these conclusions
are powerfully commended to us, because they are in harmony with the find-
ings suggested to us by the psychological method also, yet their immense
importance as “ anthropological ” conclusions is revealed when we attend to
another consideration. We can imagine anthropologists objecting to the use
of the psychological method altogether, or at least looking at it with a certain
chary distrust, on the ground of a formed or half-formed or even perhaps
sub-conscious doubt whether it is legitimate to attribute to “ primitive
man ” the same mental movements observable in civilized man. We can
imagine an extreme evolutionist saying, or at least feeling, that his business
is to get behind the man whose mental workings he is conscious of in him-
self, or can observe in his fellows— or even to get behind man himself,
at least, as wre know man, to the half-bestial creature that once wras slowly
becoming man. What he wishes to do is to observe how, in the process of
other changes, this change also took place — this evolving being became
a religious creature. Obviously, from this point of view, the intrusion into
his work of considerations derived from a knowledge of the human mind as
at present existing, and its normal workings, might confuse his entire reason-
ing. It is of the utmost significance that Mr. Lang steps in at just this point
and shows us that on “ anthropological grounds ” themselves, “ primitive
religion ” is exhibited as “ anthropomorphic ” rather than as “ animistic ” or
“ ancestor- worshipping.” And it is because he seems to us to have done
this, that we attach an importance to his writings on this subject that from
other points of view might well seem excessive. Primitive man is observed
to have actually reasoned humanly.

REGENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE .

459

Mr. Lang’s main thesis, then, is, let us understand, that “nothing in
savage religion is better vouched for than the belief in a being whom nar-
rators of every sort call ‘ a Creator who holds all in his power ’ ” (pp. 9-10) ;
and that this supreme being is not “envisaged as a spirit but rather as a
supernormal magnified man of unbounded power and of limitless duration ”
(p. 17). Thus, he contends, the earliest traceable form of religion was
relatively high ; and it was due to the process of social evolution that it sub-
sequently deteriorated to the low forms now so prevalent among savages.
Now, this opinion, he remarks, may be attacked on two sides. It may be
said that the loftier religious ideas of the lowest savages have been borrowed
from higher religions into contact with which these savages have been
brought — especially from Christianity or Islam. And the validity of the
evidence itself by which these higher religious ideas are attributed to lower
races may be assailed. The present volume is, for the most part, made up of
essays in which these two modes of assault on his theory are met, although
other factors in the problem and other attempts at a solution of it are also
discussed.

First Mr. Tyler’s theory of “ loan-gods or borrowed religion ” is examined ;
and it is shown that it will not account for the situation. It remains a fact
that low savages, the most remote in time and place from the possibility
of having borrowed their “ high gods,” yet do believe in a creator andmoral
governor of the world. Then Mr. Frazer’s idea that magic has everywhere
preceded religion, and indeed that religion has been invented only in despair
of magic — when men had tried magic and found it wanting — is examined
and equally found inconsistent with the facts. “ As to that despair, it does
not exist ” : religion is found not as the successor of magic but existing fully
developed side side by with superabundant magic. Next the central argu-
ment of the new edition of Mr. Frazer’s Golden Bough is taken up — that
horrible theory of the origin of the Jewish feast of Purim, by means of
which he fancies he can account for the ascription of deity to our Lord. In
a running criticism, covering about 125 pages — a criticism so desultorily
written as to tax the patience of the reader sadly — this portentous piece of
conjectural construction is fairly laughed out of court. Doubtless this was
the right way to deal with the nest of unsupported and insupportable hypo-
theses out of which Mr. Frazer has built his castle in the air ; but it makes
certainly very confused reading. The result of the discussion is stated in a
question, thus : “ Seriously, have we not in all this book [£. e., The Golden
Bough'] to do with that method of arbitary conjecture which has ruined so
many laborious philosophies of religion ?” Two further essays carry on the
general line of investigation to which the book is devoted. In one of these
Mr. Frazer’s primal theory — that built on “ the ghostly Priest ” — is subjected
to a very telling criticism. In the other South African religion is restudied
with a view to validating its original recognition of a “high god.” The
volume closes with three essays on folk-lore and magic, which have no
immediate relation to the main subject with which the volume deals.

We cannot praise the form into which Mr. Lang has cast the greater part
of the discussions included in these pages. It has all of Mr. Lang’s worst
faults in an exaggerated measure. But we consider the matter of the
volume important as a buttress to the suggestions enunciated in The Making
of Religion, and as a really conclusive exposure of the methods of Mr. Frazer
in the Golden Bough. We do not see how any one, after reading Mr. Lang’s
criticisms upon these methods, can treat the main lines of argument in that
painful book seriously.

Princeton.

B. B. Warfield.

460

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

II.— EXEGETICAL THEOLOGY.

Encyclopaedia Biblica. A Critical Dictionary of the Literary, Political
and Religious History, the Archaeology, Geography and Natural History
of the Bible. Edited by the Rev. T. C. Cheyne, M.A., D.D., Oriel
Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at Oxford, and
formerly Fellow of Balliol College, Canon of Rochester, and J. Suth-
erland Black, M.A., LL.D., Formerly Assistant Editor of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica. Volume III : L to P. London : Macmillan
& Company, Ltd.; New York: The Macmillan Company, 1901. 4to,
pp. xvi, and coll. 2689 to 3988.

The first volume of the Encyclopaedia Biblica was reviewed in The Pres-
byterian and Reformed Review for July, 1900 (vol. xi, p. 516 seq .) ; and
the second volume in the number for July, 1901 (vol. xii, p. 459 seq.). The
third volume, continuing the work from L through P, now lies before us. It
is not necessary at this late date to speak of the general character of the
book — the beauty of its typography and the excellence of its manufacture, the
fullness and exactitude of its scholarship, the radicalism of its standpoint,
the reckless subjectivity of its method, the destructiveness of its results, the
dogmatism of its tone. Those who do not know the book already must be
referred to the notices of the former volumes for a general account of it. It
will suffice at present merely to note that the third volume carries the enter-
prise one step further toward completion on precisely the same lines. We
still wonder at the immensity of detailed learning packed into it : at the
ubiquitous and always brilliant touch of Dr. Cheyne’s versatile but not over-
serious hand ; at the extremity of the views presented ; at the apparent
determination animating the editor to produce a dictionary of the Bible
which shall leave behind for the study of successors nothing that shall in
any wise deserve the name of Bible.

Certainly the results here proclaimed as the findings thus far reached by
“a scientific criticism,” take away from the writings which have been
gathered into the Bible all that entitles them to be looked upon as constitut-
ing anything that can be supposed to merit the name of “ The Book ” in any
preeminent sense. Even the most precious records of the New Covenant do
not escape. Dr. Schmiedel of Zurich had been called in, in the second
volume, to assure us that the Gospels cannot be trusted to give a true
picture of the founder of Christianity : nay, that the one thing which is to
be assumed before all others as the foundation of evangelic criticism is that
He was the precise contrast of the being they portray to us. In this volume
the work of destruction is completed by calling in Dr. Van Manen of
Leyden to assure us that we have no genuine letters of Paul. Of course Dr-
Cone is equally sure wre have none from Peter. In a word, every shred of
the New Testament is gone. The first age of Christianity it seems was
barren of records. We have nothing that represents an age earlier than
that of the epigoni. Naturally the old distinction between canonical and
uncanonical literature is obliterated by this. In a special article devoted just
to its obliteration — entitled “ Old Christian Literature,” i. e., the literature
that belongs to the “ pre-canonizing period,” or in other words before A.D.
180— Dr. Van Manen tells us complacently: “The distinction is not
a just one. . . . It does not in point of fact rest upon any real difference
in the character or origin of the books concerned”; but only on a
“dogmatic” “assumption,” “as if the New Testament contained the
records of a special revelation” (col. 3472). Into what we call our New
Testament there has merely been gathered a portion (perhaps the best por-

RECENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

461

tion) of the mainly pseudepigraphic literature of the second age of Chris-
tianity, appealed to (mistakenly) as Apostolic in the third age, and so “ can-
onized.” Behind these writings there loom up faintly certain figures to which
they bear their doubtful testimony — the figure of Jesus, the figure of Paul,
and doubtless the figures of other early missionaries who as well as Paul
wrought to extend the religion of Jesus. That is all that we have left of
the New Testament and of the founders of Christianity, We certainly
ought to be thankful that we are left so much. There seems to be no reason,
on the principles here acted on, why Paul himself should not have been sub-
limated into a fiction, Jesus into a symbol, and Christianity into a (possibly
pleasing) myth. Dr. Yan Manen is to be congratulated that he has not
pushed matters to extremes.

Everything distinctive of Christianity as a historical religion is, certainly,
in point of fact, somewhere or other in these volumes evaporated into the
mist. Perhaps the special point of attack in the present volume may be not
unfairly said to be the “ Virgin Birth ” of our Lord. Not content with the
long argument which Prof. Schmiedel has developed against it under the
title “ Mary,” Dr. Cheyne has called in Dr. Hugo Usener to attack it
equally at length in a separate article entitled “ Nativity.” The two
authors are thoi’oughly at one in their conclusions. The story of the virgin-
birth is pure legend, built up on heathen, not even on Jewish, presupposi-
tion. Merely as a piece of literature we prefer Usener’s presentation. But
there is so little to choose otherwise between the two that one wonders why
both were inserted — unless it were to provide against the possible contin-
gency of a careless examiner of the Encyclopaedia missing knowledge of its
unbelieving attitude toward this fundamental fact, lying at the basis of the
Christian religion.

In connection with Usener’s discussion of the place of the Nativity (col.
3346) we have a characteristic instance of Dr. Cheyne’s fertility of expedient
which ought not to be overlooked. Usener (as also Schmiedel) as a matter of
course represents Nazareth as the birthplace of Jesus, and thinks worth dis-
cussion only, “How was it possible for Bethlehem to set up competing
claims ?” “ In this connection,” he remarks, “ it has been noticed that
there was also a Bethlehem in Galilee, not far from Nazareth, which is men-
tioned once in the Talmud as Bethlehem Noseriyyah. Our present problem,
however, cannot be solved, but rather only further complicated, by this
reference.” Dr. Cheyne at once interposes a dissenting note, referring us to
his article on Nazareth. Turning thither we find him expressing doubt of
the very existence of a Nazareth — as indeed the really thoroughgoing anti-
biblical critic ought to, seeing that it is only the New Testament that
witnesses to its existence. “ Nazareth ” with Dr. Cheyne is only a variant
name for Galilee — as he had already explained under the title “ Gennesar ”
in vol. ii. (col. 1678), where he supposes Gennesar to be compounded of {J and
toi iu the sense of Galilee or a district of Galilee. “ The truth surely is,”
accordingly, “ that Bethlehem noseriyyah means ‘ the Galilean Bethlehem.’ ”
And it was here that Jesus was born ! ‘ 1 The title Bethlehem-Nazareth was
misunderstood by some of the transmitters of the tradition, so that while
some said ‘ Jesus was born at Bethlehem,’ others said 1 Jesus was born at
Nazareth ’ ’’ (col. 3362.) From this point of view, let us punctually observe,
there was after all a kernel of true tradition behind both the narratives : and
the whole elaborate structure of the “ critics ” by which the birth-stories have
been built up out of misapplied prophesies falls to the ground. So far as
they exhibit the insecurity of the critical construction, the lightness with
which their most thoroughly wrought-out theories are held even by them-
selves, Dr. Cheyne’s remarks are therefore not without their instructiveness.

462

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

Elsewhere also we find Dr. Cheyne acting similarly the role of enfant
terrible in the household of criticism. The article on “ Purim ’’ for example
is written by Mr. Johns of Queen’s College, Cambridge, with an appendix
by Dr. Frazer of Golden Bough fame. Both writers make much of Babylon-
ian connections and Dr. Frazer’s horrible theory, of course, rests wholly upon
these. At the end Dr. Cheyne appends a note in which he throws the whole
of this elaborate structure overboard. “ That Mordecai had no connection
with Marduk .... appears to the present writer .... certain. Hadassah
and Esther seem to be equally remote from Istar .... Even from the
point of view of a conservative textual criticism it is difficult to make a con-
nection of Purim with the Babylonian New Year’s festival probable, and
from a text critical point of view it is most improbable ” (col. 3982). Truly
we shall have to class Dr. Cheyne (to some extent) among the prophets !

We shall not be able to do Dr. Cheyne justice, however, until we hear him
on “ Jerahmeel.” We have not heard him on it yet. He is to tell us all
about it in a book yet to be published under the title of Critica Biblica. Mean-
wThile he whets our appetite for the book and stretches our curiosity to the
extreme by continual references to this “ Jerahmeel ” — which it seems is to
unlock well nigh all the puzzles of the Old Testament, historical, critical,
etymological. It is incredible how often Dr. Cheyne suggests that solutions
of all kinds of problems are to be found in this mysterious “Jerahmeel.”
We should not trust ourselves to estimate the number of Old Testament
names which he indicates as corruptions of this protaean name : only an
actual count would justify a reference to them. As the wonder grows in
our mind a certain dissatisfaction grows also : we have been accustomed to
look upon Encyclopaedias as aids in understanding books — now we are given
puzzles in the Encyclopaedia and referred to unpublished books to explain
them. Why was not “ Jerahmeel ” so far explained under “ Jerahmeel ” as
to enable us to understand all these references ? Can it be that Dr. Cheyne
had not yet discovered “ Jerahmeel ” in its full potency until after the second
volume of the Encyclopaedia was published ? All the phenomena point that
way.

Enough has been said to show that, in this volume too, Dr. Cheyne is
everywhere busy adding gaiety if not light to the page. Fifty-eight helpers
have been called to his assistance in preparing the material. Of these over a
score are Continental scholars — Benziger, Bertholet, Budde, Deissmann,
Duhm, Gautier, Guthe, Jiilicher, Kautzsch, Kosters, Van Manen, Marti,
Meyer, Nestle, Noldeke, Schmiedel, Socin, Tiele,Usener, Yoltz, Wellhausen,
Winkler, Zimmern. There are eight American writers represented. The
most copious of these is Prof. George F. Moore, formerly of Andover, now
of Harvard University. His contributions continue the two series he had
begun in earlier volumes — Pentateuchal Introduction (‘Leviticus,’ ‘Num-
bers’) and Idolatry (‘ Massebah,’ ‘Molech,’ ‘Nature Worship’): there is
also a comprehensive article on * Philistines.’ Prof. W. Max Muller, of Phila-
delphia, continues to treat Egyptian subjects (‘Nile,’ ‘Iso,’ ‘Noph,’

‘ Pharaoh ’ ‘ Phinehas,’ ‘ Pithom ’). Dr. Torrey, of Andover, deals with the
Maccabees, both with the family and with the Books ; as also with Malachi.
Dr. Toy treats ‘ Proverbs,’ and Dr. Cone the Epistles of Peter. Dr. Francis
Brown contributes a brief philological introduction to Dr. Tiele’s compre-
hensive article on ‘Persia.’ Prof. G. A. Barton, Ph.D., of Bryn Mawr,
writes at length on ‘ Numbers ’; and Dr. Prince, of New York University,
writes fully on ‘ Music.’

Among the more notable articles must be numbered naturally those on
the several books of the Bible. There fall to be treated in this volume
Lamentations, Levi*-icus5 Malachi, Micha, Nahum, Nehemiah, Numbers,

REGENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

468

Obadiah, Psalms, Proverbs, Philippians, Philemon and Peter’s Epistles.
Such assignments as ‘ Names ’ to Prof. G. B. Gray ; ‘ Parables ’ to Prof.
Jiilicher ; ‘ Nehemiah ’ to the late Prof. Kosters ; ‘ Proverbs ’ to Prof. Toy ;
‘ Papyri ’ to Prof. Deissmann, insured thorough treatment of the topics,
though at the same time excluded all novelty— except of course when Dr.
Cheyne intervenes with additions and notes. A few cuts (e. g., under
‘ Music,’ ‘ Palace,’ ‘ Penny,’ ‘ Pottery ’) and eight good maps illustrate the
text.

Princeton. Benj. B. Warfield.

Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, being a History of the
Text and its Translations. By Frederic G. Kenyon, M.A., D.Litt.,
Hon. Ph.D. of Halle University ; Late Fellow of Magdalen College,
Oxford. With 26 Facsimiles. Second Edition. Eyre and Spottis-
woode, etc. 1896. 8vo, pp. xi, 255. Third Edition, revised and
enlarged, with 29 Facsimiles and an Appendix on Recent Biblical Dis-
coveries, 1898.

The Palaeography of Greek Papyri. By Frederic G. Kenyon,
M.A., Late Fellow of Magdalen College, Hon. Ph.D. (Halle), D.Litt.
(Durham), Assistant Keeper of Manuscripts, British Museum. With
Twenty Facsimiles and a Table of Alphabets. Oxford : At the Claren-
don Press, 1899. 8vo, viii, 160.

Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament.
By Frederic G. Kenyon, Assistant Keeper of Manuscripts, British
Museum. With Sixteen Facsimiles. London : Macmillan and Co.,
Limited ; New York : The Macmillan Company, 1901. 8vo, pp. xi, 321.

The publication of Dr. Kenyon’s Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the
New Testament furnishes a fit occasion for bringing together for cursory
remark the chief contributions he has hitherto made to the better or wider
understanding of the history and state of the text of the New Testament.
We have accordingly associated with this latest of his works on the subject
two earlier publications, one more popular, one more scientific in its scope,
to both of which the present volume bears a somewhat close relation. We
have observed the attribution to him of yet another volume which would
naturally fall into the same series — a collection of Facsimiles of Biblical
Manuscripts in the British Museum (1900) : but this happens not to have
fallen in our way. There is also, of course, the somewhat long list of his
editions of Greek texts from the British Museum papyri, which more
remotely bear upon his work on the problems of the New Testament text.
These began, it will be remembered, with almost the unexpectedness of an
explosion, in the simultaneous publication in 1891 of the text and transla-
tion of Aristotle’s Constitution of the Athenians and the volume of Classical
Texts from Papyri in the British Museum, containing fragments of Demos-
thenes, Herodas, Homer, Hyperides, Isocates, etc. Certainly here was an
achievement for a young man under thirty, whose scientific expression hith-
erto had been practically confined to the preparation of the earlier parts
of the Catalogue of Additions to the Department of Manuscripts in the British
Museum (1888-1893). A separate facsimile edition of Herodas and an edition
of the Orations of Hyperides against Athenogenes and Philippides (1892)
quickly followed. Later there was added an edition of the Odes of Bacchy-
lides (1897), while other papyri fragments have been from time to time given
to the world through the periodical press (Class. Rev. vi, 436; Rev. de Phil.
xvi. 181, xxi. 1 ; Journal of Philology , xxi. 296 ; Melanges Weil , 1898, p. 243),

464

TEE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

and still others in those beautiful volumes, Greek Papyri in the British. Mu-
seum, Catalogue irith Texts — the first of which with 150 plates appeared in
1893, and the second with 123 plates in 1898. In the comprehensive Intro-
duction to this last-named work, we find much which has been drawn
upon — with appropriate amplifications and modifications, of course — in the
books which we have placed at the head of this article, and to this extent
this Catalogue might readily be looked upon as part of Dr. Kenyon’s direct
preparation for writing his latest book, with which we are now more imme-
diately concerned. But it is not unfair to treat the whole series as bearing
witness rather to Dr. Kenyon’s general palseographical learning, and thus as
only indirectly facilitating the preparation of his treatise on New Testament
Textual Criticism. With the two earlier books, which we have placed at the
head of this article, the case is different: in different ways and degrees, it is
true, but equally really, both stand immediately at the root of the Textual
Criticism and contribute directly to its pages. It might almost be said, in
fact, that this treatise is but an amplified, enriched and scientifically height-
ened recension of the portion of Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts
dealing with the New Testament Text, which, among other additions, has
incorporated also the cream of The Palaeography of the Greek Papyri , so far
as it is applicable to the New Testament.

It is not our purpose, however, to revert to these volumes more than is
necessary to call attention to them and place them in their right relation to
the volume more particularly in hand. The earlier of them is a remarkably
successful attempt to put into the hands of educated Bible readers a readable
and accurate account of how the Bible has come down to us. It opens with
three general chapters on Variations in the Bible Text, The Authorities for
the Bible Text and The Original Manuscripts of the Bible. The Hebrew
Text and the Versions of the Old Testament are then treated in two chapters ;
and these are succeeded by three in which the Text, MSS. and Versions of the
New Testament are dealt with. A single chapter is given to the Vulgate in
the Middle Ages : and then the book closes with two chapters tracing the
fortunes of the English Bible, in its Manuscript and Printed Forms. No
pretention is made to originality : the book is frankly based on the work of
others, which it only proposes to popularize. Its note is sobriety and judi-
ciousness. Only in a single matter has it gone astray by accepting bad guid-
ance. This is a very serious matter in itself, though here of less importance
because forming no essential part of the book : it concerns the account given
of the origin and history of the Canon, both Old Testament and New (cf.pp.
27, 95). One wonders, again, that Dr. Kenyon, of all men, wTith his firsthand
knowledge of papyrus documents, should not have known in 189S how the
papyrus-paper was manufactured (p. 19 : the matter is set right in the later
books — Papyri, p. 16 ; Text, p. 19) . But (with the exception of the mat ter of
the Canon) they are only minute flaws that can be picked in this good book.
It easily takes rank with the best popular expositions we have.

The treatise on The Palaeography of Greek Papyri stands at the opposite
pole from Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts in point of originality.
This is original or nothing : it pretends to be only an essay, but it undertakes
to break entirely new ground. Though strictly scientific in contents, it is so
clearly written and marshals its material with such skill that its interest is
by no means dependent solely on its novelty. The brief opening chapter,
entitled “ The Range of the Subject,” contains a welcome precis of the his-
tory of the recovery of papyrus documents, chiefly from the sands of Egypt.
The second chapter summarizes what is known of papyrus as a writing
material, and provides what w'e may call the archaeology of the subject. The
palaeography of the non-literary papyri is briefly surveyed in the third

REGENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

465

chapter; this branch of the general subject being passed over succinctly
because it is not new. The proper subject of the book is reached in the fourth
and fifth chapters, in which the palaeography of the literary papyri is for the
first time worked out systematically. Finally the transition to vellum is
described in a sixth chapter, and some useful tables and lists are added in an
appendix. The quality of sobriety and judiciousness which characterized
the more popular volume are equally in evidence in this, and gives an air of
fine restraint to the whole which vastly adds to the comfortable confidence of
the reader : he is easily persuaded that he is in the hands of a competent and
safe guide and passes on from page to page in a docile spirit. For a book
breaking new ground this is a noticeably modest and eminently satisfying one.

On turning to the Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament ,
one notes at once the same qualities of style, tone, manner which character-
ized its predecessors. It is an eminently well-written book : it is a markedly
calm and sober book : it is a thoroughly well-informed book. The same tone
of moderation and good judgment which met the reader in the former vol-
umes delights him here also. It is a positive pleasure to read these quiet,
judicious pages, so free from all special pleading, and so aloof from all
whimsical extravagances. One feels assured from the outset that he is get-
ting a fair summary of the present attainment of the art in which he is being
instructed. Perhaps he will miss a little the individual note ; will feel the lack
of the stimulus that attends enthusiastic advocacy ; and will scarcely avoid
receiving an impression that he is getting an essentially outside view of the
subject — something like the summing up of a judge in a case in which he has
had no personal part to play. His consolation will be that he feels himself in
the hands of a fair-minded and well-informed judge whose guidance he can
trust.

The eminent sobriety of the book is at once brought to the attention of the
reader in the opening chapter, where the function of criticism is expounded.
He will note for example with satisfaction the circumspect position taken up
with reference to the practice of conjectural emendation (pp. 2, 6, 14-15). It
is “ a process precarious in the extreme, and seldom allowing any one but the
guesser to feel confident in the truth of its results.” “ Where documentary
evidence is plentiful, conjecture will be scarce ; but when the former is want-
ing, the latter will have to try to take its place to the best of its ability. In
the case of the New Testament the documentary evidence is so full that con-
jecture is almost excluded.” “ When the evidence is so plentiful and varied
as it is for the New Testament, the chances that the true reading shall have
been lost by all are plainly very much smaller. It is universally agreed that
the sphere of conjecture in the case of the New Testament is infinitesimal ;
and it may further be added that for practical purposes it may be treated as
non-existent. No authority could be attributed to words which rested only
upon conjecture.” This is eminently prudent. But the reader may be par-
doned for wondering whether it goes to the bottom of the matter. He will
certainly desiderate some account of the nature of the conjectural process and
the natural limitations of its use. This he does not get.

For it will not suffice him to be told that exceptionally plentiful or early
attestation will exclude it. If he is a receiver of letters, he knows from his
own experience that autographs themselves constantly contain errors which
conjecture both can and must remove. If he is a reader of popular literature,
he knows from repeated observation that such errors may persist through a
million copies issued in scores of editions. He has himself corrected
hundreds of them. He opens, we will say, the fifth volume of the English
Translation of Harnack’s History of Dogma, at Chapter vi (p. 274), and he
reads in the title of the chapter of “ The Cralovingian Renaissance.” Will

466

TEE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

he hesitate to correct this at once to “ Carlovingian ?” A few lines lower
down he reads of “ the Neoplatonic type of thouoht ” : and with as little
hesitation corrects the errant second “ o ” into a “ g.” He turns the page
and on p. 277 the word “ activite ” meets his eye and is at once made
“ activity ” : and when a little lower down he reads “the king-emperor of
the Franks and Romans was the successor of Augustine and Constantine,”
he as promptly corrects the “ Augustine ” into “ Augustus.” Nor does he
hesitate on p. 285 when he reads that “ Christ was as man sacrificed for
sakes ” to insert “ men’s ” before “ sakes,” nor a little lower down to change
the order of the words “ the then Incarnation ” to “ then the Incarnation.”
Neither does he do all this with fear and trembling, but with confidence and
assurance.

Nor will he be satisfied by being told that the sacred text is too holy to be
thus corrected by conjecture. If it is obviously wrong he will be apt to think
it too holy not to be corrected, whether by conjecture or what not, so only it
be corrected. He takes up, for example, the Brevier 16mo edition of the
Revised New Testament, issued at the Cambridge University Press in 1881,
and at 1 Cor. iii. 5, he reads : “ What then is Apollos ? and what is Paul ?
Ministers through whom ye Lord believed; and each as the gave to him.”
Because this is a sacred text, will he decline to transfer the word “ Lord ”
to its proper place before the word “ gave ?” Or he takes up the “ Editio
critica minor ex viii maiore desumpta ” of Tischendorf, published in 1878,
and on p. 945 he runs into mere nonsense, due to the misplacement of a
whole line from the first to the seventh place on the page. Sacred as the
text is, he is not likely to wait to consult the MSS. before he readjusts the
lines and goes on his way in entire confidence both in his readjustment and
in the authority of the text as readjusted. Or if he takes up the Barker and
Bill Bible of 1631 and reads at Ex. xx. 14, “ Thou shalt commit adultery,”
will he decline to insert at once the “ not ” so obviously required, or to act
on the thus amended text, because forsooth “ no authority can be attached
to words which rest only upon conjecture ?” Would he have to wait until he
consulted other copies (which are happily extant and accessible in these
cases) before he gave full confidence to such conjectures and assigned full
authority to them ? We must not confuse the authority due to the Biblical
text with the method of procedure by which the Biblical text is ascertained.
When once ascertained, it has the authority that belongs to it as the Biblical
text: and the only valid question is, Whether it is really ascertained. This
question clearly has nothing to do with the nature of the text ascertained,
but purely with the nature of the processes by which it is ascertained. Pro-
cesses that are valid for the ascertainment of a secular are equally valid for
the ascertainment of a sacred text, aud it has no bearing on their validity
that the texts when thus validly ascertained have the imperative of law in
them, or the authority of God’s holy word.

Enough has doubtless been said, however, to make it manifest that
appeals to the sacredness of the New Testament text, to the multitude of its
depositories, to the antiquity of its attestation, do not really touch the ques-
tion of the applicability of conjectural criticism to it. There are limits to
the successful use of conjectural emendation : but Dr. Kenyon’s comfort-
able remarks do not even hint to us what they are or where they are to be
found. Roughly speaking, they may be suggested by the broad remark that
a bad text may be successfully emended by conjecture ; a good text, not.
That is to say, in proportion as a text is really bad— in proportion as gross
errors are sown thickly through it — in that proportion does conjectural
emendation find its opportunity; just as any one, looking over a “dirty
proof-sheet,” will find numerous opportunities to correct it without con-

RECENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

467

suiting the “ copy ” — errors of spelling, errors of grammar, errors of trans-
position, omission, insertion and the like. On the other hand, in proportion
as a text is good, in that proportion does the sphere of the safe application
of conjectural emendation shrink. This is because in a good text all the
grosser errors have been eliminated, and such errors as remain belong to a
different order : it is no longer a question of mere blunders of careless repro-
duction but a subtle question of style or meaning — and here tastes differ and
the fear lies near at hand that we are not correcting the scribe but the
author himself, and hence not restoring but corrupting his text. The reason
why the New Testament text is inaccessible to conjectural emendation is
then, not because we have so many witnesses to it, nor because we have such
early witness to it, nor yet because it is so sacred — though each of these facts
doubtless enters, in its own way, into the production of the correctness which
has secured the result — but shortly because it has been so excellently
transmitted to us. The New Testament text, as it comes into our hands, is
so good a text that there has been eliminated from it th e forties conjectures.

Even here, however, we need to make distinctions. The New Testament
text as it lies in any given single manuscript is certainly not removed from
correction by conjecture ; it rather gives occasion for even the easiest and
most obvious conjectures. No manuscript in existence is free from a set of
incuria which any and every reader of it will correct as he reads — just as he
will correct the incuria of any printed book, as we illustrated above from a
few pages of Harnack’s History of Dogma. If we needed to print the New
Testament from a single codex — as many of the classical authors have been
from time to time printed — we should need cursorily to correct it, as we cur-
sorily correct them, by conjecture pure and simple, without raising any
question about the propriety of the process. When we speak of the inapplica-
bility or the practical inapplicability of conjectural emendation to the
New Testament text, we are having in mind not that text as it lies actually
in this or that single document, but an already emended text derived from a
comparison of witnesses and already editorially revised. And the reason
why this already castigated text is inaccessible to conjectural emendation is
simply because it is so good a text that the opportunity for conjectural
emendation has been removed. Still another distinction, however, must be
made at this point. If the New Testament text is removed by its excellence
from the chance of emendation by conjecture, it is still not removed from the
application of conjectural criticism. No text can be too good to be criti-
cised : the only proof we can have of its excellence is through criticism. The
autograph itself, if we had it, and whatever approach to the autographic text
we may have attained by our most careful and wise use of the documen-
tary evidence, must be subject to the further critical scrutiny of our best
powers to betray its shortcomings or certify its correctness. The last resort
in any process of criticism, bestowed on any text whatever, is just conjectural
criticism. That is to say, the final step in settling any text is the careful
scrutiny of the text as provisionally determined, with a view to learn-
ing whether it commends itself to the critical judgment as the very text of
its author. This is essentially the application of the conjectural process to
the entire text : and it is just as essentially this if no errors are detected by
the process or no remedies for detected errors suggested, as it would be if it
were found still full of difficulties and impossibilities, cures for which we
proceed to suggest. So far is it then from true to say that conjectural criti-
cism has no place in the text of the New Testament, and that we must have
some surer foundation for the authoritative Word of Life than conjecture
can supply, that it would be truer to say that the final establishment of every
word of the New Testament is due to the application of this mode of criti-

463

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

cism, and that it is on its authority that our ultimate confidence is built that
what we have in our hands is the veritable Word of Life that God has given
us through His servants the Apostles. It may sound paradoxical : it is in
truth a paradox of just the same order as the fundamental philosophical
truth that all knowledge is built on faith: and it is just as true as that
undeniable proposition. No more cau the documentary critic boast himself
as over against the “ conjectural critic,” than can the sensationalist boast
himself over the “ believer.”

We have permitted ourselves to run beyond all reason in these remarks on
conjectural criticism because we have fancied they might so illustrate the
matter as to permit us to say more intelligibly what we wish to say in the
way of criticism of Dr. Kenyon’s book. We have already remarked that he
seems to approach the subject of the textual criticism of the New Testa-
ment a little too much from the outside— as if he had not after all entered
sympathetically into its processes. We wish to add that accordingly far
too preponderant a place is in this volume given to the externalia of the art
with which it deals. Dr. Kenyon tells us all about the Manuscripts, and the
Versions and the Patristic quotations ; he tells us all about the history of the
art in the past ; he outlines the present state of the textual problem as it is
discussed in the schools : and all with admirable skill. Nobody could do it
better. But as to the art of textual criticism itself — the reader will rise
from the book but little wiser than he opened it. He has not read a page
without pleasure ; he has not read a page without profit ; he has not read a
page without admiration. For all that Dr. Kenyon has set out to tell us,
we could not have had a better guide. But Dr. Kenyon has not elected to
tell us how we must proceed in undertaking the great and, to each of us,
indeed necessary task of actually criticising the text of the New Testa-
ment. He informs us (pp. 15, 16), that “the function of the textual critic
is, first, to collect documentary evidence, and, secondly, to examine it and
estimate its value.” There is not a word about applying it to the actual
formation of the text ! Accordingly, he goes on to say : “ The object of the
present volume is to show what has been done in both these directions.” It
is no part of its object, then, to teach us how to exercise the art of textual
criticism. Its point of view is purely historical and at most it provides us
with an estimate of a condition attained. “ In Chapters ii-vi,” he
proceeds, “ an account will be given of the available textual material — the
copies of the New Testament in the original Greek, the ancient translations
of it into other languages and the quotations from it which are found in the
early writers of the Christian Church. The materials having been thus
passed in review, an attempt will be made in Chapters vii and viii to sum-
marize what has hitherto been done in the way of using these materials, to
discuss the principal theories now current with regard to the early history of
the New Testament text aud to estimate the general position of the textual
problem of the present day.” This is an exact record of the contents of
the volume. All this is done and done admirably. But when all this is done
there yet remains the whole subject of the textual criticism of the New Tes-
tament. In a word, Dr. Kenyon’s volume is devoted to the externalia of
the subject and treats these externalia exceedingly well. He does not profess
to do more. He does not do more.

It will be observed that our criticism of the volume turns rather on what
it does not contain than on what it does contain. The volume is indeed
somewhat remarkable for its omissions. There are minor surprises in this
regard as well as the great surprise we have tried to suggest. We read over
the table of contents : I. The Function of Textual Criticism ; II. The
Autographs of the New Testament; III. The Uncial Manuscripts; IV. The

RECENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

469

Minuscule Manuscripts ; V. The Ancient Versions; VI. Patristic Quota-
tions; VII. Textual Criticism in the Past; VIII. The Textual Problem.
Where shall we find what we may call the archaeology of the subject discussed ?
Where shall we look for some sufficing account of various readings, their
ordinary character, their several modes of origination ? Where shall we
discover the proper modes of dealing with these variations outlined: the
different kinds of evidence, internal, whether intrinsic or transcriptional, and
external, in its various modes of application ? What has become of the Lec-
tionaries ? But we pause in the long list of inevitable questions. Compare
the table of contents of a contemporaneously appearing primer on The Text
of the New Testament — almost in its contents as defective as this— we
mean the Rev. K. Lake’s contribution to the “ Oxford Church Text-Books”
(London, Rivingtons, 1901, foolscap 8vo, pp. 154) — and we shall see at least
how odd it is that some of these topics are not formally recognized as substan-
tial constituents of a Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the New Testa-
ment. Mr. Lake’s table runs : The Object and Method of Textual Criticism ;
The Apparatus Criticus of the New Testament — the Greek MSS., the Ver-
sions, Patristic Quotations, Liturgical Evidence; Chapter Divisions and
Stichometry ; History of Modern Criticism ; The Western Text.

No doubt some of the topics left unrecognized in Dr. Kenyon’s table of
contents are nevertheless to be found tucked away in some corner or other of
the book. The index helps us to discover an incidental mention of the Lection-
aries among the pages devoted to the Minuscule MSS. (pp. 109, 122). Some
classes of variations and some canons of criticism are cursorily mentioned and
even criticised in the opening chapter on “ The Function of Textual Criti-
cism.” Some archaeological and palseographical details are given in connec-
tion with the descriptions of the MSS. And perhaps some suggestions as to
the method of procedure in criticism may be picked up in the course of the
historical remarks that occupy the concluding chapters. But this only
advises us that there is not only an insufficiency in the treatment of these
things, but also a confusion of formal arrangement of the material. This
formal confusion emerges even in the captions of the chapters. What are
we to make of the caption of the second chapter, for instance : “ The Auto-
graphs of the New Testament ” ? Of course this chapter does not treat of
“the autographs of the New Testament.” It is, on the contrary, a very
illuminating description of the first period of “ The Manuscript history of the
New Testament” — the period during which it was propagated on papyrus, a
period of which Dr. Kenyon has a special right to speak with authority and
on which he writes most interestingly and instructively. It is with some-
thing like irritation that we see hidden under such a misleading title this
admirable chapter, in some respects the most welcome in the volume, out-
lining as it does the history of the New Testament for nearly four centuries
and adding a new chapter to that history from firsthand knowledge.

Next after this chapter on the Papyrus period, the two closing chapters of
the book are likely to commend themselves to the reader. The intermediate
chapters leave little to be desired in the presentation of their own subjects :
but they are necessarily more of the nature of compilations and have less of
the attraction of novelty. The penultimate chapter surveys the history of text-
ual criticism in the past ; the last one, under the title of “ The Textual Prob-
lem,” really summarizes recent discussion regarding the families of text
precised by Dr. Hort. Both turn as on a pivot upon Dr. Hort’s textual
theory, and provide a most useful account of the debates that have raged of
late around it — especially with reference to the origin and value of the so-
called “Western text,” — giving a singularly judicial summing up of the
results so far. Dr. Kenyon finds Dr. Hort’s working out of the history of
31

470

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

the text essentially unaffected by more recent investigation. His own view
he represents as “ substantially the same as that of Hort, though with some
modifications.” He outlines it as follows : “ The early history of the New
Testament text presents itself to us as an irregular diffusion of the various
books among the individuals and communities which embraced Christianity,
with few safeguards against alteration, whether deliberate or unintentional.
To that stage, which follows very soon on the production of the original auto-
graphs, belong the various readings, early in their attestation yet compara-
tively rarely convincing in themselves, which we call the <5 text, and which
Hort terms ‘ Western,’ and Blass (in the case of the two books of St. Luke)
‘Roman.’ In Egypt alone (or principally) a higher standard of textual
fidelity prevailed, and in the literary atmosphere of Alexandria and the
other great towns a comparatively pure text was preserved. This has come
down to us (possibly by way of Urigen and his pupils) iu the Codex Yaticanus
and its allies, and is what we have called the /3 text, and what Hort calls
‘ Neutral.’ Another text, also found in Egyptian authorities, and differing
from the last only in minor details, is that which we call the y text, and
Hort ‘ Alexandrian.’ Finally there is the text which, originating in the
neighborhood of Antioch about the end of the third century, drew together
many of the various readings then in existence, and with many minor modi-
fications developed into a form which was generally adopted as satisfactory
throughout the Eastern Church. This is the a text of our nomenclature,
Hort’s ‘ Syrian ’ ; the text which monopolized our printed editions until the
nineteenth century, but which is now abandoned by all but a few scholars ”
(pp. 309-10). Dr. Kenyon rightly represents this as substantially Dr. Hort’s
construction of the history.

The modification of Dr. Hort’s position which he thinks recent research
points to consists in a slight abatement of the hegemony which Dr. Hort
ascribed to the “ Neutral text,” and a consequent admission of the probabil-
ity that “ among much that is supposititious there is also something that is
original ” preserved in the Western text. Put in this general way there is
nothing in this proposition which Dr. Hort could ever have thought of deny-
ing : as Dr. Kenyon at once points out, instancing the case of the readings
which Dr. Hort awkwardly called “ Western non-interpolations.” Appar-
ently what Dr. Kenyon means to suggest is simply that more “Western”
readings may ultimately have to be accepted as over against “Neutral ” read-
ings than Dr. Hort supposed. Certainly this may well be true ; it may easily
be true under Dr. Hort’s reading of the history of the text. But it is worth
while to keep iu mind that it was not alone on “genealogical ” principles that
Dr. Hort’s preference for the “ Neutral ” text was based. It was equally ou
the verdict of “internal evidence of classes” and “internal evidence of
groups.” And here we must call attention to the neglect of these powerful
instruments of criticism of which both Dr. Kenyon and Mr. Lake aie guilty
in their exposition of Dr. Ilort’s theory of criticism. They seem to have
focussed their attention so exclusively on Dr. Hort’s genealogical distribution
of the texts that they have permitted to slip out of view his exposition of the
critical processes which he calls by these names. No doubt there are faint
echoes of them left even in Dr. Kenyon’s exposition : but they are so faint
that they give no proper account of themselves and pass practically off the
stage altogether. The consequence is that Dr. Hort’s theory appears as
practically only a theory of the history of the text, and even his genealogical
method falls back into practically little more as an engine of criticism than
Dr. Tregelles’ “comparative criticism.” It is much more than this; and
supplies, by its attention to the force of attestation consisting of cross-wit-
nesses, an organon of a value not known before his day. When further

RECENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

471

reinforced by the results of his “ internal evidence of groups ” and “ internal
evidence of classes ” it has a value and decisiveness which no reader of Dr.
Kenyon’s account of it would be likely to perceive. The essence of the
matter may be summed up in a word by saying that Dr. Hort trusts his
“ Neutral ” text so fully not merely because he adjudges it the earliest and
most carefully transmitted text, but because he has thoroughly tested it and
finds it in any case supereminently the best text. The “Western” text
is treated as a corrupt text, not in forgetfulness of its early and wide distri-
bution, but because on testing it betrays itself, whatever its origin, intrin-
sically a depraved text. Dr. Hort has solid reasons to give for this judgment :
it is a pity to permit these reasons to fall out of notice and to treat the ques-
tion as if it were chiefly one of age and distribution and external attestation.

This neglect of the elaborate processes of “ internal evidence of groups ”
and “ internal evidence of classes ” in the exposition and estimate of Dr.
Hort’s theory is symptomatic of the age as well as peculiarly characteristic of
the external tone of Dr. Kenyon’s book. Dr. Kenyon almost seems to fancy
that we can get along in reconstructing the text of the New Testament very
much with the external evidence alone. Nothing could be more mistaken.
The use of internal evidence, recognized or unrecognized — both intrinsic
and transcriptional — accompanies every step of the process, and it is not the
least of the merits of Dr. Hort’s method that this constant dependence of
critical procedure on internal evidence is drawn out from obscurity and
made explicit. Had Dr. Kenyon given us such a chapter as no one could
have written better and as ought to have been included in his excellent
treatise, on the methods and processes, the philosophy and the practice of criti-
cism, he would have been forced to acknowledge and expound the place of
internal evidence in every step of the work ; and he could never have left
his readers in ignorance of the large part it plays in Dr. Hort’s methods and
the unavoidably constant use made of it by every critic who actually forms
a text. Neither could he have left his readers supposing that the ultimate
question of the “ Western” text is the question of its origin rather than
the question of its value. We do not know when, where or how it came
into being ; but there is an organon of criticism in our hands by which,
pending the settlement of these questions, we can already assure ourselves
that it is not the original text of the New Testament, just because it can be
shown to be a corrupt text— the most corrupt text in fact that has ever had
a large circulation in the Church.

It does not follow, naturally, that the question of the origin of the
“ Western ” text is of little interest or of little importance. It has rightly
become the leading question of post-Hortian investigation. But the very
character of the text itself excludes, from the beginning, all hypotheses con-
cerning its origin which would make it out to be the original text of the
New Testament. We do not ourselves see why the most likely hypothesis
of its origin may not be found in a modification of Prof. Ramsay’s theory
of its origination in a revision by an Asiatic scribe, or, to speak more
exactly, in a multiplication and distribution of his glossator. In his admir-
able chapter on the Papyrus period of the New Testament transmission, Dr.
Kenyon draws a vivid picture of how we must suppose that the New Testa-
ment circulated in this period. He has, wholly unnecessarily, introduced into
this account some highly unsupported and insupportable views as to the
origin and history of the New Testament canon (pp. 23, 39-40, 270). There
never was a time when the New Testament books were “ regarded as ordin-
ary books and not as sacred ” — at least if we are to let history decide the
question for us. There never was a time when the text, because so looked
upon, was treated with a certain contempt by those who yet valued it suffi-

472

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

cienlly to copy it. The character of the monuments of the text is enough to
assure us of that — choose we even designedly the worst text extant as a wit-
ness. But there was a time when the multiplication of the New Testament
manuscripts was in the hands not of professional “ publishers,” but of pri-
vate zeal : when it was circulated from hand to hand and, as it were, subter-
raneously, as believer after believer sought and obtained this or that fragment
of it for his own use — a single book or, at most, group of books — possibly labo-
riously copied by himself from a companion’s cherished exemplar, almost cer-
tainly secured painfully at the hand of some amateur copyist. This mode of
propagating itself belonged to that “ servant form ” which the New Testa-
ment shares with Christianity itself and Christianity’s Founder ; it must
needs so make its way among the humble of the earth, whose names are
written in heaven.

Consider how the Book of Acts, for instance, thus passed from hand
to hand— laboriously, unskillfully, but most lovingly copied out by un-
wonted fingers on the cheapest of material, from the cherished manuscript
of some humble Christian “ evangelist ” or “ prophet ” perchance— long
carried in his bosom, often thumbed with clumsy, work-worn fingers,
rubbed, frayed, annotated with loving care to mark its sense and preserve
items of information picked up here and there and thought fitted to illu-
minate the narrative, perhaps even to enrich it. How could such a text
as the “ Western ” fail to grow up in such circumstances ? In a region
like the Mediterranean littoral from Caesarea to Rome, full of humble
Christians of whom some had known Paul, many, those who had known
Paul, and all knew something of an intimate character of this or that locality
or of the origin and history of this or that church touched on in the narra-
tive— can it surprise us that the text so framing itself should be filled with
bits of authentic information possessing every mark of original and firsthand
knowledge ? Consider how notes first put into the margin by a Mnason or
a Tychicus, or some one who had known such “ ancient believers,” would be
cherished by the humble copyist who was “ privileged ” to transcribe them.
And consider at the same time how less “authentic” annotations would
inevitably become confused in the course of time with these. For ourselves
we do not see how a text like the “ Western ” text of Acts could fail to grow
up in the conditions in which this book was certainly circulated through the
first lour hundred years. And the character of the “ Western ” text of Acts
is in our judgment the standing and shining testimony, not to the license with
which the text of the book was treated, but to the amazing care with which
it was dealt with, the real reverence with which it must have beeu handled.
It is, after all is said, a great wonder that the text did not come out of these
four centuries of private multiplication mangled and mauled beyond recogni-
tion. Nothing could have preserved it so pure except such a reverential hand-
ling as comported with its sacred character.

In a word the glossator who made the Western text— which is not a uni-
form text in all documents representing it, it must be remembered, but has
its local and temporal variations — may well have been the Christian commu-
nity itself from Jei'usalem to Rome, working with “ local knowledge ” at its
disposal as well as with loving zeal. The Western text in this view would
be just “ the popular ” text of the first four centuries. Alongside of it
would coexist, of course, what we may venture, for the sake of a distinction,
to call “the ecclesiastical” or “the official” text, provided we do not
read into these terms later connotations : we mean a text propagated
for the use of churches rather than of individuals, and therefore much
more carefully, or perhaps we should rather say effectually, guarded, copied
doubtless by professional hands, taken from old and well-preserved

REGENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

473

copies in use in mother-churches and the like. This transmission would
continue a line of descent for the text of a more “ aristocratic ” and of a
more trustworthy kind, and would naturally provide a text to which other
texts in circulation would stand related as either corrupt popular parallels or
artificial scholastic revisions. If we do not mistake we have in this general
scheme the real nature of the “ Neutral,” “ Western ” and “ Alexandrian ”
texts suggested. And looking at the whole problem from some such point
of view, no discovery of the antiquity of the Western text, its wide exten-
sion, the exactness and air of original information of many of its distinctive
readings, and the like, can disturb us: it is all just what we should expect and
we are thoroughly prepared for it. It is all full of interest to us : all full of
instruction : historically we expect to profit much from it : but we shall be
slow in prefering the “ popular ” text to the “ official ” text-

Meanwhile, let us repeat that even with the “ Western ” text in view, we
can scarcely emphasize too strongly the excellence of the transmitted text of
the New Testament. Dr. Kenyon has some admirable remarks in his open-
ing chapter on the superiority of the New Testament transmission to that of
classical authors, in point both of number of witnesses and relative closeness
of testimony. Its superiority in exactness of textual transmission is even
more marked. Dr. Hort’s estimate is that in seven-eighths of the New Testa-
ment we have the actual autographic text in hand, and in nine hundred and
ninety-nine thousandths of it practically so. This is no exaggeration. We may
read nine hundred and ninety-nine words consecutively with the comfort-
able feeling that we are reading the author’s own words : and then we may
put our finger on the thousandth word and estimate precisely the amount of
doubt that attaches to it and the amount of difference in sense that would
result in the settlement of the doubt in any possible way. This is of the
providence of God, and ought to be recognized as such. What actually
printed text is nearest to the autographic text, it may meanwhile be some-
what difficult to decide. We certainly should not with Dr. Kenyon recom-
mend the text that underlies the Revision of the English Bible made in 1881,
as a standard text for common use. This text does not even pretend to pro-
vide a standard text : but is essentially a compromise text altered from the
Receptus only where compulsion was laid on the Revisers. Mr. Weymouth’s
or Dr. Nestle’s “resultant” text would be better: Westcott and Hort or
Weiss better still. What the practical worker really needs is a good text,
say Westcott and Hort’s ; a good digest of readings, either full or such as is
given in Dr. Hort’s Introduction or Dr. Sanday’s Appendix; and a brief
practical outline of how to use the evidence, such as is given, for example, at
the end of Dr. Hort’s first volume. So equipped even the beginner may
hopefully enter into the work of scrutinizing the text of the New Testament.
If now he wishes to know all the important things about the externaha of
the art of textual criticism as applied to the New Testament, what can he
do better than add this admirable volume of Dr. Kenyon’s ? Only he must
not expect to get out of it anything very helpful outside the limits of the
ex ternalia. For Dr. Kenyon has not designed to put, and has not put,
anything beyond the externalia into it.

Princeton. Benj. B. Warfield.

The Relation of the Apostolic Teaching to the Teaching of
Christ. Being the Kerr Lectures for 1900, by Rev. Robert J. Drum-
mond, B.D., Lothian Road Church, Edinburgh. Edinburgh : T. &. T.
Clark, 1900. 8vo, pp. viii, 432.

This book contains the last series of lectures delivered on the Kerr founda-

474

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

tion to the students of the United Presbyterian Theological Hall, prior to
its union with the Free Church Halls in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen.
The lectureship has become favorably known through the previous courses
held under it, that of Dr. Orr on “ The Christian View of God and the World
as centring in the Incarnation,” that of Dr. Forrest on “ The Christ of His-
tory and of Experience,” and that of Dr. Kidd on “ Morality and Religion.”
The present contribution fully maintains the high standard set for it by its
predecessors.

Mr. Drummond’s choice of subject was an unusually happy one. Through
the ever-growing production in the field of Biblical Theology and the
constantly deepening interest taken even by the non-theological public in
this line of study, the question how far the diversity of Biblical teaching
thus brought to light is consistent with the ideal unity and harmony of reve-
lation has become pressing and practical to an eminent degree. That the
danger connected with the over-emphasizing of the multiformity of New
Testament teaching is far from imaginary, appears from the response
wrhich the cry “Back to Christ” has awakened in the present genera-
tion. The author very convincingly shows how utterly unreasonable and
self-contradictory this demand is. First of all, because we have no direct ac-
cess to Christ, all our knowledge of Him being mediated by the testimony of
His followers. In reality, therefore, the demand amounts to this, — that we
must go back from the New Testament writers as expounders of Christ to
the New Testament writers as recorders of the life and teaching of Christ.
When put in this form the catching phrase at once loses much of its plausi-
bility. That these writers are more reliable as historians than as doctrinal
interpreters is far from self-evident. In the second place, it may be properly
urged that the influence exerted by Christ upon His disciples as reflected in
the New Testament documents, constitutes one of the prime factors in de-
termining wdiat Christ actually was, what forces were stored up in Him.
To this must be added in the third place the consideration that Jesus Him-
self clearly anticipated the carrying on of His teaching activity by those of
His followers who had been most intimately associated with Him, and prom-
ised them the guidance of the Holy Spirit as ample qualification for this task,
so that to appeal from the Apostles to Christ is in reality to appeal from the
Christ working indirectly to the Christ working directly; and it betrays a
relatively low opinion of the supernatural resources of Christ as a revealer
to assume that in the latter capacity He deserves greater confidence than in the
former.

We think it a cause for regret that this last principle is not pressed by
the author to the full extent of its applicability. Throughout, the Apostolic
teaching is viewed too exclusively in the light of a Spirit-guided unfolding of a
deposit of truth already given in the teaching of Christ. This would seem
to exclude Apostolic teaching from the category of revelation proper. Un-
doubtedly to some extent this is in accord with the New Testament repre-
sentation on the subject. But alongside of this runs another representa-
tion. In many cases the Apostles claim to be the recipients of revelation in
the strict sense of the word, and to transmit such truth as could not have
been discovered by them through mere reflection upon the teaching of Christ.
Notably this is the case with Paul. And yet on page 283, speaking of Paul’s
doctrine of the atonement, the author says: “And Paul combining with
this (i. e., with Christ’s hints on the meaning of his death) what he knew by
experience of man’s spiritual need and what he had found for himself, in
harmony with Christ’s hints, in the Cross, was prepared to meet inquirers
and say why it was that the Christ must die.” Such a mode of viewing the
connection between Jesus and Paul prevents the author from using the

REGENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

475

strongest weapon in defense of his main thesis. Only where Christ and the
Apostles are recognized as coordinated, if not coequal, links in the chain of
supernatural revelation does the absurdity of the demand “Back to Christ”
become fully apparent.

After introducing his subject the author defines his position with reference
to the problems of New Testament Introduction. This is throughout con-
servative. It would have been better if these critical presuppositions had
been simply stated without any attempt at justification. It was impossible
to touch more than the surface of the discussion within such narrow limits
as the author here had to set for himself. On the other hand it would have
been extremely desirable to make clear at the beginning how the critical
views adopted and the conclusions reached on the essential harmony of
Apostolic teaching with that of Christ are interdependent. A decisive
factor here is the acceptance or rejection of the authenticity of the Johan-
nine discourses of Jesus. If these are admitted in evidence, the demon-
stration of the substantial agreement between the Pauline teaching and that
of Jesus becomes a comparatively easy matter. In the opposite case a
much longer and more laborious process of investigation will be required to
lay bare the roots of the Pauline theology in the doctrine of Jesus. For all
apologetic purposes, the lectures would have gained in value if the writer
had reckoned more with this twofold possibility and shaped his argument so
as to meet both positions. As it is, the evidence drawn from the synoptics
and that derived from John are so interwoven that it is not possible to tell
at a glance how much convincing force the former would possess for a reader
who felt bound to discount the latter.

In our opinion Mr. Drummond fails to do justice to the teaching of John
the Baptist, as an anticipation of specifically New Testament truth, on more
than one important point. Are John’s doubting inquiry and our Lord’s state-
ment placing him outside of the kingdom sufficient warrant for the view
that “ John’s work was often of the very opposite spirit from that of Christ
that “ John was a child of the Esseno-Apocalyptic influence, looking for a
Messiah who should lead on a purified Israel to the expulsion of the Romans,
and to a world-empire which should be the kingdom of God ?” That mod-
ern writers who reject the historicity of the fourth Gospel can construe the
Synoptical data to this effect we understand ; but we do not see how it is possi-
ble to reach such results after unqualified acceptance of the Johannine record
and careful combination of it with the Synoptical picture. The man who
said : “ Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,”
stood certainly at a far remove from the prevalent Messianic hope of the time,
even in its purest form, with which Mr. Drummond would have us identify
him.

The two following chapters on The School of Christ and on The Features
of Christ’s Teaching contain much excellent material, but might have been
considerably abbreviated, or even wholly omitted, without affecting the main
discussion in the sequel. Chapter IV treats of The Common Assumption.
By this the author means the soteriological character of the Gospel of both
Jesus and the Apostles; and in connection with it the anthropological and
hamartiological presuppositions are discussed. Passing on from this to the
detailed examination of the Gospel-content the author treats in successive
chapters of The Kingdom of God and its Variants, of The Son of Man and
the Son of God, and of The Intentions of the Cross Hinted and Grasped
(Chaps. V, VI, VII). He finds this order of treatment suggested by the
development observable within the limits of Jesus’ own objective teaching, —
in which the kingdom is first made prominent, afterward the Messiahship,
and toward the close of the ministry the Cross. In regard to the Lord’s

476

TEE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

subjective consciousness, it should be remarked, the author denies all evi-
dence of development. In the treatment of these three topics there is fur-
ther this difference, that the discussions of the Kingdom and the Cross move
forward from the teaching of Jesus to that of the Apostles, while in dealing
with the Christological problem the reverse order is followed, a change of
method for winch the reason is not apparent. The ninth chapter contains
a comparative discussion of Faith as Man’s Subjective Response. Chapter
X formulates the results and points out their application.

It is impossible in a brief review to do justice to the richness and sug-
gestiveness of the author’s treatment of the many complicated questions on
which these chapters touch. We must content ourselves with referring to a
few points 'where it seems to us there is room for diversity of opinion. The
author is not always successful in grasping and reproducing the concrete,
individual aspect under which the truth of the Gospel appears with each
teacher or writer. This defect is no doubt largely explainable from his pro-
fessed aim to extract the ideal substance of the truth from the several forms
of presentation, for the purpose of comparison. How wholly inadequate, e.g.,
is the description of the kingdom as “ a great spiritual association, in which
God’s will is supreme,” to give us a definite conception of the manner in
which Jesus visualized the new order of things He came to establish ?
This is a description, indeed, which in its generality might be appropriated
by the most naturalistic interpretation of our Lord’s religious teaching,
while in reality the idea of the kingdom is supernatural to its very core.
Probably it has something to do with this, when the use of the kingdom-
thought is regarded as an accommodation on the part of Jesus, and a similar
view is suggested even with reference to the idea of Messiahship. We do
not believe it can be proven that our Lord consciously treated these supreme
conceptions of His teaching as mere figures, in the sense that He possessed
side by side with them and placed above them a more abstract, less histori-
cally conditioned form of representation. His relative silence during the
later stage of His ministry on the topic of the kingdom certainly cannot
prove this, because there is abundant evidence that up to the very last the
kingdom-idea retained its supreme place in His mind, if not in His teaching.
Mr. Drummond could hardly have failed to perceive this, if he had given
due prominence to the vigorous eschatological trend of thought which from
the beginning is associated with the idea of the kingdom. Both the king-
dom and the Messiahship were infinitely more to our Lord than current Jew-
ish notions; they were both given to Him as authoritative revelation-con-
cepts, which as such could not but embody eternally valid principles in
eternally valid forms. The author fully recognizes this of the divine father-
hood. We fail to see why the two other ideas are not entitled to the same
distinction. Of course, all earthly religious language contains a figurative
element, but there is a wide difference between the recognition of this and
the ascription to Jesus of conscious accommodation. It would be better to say
that kingship and Messiahship are the ideal concrete expressions not merely
for that time, but for all time, of the two fundamental religious facts of the
divine supremacy and divine mediation in the sphere of redemption.

It is perhaps also connected with the one-sided appreciation of the idea of
the kingdom, that so little emphasis is thrown on the divine sovereignty and
no attempt is made to point out the roots of the Pauline doctrine on this sub-
ject in the teaching of Jesus. There is certainly no scarcity of material for
this in the discourses of the fourth Gospel, and even in the Synoptics the
points of contact are easily found by one who knows how to look beneath the
surface. What the author says in refutation of the alleged dualistic element
iu the Gospel of John, viz.: that the passages in question are simply the

RECENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

477

result of the Apostle’s looking at spiritual processes from the point of view
of their final outcome, can be hardly called a serious solution of the diffi-
culty. Most of these statements are not words of John but of Jesus,
and they do not interpret the original human choice in the light of its eter-
nal issue, but in the light of a primordial ideal relationship to God. On the
whole it must be acknowledged that the Calvinistic affinities in our Lord’s
teaching have hitherto failed to find due recognition, a thing not to be won-
dered at if we remember that the great body of Biblico-theological litera-
ture has been produced by non-Calvinistic writers. It is the more to be re-
gretted that a professed Calvinist, as we infer Mr. Drummond from a remark
on page 153 to be, should in entering this field make no serious effort to
supply the deficiency.

Among the most striking and forceful parts of the book we should count
the Christological discussion in Chapter VI. Especially pertinent are the
remarks on pp. 214, 215, about the modern tendency to restrict the Messianic
idea as held in the consciousness of both Jesus and the disciples to the nar-
rowest Jewish limits. Mr. Drummond well points out how this involves a
marked discrepancy between the treatment accorded to the idea of the king-
dom and that accorded to Jesus’ presentation of Himself as king ; and how
the latest efforts to reduce again to Jewish limits Christ’s conception of
the kingdom seem dictated by an undefined sense of this incongruity.
The bearing of the date of appearance of the Synoptical Gospels, midway
between Paul and John, on the interpretation of the Christological views re-
flected in these Gospels is lucidly stated. The modern Arianizing construc-
tion of the Pauline Christology by such writers as Holtzmann and Pfleiderer
might, perhaps, have been more directly and elaborately formulated and
criticised than is done on page 230. With the author’s exclusion from 2 Cor.
iii. 17, of all reference to the personal Spirit we cannot agree. It is true
the purport of the Apostle’s statement <5 c U nvpios to nvevfia konv is to represent
Christ as the Source of quickening power in contrast with the ypappa
of the law ; but Paul does not know of any quickening power in the abstract
the very point of the saying is, that through His soteriological identification
with the Holy Spirit Christ can inwardly liberate and transform men. The
interpretation of Phil, ii, on page 233, keeps happily free from all kenoti-
cism. We are not quite sure that the vn'mx^v can be pressed with Gif-
ford so as not merely to leave room for, but to express the continued exist-
ence of Christ after the incarnation in the pop<pfj -deov. Interesting is the note
on page 218, in which the author rightly contends against Menegoz, that the
ideas of supernatural conception and preexistence can have been no more
mutually exclusive to the Synoptics, than in the view of many writers the
ideas of preexistence and natural birth were to Paul.

In the discussion of the significance of Christ’s death it is gratifying to
notice that its vicarious character is strenuously upheld. The author does
not shun to say that it means to Jesus Himself the penalty for sin. So far
as Jesus’ own consciousness is concerned there can be no doubt of this ; and
two or three passages are quite as conclusive in proving it as a greater
number would be. It is a different question, however, to what extent Jesus
explained this penal significance of his death to the disciples. Here the
number of passages becomes of importance. Is it not somewhat of an ex-
aggeration to say that He made it abundantly plain how intimately and
necessarily His own death and resurrection were associated with the bestowal
of the forgiveness of sins ? Our Lord could scarcely have done this so long
as the fact itself had not transpired. It was reserved for Apostolic teaching
to give the doctrinal interpretation of the fact. The author here obviously
is too much under the influence of his principle that all Apostolic teaching

478

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

must be a mere unfolding of the teaching of Jesus and can add no new rev-
elation-content, such as would interpret the facts of Christ’s career rather
than explain his words. The statement made on page 273, in connection
with the exegesis of Mark x, 45, that ?.vrpov is used in the Septuagint in a
sacrificial sense, is in this form misleading. It is only in classical Greek and
in the New Testament epistles that the conceptions of Ivrpov and sacrifice are
associated. That Jesus had this association in mind when He spoke of the
giving of his soul as a rausom for many, may be made plausible from the
analogy of the sacrificial implication of the words spoken at the Last Supper ;
but it canuot be affirmed with certainty. The distinction that in the' insti-
tution of the Supper the bread has predominant reference to the Incarnation?
whereas the cup concentrates attention on the Death, has little to support it.
Whatever there is in the symbolism of the elements referring to a life-com-
munion with Christ, besides being common to both, is not retrospective,
but prospective ; it points to a communion to be made possible through His
atoning death, with the exalted rather than with the incarnate Christ as
such.

In the chapter on Faith exception may be taken to the interpretation put
upon the phrase “faith is counted for righteousness,” viz.: “Given that
trust, God counts it to a man for righteousness — i. e., not as a substitute
for it, but as the thing itself in germ, the attitude of heart and will, which
will inevitably express itself in acts which please Him.” This view is not
only different from but directly opposed to the function Paul ascribes to
faith in justification, and which is set forth quite correctly by the author in
the preceding and following pages.

We conclude our notice with a tribute of admiration for the diligence
which, in the midst of the many labors of a modern city pastorate, suc-
ceeded in reading and and digesting so much of the vast literature on so
comprehensive a theme. The lectures throughout betray a more than super-
ficial acquaintance with both ancient and recent discussion of the topics re-
viewed. The form also into which the author casts his thoughts makes the
book delightful reading from beginning to end. No one will peruse it with-
out being instructed and edified at the same time.

Princeton. Geerhardus Yos.

Theologischer Jahresbericht. Unter mitwirkung von Baentsch, Clemen,
Elsenhans, Everling, Ficker, Foerster, Funger, Hasenclever, Hegler, Hering,
Kohlschmidt, Lehmann, Loesch, Liidemann, Liilmann, Marbuck, Mayer,
Meyer, Preuscben, Scheite, Spitta,Sulze, herausgegeben von Dr. G. Kruger,
Professor in Giessen. Zwanzigster Band, enthaltend die Literatur des
Jahres 1900. Erste Abtheilung : Exegese, bearbeitet von Baentsch , Meyer.
8vo, pp. 1-288. (Berlin: C. A. Schwetschke und Sohn ; New York : Gustav
E. Stechert, 1901.) In our notices of this indispensable index to theological
literature during the course of last year, we called attention to the improve-
ments being introduced into it in the interest of ease of reference, and also
to its increasing size. This first section of the volume for 1901 (reporting
the exegetical literature of 1900) of course profits by these improvements :
in size it exceeds the corresponding issue of last year by more than a hun-
dred pages. The most striking change, however, concerns its authorship.
We no longer have the familiar wrork of Siegfried in the Old Testament and
Iloltzmann in the New : Prof. Bruno Baentsch of Jena takes the place of
the former, and Prof. Arnold Meyer of Bonn that of the latter. Holtzmann
retires also from his position as co-editor of the work and the whole respon-
sibility now rests on Kruger. The change strikes us, at first view, as an
improvement in the Old Testament (which absorbs the greater portion of

REGENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

479

the pamphlet — pp. 1-194) but no advantage in the New Testament, where
Holtzmann’s notes, though one-sided, were always thorough and to the
point. The spirit of the work has undergone no great alteration. We offer
the following samples of the workmanship of the two writers here repre-
sented. Baentsch writes (pp. 104, 105) : “ For very many the manner in
which Christ and the Apostles cite the Old Testament is an obstacle to
accepting the results of scientific criticism. Hortvill seeks to do such
fearful souls a service by presenting again the proof, already often drawn
out to satiety, that Christ generally accommodated His teaching in unim-
portant matters to the theology and point of view of His day. It will not
be granted him, however, that this matter is an unimportant one. See The
Expository Times, x i, 477. Volck’s Conference-lecture on ‘ The Attitude
of Christ and the Apostles to the Old Testament ’ will be a welcome gift to
many : in it he skillfully shows, among other things, how the problem as to
the literary connection of Moses with the Pentateuch is entirely unaffected
by the New Testament references. Very few will agree, however, with the
tame critical position of the author and his hermeneutical rule to understand
the Old Testament in the light of the New. Compare the Theolog. Literatur-
blatt, No. 43 (Ed. Konig)." On the authorship of Hebrews, Meyer writes
as follows: “Hausleiter in the Theolog. Liter aturblatt, 23, 127, calls
attention to the testimony of the Tractatus de libris, which Wegmann
ascribes to Novatian, to the effect that Hebrews was written by Barnabas.
The disappearance of the name remains, however, remarkable, and Har-
nack holds it, therefore, ‘ probable ’ that this letter came from some one
whose name was willingly forgotten later. Such he thinks was that of
Priscilla, which the Western text in D. allows also to fall in the background.
This name also fits otherwise, for the letter is apparently directed to a house-
congregation in Rome, such as had grown up in the house of Aquila and
Priscilla. She was a notable teacher and a friend of Timothy’s. The argu-
ment drawn from the interchanging ‘ we ’ and ‘ 1 7 is scarcely convincing,
according to the usage of Epicurus aud Epictetus. These things are proba-
bilities : to Se alrjdcg olSev. In Germany people are naturally astonished
that the authorship of Hebrews should be ascribed to a woman ( Emng .
Kirchenzeitung, 14): in America they find the idea ‘most interesting,’

‘ skillful ’ ( Biblical World, xv, 475) : the Ueutsch-Amerikanische Zeitsclirift
calls its readers’ attention to the ‘ ingenious observations and conclusions;’
in England, Comb calls the idea striking, attractive, and thoroughly original,
but he thinks the logical strength, the masculine grip, the compelling force
of the argument of the Epistle scarcely attainable by a woman ! And yet an
Apollos had permitted himself to be taught by Priscilla! Lazarus has
translated Harnack’s article into English (Luth. Cli. Rev., 448-471).” The
Jahresbericht enters its twentieth year with a promise of increased useful-
ness. There are some things that might well be improved in it yet (above
all its attitude toward destructive criticism of the Bible) ; but it is indis-
pensable to every student of theology. A New Topographical, Physical, and

Biblical Map of Palestine : Scale — four miles to an inch. Compiled from the
Latest Surveys and Researches, Including the Work of the English and Ger-
man Palestine Exploration Funds. Showing all Identified Biblical Sites,
together with the Modern Place Names. Prepared under the Direction of
J. G. Bartholemew, F.R.S.E., F.R.G.S. , and Edited by Professor George
Adam Smith, M.A., LL.D., T).D., etc. With Complete Index, Compiled
under the Supervision of J. G. Bartholemew, F.R.S.E., F.R.G.S. (Edin-
burgh : T. & T. Clark, 1901.) This new map of Palestine is a boon to all
students of the Bible. The work of the English Palestine Exploration Fund,
embalmed in its great map of Western Palestine on the scale of one mile to

4S0

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

the inch, made an epoch of course in the cartography of Palestine. But
that work is already a quarter of a century old ; and the impulse given to the
geographical study of the Holy Land by the work of that fund itself, to say
nolliing of other and in many respects deeper and richer currents, have car-
ried us far onward during these last years. There was clamant need for an
authoritative summing up of the accumulated data in a new map, which
should gather all of value in recent discoveries. The editing of such a map
could not have fallen into better hands than Prof. Smith’s. Eight years ago
(1894) he gave us his excellent Historical Geography of the Holy Land , and
it has been known that his interest in the subject has not abated meanwhile :
only this last year he has made a special geographical journey to Palestine,
doubtless primarily in the interests of the map which we now so gratefully
receive at his hands. The title-page describes sufficiently the sources and scope
of the map. It includes the country from Beirut in the north to the Arabah in
the south, extending as far east as Damascus and Jebel Hauran. The physical
relief is shown by coloring in contours and by diagrammatic cross-sections.
It represents primarily a complete survey of the country as it exists at the
present day, with all the modern place-names: on this is superimposed the
whole series of identified ancient names, and these are given in bolder letter-
ing, so as to call especial attention to themselves. There are, besides the
sections, inset maps showiug the environs of Jerusalem and the present vege-
tation of Palestine. The scale is four miles to the inch and the plate
measures 54 by 35 inches. The map is accessible in three forms— either
mounted on rollers and varnished, for wall use; or mounted on cloth and in
cloth case, royal 8vo size, for library use ; or divided into two sheets and
mounted on cloth, folding small, for tourist use, for which its careful record
of roads, etc., renders it particularly valuable. In each form it is accom-
panied with a complete Index, containing the 3180 names marked on it. Its
mechanical execution is exceedingly fine, coloration and lettering alike being
clear-cut and eye resting. In one word the cartographer, geographer and his-
torical scholar have united to give us in this beautiful sheet the definitive map
of Palestine for the opening years of the twentieth century. Every student

of the Bible will rejoice in it and thank the publishers for it. Babel und

Bibel. Ein Vortrag von Friedrich Delitzsch. Mit 60 Abbildungen. 8vo,
pp. 53. (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’sche Bucliliandlung, 1902.) The Ger-
mans have an “ Oriental Society ” that has sent out an expedition which, as
Prof. Delitzsch expresses it, is carrying on “ its tireless work in the ruins of
Babylon from morning till evening, in heat and cold, for Germany’s glory
and Germany’s science.” In the interests of this society Prof. Delitzsch
delivered in the Academy of Music at Berlin, on the 13th of January last, a
public lecture, to which “ His Majesty the Emperor and King ” graciously
lent his presence: His Majesty even asked that it should be repeated on the
1st of February in the precincts of the royal palace itself. It was a grand ad-
vertising scheme. And its reward has been rich : everybody has been talking
about the address ; the daily press has been discussing it ; and now the great
house of Hinrichs has issued it in excellent form — both in a cheaper edition at
two marks the copy and in a fine edition at four marks each. Lest an inade-
quate idea of the interest of the address should be formed from its success-
ful use as an advertising measure, let us say at once that it is in its matter
an excellent account of the value of the new Assyriological learning to
students of the Bible. It is, of course, written from Prof. Delitzscli’s
personal point of view and embodies his personal opinions on many
disputed points, and, indeed, his personal attitude toward the his-
torical and even doctrinal authority of the Hebrew Scriptures: but
it is written by the hand of a master and gives an illuminating

REGENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

481

rapid survey of the gains for understanding the Bible thus far obtained from
the excavations of the far East. There is nothing in it particularly new
or very startling to those moderately informed on the subject, but it is all
well put and interestingly presented. The brochure begins by a rapid enu-
meration of the recovery of extra-Biblical knowledge of many external
Biblical matters, — names and sites of places, persons, peoples mentioned in
the Bible. Thence it rises to the aid afforded by the monuments to the study
of the Biblical chronology and even to the interpretation of the Biblical
text, — as for example of the Trishagion of Numbers vi. 24 sg., which, says
Delitzsch, is only to be understood at its full value when we learn that “to
lift up one’s countenance, one’s eyes on one,” was a current Babylonian
expression for “ setting one’s love on another, as a bridegroom gazes on the
bride or a father on the son with loving approbation.” At this point the
tone of the address changes somewhat, and the rest of it is given to an
attempt to suggest the indebtedness of the Hebrews to the Babylonians for
their cultural and religious development. This is pressed so far that the
reader begins to wonder whether Christian civilization and the Christian
religion itself may not be considered by Prof. Delitzsch as but little more than
a natural development out of the old Babylonian culture. The institution
of the Sabbath, the narrative of the flood, the account of the creation, nay
also of the fall, and of heaven and hell, the angels, the demons, the devils,
nay also God Himself, His names, His unity, His character, — all these as
they appear in the Hebrew Scriptures are taken back into the circle of
Babylonian religious conceptions and presented as developments from them.
“And so,” he concludes complacently, “I have succeeded in showing that
there is very much that is purely Babylonian that still, through the medium
of the Bible, clings to our religious thought.” He professes to think, to be
sure, that no injury can be done to true Christianity by so conceiving, though
he allows that it will induce a process of cleansing in our religious thinking.
But when one comes to estimate the losses and gains, perhaps not all will
be entirely of Dr. Delitzsch’s opinion as to what we may safely spare. In
truth there is a grave exaggeration apparent in his dealing with this whole
class of subjects ; and it might be well recommended to him to read and
imitate the fine good sense of Dr. Davis’ Genesis and Semitic Tradition.
We shall gain much from the monuments : but one thing we shall not gain—

a naturalistic account of the origin of the revealed religion. Biblical and

Semitic Studies. Critical and Historical Essays by the Members of the Semitic
and Biblical Faculty of Yale University. 8vo, pp. xii, 330. (New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons; London: Edward Arnold, 1901.) Among the
methods by which the Bicentennial Anniversary of Yale University was
celebrated was the issue of a series of volumes prepared by a number of the
Professors and Instructors, “as a partial indication of the character of the
studies in which the University teachers are engaged.” The present volume
represents with this design the work of the Semitic and Biblical Faculty.
It contains six essays on very diverse topics, the greater number of them
having been originally prepared for the Semitic and Biblical Club of the
University. As a conspectus of the ruling opinions on Biblical matters
prevailing at Yale University at the opening of the twentieth century they
are startling enough, and calculated to cause the patrons of the theological
department of that University much searching of heart. Otherwise they
have not a very large significance. Only a single one of them is a contribu-
tion of note to the knowledge of the subject it treats-, — Prof. Porter’s essay on
“ The Yeger Hara,” which he has made a grounded “ Study on the Jewish
Doctrine of Sin.’’ Next to this in interest is Dr. Moulton’s essay on “ Tbe
Significance of the Transfiguration,” which though confused in arrangement

482

THE PRESBYTERIAN ANL REFORMED REVIEW.

is yet both careful and thoughtful. The method of Dr. Bacon in bis essay
on “ Stephen’s Speech ; its Argument and Doctrinal Relationship,” is too
vicious to produce any solid results. He opens with the remark that “ every
careful reader is impiesed with the fact that Stephen’s speech is but imper.
fectly adapted to the situation the author of Acts makes it fill and sup
ports this statement by (among others) a quotation from Calvin to the effect
that the careless reader may possibly so imagine! On this, he tears the
speech apart from its historical setting, and seeks to interpret it as if it were
a product of other times and other climes. Similar in spirit with Dr. Bacon’s
methods of procedure are the two initial essays, which concern Old Testa-
ment topics. The first, by Prof. Curtis, deals with “ The Tribes of Israel,”
and manages to evaporate the whole historical account of them into a mist.
The second, by Profs. Kent and Sanders, treats of “ The Growth of Israel-
itish Law,” and presents the origin of that law as a slow evolution, not the
product of one author but of a myriad, not the outgrowth of one generation
but of a whole series of eight centuries. The final paper in the volume is a trans-
lation, by Prof. Torrey, of a portion of Ibn ‘Abd El-Hkem’s Conquest of
Egypt. It is excellently done and presents a very interesting series of quaint

pages. The volume as a whole is somewhat melancholy reading,

Samuel and His Age: A Study in the Constitutional History of Israel. By
George C. M. Douglas , D.D., Joint Principal of the United Free Church
College, Glasgow, and formerly Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament
Exegesis there. Demy 8vo, pp. xxiii, 276. (London : Eyre & Spottiswoode,
1901.) Dr. Douglas’ excellent monograph on Samuel constitutes the tenth
volume in the King’s Printers’ series called “The Bible Students’ Library ”
— a series that has already won a good degree for itself in the minds of earnest
students of the Biblical record. The present volume is written with the
combined reverence and insight for which Dr. Douglas’ work is well known.
His standpoint is that of one who would fain begin with the presumption
that the Bible record is veritable history, to be followed as such unless dis-
proved. “ The aim has been,” he writes, “ to begin by taking the account
of Samuel given in the Bible as being what it professes to be, and to discuss
it with willingness to do justice to the statements, yet at the same time to
put their reasonableness and verisimilitude to the test of close examination.”
“ Surely the issue of this examination,” he adds, “has been to show that
every alleged trait of his character and every act attributed to him in the
narrative has commended itself to the intelligent and truth-loving inquirer
as historical. The whole of the details fit into what we know of the age in
which Samuel lived, and find their confirmation in consequences, good and evil ,
which wrere wrought in succeeding generations, until we come to the end of
that kindgom and the ruin of that commonwealth which w'ere inseparably
united with Samuel’s thoughts and aspirations and activities ” (p. 250). The
book opens with a chapter designed to orient its view of the historical record
with reference to the recent “critical” attack: it is entitled “Historical
Position of Samuel Vindicated.” There follows on this a preliminary chap-
ter in which is outlined the “relation of Samuel and David to Moses and
Joshua.” The life and work of Samuel are then developed in successive
chapters dealing respectively with “The Childhood and Youth of
Samuel,” “The Prophetic Office of Samuel,’’ “The Priestly Work
of Samuel,” “Samuel as Judge,” “Samuel’s Transmission of his
Office as Judge to a King,” “How Saul was Three Times made
King by Samuel,” and finally “The Completeness of this Quiet Revo-
lution by Samuel.” A final chapter discusses the “Literary Relation of
1 Samuel to the Earlier Books.” Then comes the “ Recapitulation,” and the
volume closes with four appendices, treating of “ The Critical Discussions

REGENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

483

of the Song of Hannah,” “Jehovah Appeared Again in Shiloh,” “The
Book of Jashar,” and “ The Constitutional Statute of the Realm of Israel.”
It will be seen from this outline that the book is a comprehensive treatise,
and touches on most of the questions of interest regarding one of the most
important figures in the whole history of Israel — next to Moses, Dr.
Douglas thinks, the most important, most epoch-making, most significant

figure in the whole Old Testament period of the history of the kingdom.

The Twentieth Century New Testament. A Translation into Modern English
made from the Original Greek (Westcott & Hort’s Text). In Three Parts.
Part I. — The Five Historical Books. 12mo, pp. vii, 254. Part II. — Paul’s
Letters to the Churches. 12mo, pp. x, 380. Part III. — The Pastoral, Per-
sonal and General Letters; and the Revelation. 12mo, pp. [viii] 513. (New
York, Chicago, and Toronto: Fleming H. Revell Company [1899, 1900,
1901].) The new translation offered to us in these volumes is of English
origin, and has been made, we are told, by a company of twenty scholars,
who have undertaken this new rendering into “ current English,” on discov-
ering that “ the English of the Authorized Version (closely followed in that
of the Revised Version) is in many passages difficult for those who are
less educated, and is even unintelligible to them.” Neither literality
of rendering nor a merely paraphrastic reproduction has been sought ; but a
complete transferrence of the thought into “ idiomatic English.” The work
as now printed is conceived by its authors as tentative, and suggestions for
its improvement are asked for. The perusal of only a few pages will suffice
to inform the reader that he has in his hands an earnest, honest and schol-
arly attempt to put the Greek text into intelligible English. It varies from
page to page in merit, and even somewhat in manner. A large part of it is
to such an extent a rendering ad sensurn rather than ad literam that we
cannot agree that it has missed the Scylla of paraphrase in sheering off from
the Charybdis of literality. Probably the opening verses of John present
an unusually unfavorable specimen of the whole. Certainly it is pure para-
phrase that we get there, and not always paraphrase of the sense intended.
For example, verse 14: “The Word then became man, and made a home
among us, (we saw the honour given him— such honour as an only son
receives from his father)” ; or again, verse 18: “God the only Son, who is
ever close to the Father’s heart, — it was he, who made him known.” This
assuredly will not convey to the reader the meaning of John. Opinions will
necessarily differ, however, as to the success with which this or that passage
has been reproduced. Opinions will even differ as to the usefulness of the
plan adopted, — whether there is not made an attempt to rewrite the New
Testament as we imagine it would have been written by men of the end of
the nineteenth century, rather than an effort to convey in nineteenth century
language what was actually written. But opinions will not differ that a
book has been produced which will help every reader to understand his
New Testament. With the second volume, short introductions begin
to be prefixed to the books. Those of the third volume are not always
happy, and betray a tendency toward modern liberalism in the treatment of

the questions bearing on the literary history of the several books. Bible

Studies. Contributions, chiefly from Papyri and Inscriptions, to the History
of the Language, the Literature and the Religion of Hellenistic Judaism
and Primitive Christianity. By Dr. G. Adolf Deissmann, Professor of
Theology in the University of Heidelberg. With an Illustration in the
Text. Authorized Translation, incorporating Dr. Deissmann’s most Recent
Changes and Additions, by Alexander Grieve , M.A. (Edin.), D.Phil%
(Lips.), Minister of the South United Free Church, Forfar. 8vo, pp. xv,
384. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1901 ; New York: Imported by Charles

484

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

Scribner’s Sons.) The publication of Dr. Deissmann’s Bihelstudien, which
appeared in 1895, followed shortly, 1897, by a second series under the name
of Neue Bihelstudien, marked if it did not create what may be called in a
small way a new epoch in the study of the Greek of the New Testament.
The epoch had been arriving through a century or more, during which the
Greek inscriptions were being collected, edited and studied, and the muse-
ums of Europe were being filled with papyri, chiefly preserved in the dry
sands of Egypt. This material had already been more or less drawn upon
for the explanation of the New Testament vocabulary and idiom. But it
was left to Dr. Deissmann to catch the popular theological ear and inaugu-
rate the era of general attention to the new material. This success was due
partly to the pleasant style in which lie wrote ; and partly to the comparatively
rich treasures which he offered from the new sources, for the illustration of
the New Testament ; and partly again, no doubt, to the fact that he adduced
his material not purely and simply for itself, but for the support of a theory
as to the nature and relations of New Testament Greek. In any case it is
certain that the publication of his two little books formed an event ; that
they have borne excellent fruit ; and that they were quite worthy of being
turned into English, so that non-German-reading English students may
profit by the inspiration that is in them. Under Dr. Deissmann’s direction
the two have been smelted together in the English translation ; and the
treatise has beeii enriched by corrections and additions from the author’s
hand : it appears accordingly not as a translation merely, but as a revised
edition of the German work. As a typical instance of the revision which
the work has received, the treatment of the word aycnrr] (pp. 198 sq.) may be
noted. A heathen use of this word had been cited in the German edition
from the Paris Papyrus 49, on the faith of the French editor. A reexamina-
tion of the original proves that the real reading is rapaxf/v. Outside the
Scriptures the word accordingly has turned up only in Philo (as Thayer had
already recorded) and in a late scholion to Thucydides. It cannot be
affirmed, therefore, that it has been yet found in use where it may not possi-
bly have been derived from its biblical usage: but the probability is, of
course, that it is not a specifically biblical word. To those who are un-
familiar with the German original, it may be said that the book consists of a
series of essays designed to illustrate chiefly the language of the New Testa-
ment. The first essay, to be sure, is not precisely of this character. It is
entitled “ Prolegomena to the Biblical Letters and Epistles,” and is an
attempt to discriminate under these names between the real letter, meant for
the eye of a special reader only, or a body of readers, and the literary letter,
meant just because literary for the world as such : and to apply this distinc-
tion to the criticism of the letters of the New Testament. One does not need
to coincide with all the author’s specific judgments to enjoy and profit by
this interesting discussion. The second essay, entitled “ Contributions to the
History of the Language of the Greek Bible,” has for its thesis that it is a
mistake to treat the Greek of the Greek Bible as a thing apart, but that it
is to be considered as an embodiment of the popular Greek of the day. The
third essay, entitled “Further Contributions, etc.,” continues the same
theme. In these two essays, filling the space from p. 61 to p. 268, a great
mass of material illustrating the Greek of the LXX and N. T. is drawn from
the papyri and inscriptions. The fourth paper (pp. 269-300) describes
an interesting instance of the broader influence of the LXX, — in a lead
tablet from the African town of Hadrumetum. Then follow a few “Notes
on Some Biblical Persons and Names” — the most interesting of which is
one on “Saulus Paulus,” which goes to show that we must not put a
“henceforth” into the phrase of Acts 13, but read it simply as “Saul

RECENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

485

who was also called Paul.” This is followed by a study of “Greek Tran-
scriptions of the Tetragrammaton,” and the volume closes with a collection
of five brief notes on points of interest in the Greek Bible. The translation

is adequate rather than perfect. Le Nouveau Testament de notre Seigneur

Jesus-Christ, explique au moyen d’Introductions, d’Analyses, et de Notes
Exeg6tiques par L. Bonnet, docteur en theologie. Evangele de Jean : Actes des
Apotres. Seconde edition, revue et augmentee par Alfred Schroeder, pasteur
Lausanne. 8vo, pp. 559. (Lausanne: Georges B ridel et Cie.: [1899])
Everybody knows — or everybody ought to know — the beautiful Commentary
on the New Testament, the fruit of Dr. Louis Bonnet’s old age, after his
half-century’s work in the ministry of the Gospel. The last volume of the
four in which it was first published — which was the very volume now lying
before us — saw the light in 1885, having been finished, as the author tells us
in his Preface, along with his eightieth year. As the years have sped on a
new edition of the whole has become necessary, that it may be brought up
to date and given a new lease of life and a fresh career of usefulness. This
has been undertaken by Pastor Alfred Schroeder of Lausanne, and the second
volume of this new edition now lies before us. Suffice it to say in a word
that Mr. Schroeder’s very delicate task has been admirably accomplished.
The general plan of the work remains the same : the doctrinal teaching of
the comments has been carefully left unaffected. But the revising hand
has gone everywhere, — and it is felt in translation, introductions, and notes
alike. The result is that a good Commentary has been made even better.
The French Churches are to be congratulated on possessing such an exact,
vivid and spiritual handbook to the understanding of the New Testament,
written in a style which every educated Christian can read with pleasure,
out of a learning from which the most instructed can profit. Hear how
Mr. Schroeder speaks of the books of which this volume treats. “ This vol-
ume includes the commentary on two books which rank among the principal
books of the New Testament : the Gospel of the only-begotten Son of God
and the book of the Acts of the Holy Spirit through the first instruments
whom He created. The one presents to us Him who came to us from the
Father, 1 the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world ’; the
other shows us the Saviour, returned to the glory which He had before with
the Father, and presents the work of salvation He had begun here below.
The one offers to our contemplation the divine life realized in a human
existence ; the other tells us how this life began to propagate itself in the
bosom of our humanity. The first is the Gospel particularly appropriate to
an epoch like ours, when men recognize that salvation does not lie in the ad-
hesion of the intellect to a system, to a body of doctrine, but in vital faith in
a person who is Himself ‘the way, the truth and the life’; the second is
peculiarly the manual of the Church at the end of a century whose glory it is
that it is the century of missions.” It is in this spirit that the whole work has
been prosecuted, and naturally it has given us a Commentary both conserva-
tive and spiritual intone. The Pastoral Epistles. A New Translation, with

Introduction, Commentary and Appendix. By Rev. J. P. Lilley, M.A.,
Arbroath. Crown 8vo, pp. viii, 255. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1901 ;
New York: Imported by Charles Scribner’s Sons.) Mr. Lilley is already
favorably known to the theological public by an admirable book on The
Lord's Supper and a very useful handbook on The Principles of Protestant-
ism. To the readers of this Review he is not unknown : a very striking
paper by him on Hypo-Evangelism having appeared in the number for April,
1893. In the present volume he gives further proof of the quality of his
learning. Though issued as one of the “ Handbooks for Bible Classes,”
edited by Prof. Marcus Dods and Dr. Alexander Whyte, it is a pretty
32

486

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

full commentary on the Pastoral Epistles, and in some portions is addressed
to a somewhat advanced audience. The volume is divided into four parts.
The first of these is Introductory and treats in one long chapter of “ The
Pastoral Epistles as a Group,” and then in three very short ones of the
three Epistles separately. Then follows a Translation of the three Epistles.
The Commentary succeeds — written in a flowing style and brought down to
the comprehension of the educated layman. Finally in an Appendix we
have gathered a series of discussions, doubtless intended for the higher class
of readers. These deal with the style and vocabulary of the Epistles, the
theory of composite authorship, the chronological order and plan of the
Pastoral Epistles, the evolution of the teaching elder, Paul’s doctrine of
Inspiration, the Ethics of the Pastoral Epistles, and the Literature of the
Pastoral Epistles. As will be seen the scheme of treatment is very com-
plete : and everywhere we feel the hand of a careful student and a sober
thinker. Having said this, it is scarcely necessary to add that the conclu-
sions reached are conservative, — that the Pauline authorship is convincingly
defended and that the whole body of critical questions is discussed with
sanity and good effect. It would be hard for the working pastor or the
general student to find a better guide to the understanding of these letters.
The limitations of Mr. Lilley’s handling of the Epistles may be suggested
by his note, say. on the words “ sound doctrine ” in 1 Tim. i. 10. Mr. Lilley
translates “ healthful teaching,” and explains that what Paul means to say
is that the apostolic doctrine is “ in its influence thoroughly healthful ” —
the word employed being “ in root the same as the now common epithet
‘ hygienic ’” (p. 77). This is of course an entire mistake, and involves a
confusion between the two adjectives vyifc (vyiafauv) and vyieivog. “ A
reminder is scarcely necessary,” says Zahn ( Einleitung , etc., i, 486, note 16),
“ that vyiaivuv , vyifc do not, like the German ‘ gesund,’ mean both sanus and
saluber , but sanus only.” So, commenting on tfefcrew-of, 2 Tim. iii, 16 (p.
215), he says: “Literally ‘inspired of God’ is ‘God-breathed’; and since
the breath of God is everywhere identified with His presence, the epithet as
applied to the Scriptures can only mean that, written by holy men of old, borne
on by the Holy Spirit, every Scripture has the presence and operation of God
indissolubly associated with it; and that this gracious influence of the
Spirit as the direct agent at work will be felt by every one that reads them
with a humble and teachable heart.” That is to say “ God-breathed ” is the
same as “God-breathing ” I It is a great tribute to Mr. Lilley’s diligence and
good judgment that with a feeling for language thus defective he has pro-
duced so good a Commentary.

III.— HISTORICAL THEOLOGY.

The Pkogress of Dogma, being the Elliot Lectures, delivered at the
Western Theological Seminary, Allegheny, Penna., U. S. A., 1S97. By
James Orr, M.A., D.D., Professor of Apologetics and Systematic
Theology United Free Church College, Glasgow. Crown 8vo, pp. xxviii,
365. London : Hodder & Stoughton ; New York : A. C. Armstrong &
Son, 1901.

The task which Dr. Orr sets himself in this admirable series of lectures is
not to deal exhaustively with the history of doctrine (which in such brief
compass would of course be absurd) , nor even to discuss its broad outlines
for its own sake. It is rather to seek out and illustrate the law that has
guided the development of doctrine, and to inquire what help the recognition

REGENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

487

of this law “affords us in determining our attitude to theological system
now, and in guiding our steps for the future.” When the immanent law of
the actual history that has been wrought out by doctrine is fairly seized, Dr.
Orr conceives, “it will not only prevent us ever after from regarding the
development of dogma as a maze of irrationality, but will be sure to furnish
us with a corroboration, and in some measure a rationale , of our Protestant
Evangelical creeds ; will yield us a clue to their right understanding, and,
what is not less important, an aid to their further perfecting.” For Dr. Orr
finds that law to be nothing other than logical sequence. So that, as a mat-
ter of fact, the development of doctrine as it lies before us on the broad page
of history, exhibits itself as simply the logical system of doctrine “projected
on a vast temporal screen.”

In other words the Church in the age-long process of thinking out the
treasures of truth committed to it, has proceeded very much on the same
lines which the individual mind must pursue ; and accordingly the order
in which the doctrines of Christianity emerge on the page of history as
engaging the attention of the Church and successively receiving final
determination, presents a close parallel with the order in which these
doctrines are arranged in the concatenated systems of theology. The idea
is of course not in itself new : Klieforth, for example, long ago told us,
in his Dogmengeschichte , that to the successive Greek, Latin and German
Churches had been one after the other committed the working out of the
great problems of Theology proper, Anthropology and Soteriology, while
those of Ecclesiology lay yet in the lap of the future. And Dr. Orr does not
stop to ground the idea, as it is capable of being grounded, in the profound
thought to which Dr. Kuyper has given so rich a development, — that the true
subject of Sancta Tlieologia is not the individual thinker but the whole Church
of God — the new creation of the palingenesis, the Body of Christ ; just as the
real subject of “ science ” is not the individual mind of this or that investi-
gator, but humanity at large. But he has grasped the principle firmly, con-
ceived it with unwonted clearness, and applied it most fruitfully in an
exposition of the progress of doctrine, from which no reader will rise with-
out a well-grounded conviction that the Church could not have proceeded
otherwise than is here expounded in attaining gradual apprehension of the
Gospel, and that the attainments thus arrived at by it are solid attainments,
valid for all time; in a word, that the system of truth embodied in the
Protestant creeds comes to us with “ the sanction of history ” in a sense
which is apt to seem to the reader, if not quite new, yet newly important.

There are, naturally, minor points in the application of the general scheme
of development with respect to which difference of opinion is possible. One
notes, for example, that Klieforth assigns to the modern Church the devel-
opment of the doctrines subsumed under the caption of Ecclesiology, while
Dr. Orr assigns to it rather those belonging to Eschatology : and one notes
in this connection what looks very much like a breaking down of the scheme
of development for the post-Reformation period. Here are the great doc-
trines of God and the Trinity, the Person of Christ, Sin and Grace, the
Atonement, Justification: one sees their logical interrelations and the
necessity of the order in which they emerged as “ burning questions ” in the
consciousness of the Church. Dr. Orr’s successive treatment of them marches
with firm step along the pathway of the logical development. But there
the logical development stops : and the last two chapters appear to lapse into
a mere survey of unrelated currents of thought, going each its own way,
without regard to the general course of development. Possibly also else-
where in the volume there are passages which can scarcely be said to find
their complete raison d'etre in the logical progress, but are rather dictated by

488

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

the historian’s love of completeness in picturing the characteristics of an
age. One may legitimately question, again, whether the first age of the
Church is best described from the point of view of the doctrinal develop-
ment as an “ apologetical age,” and as well whether it is necessary to
preposit the anthropological discussions beginning with Augustine to the
Christological discussions beginning with Apollinarius, or perhaps wTe may
even say with Arius : whether, in other words, it would not be better to
recognize that the whole doctrine of God — including the determination of
His personal unity and His triune personality, together with the whole doc-
trine of the Son of God, including the determination of His relation to God
the Father and His relation to the Man, Jesus— belong together both logically
and historically. Whatever questions of this kind we may raise, however,
concern mere details in the application of a principle which is sound in
itself and is applied by Dr. Orr with notable effect.

It is quite plain that the general view which Dr. Orr takes of the history
of doctrine as the progressive explication of the Gospel is the very antipodes
of the notion of Harnack that the progress of doctrine has been in the main
a pathological process — a steady corruption of the original simplicity of the
Gospel. Accordingly Dr. Orr most naturally makes it one of his objects to
point out stage by stage his reasons for dissenting from the judgment of that
brilliant but scarcely circumspect scholar. This running criticism of Har-
nack ’s views constitutes one of the most interesting and useful of the subor-
dinate features of the book. It is the more odd that the point at which we
find ourselves most seriously at variance with Dr. Orr’s teaching is one in
which he goes astray, as we think, by following Harnack too closely. At
the critical point of the origin of the Old Catholic Church, strangely
enough, Dr. Orr takes over with only slight modification the whole
construction of the German theorizer. With respect to the formation
of the Canon, at least, we judge the matter of the first importance:
and we cannot but feel that Dr. Orr has gone immensely wrong here. No
doubt the Church was forced back on the Apostolic deposit by the
Gnostic controversy, and thus was enabled by that controversy to find itself ;
but assuredly it was not thus nor then, for the first time, that it was “ im-
pelled to set about in right earnest making a collection of the books ” which
it regarded as Apostolic, and separating them from the floating mass of
ecclesiastical literature ; neither did the “ Canon ” of Marcion antedate, but
rather presupposed, the Canon of the Church.

Other points in which we find difficulty in following Dr. Orr’s exposition
are of less importance, but some of them may be cursorily adduced, — if for
no other purpose than to indicate that the high value we set upon the book
is not wholly blind. We question whether entire justice is done either to
Augustine or to the idea of monergistic regeneration, by the remarks on p.
150 (c/. also note *) upon “ irresistible grace.” It surely is inadequate to say
that “ what Augustine holds is that God can use such means, can so-deal
with the individual in providence and grace, can bring him into such outer and
inner discipline, as, in harmony with, nay, through the laws of human free-
dom, to overcome his resistance ” (p. 151;. Augustine does make much of
means, but he does not confine “ grace ” to the operation of means : he does
make grace in its essence liberating, not enslaving, but he does not make it
act solely “through the laws of human freedom,” but also on the soul’s
freedom. The matter is more exactly stated on p. 161 : “ Augustine views
the will as set in motion, and spiritually liberated by divine grace.”

Nor can we regard as adequate the exposition of Augustine’s doctrine of
predestination (pp. 152, 153) as if it were “always predestination to life and
salvation, never to sin and death.” Augustine explicitly and repeatedly

RECENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

489

teaches the predestinatio gemmina. This inadequate view of Augustine’s
doctrine leads to what seems to us injustice also to Gottschalk (p. 162), as if
he “ outdid Augustine himself in the rigour of his advocacy of predestina-
tion a quite common remark, which seems to have, however, no real basis
in fact. It seems to be very difficult to do justice to Gottschalk, if we are to
judge from the extremely unjust pages which Harnack has consecrated to him
in the fifth volume of his History of Dogma. We can easily forgive Dr. Orr
sucli little things, however, in the presence of his admirable remarks which im-
mediately follow (pp. 162 sq.) on the doctrine of predestination in general and
its difficulties. Here a firm finger is laid upon the very centre of the
subject and the whole discussion is raised to its proper place in an “organic
view of the divine purpose in its relation to the world and history.” Per-
haps it is going a little far to say that “ only a foolish person ” (p. 168) will
fail to understand that God acts by processes, and that election and reproba-
tion are incident to this method of working ; but surely a wise man ought
to see that God’s election is an item in the great organic process by which
He is saving the world to Himself. And, by the way, when we have said
this we may add that we wonder why Dr. Orr, seeing it all so clearly and
expounding it so freshly and so finely, should yet balk a little at the idea of
“ particular redemption,” or as he calls it “ limited atonement ”; and indeed
seek to “ guard against ” this fundamental doctrine by a mode of statement
that can scarcely be saved from logically issuing in a theory of universal sal-
vation. We “ guard against this,” he says, i. e., against “ particular redemp-
tion,” “by recognizing that Christ is not only the Head of the Church, but
in a true sense also the Head of humanity ” (p. 232, note 5)— the reference
being to the satisfaction of Christ the Head for his Body, which is His Church.
Here too surely we must take the organic view. Christ died for the race and
will save the race — He died for and saves the world : but this ‘ race ’ and
‘ world ’ is to be construed not extensively of the ‘ race ’ and ‘ world ’ at any
given point in the process, but protensively of the ‘race ’ and ‘ world ’ as a
whole in its progressive development — as at the end of the process it shall
be seen to be. In a word the universalism of the Scriptures is, and the uni-
versalism of theology should be, an organic and eschatological and not an
individualistic and each-and-every universalism. In this true sense Christ
is the Head of a new humanity and offered Himself for humanity, and by
His offering saves humanity — though in the course of the process by which
His saving of humanity is wrought out, each and every man who emerges
as a unit in the progress of the ages is not saved.

Through the mazes of the Christological controversies Dr. Orr guides us
with a skillful hand. We are not able to go with him, to be sure, in the
stress he lays on the idea of humanity as capax infiniti as the key to the
Christological problem,— though he guards himself somewhat by remarking
that “ it is possible to make too much of this ” (p. 176). In the incarnation,
after all, it was not the case that humanity embraced the infinite, but that
the infinite assumed humanity ; and surely there is no gulf in the universe
so wide as that which separates the increate from the created, the self-
existent from the dependent. The remarks on the modern theories of
Kenosis (p. 337), on the other hand, leave nothing to be desired in point
either of clearness or of decisiveness. The influence of most of these theories i
he considers,

“is already a thing of the past. The self-obliteration of the Logos to the point of the self-surren-
der of His conscious life in the godhead (which is their salient feature), is more than ‘self-
emptying ’ — it is practically self-extinction ; while the person that results is in no way distin-
guishable from ordinary man save in His undeveloped potencies. Thus, by a curious reversal
of standpoint Kenoticism works round to a species of Ebionitism. Accordingly the tendency
of the newer Christological theories has been to dispense with the preiexistent Logos altogether
as a metaphysical figment.’’

490

TUE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

We cannot go so heartily with him, however, when he proceeds to discuss
the Kenotic corrollary of the limitation of Christ’s earthly knowledge.
Here he seems to forget momentarily the rights of the two natures, and
speaks of Christ’s knowledge and ignorance, the voluntariness of His limi-
tation of knowledge and the authority of His teaching, as if he were deal-
ing with a single knowing mind, and had to distinguish only between several
departments of knowledge. Needless to say that there is no solution to this
problem possible save in the frank acceptance and utilization of the gem-
mina mens.

Nothing in the book is more illuminating than the whole discussion of the
soteriological advance — whether in its first stage under the impulse of
Anselm or in its development in Reformation theology. We do not think
justice is quite done to Calvin’s doctrine of God (pp. 2 42 sq.), and the remarks
on the place of love in God’s nature at this point need to be qualified by the
additional remarks on pp. 343 sq. as to other qualities of the Divine nature
equally fundamental. “ It is easy to say, ‘ Love is above law and can freely
remit sin.’ But there are things that even God cannot do, and one is to say
that His holiness cannot react against sin.” Important as it is to remember
that God is love, it is equally important to remember that love is not God
and the formula “ Love ” must ever therefore be inadequate to express God.
In dealing with the “ ordo salutis ” (p. 273 sq.), Dr. Orr appears to us not to
discriminate clearly enough between the impetration and the application of
redemption, — a failure to discriminate between which lies at the root of the
difficulties of those who are confused as to the relation of regeneration and
justification. Regeneration is, of course, the logical prius both of faith and
of the justification of which faith is the prius. But the impetration of sal-
vation is the logical prius of the whole process of its application, inclusive
of regeneration and its resultant faith and of the justification and sanctifi-
cation that follow on faith. The prevalent errors here arise from the confu-
sion on the one hand of justification with the impetration of salvation, and
on the other of the act of regeneration with the work of sanctification.
Assuredly this confusion cannot be escaped by refusing to distinguish be-
tween these several elements in the composite work of salvation — which no
doubt, however, are separable only in analysis and not in fact. For the rest
it is scarcely exact to say that “ the vital union with Christ is effected by
faith.” It is effected by the Holy Ghost who is the author of faith, and
whose vivifying act on the soul antedates the act of the sinner which we
call faith.

The sketches of post-Reformation theology and of the currents of modern
theological thought to which the last two lectures are devoted are masterly
in both contents and form. Little space is given to the eschatological prob-
lems, which are yet spoken of as perhaps the special task of the modern
Church. What is said is said well and prudently, although the reader is left
with a little less assurance of the final issue of sin and the final state of the
sinner, than he would gather from the deliverances of our Lord on the
subject. Possibly the unmitigated sternness of our Lord’s denunciations of
sin, and the unrelieved horror of the outlook which he leaves for the unbe-
lieving sinner, may prove after all the more loving mode of dealing with this
terrible subject, — a subject so terrible in itself that it can scarcely be given
additional terrors by any mode of dealing with it.

We have permitted ourselves the critic’s privilege of finding fault when-
ever we could find fault with this admirable book. But we must not allow
ourselves to leave the impression that we find fault with the book itself.
Every human product is faulty, in the sense that it is not wholly free from
faults. But the faults of this book are few and relatively unimportant, and

REGENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

491

deserve mention only that the few imperfections may be kept before our
minds as we emphasize the main fact, — that it is an eminently good book,
tracing with wide learning and singular sobriety the fundamental line of
development of Christian theology through the ages. The sanity of Dr.
Orr’s handling of the immense material lying at his disposal is the constant
wonder of the reader ; and no one will lay the book aside without an increase
of wisdom as well as of knowledge. Everyone who wishes to obtain a sound
grasp upon the essence of Christian thought should surely begin with this
book in his hand as his guide.

Princeton. Benjamin B. Warfield.

Theologischer Jahresbericht . . . herausgegeben von Dr. G. Kruger , Professor
in Giessen. Zwanzigster Band, enthaltend Die Literatur des Jahres 1900.
Zweite Abtheilung: Historische Theologie, bearbeitet von Liidemann ,
Preusclien, Picker, O. Clemen , Loesche, Kohlschmidt, Lehmann, Hegler,
Koehler. 8vo, pp. 508 (Berlin : C. A. Schwetschke und Sohn; New York:
Gustav E. Steckert, 1901.) The historical section of this indispensable
annual review of theological literature has felt, more perhaps than any other
portion, the tendency to expansion which has marked the successive issues
of recent years. The issue for 1899 contained, for example, 277 pages; that
for 1900, 361 ; that for 1901, 508. Two new workers have been introduced
also in this latest issue : Lie. Dr. O. Clemen, Gymnasialoberlehrer in
Zwickau i. S., who aids Dr. Ficker in compassing the Church History of the
Middle Ages, and Lie. Dr. Walther Kohler, Privatdozent in Giessen, who
is joined with Dr. Hegler in caring for the Church History subsequent to
1648. The work is prosecuted in the same spirit and with the same remark-
able diligence as formerly, while the increased space occupied has allowed
somewhat more numerous and fuller characterizations of the books adduced.

The Early Church : Its History and Literature. By James Orr , II. A.,

D.D., Professor of Apologetics and Systematic Theology United Free Church
College, Glasgow. Small 12mo, pp. viii, 146, with one plate. (London:
Hodder & Stoughton; New York : A. C. Armstrong & Son [1901].) It is
something of an achievement to pack into the space of less than 150 small
duodecimo pages a clear, judicious and readable account of the Christian
Church up to Constantine : but Dr. Orr has done this. We have read the
booklet through with unabated interest from beginning to end, and can tes-
tify that there is not a dry “ compend-like ” page in it. It is as truly an
“ individual ” sketch of the first stage of Church History as if it had been
expanded to a dozen times its length. And the breadth of Dr. Orr’s learning
and the sobriety of his judgment render it a very admirable guide to opinion
through the mazes of this difficult period. He does, here and there, we
must confess, lean a little too heavily on the constructions of Harnack for
our taste : the most striking instance of this comes to expression on pages
88, sq., where Harnack’s schema for the development of the Old Catholic
Church is accepted — a schema which seems to us throughout essentially
d priori and artificial, despite its general attractiveness and the elements
of truth contained in it ; and which seems to us to be, with regard to the
account it gives of the rise of the idea of the New Testament canon at
least, quite and even fatally wrong. But this does not affect the general
value of this book, which as a whole is a model of what a brief classbook
should be, and sets a high standard for the series of “ Christian Study Man-
uals ” of which it is the first issue. By the way, this series is issued in
England at a shilling a volume, while the American publishers charge sixty
cents a volume for it — which appears to us not to the interest of the Ameri-
can buying public. We have noticed a few misprints, especially in names, —

492

TEE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

e. g ., Bruce for Brace, p. 13 ; Flornius for Florinus, p. 93. Compare also the

word “ printed,” p. 102 bottom. Dr. Martin Luther’s Reformations-schriften.

Erste Abtheilung. Zur Reformationshistorie gehcirige Documente. A.
Wider die Papisten (Schluss). Aus den Jahren 1538 bis 1546. B. Wider die
Reformirten. Aufs neue lierausgegeben im Auftrag des Ministeriums der
deutschen Ev.-luth. Synode von Missouri, Ohio und anderen Staaten. 4to,
pp. xxv, and coll. 2261. (St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia Publishing House,

1901. ) The volumes of the St. Louis revision of Walch’s edition of
Luther’s Works have been following one another now for a series of years
with commendable regularity, until with the present volume the completion
of the great task is brought within sight. “ With this volume,” writes
Prof. Hoppe in the Preface, “ the revision of the old edition of the col-
lected writings of Dr. Martin Luther edited by Walch, is completed up to
the twenty-first volume, which contains Luther’s letters ; to these the reviser
must next devote himself before he can proceed to the preparation of the
Index. In the reprinting of the letters, however, we are entirely depend-
ent on the editions publishing in Germany, because the sources are not
accessible in this country, and in the first instance this task cannot be carried
further than the publication of the correspondence has proceeded in the
Erlangen edition, that is to say up to 24 April, 1531. We must wait
patiently for the rest until either the Erlangen Correspondence is advanced
further or else the edition of Luther’s letters promised by Knaake comes to
hand, — a thing which we pray God to grant us before very long.” Prof.
Hoppe and the Missouri Lutherans have every reason to congratulate them-
selves meanwhile on the admirable manner in which these twenty volumes
have been set out. The editing has been both careful and learned ; the
printers’ work has been good : and the result is to place within our reach a
German edition of Luther’s works which leaves whether in completeness or
in effective presentation very little to be desired. About two-thirds of the
present volume is given to the completion of the collection of the documents
designed to illustrate the course of the anti-Romish debate: the remainder
similarly collects the documents bearing on the controversy with the
Reformed — among which are somewhat illogically included also documents
directed against other non-Lutheran movements. These documents have
place among “ Luther’s works,” of course, only as illustrative material, and
provide rather a “ source-book ” of the Reformation than a collection of
Luther’s writings. Only a few pieces from Luther’s own hand of large im-
portance are included in these two thousand columns — such as his treatises
“ Against the Papacy at Rome, the Creation of the Devil,” and “ Against
Hans Wurst,” his “ Warning to the Frankforters to guard themselves against
the Zwinglian Doctrine,” and his ‘‘Letter to two Pastors on Anabaptism.”
But this circumstance only adds to the richness of the contents and gives us

opportunity to study Luther’s whole activity in fuller measure. Centennial

Survey of Foreign Missions. A Statistical Supplement to “ Christian Missions
and Social Progress,” being a Conspectus of the Achievements and Results
of Evangelical Missions in all Lands at the Close of the Nineteenth Century.
By the Rev. James S. Dennis, D.D., Students’ Lecturer on Missions, Prince-
ton, 1893 and 1896; Author of “Foreign Missions After a Century ” and
“ Christian Missions and Social Progress ” ; Chairman of Committee on
Statistics, Ecumenical Conference on Foreign Missions, New York, 1900 ;
Member of the American Presbyterian Mission, Beirut, Syria. Oblong 4to,
pp. xxii, 401. (New York, Chicago, Toronto : Fleming H. Revell Company,

1902. ) One hardly knows whether to wonder most at the remakable show-
ing for the missionary work of the Church which this wonderful body of
statistics brings before us, or the amazing industry of the author in com-

RECENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

493

piling them. It is safe to say that never before has the whole material of
Foreign Mission work in operation at a given moment been placed in a
synoptic view so completely before the eye of the student. The preparation
of such a body of statistics had been, from the first planning of his great
work on Christian Missions and Social Progress, one of the purposes of Dr.
Dennis ; and he had from the first promised it as an Appendix to that work.
It was brought to its completion, however, before the finishing of that work,
through the demand made on him as Chairman of the Committee on Statis-
tics for the Ecumenical Conference on Foreign Missions held in the spring
of 1900. The results of his investigations, as now published, form a bulky
volume, simply packed with information. It gathers into one panoramic
view “the cumulative foreign mission movement of the nineteenth cen-
tury,” and records “ the present status of mission activities.” The several
series of tables give : (1) The Statistics of Foreign Missionary Societies and
Churches, with a view to recording their instrumentalities and achievements
in evangelistic work; (2) The Statistics of the Educational Work of Mis-
sions ; (3) The Statistics of their Literary Work, especially of Bible Transla-
tions; (4) The Statistics of their Medical Work ; (5) The Statistics of their
Philanthropic Work; (6) The Statistics of Societies and Associations at
Work in the Interests of General Improvement ; (7) Certain other Relative
Statistics. At the end (8) a complete Directory of Foreign Mission Socie-
ties is added. To the bare statistics there is added a very considerable body
of illuminative annotation ; and the volume closes with a series of maps.
Nothing could be completer; nothing more welcome to every student of
missionary history. It is indeed, as the author modestly expresses it, “an
inscribed milestone on the pathway of the advancing Kingdom at the close of
a working century ;” and dull of heart must he be who can read this inscrip-
tion and not take fresh courage and press on with a new inspiration to the

one great goal of “Thy Kingdom Come.” Outline of a History of Protestant

Missions, from the Reformation to the Present Time. A Contribution to
Modern Church History. By Gustav Warneck, Professor and Doctor of
Theology. Authorized Translation from the Seventh German Edition.
Edited by George Robson, D.D. With a Portrait of the Author and Twelve
Maps. 8vo, pp. xiii, 364. (New York, Chicago, Toronto: Fleming H.
Revell Company, 1901. Edinburgh : Oliphant, Ferrier & Co.) Dr. War-
neck’s History of Protestant Missions has been for twenty years a household
treasure of all who love the Kingdom : for eighteen of these it has been
accessible in English. But in its original form it has been antiquated since
the appearance in 1895 of the third German edition, rapidly followed by a
fourth, fifth, sixth and now a seventh. The original volume, to speak of
extension only, was scarce a third the size of the latest issue. An English
translation of the seventh edition was therefore a necessity, and in the
present volume it has been given us in admirable form. Beyond controversy
this is the best extant comprehensive history of Protestant Missions. It has
its faults, of course. One of them is, the greater comparative fullness with
which the German Missions and Continental Missions in general are treated,
by which a false proportion is given to the historical sketch. Another is the
comparative neglect of missionary operations among corrupt Churches, such
as the Roman Catholic— by which Dr. Warneck is led into a defective judg-
ment, for example, of the missionary spirit of the Reformers, whereas, in
truth, the Reformation age was one of the greatest missionary ages the
Church has known. Another is a defective dogmatic background, lead-
ing him to a grossly unfair estimate of the vigor of the Reformed missionary
spirit— as if, forsooth, the Reformed Churches, in whose hands the mission-
ary impulse has reached its highest development, must in principle be non-

494

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

missionary bodies ! The readers of this Review may remember that this
defective dogmatic attitude of Dr. VVarneck was made the subject of a wise
and conclusive discussion by Dr. N. M. Steffens in our number for April,
1894: a discussion which every reader of Dr. Warneck should revert to.
But despite all these drawbacks Dr. Warneck’s book remains the best book
on its subject. The value of the English translation is somewhat lessened
by the omission of a considerable body of Dr. Warneck’s references to liter-
ature. Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political

Science. Herbert B. Adams, Editor. Series xviii. Parts 1-12. Svo.
(Baltimore : The Johns Hopkins Press, 1900.) The Church and Popular Edu-
cation. By Herbert B. Adams. (Nos. 8, 9. 8vo, pp. 84.) The Struggle

for Religious Freedom in Virginia: The Baptists. By William Taylor Thorn.
(Nos. 10-12. Svo, pp. 105.) We have thrown up into prominence the sub-
titles of the two parts of the eighteenth series of this serial publication which
will most interest the student of Church History. In the former of these
parts the late Prof. Adams himself gives a rather cursory account of the
Church and popular education. After a brief historical introduction setting
forth how the Church has from the foundation of the English Colonies in
America been an educator of the people, he describes by existing examples
the several types of the Institutional or Educational Church, then gives some
account of the educational work carried on by the Baltimore Churches, and
concludes with a few words on the educational duty of the American Church.
It is all not very profound, perhaps not very carefully considered, but not un-
suggestive. A meagre school bibliography closes the part. Mr. Thorn’s study
of the part the Baptists played in the struggle for religious freedom in Vir-
ginia is a carefully wrought out aud instructively written piece of history.
In his view “ the Baptists represent in Virginia history belated politico-
religious Puritanism— not imported, not the Puritanism of England nor
of New England, but native, genuine and characteristic.” Virginia
had been specially inaccessible to Puritanism: now it bred a variety of
its own, — “ the movement was a movement ‘ of the people, by the people, for
the people ’ ; and its aim was freedom.” This part is an excellent specimen
of the good work such a series of academic monographs may call out.

IV.— SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY.

The Cosmos and the Logos. Being the Lectures for 1901-02 on the
L. P. Stone Foundation in the Princeton Theological Seminary ; also
delivered in the Theological Seminary at Auburn, New York. By the
Rev. Henry Collin Minton, D.D., Stuart Professor of Theology in
the San Francisco Theological Seminary. Philadelphia : The Westmins-
ter Press. 1902.

These eight lectures on the Princeton Stone foundation will be read with
interest and profit. The present writer is so much in agreement with their
general lines and main conclusions that he is perhaps not the best person to
be their critic. But even those who are not in entire agreement with their
positions will find it difficult to deny their ability, vivacity and freshness.
The lectures are not doctrinal in the ordinary sense of the word, yet in their
course they discuss some of the most vital problems of theology. They will
be read with the more interest that they regard these problems from a dis-
tinctive point of view, and in their widest lights and relations— the cosmi-
cal. It is increasingly becoming felt that Christianity cannot hold itself
aloof from the general interpretation we may be led to give of the universe,

REGENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

495

and Dr. Minton does not shrink from the challenge which modern thinking
on cosmical questions gives to his Christian faith. He rather rejoices in the
opportunity of vindicating his conviction that sound philosophy and true
science are in perfect harmony with Christian postulates — nay, need the lat-
ter to solve their enigmas and complete their theories. His book, in brief,
is a discussion of the terms of adjustment between Christianity, — with its
doctrines of God, man, sin, revelation, incarnation and redemption, — with
modern idealistic and evolutionary conceptions of the world. He will reject
the truth of neither conception, but seeks to show the limitations of both,
and the reconciliation found in the truth as it is in Christ.

The general plan of the book is simple, though it is difficult to keep the
subjects in the lectures from overlapping. The first lecture turns on the
idea that truth is one — that the system of things, therefore, is a unity, a
Cosmos. In the second and third lectures the idealistic and empirical ways
of interpreting this Cosmos are contrasted, and a just medium is sought in
the idea of a theistic, i. e., rational, basis of the universe (lecture six con-
tinues this line of thought). In lecture three we come on “ the empirical
surprise ” of sin — which is disorder, irrationality — in the universe, and the
place of sin in the scheme of the Cosmos is penetratingly discussed. Stress
is laid on the origin of sin in human freedom, on the organic constitution of
the race, and on the cosmical effects of sin (the last subject is continued in
lecture five). Lecture four has mainly to do with the compatibility of an
ethical explanation of the Cosmos with evolutionary theory, and results in
showing the limitations of the latter. Lectures five and six are devoted to
man — the one to his place in the Cosmos as at once part of it and above it (here
again the effects of sin are discussed) and the other to his relation to the Cos-
mos as intelligent spectator. Here the affinity between man’s intelligence
and the world he knows is made the ground of an argument for a rational,
personal author of the universe. The link between man and the world in
knowledge is the Logos — divine, self-revealing reason. The seventh lecture
passes to the subject of special revelation in the Cosmos — to the need, reality
and nature of it. This is one of the most interesting chapters in the volume.
Finally, in the eighth lecture, the idea of the Cosmos is shown to culminate
in the incarnation, which, inasmuch as sin enters as an element into the
divine plan of the world, is, from the first, incarnation for the ends of
redemption.

In traversing this wide field, the book abounds in crystalline thoughts and
sparkling sentences. On the other hand, there is a breezy freedom in coining
words to suit the need which the slower minds of the older continent would
not venture to emulate. English dictionaries at least (we cannot speak for
American) hardly sanction such sentences as “ A man may be so unself-con-
sistent as to deny explicitly what he assumes implicitly ” (p. 7), “The im-
materiation of the Logos in Creation ” (p. 276), “ The Logos, the self-reveal-
ing God, immateriates the truth in the Cosmos, and inscripturates it in the
Bible ” (p. 272). In the general treatment what one perhaps misses is a dis-
cussion of just the idea which would seem to be fundamental — that of the
Logos. This never emerges into distinct treatment. The Logos is postu-
lated as involved in the rational structure of the world, but on the divine
side comes into view only as the divine Reason. The identity of the self-
revealing Logos with the Son of God is assumed in the last lecture on the
incarnation, but the Trinitarian basis of the Logos distinction receives little
elucidation. Yet a profound interest attaches to this point of the relation
of the Logos to the Father and Holy Spirit, and of all three to the created
world.

A few points in the lectures may be touched on more by way of suggestion

496

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

than otherwise. The first lecture, as observed, deals with the unity of truth.
By this is meant that “ every particular truth bears a certain definite,
organic and more or less determinative relation to every other particular
truth ” (p. 7). This unity is not proved ; it is postulated (p. 3). “ It is a
prius of all connected and systematic thought” (p. 6). “Everything is
definitely related to every other thing, and this very fact constitutes the
totality of being into a tremendously vast and varied organic unit” (p. 8)-
The idea is familiar to the readers of T. H. Green, Prof. E. Caird, Prof.
A. Seth (c/. footnote on p. 3), and other writers of that school, and has its
origin in Kant’s famous Synthetic Unity of Apperception and Category of
Reciprocity. But it ought to be observed that it has implications in the
usage of these writers to which Dr. Minton assuredly does not commit him-
self, yet against which certain of his phrases, perhaps, do not sufficiently
guard. For by “truth” is meant, not simply the agreement of thought
with reality, but the system of reality itself. And the point of view of
these writers is that reality — the Cosmos — is given from the first to reason as
a system in which every part reciprocally determines, and is determined by,
every other — a metaphysically necessary whole— in which no breach or change
or interposition, such as we mean by miracle, can be thought of as taking
place. The reader will see what we mean if he consults, e. g., T. H. Green’s
sermon on “ Faith ” ( Works, III, p. 267), in which this postulate of “ ideal
unity ” is made the ground of the denial of the possibility of miracle.
Miracle is an impossibility, because it is an irrationality. That is to be met,
as Dr. Minton meets it, by recognizing that the universe is not “ a closed
ciicuit,” of which God is simply the ideal relating principle, and by insist-
ing on taking into our conception of the whole the personal God himself and
man, with all the free forces involved in humanity and history (pp. 8, 9 ;
cf. pp. 54-56). This, however, while it completes, very seriously modifies
the conception. For the Cosmos is no longer a system metaphysically pre-
determined and complete as a rational unity, but one in which God’s will,
and man’s freedom under God, shape the course of the world as it goes along,
and determine what is to he the real — what the truth shall be.

This leads to another point. If the universe is “ an organic unit,” firmly knit
within itself in the reciprocal relation of its parts — if it must be thought thus,
if thought at all — where is the room for “ the empirical surprise ” of sin, with
its acknowledged “irrationality”? If sin is that which “ has put to confusion
all right-minded, rational and moral world-builders, because, itself irrational,
itself immoral, the very best that could be said for it is that it is an imperti-
nence, a usurpation, an arbitrariness, an intruder, that which ought not to
he ” (p. 107), how is it to be made to fit in with the initial postulate of unity ?
We do not say the problem is insoluble, but a few words might have helped
to its clearer solution.

We naturally and decidedly agree with most that Dr. Minton has written
on the futility of the Kantian and Ritschlian severance of theoretical and
practical knowledge. But is there not a danger, in the interests of religion
itself, in not recognizing that there is necessarily a relative side to all our
knowledge of God — of the universe, too, for that matter — and that it is only
to a very limited extent we can be said to know God as He is ? Dr. Minton
is not only perfectly aware of this; he states it, and argues for it in the
strongest manner (pp. 252-57). But should not the fact be allowed a little
more weight when he is discussing the identity of “ seeming ” and “ being” ?
“ What God seems to be, that, and that only, we must believe Him to be ”
(p. 203). “There can be absolutely no quarrel between Appearance and
Reality. We know reality as appearance, and, a3 it appears to be, that it is
to us ” (p. 205). “ The underlying question in all this is, whether God really

RECENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

497

is what He seems to us to be ? That is to say, can we rely upon His being
what He seems to be, what we believe Him to be ?” (p. 215). “ If we can-
not know God as He is, then we cannot know Him at all ” (p. 216). Is this
so certain ? Is not the proposition (enshrining in its particular content an
important truth) too unqualified ? Is it not the case that in all our knowl-
edge of God there must be, and should be known by us to be, a large sym-
bolical, analogical, figurative element? The kernel — the central, essential
point in our knowledge— we may be absolutely certain of (this against Kant,
Sabatier, etc.); but representatively must we not admit that our conception
is but a dim approximation to the reality.? “ God is personal,” “ God knows,”
“ God is self-conscious ” : of these things we have a clear assurance. More :
the propositions are perfectly intelligible to us. But as respects the mode
of God’s being or knowing, of His possession and exercise of any of His at-
tributes, it is very different. His knowing, e. g., is not like ours: it trans-
cends us altogether. We can only figure it to ourselves analogically, aware
while we do so that our conception is relative and inadequate. Dr. Minton
in various places allows this nearly in so many words. But then are not
some of his counter-expressions too absolute ?

Sin is the great crux of the universe. Nothing in the volume is more sat-
isfactory than the author’s firm Christian way of handling this dark prob-
lem. He will neither explain sin away, nor consent to regard it as a neces-
sary element of the Cosmos and of the nature and development of man.
But as little in his view is its appearance arbitrary. “ The Cosmical pro-
gramme, as divinely purposed, embraced Adam’s fall and race redemption ”
(p. 288). This, on any hypothesis, seems to us undeniable, but it is precisely
here that the difficulty arises for theodicy. We do not escape that difficulty
by placing the origin of sin in the freedom of the creature. Freedom itself
is a knotty problem, and we are not clear that Dr. Minton solves it by claim-
ing for the initial choice of Adam “ a bona fide possibility of choosing either
the right way or wrong way ” (p. 99), while apparently denying, or holding
as non-essential to freedom, the power of contrary choice in his descendants
(p. 92). If such power was essential to freedom at any time, it can hardly
be unessential now ; and it would be better frankly to pronounce that a state
of non-freedom in which it is absent. It is a deeper question whether it is
proper to hinge liberty on a “ power ” of this kind at all. The “ power ” to
a contrary choice is always there ; it is not a question of power, but of will.
The essence of the problem is : Does the will, in the exercise of its freedom,
ever act without reasons ; and is it conceivable that, under identical condi-
tions, it will not be found always choosing alike ? Grant that it is self-de-
termining, and acts, in so far as free, purely in obedience to its own laws, is
it not involved in any rational idea of freedom, that it lias laws — that it is
never arbitrary ? Only on such a hypothesis, so far as one can see, is voli-
tion calculable, or could it be the object even of divine prevision. In any
case, if the certainty of the act be presupposed, there is no escape from the
conclusion that it is a world into which sin should enter which, out of all
possible worlds, God in His freedom (p. 54) has chosen as the theatre of His
purpose. Then the darkest of all theological enigmas is, How, on the sup.
position that sin is the thing that absolutely ought not to be, can the wisdom
and goodness of God be vindicated in its ordination or even permission ?
Shut out from regarding it as a necessity, as a thing that must be, or as
something that through the caprice of the creature took God by surprise —
the “ empirical surprise ” was none to Him — how justify its existence here
and now ? On that problem no clear light is thrown ; perhaps none can be
thrown. The nearest approach to a suggestion at a solution is in the adop-
tion of Dr. Hodge’s view, that in the end the numbers of the saved will

498

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

vastly outnumber those of the lost. “ It follows that the saved are to the
lost as an innumerable multitude to a few. The ‘ aggregate ’ of the lost is
composed of the exceptions ; the rotten fruit that is cut off from the tree is
a small part compared with the good fruit which is gathered and garnered ”
(p. 291). This is a cheering view, a “ larger hope,” but it is not so clear how
it follows from the author’s premises or squares with the sad facts that stare
us in the face. We should like at any rate to see it worked out more fully
than it is, and its compatibility shown with the past history of mankind, and
the spiritual condition of the vast majority of mankind still. We may count
in all children dying in infancy and dream of generations in future millennial
ages ; but it is hard to feel relieved by this if the vast masses of the adult
population of the race up to the present hour are to perish. The difficulty
is not peculiar to Dr. Minton’s book. It meets us all.

Without saying more by way of criticism, we would only again express the
appreciation with which we have perused this singularly suggestive volume.

Glasgow , Scotland. James Orr.

V. — PRACTICAL THEOLOGY.

Theologischer Jahresbericht. . . . herausgegeben von Dr. G. Kruger , Pro-
fessor in Giessen. Zwanzigster Band, enthaltend die Literatur des Jahres
1900. Yierte Abtheilung : Practische Theologie, bearbeitet von Ecerling ,
Mnrbach, Liilmann , Foerster, Hering, Hasenclever , Spitta. Totenschau von
Nestle. 8vo, pp. 163. (Berlin: C. A. Schwetschke und Solin; Xew York:
Gustav E. Stechert, 1901.) The part of this important annual which
embraces “Practical Theology” appears every year scarcely equally
thoroughly wrought out with the rest of the volume. Neverthless it gives a
tolerably comprehensive survey of the literature of this department, especially
German. The sections into which the material is divided are : 1. Preaching
in its theory and practice and Edifying Literature, dealt with by Pastor O.
Everling ; Katechetics, by Dr. Fr. Marbach ; Pastoral Theology, by Dr. C.
Liilmann ; Church Law and Church Organization, by Pastor Erich Foerster;
Ecclesiastical Societies and Charity, by Dr. Otto Hering; Church Art, by
Dr. A. Hasenclever ; Liturgies by Dr. Friederich Spitta. At the close of the
volume there is a brief necrology for the year, drawn up by Dr. Eberhard

Nestle. Bible School Pedagogy. Outlines for Normal Classes. By A. H.

McKinney , Pli.D., with an Introduction by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut, D.D.
8vo, pp. 78. (New York : Eaton & Mains [1900].) A good practical hand-
book for normal classes of Sabbath-school teachers. A useful bibliography

is added. Evening Thoughts. Being Notes of a Threefold Pastorate. By

the Rev. Paton J. Gloag, D.D. , LL.D., Edinburgh. 12mo,pp. x, 284. (Edin-
burgh: T. & T. Clark; New York: Imported by Charles Scribner’s Sons,
1900.) Having done his work as unto the Lord, Dr. Gloag at the close of
his days is able to look back over the years passed in the three parishes it
has fallen to his lot to serve, with peaceful thoughts of thanksgiving to God
who made him able as a minister of the New Covenant. He culls out of
the Sermons delivered to his people these thirty specimens of lucidly and
solidly instructive preaching. It is a very high conception of Scottish parish

preaching one gets as he turns over these pages. Christ’s Valedictory, or

Meditations on the Fourteenth Chapter of John. By Rev. Robert F. Sample,
D.D., LL.D., Author of “Memoirs of J. C. Thom,” etc. 12mo, pp. 307.
(New York, Chicago and Toronto [1900].) These delightful meditations on
the “ epitome of the gospel ” contained in the fourteenth chapter of John
may also be looked upon as a legacy of a faithful pastor to his spiritual chil-
dren scattered abroad. It is a book full of richness in spiritual instruction

RECENT THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

499

The Magna Charta of the Kingdom of God. Plain Studies in Our Lord’s

Sermon on the Mount. By George F. Genung, D.D. 12mo, pp. vii, 164.
(Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1900.) “The stan-
dards of interpretation here sought are just the standards of devout
common sense.” The object is to promote a clearer understanding of the

New Testament ethical standpoint. It is a good book. Christianity in the

Nineteenth Century. (The Boston-Lowell Lectures, 1900.) By George C.
Lorimer, Minister at Tremont Temple. 8vo, pp. xiii, 652. (Philadelphia :
The Griffith and Rowland Press, 1900.) In these twelve lectures the author
seeks to trace the vicissitudes, and indicate the modifications which Chris-
tianity has undergone during the nineteenth century. He finds it a story of
the coming of the Lord to His own again. The survey is of necessity a little
sketchy : sometimes the point of view is not quite wisely taken : but the

book is a useful one. Eve and Her Daughters, or Heroines of Home. By

the Rev. Thomas Maxwell McConnell, M.A., D.D. , Author of “The Last
Week with Jesus,” etc. 12mo, pp. 295. (Philadelphia: The Westminster
Press, 1900.) An exposition of the Christian ideal of womanhood through

the medium of sketches of twelve Bible women from Eve to Phoebe.

The Prophet of Hope. Studies in Zechariah. By F. B. Meyer, B.A. 12mo,
157. (New York, Chicago and Toronto: Fleming II. Revell Co. [1900].)
A new book of this well-known evangelist is always welcomed to our table

and this one too is full of devout instructiveness. Stewardship. By Rev.

C. A. Cook. 18mo, pp. 112. (Philadelphia : American Baptist Publication
Society, 1900.) An extended treatise on Christian economics, or the Chris-
tian’s relation to money. What We Owe. From a Lawyer’s Standpoint.

32mo, pp. 53. (Richmond, Ya. : Presbyterian Committee of Publication

[1900].) A plea for the tithe. Deceivers and Their Dupes. BytheReu. R.

C. Reed, D.D. 32mo, pp. 35. (Richmond, Va. : Presbyterian Committee
of Publication [1900].) A telling tract on modern vagaries — Mormonism,

Spiritualism, Theosophy, Christian Science, Romish Miraculism, etc.

The Mission of the Presbyterian Church. By J. G. Garth, Humboldt, Tenn.
32rao, pp. 11. (Richmond, Va. : Presbyterian Committee of Publication
[1900].) Creed, character, conduct — this is what Mr. Garth finds the Pres-
byterian Church to stand for. Studies in the Character of Christ. By

Charles Henry Robinson, M.A., Canon Missioner of Ripon. 12mo, xvi, 130.
(London, New York and Bombay: Longmans, Green & Co., 1900.) Mr.
Robinson’s object in this book is to withdraw the eyes of Christians from
one another and focus them on Christ, our one Pattern and one Reward.
The first two chapters treat of the character of Christ as the final argument
for the truth of Christianity ; and the third presents the character of Christ
as capable of reproduction. The fourth holds up Christ as the goal of
humanity, while the fifth expounds the idea of the incarnation of Christ in the
Church and the sixth seeks to hold up to view “ the Christ that is to be.”
The last chapter stands somewhat separate from the rest and speaks of “ the
vision of Christ.” The book is devout and full of Christian aspiration and,

though marred by some doubtful theologizing, is fitted to do good. The

Carpenter. By Rev. Charles A. S. Dwight. 12mo, pp. 122. (New York : E.
B. Trent & Co., 1900.) A series of thirteen studies of aspects of our Lord’s

life and influence. About My Father’s Business. By Austin Miles. 12mo,

pp. 265. (New York: The Mershon Company [1900].) A “novel with a
purpose.” The author uses the vehicle of fiction to convey his conception
of what Church life is coming to be, and what a spiritual life in the Church
should rather be. The instances he depicts are drawn from real life. The
moral he would read is, that “ in order that the Church may succeed in her
mission, she must discontinue the great evils which are taking her from her

500

TIIE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

lofty position, and are bringing her down to the arena of pleasure.” The

Heart of David, the Psalmist King. Being certain Bible chronicles set in order
to compass the life and to show the love and zeal of the crowned shepherd of
Israel, and written with dutiful imagination in the fuller manner of
discourse by Augustus George Heaton. Illustrated by the author. 12mo,
pp. 388. (Washington: The Neale Company [1900].) The idea of Mr.
Heaton is to depict human sentiment as illustrated by the heart of David in
four successive episodes, taken as characterizing four periods of his life. He
has therefore made Michal, Abigail, Bathsheba and Abishag his theme suc-
cessively, in four poems couched in dramatic form ; and has sought to gather
into them a picture of David’s heart-development. The narrative is held
closely to the saci'ed page and the versification is smooth and correct. Mr.
Heaton succeeds in putting into verse a very complete history of the inner life

of David. A Prisoner in Buff. By Everett T. Tomlinson, author of “Ward

Hill at Weston,” etc. 12mo,pp.267. (Philadelphia: The Griffith and Rowland

Press, 1900.) L’hasa at Last. By J. MacDonald Oxley , Author of “ On the

World’s Roof,” etc. 12mo, pp. 269. (Philadelphia: American Baptist Pub-
lication Society [1900].) The Lady of the Lily Feet and Other Stories of

Chinatown. By Helen F. Clark. 12mo, pp. 125. (Philadelphia: The

Griffith and Rowland Press, 1900.) The Little Burden Sharers. By Annie

M. Barnes. 12mo, pp. 95. (Richmond, Ya. : Presbyterian Committee of
Publication [1900] ) A Face and a Life. By Mrs. May Anderson Haw-

kins, Author of “ Jack Payton and his Friends,’’ etc. 12mo, pp. 352. (Rich-
mond, Y a. : Presbyterian Committee of Publication [1900].) Reuben

Delton, Preacher : A Sequel to “ The Story of Marthy.” By S. U'H. Dickson,
Author of “ Guessing at Heroes,” etc. 12mo, pp. 296. (Richmond, Va. :
Presbyterian Committee of Publication [1900].) Grandma Elliot’s Farm-

house. A Story for Girls and Boys. By Mary E. Ireland , Translator of “ The
First School Year,” etc. 12mo, pp. 162. (Richmond, Va. : Presbyterian

Board of Publication [1900].) The Boy from Beaver Hollow. A Young

People’s Story. By Sophie Swett, Author of “ Pennyroyal and Mint,” etc.

12mo, pp. 139. (Philadelphia : The Westminster Press, 1900.) How Donald

Kept Faith. By Kate W. Hamilton. 12mo, pp. 184. (Philadelphia: The

Westminster Press, 1900.) Lee: A Mountain Hero. By Frank H. Sweet.

12mo, pp. 145. (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1900.) We have
here a choice selection of recent Sabbath-school books, which may be confi-
dently recommended to those charged with purchasing for Sabbath-school
libraries. The religious element is not prominent in A Prisoner in Buff: it
is designed to teach manliness, morality and history, and it does it. L'hasa
at Last is a story of adventure “ on the roof of the world.” The Lady of the
Lily Feet is intended to arouse sympathy for our Chinese neighbors ; Little
Burden Bearers would perform the same service to our Mexican neighbors :
these are examples of missionary stories. The rest are wholesome stories of
everyday life with religious motives.

VI.— GENERAL LITERATURE.

Theologischer Jahresbericht. Unter Mitwirkung von Baentsch u. s. w. . . .
lierausgegeben von Dr. G. Kruger, Professor in Giessen. Zwauzigster
Band, enthaltend die Literatur des Jahres 1900. Fiinfte Abtheilung :
Register, bearbeitet von G. Funger, Pfarrer in Heichelheim bei Weimar.
8vo, pp. xvi, 1251-1390 (Berlin: C. A. Schwetschke und Sohn, 1901; New
York : Gustav E. Stechert.) With this “ Index ” the twentieth volume of
this annual record of theological literature closes. The editor takes this oc-
casion to give a brief history of the undertaking, to point out the inadequacy

RECENT GENERAL LITERATURE.

501

of the support it is receiving and to outline its future policy. It was inaugu-
rated by B. Piinger in 1881 ; he called eleven assistants to his aid and sought
only to give an exceedingly brief survey of the field of German theological
literature proper, with no attempt to secure completeness in the survey of
theological ancillary literature, Catholic theology, works of edification or
foreign literature. After four volumes were issued, Piinger died and
Lipsius took his place (1885) ; to be succeeded in turn by Holtzmann
(1892). Kruger took his station by the side of Holtzmann in 1895, and
assumed the entire burden of editorship in 1901. The number of assistants
has meanwhile increased to twenty-four : and with them the size of the vol-
ume and the completeness and fullness of the survey of literature has also
steadily grown. The first volume contained 389 pages, the twentieth has
1391 : the comprehensiveness of the survey has increased until Kriiger feels
that he can say that nothing equal to it exists in any other sphere of scien-
tific investigation. Of course the price of the volume has increased with its
size : the first volume cost eight marks, the last costs thirty* — about a propor-
tionate price. But it seems that fewer scholars feel able to pay thirty marks
annually than felt able to pay eight. Accordingly the Jahresbericht has
reached a crisis in its history. It must either compress itself again to
smaller compass, or starve to death. Neither course seems desirable. A
middle course is therefore to be sought. All the compression is to be made
that the matter will well bear ; an effort is to be made to increase the sub-
scription list : and the whole is to be divided into seven parts which will be
sold separately in the hope that many will buy the sections that deal with
the literature they are more especially interested in who would not feel able
to buy the whole. These seven parts will deal with : (1) the History of
Religion; (2) the Old Testament; (3) the New Testament; (4) Church
History; (5) Systematic Theology; (6) Practical Theology; (7) Index.
As in the past year so also in the future the Bibliographies (without the
comments) will be issued separately. These arrangements appear to us to be
very liberal and we trust that they will reap their reward in a far wider sup-
port than this useful publication has as yet received. We could ourselves
wish that the Theological Encyclopaedia of the editor could be bettered so
far at least as to put the whole material of Apologetics in the first section :
in this part there should certainly be included Encyclopaedia, Apologetics,
Philosophy and History of Religion, leaving only Dogmatics (and possibly
Ethics, though a better place could be found for that) under the head of
Systematic Theology. In that case a natural arrangement would be
attained, and each purchaser of the parts could obtain in a single part what

most interested him. Bibliographic der Theologischen Literatur fuer das

Jahr 1900. Bearbeitet von Baentsch, O. Clemen, Elsenhaus, Everling,
Picker, Foerster, Hasenclever, Hegler, Hering, Koehler, Kohlschmidt,
Lehmann, Loesche, Liidemann, Liilmann, Marbach, Mayer, Meyer,
Preuschen, Scheibe, Spitta, Sulze; und Todtenschau zusammengestellt
von Nestle. Herausgegeben von Dr. G. Kruger , Professor in Giessen.
Sonder-Abdruck aus dem 20. Bande des Theologischen Jahresbericht. 8vo,
pp. 342. (Berlin: C. A. Schwetschke und Sohn ; New York: Gustav E.
Stesbert, 1901.) The method of the Tlieologsciher Jahresbericht is, as is
well known, to divide the whole body of theological literature into its main
classes and then to subdivide these classes into sections, each containing the
literature of a scientifically precised portion of the field. At the head of
each of these sections is placed the titles of the books and articles belonging
to it, in alphabetical order : while comment on them, taken up in a natural
order, succeeds. Obviously these preliminary lists of books, if brought
together, the comments being omitted, would supply a comprehensive and
33

502

THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

scientifically ordered bibliography of the whole field of theological literature.
This is what has been done in the present volume : it is the bibliographical
part of the Jahresbericht, with the entire body of comment omitted. Its
separate publication is doubtless in the interest of the cheaper and therefore
wider circulation of the bibliographical lists : and those who feel that the
complete Jahresbericht — a volume of 1250 pages — is too expensive for their
purses, should certainly provide themselves at least with this smaller
volume, from which they can obtain knowledge of the publications in every

department of theological investigation from year to year. Books on

Egypt and Chaldrea. The Book of the Dead. An English Translation of the
Chapters, Hymns, etc., of the Theban Recension, with Introductions, Notes,
etc. By E. A. Wallis Budge , M.A., Litt.D., D.Lit., Keeper of the Egyp-
tian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum. With Four Hundred
and Twenty Vignettes. Crown 8vo, pp. xcvi, 702, in 3 vols. (London:
Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co. Ltd. ; Chicago : The Open Court Pub-
lishing Co. Ltd., 1901.) These three beautifully manufactured volumes
form the sixth, seventh and eighth volumes of a series of “ Books on Egypt
and Chaldsea,” issuing from the press of Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench,
Triibner & Co., under the editorship (and thus far authorship) of Dr. Budge
and Mr. L. W. Kiug, of the British Museum. The book itself is a revised
and reedited reprint of the translation that accompanied Dr. Budge’s edition
of the “ Book of the Dead,” which appeared in three large volumes in 1897,
under the title of Chapter of Coming Forth by Day. The reissue of the
translation in this separate and cheapened form is in order to meet a consid-
erable demand which has showed itself for a useable translation of the great
national funeral work of the Egyptians. It is accompanied with extensive
Introductions on “ The History of the Book of the Dead “ Osiris, the
God of Judgment, the Resurrection, Immortality, the Elysian Fields, etc.”;
and “ The Object and Contents of the Book of the Dead ”; with numerous
explanatory notes ; and with appendices containing the “ Book of the Dead
of Nesi-Khonsa,” the “ Book of Breathings ” and “ A Book of the Dead of
the Roman Period.” These Introductions and Appendices, it will be seen,
cover nearly the whole ground treated in the extensive Introduction of the
larger work, with the exception of the discussion of the “ Magic of the Book
of the Dead.” In additiou the present work has been illustrated by a com-
plete series of vignettes, representing the drawings by which the Egyptian
scribes presented to the eye the significance of the several chapters. The
recension of The Book of the Dead chosen for translation is that which is
called the Theban— that is, the most extensive of the forms in which the
book was used, at the most flourishing period of its use, from about 1600
B.C. to 900 B.C. Everything, it will be seen, has been done to present to
the English reader the Egyptian funeral texts in a complete and thoroughly
intelligible form : and all but specialists on Egyptian studies will find it to
their profit to procure the present admirable edition, which has been given
to the American public by The Open Court Publishing Company at a price

within the reach of all. Pyramids and Progress. Sketches from Egypt.

By John Ward, F.S.A. With an Introduction by the Rev. Prof. Sayce,
D.D., LL.D. 4to, pp. xx, 288. (London and New York: Eyre & Spottis-
woode, 1900.) The origin of this sumptuously printed and beautifully illus-
trated book is thus described by its distinguished author. “ Egyptian litera-
ture is somewhat heavy. The volumes I have studied in order to learn a
little about Egypt are too weighty to carry about, and so I thought a port-
able volume, describing something of my wanderings, and with a little his-
torical knowledge introduced, illustrated by my own sketches and photo-
graphs, might be interesting to folks at home or might tempt a visit to

RECENT GENERAL LITERATURE.

503

Egypt, and when there to go up the Nile farther than Cairo.” If this is a
guide book, it certainly is a glorified guide book. Everybody who thinks of
going to Egypt and wishes to know what to do and see there — and every-
body who does not think of going to Egypt and wishes to be as well oil as if

he had gone — should get this book. Cornell Studies in Philosophy : No. 2.

Brahman : A Study in the History of Indian Philosophy. By Barney Be
Witt Griswold , M.A., Fellow of the Punjab University and Professor of
Philosophy in the Forman Christian College, Lahore. 8vo, pp. viii, 89.
(New York: The Macmillan Company, 1900.) The subject of this mono-
graph is the central conception at once of Indian philosophy and of Indian
religion. As Brahman does not come to mean the Ultimate Reality
uniformly until the Upanishads are reached, the disposition of the essay is
determined by the nature of the ease. First the history of the word is
traced: then the history of the idea: and then the doctrine of Brahman
first in the Upanishads and then in the Vedanta-Sutras is expounded, the
latter under the guidance of £ankanacarya. The study is a very fruitful
one, and deserves more attention than is likely to be accorded to an
academic thesis. The author’s training in Christian theology offers him a
point of view from which, as from a parallel evolution, he may survey the
course of development of Indian religious thought. The parallel is in our
judgment misleading and is easily pushed too far. Thus, for example, the
entire comparison instituted between £ankara and Calvin seems to us
“literary ” (or in theological circles we might say with a touch of disallow-
ance “ homiletical ”) rather than scientific : it may attract interest, it does not
seem to elucidate the matter. The same may be said of the whole scheme
of comparison used. But this fault of method must not be permitted to
obscure the excellence of the exposition which it is sought thus to illustrate.

Publications of the University of Pennsylvania. Series in Philosophy.

No. 4: Hindu Logic as Preserved in China and Japan. By Sadajiro Sugiura.
Edited by Edgar A. Singer, Jr., Instructor in Philosophy in the University
of Pennsylvania. 8vo, pp. 114. (Philadelphia: The University of Pennsyl-
vania, 1900.) This interesting pamphlet opens up in an informing way one
of the by-paths in the history of Philosophy. The ground it traverses is
practically virgin territory to Western scholars, and indeed is accessible only
to those who can make free use of Chinese literature. The pamphlet begins
with a brief review of Hindu Philosophy ; its first part is a history of the
development of Hindu Logic in India and of its introduction into China and
Japan ; the second part is an extended exposition of the Logic of Mahadin-
naga ; into a third part is gathered a series of critical notes : the whole

closes with a bibliography of Hindu Logic in China and Japan. The Child.

A Study in the Evolution of Man. By Alexander Francis Chamberlain ,
M.A., Pli.D., Lecturer in Anthropology in Clark University, Worcester,
Mass. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, pp. xii, 495. (London : Walter Scott, 1900 ;
New York : Imported by Charles Scribner’s Sons.) “ This volume,” we are
told in the Preface, “is neither a treatise on embryology, nor an essay in
anatomy or physiological psychology,” but is intended as a study of the
child, in the light of the literature of evolution, an attempt to record, and,
if possible, interpret some of the most interesting and important phenomena
of human beginnings in the individual and in the race. The author has
interpreted his subject in the widest possible sense and has collected a vast
lot of observations on every phase of child life and on much that goes far
beyond the period of childhood. This material will inevitably demand much
sifting. Source Book of English History. For the Use of Schools and Read-

ers. Edited by Elizabeth Kimball Kendall, M.A., Associate Professor of
History in Wellesley College. 12mo, pp. xxii, 483. (New York : The Mac-

504 THE PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED REVIEW.

millan Co., 1900.) We hail with the utmost satisfaction the new method of
teaching history by placing in the hands of pupils, as an adjunct to their text-
books or courses of lectures, a series of well-selected extracts from “ the
sources.” By its use alone can there be attained that sense of reality, that
lasting impression, that feeling of personal interest in the characters, that
judicial fairness of mind — these are the items of gain mentioned by the editor
of the present volume — which add vividness and impart reality to the
study of history. The present volume of extracts seems admirably selected
and edited : the letter-press is beautiful. It may be confidently recommended

as a good specimen of a good thing. Japanese Notions of European Political

Economy. Being a summary of a voluminous report upon that subject for-
warded to the Japanese Government by Tentearo Makato, Commissioner of
Japan to make the investigation. Preceded by a sketch of a preliminary
inquiry into the same subject by Mr. Teremoto, of the Japanese Legation.
Third Edition, revised. Svo, pp. 142. (Philadelphia: John Highlands;
Glasgow : Scottish Single Tax League [1900].) The natureof this pamphlet

is sufficiently described by its title-page. World’s Congress Addresses.

Delivered by the President, the Hon. Charles Carroll Bonney , LL.D., the
World’s Parliament of Religions and the Religious Denominational Congress
of 1893, with the Closing Address at the Final Session of the World’s Con-
gress Auxiliary. Printed by the Open Court Publishing Company as a
Memorial of the Significant Events of the Columbian Year. 12mo, pp. 88.
(Chicago : The Open Court Publishing Company, 1900.) This pamphlet also

is fully described by its title-page. Eros and Psyche. A Fairy Tale of

Ancient Greece retold after Apuleius. By Paul Carus. Illustrated by Paul
Thumann. 8vo, pp. xv, 99. (Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Co.,
1900.) Dr. Carus’ interest in this old-world story is only in part literary : to
him it “reflects the religious life of classical antiquity more strongly than
any other book, poem or epic, not excepting the works of Hesiod and
Homer.” In retelling it he has therefore sought to emphasize the religious
and philosophical ground-tone of it above what is done by Apuleius. He
has had it published by “ The Open Court Company ” in a very pretty

edition de luxe. Ulric the Jarl. A Story of the Penitent Thief. By William

O. Stoddard. 8vo, pp. 459. (New York : Eaton & Mains, 1899.) The peni-
tent thief, as the title advertises, is identified with “a Saxon jarl”— and

this stirring tale, ending with the cross, is the result. Dickey Downey.

The Autobiography of a Bird. By Virginia Sharpe Patterson , author of
The Girl of the Period. With Introduction by Hon. John F. Lacey, M.C.
Drawings by Elizabeth M. Hallowell. 32mo, pp. 192. (Philadelphia : A. J.
Rowland, 1899.) Every one will see at once that we have here a new mem-
ber of the family of Black Beauty and Beautiful Joe , only this time it is a
bird that is the hero and the object is reform through early impressions of
one of woman’s greatest weaknesses — millinery. It is one of the best stories

of its class we have met with. The First School Year. Translated from the

German of Agnes Sopper by Mary E. Ireland. For Children from Seven to
Twelve Years. 12mo,pp. 197. (Richmond, Va.: Presbyterian Committee of
Publication [ 1899].) A delightful story of German school-life which may have
a mission of value among our little folk too. The Expert Cleaner. A Hand-

book of Practical Information for All who Like Clean Homes, Tidy Appa-
rel, Wholesome Food and Healthful Surroundings. Compiled by Hervey J.
Seaman. 12mo, pp. 286. Price, 75 cents. (New York and London : Funk
& Wagnalls Co.) A very handy little book to have around. It is a classi-
fied and well-indexed collection of receipts for meeting the needs and emer-
gencies of the housewife. The receipts seem well-selected and simple, and
they are written in plain and easily understood language.