Christian Dogmatics.

CHRISTIA DOGMATICS.

EDITED BY THE REV. CAO H. D. M. SPECE, M.A., REV. JOSEPH S. EXELL, M.A., REV. CHARLES EIL, M.A.

Part I.— ITRODUCTIO

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Part II.— THE ORMAL RELATIOS BETWEE GOD

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Part III.— BREACH OF THE ORMAL RELATIOS

BETWEE GOD AD MA

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Part IV.— RESTORATIO OF THE ORMAL RELATIOS

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PART I.

ITRODUCTIO TO THEOLOGY.

SYLLABUS.

I. ature of Theology II. Its Sources III. Its Conditions IV. Its Central Truths and Fundamental Principles V. Rise of its Dogmas VI. Leading Characteristics of Christian Theology VII. Characteristics of its Doctrine VIII. Its General Leading Departments IX. Its Special Leading Departments X. Its Scientific Features XL Its Technical Terminology Xll. Its Progress and Development XIII. Its Relations XIV. Its ecessity XV. Its Services XVI. Its Study and Exposition XVII. Its Aim and Purpose XVIII. Tests of the Verity of Christian Theology

XIX. The Origin of Creeds generally XX. Classification of the Church's Creeds XXI. Distinction between Ancient and Modern, or between Sy.mbolical a FEssioAL, Theology properly considered XXII. Specimens of Theological Systems XXIII. The Hostility to Christian Dogmatic Teaching on Theology XXIV. The Dangers to which Doctrine is Liable XXV. The Effects of Good and Bad Doctrine contrasted

SECTIO XV.

CHRISTIA DOGMATICS. PART I. ITRODUCTIO TO THEOLOGY.

I. ature of Theology. I Generally considered. (1) Asia Christian theology.

[12165] Theology strictly signifies a discourse concerning God. Aristotle divided all sciences into physics, mathematics, and theology. The Apostle John was called by the Fathers "the theologian," because he dealt largely with the divinity of Christ. Sometimes the word is still used in this strict sense when opposed to anthropology, soteriology, ecclesiology, as departments of theology in its wider sense. Theology is sometimes called the science of the supernatural ; sometimes it is called the science of religion. But both these definitions are vague and unsatisfactory. Theology is the science of the facts of Divine revelations as far as those facts concern the nature of God, and our relation to Him as His creatures, as sinners, and as the subjects of redemption. — C. Hodge, D.D. [12166] Christian theology is the science of God and of Divine things, based upon the revelation which He has made to mankind in Jesus Christ, and variously systematized in the Christian church. God is its source, subject, and end. The stricter and earlier use of the word limited it to the doctrine of the Triune God and His attributes. But in the modern usage it includes the whole compass of the science of religion, or the relations of all things to God. This gives it its unity, and dignity, and sanctity. It is a Deo, de Deo, in Deuin : from God in its origin, concerning God in its substance, leading to God in all its issues ; His name is in n.— iy.Ji. Pope, D.D. (2) As to ethnic theology.

[12167] The ancients had a threefold theology. First, the mythic or fabulous, which flourished among their poets, and was chiefly employed in the theogony or genealogy of their gods ; secondly, the political, which was embraced chiefly by the priests, politicians, and people, as most suitable to the quiet and order of society ; and thirdly, the physical or natural, which was

cultivated mainly by the philosophers and their followers, as being most in accordance with nature and reason. This latter, physical theology, acknowledged only one Supreme God, but admitted the agency of many subordinate deities, thus multiplying " gods many and lords many."— y'thing in dogma, in precept, in religious experience, radiates, and towards which everything returns. ot as a mere anatomy does Christ dwell here — the crowTi of a speculative organism, symmetrical and complete, but without tlesh and blood and vital ty. R.ather is He the living soul that animates, and guides, and hallows the whole. — H. A. Boardmaii, D.D.

2 It is mysterious. [12199] In Christian theology mystery is everywhere : its simplest elements are unsearchable by the faculties of man. This is to some extent true of all other sciences ; they all have their mysteries in both the scriptui'al senses of the term : things brought to light that have been long hidden, and things unsearchable, the signs of which only are seen. The latter always waits on the former ; when the mystery ceases to be a matter reserved from knowledge, it ceases to be a matter reserved from reason. The simplest elements of every department of knowledge are things unsearchable by human faculties. Supposing scientific research to be successful i.i penetrating everj' secret of nature, so far as to find the secondary cause of every effect, there is still a large residuum over which it broods wailing for light which probably will never come. But the theological mystery is "confessedly great.'' Every doctrine, however bright and blessed in itself, is compassed about with thick darkness ; every page, e\eiy line of its record " exit in mysterium." There are and ever will be great antitheses, or, as men call them, contradictions in thought, which our limited capacity is unable to reconcile. Metaphysical thinking is compelled to leave these antinomies unsolved wherever the finite and the inlinitc meet. Our science has also its speculative region, into which reason soars, but the logical understanding cannot follow. Moreover, and fin.illy, it has revelations to deal with which appal the minds which they baffle : the dread

and awful truths which are its dark side, having

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their reflectioRS in human experience and the ordinary course of nature, but not the less a stumbling-block on that account. All these are the cross of theology, which to itself is its glory, to unbelieving man its reproach. — IV. B. Pope, D.D. 3 It is reasonable. [i220ol Every man who reads the Bible is compelled to draw for himself some conclusions as to the teaching which he derives from its study as a whole ; and individual Christians believe that in gathering this general idea they are guided by the indwelling and illuminating Spirit promised to true believers. But if individual Christians perform this process for them-

selves, and look confidently for the help of the Holy Spirit to prevent them from falling into error in performing it, how unreasonable would it be to deny a similar right and power to the whole church, which is formed of all individual Christians, and which has the special privilege of being in its corporate capacity the habitation of the Holy Ghost.— .F. Meyrick, M.A. 4 It is certain. [12201] Dogmatics, as the science of faith, has its own peculiar degree of certainty. Its subject-matter cannot be demonstrated as a palpable fact, or as a mathematical proposition. We must be contented here with internal evidence, obtained, not by the method of demonstration, but by that of proof and assertion. This certainty, however, is not less in degree here than elsewhere, but rather of a different kind. I may be as firmly convinced of what I believe as of what I know ; but I am so in a different manner, and generally on different grounds. It is therefore not correct to contrast the certainty of knowledge with the probability of faith. The believer has more than probability ; he is as certain of what he believes as he is of his own existence. And yet this certainty cannot always show itself, because it is a certainty of faith. E.\act science is a knowledge of the intellect, which may be imparted to every man of sound mind. Faith is the confidence of the heart which w^e can only affirm and justify for those in whom the moral condition for the recognition of the truth is to be

found. — -l^'an Oosierzee (condensed). 5 It is sufficient. [12202] All our religious knowledge whatever is included within the circle of the faith '' once delivered to the saints." ot one solitary religious truth is consequently known to have been discovered by religious intuition. It is not simply that the doctrines held by the church lie within the circle of inspiration ; but that none are found outside the circle which are recognized as truths by those who do not belong to the church. Let the church, with her faith in a revelation, be placed on one side, and rationalism, with its assertion of man's self-

sufficient capacity, upon the other. It is quite conceivable that the rationalist might accept certain religious truths, or religious sentiments, which the church, on the ground that they have not the sanction of revelation, disavows. In this case rationalism would have a religious creed of its own beyond and in addition to the creed of the church. But when the facts are examined this is found not to be the case. Rationalism has neither any distinct religious truth, nor any distinct religious sentiment. All that rationalism holds the faith includes. Up to a certain point the two advance together, and then the distinctive province of rationalism is marked out solely by denial, not affirmation ; destruction, not construction.

It must be remembered also that the teaching of the church is a logical whole, so coherent and complete that the rationalistic denial dislocates and disjoints the truth falling within the rationalistic acceptance. The common truths accepted by both are as incoherent without the special truths rejected by rationalism, as the backbone of an extinct plesiosaurus would be incoherent without the head aud legs of the animal. In every case, without exception, the creed of rationalism is included within the creed of Christianity. Take away from the former all that is possessed by it in common with the faith, and you take away everything. Literally nothing remains beyond the asserted power of intuitive discovery. And the power of discovery, which has never discovered anything, is left in its own vanity and emptiness, vox et prcsterea nihil. — E. Garbett, M.A. 6 It is practical. [12203] The faith meets every part of man. To supply his practical wants, to alleviate his sorrows, to remedy his ruin, to throw light upon his darkness, and make even the valley of Baca a threshold into glory, is its one all-pervading object. It does not soar heartlessly above us, like some bright angel of another world, torturing our human hearts by the vision of a serenity beyond our reach. But it comes like an archangel on an errand of mercy, and walks to and fro our world, a ministering spirit of light and joy. It does not disdain the earthly

soil and earthly atmosphere, but imitates the Son of God Incarnate, as He brightened our earth with His smiles and consecrated it with His tears. The faith is in every part of it intensely practical. Doctrines are but the statement of God's mode of saving us. Even the subtle refinements of the Athanasian creed are practical, for they are directed to preserve from heretical refinement the plain and blessed truth of the nature and office of our Saviour. Its loftiest heights of truth are like the mountain ranges, nursing parents of the rivers that water the lovely vales beneath, and fill them with felicity and joy. The faith reflects the perfections of its Author, as, like a cloudless sun, He fills the spiritual firmament with life and immortality. — Ihid.

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7 It is universal in its adaptability. [12204] Within the compass of the same faith is milk for babes and strong meat for men — plain truths, simple enough for the loving comprehension of a child, and mysteries high and deep enough to overtask the powers of an archangel. But the two cannot be sharply separated from each other. The man in his strong grasp of the broad truths of saving love, exorcises the humility of the child ; and the child in the majesty of the revelation, rises into the maturity of the man. — Ibid. 8 It is finite. ^ (1) Because of the infittitude of truth. [12205] The truth, like God, is infinite; the best thenlogy which man can construct must be, like man himselt, finite. — A. Maclcod, D.D. (2) Because of the finitude of faith. [12206] Just as faith here is always imperfect, so the science of faith must always be partial too (i Cor. xiii. 9-12). This is in a certain degree the cross of theology, but also its crown, since a recognition of its limits tells of selfknowledge, promotes humility, and inclines to greater caution. This is specially evident when we compare the confessions of the most cele-

brated theologians with those of the heroes of absolute knowledge. Least of all in our times will dogmatics spring at once full-grown from the head and heart of its priest, as Minerva from the skull of Jupiter. — Van Oostertee {condensed). g It is provisional. [12207] We need to remember, indeed, that science is only a provisional reading of the facts of nature ; that the scientific interpretation of the universe differs in every age, changing with the changing time, taking new and larger forms as the years pass : that even since the beginning of the present century it has had at least three shibboleths — Convulsion, Continuity, and Evolution — and has stoutly declared it necessary to our scientific salvation that we should pronounce each of them in turn. And, in like manner, we need to remember that theology is but a provisional reading of the facts of religion ; that it is but a human, imperfect, and evervarying interpretation of the contents of Scripture, and changes its forms and terms at least as rapidly as science itself The commonest phrases of our divinity schools — such as " documentary hypothesis," " Elohistic and Jehovistic scriptures" — were unknown to our fathers. The great facts of religion and revelation remain the same, indeed, through all ages and changes, as do the great facts of nature. 15ut our interpretations of these facts vary, our theories about them change ; they grow larger and more complete as men grow wiser. God docs not change,

nor do His relations to men : but our conceptions of Him and of our relations to Him are very different from those of the early fathers of the church ; just as our conceptions of the universe are a great advance upon those which

were held before Galileo arose and Kepler and ewton. — British Quarterly Review, 1 874. VII. Ch.ar.\cteristics of Its Doctrine. I Its negative aspect. (1) // is not ait addition to the original facts. [1220S] All Divine truth is, according to the doctrine of the Protestant churches, recorded in certain books. It is equally open to all who, in any age, can read those books ; nor can all the discoveries of all tjie philosophers in the world add a single verse fo any of those books. A Christian of the fifth century with a Bible is neither better nor worse situated than a Christian of the nineteenth century with a Bible, candour and natural acuieness being, of course, supposed equal. It matters not at all that the compass, printing, gunpowder, steam, gas, vaccination, and a thousand other discoveries and inventions which were unknown in the fifth century are familiar to the nineteenth. one of these discoveries and inventions has the smallest bearing on religious questions. — Lord Macaulay.

[12209] The growth of Christian theology no more means the adding of fresh verses to the Bible than the progress of astronomy means the adding of fresh stars to the heavens. The completeness of nature does not imply the completeness of our knowledge of nature. So, too, in regard to the Bible and to Christ. Independently of us, they have an existence of their own. Our knowledge of them may, however, be continually advancing. — Percy Strutt, M.A, (2) // is not a rcTolution in the domain of accepted Christian doctrine. [122 10] The distinction between evolution and revolution must by no means be passed by when the question is asked. How far must this progress extend ? We must here look for amplification, and not for alterat,ion. It occurs wherever that which is virtually contained in principle in the word of truth is brought gradually to light, just as it is in the growth of a child, who does not get any new limbs, but sees those which it already has slowly increase and strengthen. We see developinent in the opening bud, which opens according to its nature ; it would be degeneration if the rosebush were to become gradually a thorn. Progress supposes that we remain in the path in which we have hitherto been, not that we all at once choose an opposite one. Thus dogmatics is conservative as to its principles, progressive as to their development. — Van Oosterzee.

(3) // is not a compromise with the spirit of the age. [122 11] There can be no progress in theology made by entering into compromises with the spirit of the age, or by adjusting the doctrines of the Bible, so as to render them harmonious with current modes of thinking. — lV>n. White.

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2 Its positive aspect. (1) It is a progressive clearness of apprehension. [122 1 2] The revelation which is complete, as it comes from God, may be progressive, as it is apprehended by us. \Vho will say there has been no advance in the principles of sacred hermeneutics since the time of the Greek and

Latin fathers? or that, with all the light which modern travellers have thrown upon the topography and natural history of the East, the language of the liible is no better understood now than it was three centuries ago? Has no gain, in consistency and clearness, accrued to our religious philosophy from a more assiduous cultivation, in our day, of mental and moral science ? And are there not many forms of difficulty and cavil in relation to Christianity, which, though occasioning much perplexity to the thoughtful mind in past ages, have been so cleared up by our more ripened criticism and scholarship, that the boldest adversary of the faith would not dare to urge them now? Willingly, therefore, and with strong confidence, let the religious teacher go hand in hand with all literary and scientific progress. Let him not fear to mould his theological teaching upon the advanced knowledge of the times, and in harmony with it. — D. Moore. (2) // is a progressive accuracy of definition. [122 1 3] We welcome it as progress when the chief subject matter of theology is described with increasing accuracy. Our business is with a dogmatics freed from the dust but not from the learning of the schools ; from the thorns but not from the sharp definitions of the old systems ; a scientific exposition of faith, according to the golden word of Da Costa, " in its essence the fruit of ages ; in outward form of these our days." — Van Oostersee {condensed).

(3) // is a progressive power of self-vindication. [122 14] That which is thus more accurately defined ought also to be continually better vindicated. Dogmatics advances where it looks more closely into the nature of its so-called proofs, which it not only counts but also weighs ; while, though paying special heed to the historical, never loses sight of the psychological mode of argument. Moreover it must always ally itself more frankly with each element of truth which it finds even beyond its own proper bounds, and apply the "all things are yours" without any fi,\ed limits. — Ibid.

(4) // is a progressive adaptability and adaptation. [122 1 5] The more science is applied in various ways, the better it fulfils its duty. The light which rises on her domains must also cast its beams on the surrounding country. True theology will the more approach its ideal as it more fully contributes to the solution of the various questions of the day, and to the healing of the reigning diseases, by setting forth and mainVOL. IV. 17

taining the eternal truth. So far each period

requires its own elaboration of the doctrine of faith, and no single method can be said to be constantly ade(|uate to the changing wants of different centuries. — Ibid.

VIIL Its General Leading DepartM ETS. 1 atural and revealed theology. [12216] As the Bible contains one class of facts or truths which are not elsewhere revealed, and another class which are to some extent revealed in nature so as to be deducible therefrom,, theology is properly distinguished into natural and revealed ; the former dealing with the facts of nature, the other with those of Scripture. — Dr. C. Hodge. 2 Apologetic and dogmatic theology. [12217] The scientific method followed in systematic theology is partly apologetic and partly dogmatic, in the stricter sense. As apologetic it confirms and justifies Christian truth by the negation and overthrow of what is either non-Christian or un-Christian ; as dogmatical, it investigates and exhibits Christian truth in its inner and essential richness. The distinction between the apologetic and the dogmatic, in the stricter sense, is merely relative ; for as, on the one hand, error and pretence can,

only be thoroughly laid bare in the light of a positive knowledge of truth ; so, on the other hand, the full power of the truth is first revealed when it vanquishes contradiction. — Bp. JSIartensen. IX. Its Special Leading Departments. I Biblical. • (1) Its range. [12218] Biblical theology, in its widest meaning, includes the criticism and study of the text of Scripture ; its construction as a whole ; the laws of exegesis and their application, or hermeneutics ; its archsology, geography, and history; and all that belongs to the introduction to the Bible. These restricted in meaning, it is the arrangement of the theology of Scripture in its own terms and according to its own laws of development and classification. In this sense it is the foundation of all theology properly so called, every doctrine having its own and proper biblical development. — W. B. Pope, D.D. (2) Its practical character. [12219J Strictly to speak, in the Bible there are no doctrines. What we read there is matter of fact : either fact nakedly set forth as it occurred, or fact explained and elucidated by the light of inspiration cast upon it. It will be thought, perhaps, that the apostolic Epistles are an exception to this observation. But even

these, if accurately considered, will not be found an exception. o one, perhaps, will maintain that there is any new truth of Christianity set

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forth in the Epistles ; any truth, that is, which does not presuppose the whole truth of human salvation by Jesus Christ as already determined and complete. The Epistles clearly imply that the work of salvation is done. They repeat and insist on its most striking parts ; urging chiefly on man what remains for him to do, now that Christ has done all that God purposed in behalf ■of man, before the foundation of the world. — Bp. Hampden.

(3) Its method. [12220] All through the process of revelation we see efforts made in the direction of a dogmatic statement of belief Thus, when Moses said, " Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord," he gathered together a whole cycle of ■assurances in a dogmatic form of priceless value ; and when our Lord, after quoting the two great ■commandments, declared that on these two commandments hung all the law and the prophets, He did not abrogate either law or prophets, but uttered an inductive generalization of both : He compressed their teaching into a proposition ■capable of verification. Of the same character are very numerous sayings of the apostles Paul ■and John, teachers who threw into burning sentences principles which are the interpretation ■of the old and new covenants, from which these covenants may be conceived to have been developed, and which, being taken for granted, all the rest would f )llow. The dawn of dogma may be found in the ew Testament. " The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" — the sentence with which St. Mark prefaces his narrative of the life of Jesus of azareth, is a compendious statement of the deep reality which finds exposition in the whole of the sacred biography. The opening verses of St. John's prologue to his gospel are equally descriptive of • the entire intellectual presupposition which enabled the beloved disciple to understand the mystery of the life which had been enacted under his eyes. — British (2uarterly Review, \%TJ.

[12221] The leading, determining facts of revelation have been "arranged and systematized" for us by the Author of the revelation Himself. These determining facts, divinely given, have been divinely arranged and systematized. The Scriptures not only inform us of the fact that there is an economy of redemption, but they give us an outline of this economy, and give it so fully that we are left without excuse if we do not apprehend it. Let one instance suffice. In Romans iii. 20-31, we have the following elements of this economy specified and stated in their correlation : — (l) That justification by the works of the law is impossible. (2) That the righteousness which the law demands, as the condition of our justification, has been provided by God Himself, and revealed by the law and the prophets. (3) That this righteousness is available, througli faith in Jesus Christ, for the Gentile as well as for the Jew. (4) That it is a righteousness which God has provided thiough the propitiatory death of His Son. (5) That He

was moved to provide and bestow it simply by His own free will and good pleasure. (6) That this righteousness, tlius provided, was necessary to justify God in justifying men, whether under the Old Testament or the ew. — Prof. Watts. (4) Its value and imfiortance. [12222] There is one department of knowledge which, like an ample palace, contains within

itself mansions for every other knowledge : which deepens and extends the interest of every other, gives it new charms and additional purpose ; the study of whictr, rightly and liberally pursued, is beyond any other entertaining, beyond all others tends at once to tranquillize and enliven, to keep the mind elevated and steadfast, the heart humble and tender : it is biblical theology — the philosophy of religion, the religion of pliilosophy. — 5. T. Colerid^^e. 2 atural. (1) Its meaning. [12223] The term natural theology may have two meanings. It may be called natural because it is founded on truth inherent in the nature of things, or because it is ascertained by the natural capacities of men. othing exhaustive can ever be known of it in the former sense ; natural theology can never, therefore, be \nta.\V\h\e.^Joseph Cook. [12224] -As concerning Divine philosophy, or natural theology, it is that knowledge, or rather those sparks of knowledge, concerning God, which may be obtained by the contemplation of His creatures ; which knowledge may be truly termed Divine in respect of the object, and natural in respect of the light. — Lord Bacon. (2) Its scriptural argtiments. [12225] The Scriptures clearly recognize the

fact that the works of God reveal His being and attributes. This they do not only by frequent reference to the works of nature as manifestations of the Divine perfections, but by direct assertions : Psa. xix. 1-4. The sacred writers in contending witli the heathen appeal to this evidence: Psa. xciv. 8-10; .-Xcts xiv. 15-17; xvii. 24-29. ot only the fact of this revelation, but its clearness is distinctly asserted : Rom. i. 19-21. It cannot, therefore, be doubted that not only the being of God, but also His eternal power and (iodhead are so revealed in His works as to lay a stable found.ilion for natural theology. — C. Hodge, D.D. (condensed). (3) Its materials and findings. [12226] Whatever may be thought on this subject, none will doubt that man is visibly this world's highest fact. In him, therefore, and by correlating him with the world he inhabits, we shall find its most certain explanation. Linked in a thousand ways to the world, yet dilTering manifestly from it — in the world, yet not truly of the world — man is (so to speak) the great supernatural element discoverable in nature. In this spirit Job turns his human eye upon the starry heavens, and infers from their glory and

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beauty the invisible things of God. In this same spirit the Preacher examines human nature jtself, and concludes, "Fear God and keep His commandments ; for this is the whole of man." St. Paul unites both preacher and patriarch. He maintains that what may be known of God is manifest both in and unto mankind. His invisible things are shown us visibly. We may ourselves feel after and find the Lord. Such, then, is the utterance of natural theology, and upon such grounds it speaks. atural religion, as strictly defined and distinguished from natural theology, does not need to ask the previous question, " Is there, indeed, a God ? " In reasoning out its principles, we may proceed along very separate paths. One is to assume the conclusions of natural theology, and argue from them to the relations which they determine, the duties they impose, and the feelings they excite, when man is viewed as standing in the presence of his God. This is the easiest way of conducting the discussion ; but it is not to all minds a method the most satisfactory. Another path sets out from the truth of moral distinctions, and leads to the establishment and definition of the

doctrine of retributive justice, as well as of the law of its ultimate development. You will not fail to observe that, if the truth of retribution be thus established, natural theology gains a fresh and confirmatory evidence. On the whole it appears advisable to adopt a line of reasoning which unites in itself the advantages of the two paths just indicated. It will be my endeavour to rest the conclusions of natural religion — and above all, its main and most essential doctrine — upon the truths of pure morality. But from time to time, and at various landing-places of the argument, it will be wise to compare them with the positions which a theist must needs occupy in regard of the questions at issue. — W. yackson, MTA. [12227] Let us suppose man studying his own •constitution, as being one in self-conscious personality, but composed of body and soul, what of theology can he learn from self.' or, rather, what facts in his external nature and economy lead him upward to God and Divine things, (i) The fact of his very existence, so "fearfully and wonderfully made," is a perpetual remembrance of a Creator, infinite in power and wisdom. Man knows that he is ; that time was when he did not exist ; and as his reason tells him every being must have been a cause, he cannot think for a moment upon the fact of his own existence without having the grand conception of a Creator and a God. (2) The constitution of his nature, as presided over by conscience, gives him assurance that he is a spiritual personality, under a moral government, responsible for his action,

probably to incur the consequences of that responsibility throughout eternity. Scripture itself tells us that it needs no external revelation to convince man that his conscience is the vicegerent of a Divine authority. It speaks of a God, of a moral nature, of right and wrong, of approval and condemnation. Following out

this theme, it will be obvious how much of Divine truth man's nature, even its corrupted and degraded state, avails to teach him. (3J The traces of the lost iinai^e of God left in his nature are to man an assurance that he is not utterly lost, and give ground of expectation and hope that he is under a remedial economy yet to be revealed. Though it is only through the influence of the Divine Spirit, exhibiting to the soul the requirements of the law and inspiring conviction and sorrow, that a true repentance and a true desire after holiness can be wrought, yet man is not naturally without a certain consciousness of loss and desire for restoration. There is a secret voice in the depth of his nature that cries out for a deliverer "O wretched man that I am !" is but the intense cry of human nature everywhere.— IK. B. Pope, D.D. [12228] (i) The being, wisdom, power, and unity of God are taught by the fhciiomejia and arrangements of the material world; which demands a supreme and omnipotent cause of its existence ; which in the unity of its vast design, as witnessed by the adjustment of ten thousand

subordinate causes and effects to one controlling purpose, asserts that God is one ; which displays His infinite wisdom in endless contrivances of what among men would be termed skill ; and which has in all ages, and among all nations, led the minds of men by the very first law of human reason, to behold in nature a "manifestation of the eternal power and Godhead " of the Creator. (2) The combination of the elements of love and of wrath, of peace and of war, of order and of disturbance, the brighter and the darker phenomena of nature, indicating the presence everywhere of infinite kindness and of infinite displeasure, attests and has to man's calm meditation always attested the fact of some interference with the will of God. The Scripture explains the dread mystery ; but nature everywhere eloquently proclaims the fact. The universe proclaims the unity of God. Reason rejects the idea of two independent co-eternal powers contending in the economy of things. There must, therefore, be some tremendous reason why the world, as fitted for the abode of happy beings, should be so full of the elements of disorder and wretchedness to even its noblest tenant. Beyond this the teaching of nature cannot go. — Ibid. [12229] We suppose the Bible yet unopened ; not yet given ; and place ourselves in the condition of those thoughtful men whom nature taught to believe in God, but as a God displeased with His creatures. What did history teach them further? (i) That there was some wonderful reason for the forbearance of God. On the one hand, God left them " not without

witness " of His goodness, " filling men's mouths with food and gladness." On the other, He evidently winked at human iniquity, punishing and yet sparing the malefactor. atural theology mightinferanddid speculateas tothe great secret of the Divine Mercy. (2) It taught them that the irregularities of this world xvould probably

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[ITKODUCTIO.

be repaired in another. The reason of man bore witness that while nations were often punished in this world, retributive justice seldom dealt rigorously with the individual ; hence the silent but profound expectation of all the devout that perchance a day of eternal adjustment would come. — Ibid, 3 Systematic. [12230] We may liken systematic theology to

a mighty temple which it has taken ages to complete. We anticipate the time when the work shall be accomplished, and the structure shall rise in its finished glory. It will then appear that the materials were not created by the workmen who have wrought upon it, but drawn from the quarries and mines in which God first placed them. The work of men has been to find their pre-destincd harmony, and then adjust them. At the completion of the structure it will be found that some have deposited and arranged the firm foundation stones ; others have carried up the work tier upon tier ; others have raised the towers and spires ; some have finished and adorned the various apartments ; some have removed the rubbish which error, negligence, and indolence had suffered to accumulate from time to time ; some have been content to encourage the hearts of the workmen against the scoffing Sanballats of one age or another, or to forge and sharpen the implements with which the work has been wrought. But when the whole shall be completed, the design will be seen to be only to magnify and to set forth in clearer lustre, and in varied forms, the e.xhaustless riches of that Divine truth from which all was constructed. — British and Foreign Evangelical Review, 1859. 4 Historical. (1) Its different conceptions. [12231] I. By Evane,elical Christians. The history of doctrine is a history of the efforts made

by theologians and religious denominations (i) to de\elop and shape the substance of the Christian faith into doctrinal statements ; (2) to restore and defend the theology of the Bible. 2. By Roman Catholics and many Anglicans. The history of doctrine is a scientific statement of the manner in which the several doctrines of the Church have been discussed, developed, and, at last, authoritatively defined. 3. By Rationalists. The history of doctrine is nothing but a history of the doctrinal controversies in the Christian denominations. — McClintock and Strong, Encyclopedia. (2) Its true aim, scope, and method. 1 1 2232] It should be the object of a history of doctrines to give in the truest possible manner the order in which Divine truth has been unfolded in the history of the church. It must trace down the whole course of doctrinal discussion, give the leading characteristics of each epoch, as distinguished from all others, and at last show just where the world now stands in the

discussion of the problems which Christianity has presented to it. It should be a faithful mirror to the whole doctrinal history of the church. It must interpret each writer according to the sense of the age in which he lived, and not bring in subsequent views and modern notions to explain the meaning which an ancient writer gave to a phrase or dogma. It must

show what are the points of difference in the reiterated controversies about the same doctrine. It must carefully distinguish the theological and systematic spirit of the different ages of the church, and not force a subsequent development upon an antecedent sra. It must bring out into clear relief the influential personages of each age, and, in exhibiting their systems, distinguish between the peculiar notions of the individual and the general spirit of his times. It must show how controversies about one series of doctrines have modified the views held respecting other doctrines ; how each doctrine h.TS acquired a new aspect, according to its position in the mind or system of an author, or in its relation to the leading controversies of the age. It must show when a dogma was held strictly and when loosely ; when disconnected from a system and when embraced in a system. It must carefully guard against the error of supposing that when a doctrine was not carefully discussed by the inquisitive and discriminating intellect, it was not really cherished as a matter of faith. This is an error into which many have fallen. But we might as well suppose that men did not believe they had understanding until they discussed the operations of this faculty, or did in its turn, if indeed the latter be not the point of view which should have the precedency. Such a history must finally present before our eyes a picture of a real historical process just as it has. been going on, and the more faithful it is to all the leading facts of the case, the more philosophical and complete will it be as a history. By such an exhibition, the whole doctrinal pro-

gress of the Christian Church being set before our eyes, we shall, in comparing its results with our own systems, be able to see wherein we are defective, one-sided, and partial ; wherein our systems need to be reformed, filled up, or chastened ; how they may be animated by a new life, and gather better nurture ; not trust to their senses until they invented a theory of sensation. Such a history must show the influence which councils, confessions, and systems have had upon their respective eras ; how preceding times led to such expositions of the faith, and subsequent times were affected by them. It must exhibit clearly the ruling ideas, the shaping notions in each system, and how each predominant idea has inodified the component parts of the whole system. It will not neglect to notice the influence which national habits and modes of thought, which great civil and political changes, which the different philosophical schools have had upon the formation of dogmas ; nor, on the other hand, will it fail to notice how the Christian faith has itself acted upon and infiuenced these, and by comparing'

CHR/STIAX DOGMATICS.

24.';

12232-12233]

fiTRODUCTIO.

the results with the Scripture, we shall be able to see what parts of its sacred truths have been least discussed, what problems yet remain to be solved, what is still to be done in order that our Divine system of faith be wholly reproduced in the life of the church, in order that all its truth and doctrines stand out as distinctly and majestically in the history of the race as they do in that revelation which was given to control and determine this history. — Dr. H. B. Smith. (3) Church doctrine traced to its source by •way of identifyin;T; the true Jaith. [12233] Let the whole bodyof dogmatic truth, as taught in the visible church of Christ, whether it be true or whether it be false, be considered together. Whatever we may think of the doctrine, let us view the whole as one stream ; then let us trace it backward to its fountain-head, iind see what happens. The process is the same as tracing a river to its soutce. We wish to know whence it derives its waters ; we therefore trace it carefully up the stream, and note where every branch separates, to the right hand or to the left. o stream that falls in along the

course can form any part of the original waters ; we therefore let it alone, and steadily pursue the central current, till we reach the spot where it flows out of the broad lake or the precipitous mountain's side. Let us do the same thing with the dogmatic teaching of the church ; we shall then see which branch traces its original furthest back and forms part of the parent stream. We scarcely commence the process before two doctrines are separated from the mass and fall behind us. The dogmas of the infallibility of the pope, and of the immaculate conception of the Virgin, reach no further back than our own memories. The dogma of purgatorial flames branches off" about the middle of the sixteenth century, and dies away as a formal doctrine about the middle of the twelfth. In the early part of the fifteenth century the mutilation of the Lord's Supper, by taking away the cup from the laity, disappears. At the beginning of the thirteenth century, we find transubstantiation for the first tiir.e dogmatically taught, and in another two or three centuries all traces of it are lost again. In the twelfth century five of the sacraments disappear, and the two "ordained by Christ Himself" alone survive. In the ninth century the power of canonization for the first time falls into the stream of doctrine, although the tendency to saint worship and Mariolatry reaches further backward. In the beginning of the sixth century the papal supremacy is left behind, and with it the last formal trace of the corrupt dogmas of the East and the West. Three hundred years must be traced

back to the Council of ice. But we have already left behind all that separates us from Greece and Rome. We have seen at what dates their doctrines arose, and where they fell into the central stream. We now stand far above them, and yet the river itself has become no scanty stream, weak and shallow. It yet flows on, a river of truth, deep, broad, and strong,

only the swifter because the truths have narrowed on either side. Still we trace it back, and yet at icea we have not arrived at the fountain-head. Thirteen creeds or fragments ol creeds still lie between us and the first parent spring of all, bearing the same general character, reflecting the same truths. Further back, therefore, flows the river. The original spring is still beyond us ; although every voice now loudly proclaims where it is, and what. Still we take no man's word, but from saint to saint carefully trace the current to its source. Further back than the time of Irenajus the line of descent for a brief period becomes comparatively obscure. Intimations of a formal derinite creed may be found in Ignatius, Clemens Romanus, Folycarp, and Justin Martyr, but they are fragmentary and uncertain. The period is like some reach of the earthly stream, where, amid the precipitous rocks and overhanging woods, its exact course cannot be positively traced. A little further on and the full river breaks into view again. We tread with reverent hearts and holy fear, for we are close to the

fountain-head. We are looking into the first century of the Christian era, and here we find the abysmal depth whence the glorious river flows. It may be traced yet further back indeed even than this, but it is through secret channels, through type and symbol and ceremony and prophecy, with the clear light of day breaking upon it here and there ; rather like a river flowing underground than like a river in the full light of day, challenging by the strength of its first rush and the loud music of its flowing depths the eyes and ears of men. We are looking into the first century. Let us as it were go round, and get, so to speak, at the back of the cavernous profound whence the stream of truth rushes into the daylight. Let us go back to the year 750 of Rome, and behold 1 the open river is not. Somehow in that mysterious century it has its earthly birth. Here, explain it how you will, here, for an historical certainty, the faith begins. The proofs that the articles of the icene Creed are deduced from the Scriptures exist in familiar text-books. Whatever may be concluded as to the character of the Scriptures, it is certain that they and the faith sprang into being together ; and their birthday is in the period to which step by step I have traced the genealogy back. We stand, as it were, looking at the depths mysterious, yawning beneath and before the eye, inscrutable and unfathomable, whence the waters spring into the daylight. Look and watch and wonder. What spring is capacious enough to have given them birth ? The channel itself we can see to be human as ourselves, though of finer and purer soil, as if

the ever-gushing fountains of truth close by had clothed it with perennial beauty and verdure. Whence it issues the outward eye cannot see. The sprino' is there where no human hand can reach, no human foot can tread. It lies in the unseen, not the seen. Stand and watch the waters. All the dear familiar truths are there, known to us from our childhood, almost the

246 12233— 12237]

CHRISTIA DOGMA TICS.

[introduction.

very words in which the church is accustomed to express them. How sweetly, purely, vigorously they well forth from the fountain infinite, for that fount is — God. — E. Garbett, M.A.

(4) Epochs in the history of doctrine. a. Dr. W. B. Pope's division.

[12234] In studying the past history of the Christian church, four great epochs are defined, not by its relation to the nations of the earth, or by its own internal organization and divisions, but by the uplifting, expanding, and luminous manifestation, in successive order, of the four cardinal truths of our Christian faith. To consider and designate these developments of apostolic doctrine in the consciousness and creed of the Christian church, is of itself to testify to the in-dwelling Spirit who is leading the people of Christ into al! truth by a way that is well ordered and sure. (John xv. 13 : ocriyi'iau ifiai its -rranav ti)v aXifinav.) There is a simplicity, order, and harmony, like the growth of organic life, in the method by which the doctrine of the Scripture has been realized and unfolded amid the bewildering divisions, contests, and confusion of the "ages of Christendom," that plainly mark the presence and infallible guidance of Him whose mission it is to show "what He has received of Christ." (i) The mind of the church is filled first with the glory of the Lord. The doctrine of Christ is fittingly the first that is exalted and defined in the Confessions of the church. (2> After the nature of the Saviour, the nature of him who is saved, i.e., of man, fixes the attention, and rouses the controversies of the church. Augustine has established tlie doctrine of human depravity, and the consequent doctrine of salvation by grace. (3) The i\Iiddle Ages slowly developed in articulate form the doctrine of the atonement, which, like all the other truths that have been successively

lifted into prominence, minutely examined, carefully separated from error, and then distinctly enforced, was always an article of Christian faith ; but it was not till then evolved in dogmatic form. ever since Anselm's exposition of the redemption of Christ, has that theme lost its place in the system of Divine truth. (4) It remained lastly for Luther to bring forth to the light and magnify that Pauline doctrine, whose elucidation seems to follow naturally from the preceding doctrines which had been so firmly established, viz., the doctrine of faith. (5) In this age the controversies of the church within herself, and against her adversaries, have been turned in a new direction. Another epoch is being formed in which it is necessary to substantiate and verify the heritage it has received. The tendencies of the times now bear upon the Bible itself It is not the subject matter of the Bible that has to be formulated, but it is its authorship, inspiration, authority, structure, congruity, and development of the different books, and of the whole volume, that has to be stated and maintained.

b. Scheme of Klicfoth (High Church Lutheran). [12235] The characteristic difference between the four great periods of the history of doctrine arose from the several problems which the church has been called successively to solve, during the first period, the Greek theologians

were employed upon the doctrines of theology in the restricted sense, including all that relates to the being and attributes of God, and to the mode of the Divine existence, the divinity of Christ, His natures and H's person, the personality and deity of the Holy Spirit. When these had been discussed and settled by authority, the second period began, during which the Latin church was engaged in a like work with respect to anthropology, the nature and fall of man, original sin, free will, (S:c. In the third or Reformation period, the great subject of dispute and adjudication was soteriology, the method of salvation, atonement, justification, regeneration, &c. We are now at the commencement of a fourth great period ; and the only portion of the Christian system which remains to be developed is ecclesiology, the doctrine of the church, to which all controversies and investigations are now tending, and the settlement of which will be the harbinger of general union, purity, an^ peace.

Leading Characteristic Age of —

1. Formation of

Doctrines . 2. Symbolical Unity 3. Completion . 4. Dissolution .

Branch of Church.

Greek . . Rom. Cat. Protestant ?

Method.

Analytic , Synthetic .

Systematic ?

Prominent Branch of Doctrine.

Theology Anthropology Soteriology Church

c. Scheme based upon that of Hagenbach. [12236]

Leading Char.icteristic. Age of-

Date of Starting-point.

Historical or Biographical Event

I.

Apologctics . . .

Close of Apostolic Age

A.D, 80

2.

Polemics ....

Death of Origen . . .

254

3-

Systems ....

John Damascenus . .

730

4-

Polemico-Ecclesiastical Symbolism .

Reformation ....

JS17

S-

Criticism ....

Leibnitz and Wolf . .

1720

6.

Activity ....

The Present Day.

d. Relation of the history of doctrine to other branches of theological science. [12237] (l) It is a subdivision of church history separately treated on account of us

12237—1^^']

CITRISTIAy DOG^TATICS.

247

[IXTRODLXTIO.

importance for theologians, and on account of its wide ramifications. (2) It recounts the formation and contents of public confessions of faith, and the distinguishing principles set forth in them. (3) It forms itself the basis of sjmibolics, or comparative dogmatic theology, which stands to it in the same relation as church statistics of any particular period stand to the advancing history of the church. (4) It has frequently occasion to refer to the results of patristics ; the history of heresies, especially those which survive. (5) It occasionally refers to a "general history of religion," the history of philosophy, and the history of Christian ethics ; also to archeology, and sciences auxiliary to church history, such as universal history, ecclesiastical philology, ecclesiastical chronology, diplomatics, &c. — McClintock and ^tro>it(, Cyclopaidia. e. The value of the history of doctrine. [1223S] Though the history of no doctrine can have a decisive influence in determining the faith of an evangelical theologian, who to this end searches the Bible exclusively, it is for him the most important of the history of the Christian Church, leads him into a more

minute contemplation, and frequently into a deeper insight of biblical doctrines, and furnishes him with powerful weapons, both apologetic and polemic, against the various forms of error. — Ibui. [12239] Every age has its questions, which master and penetrate its leading intellect. The controversy of Arius marks the early period ; the problem of freewill and decrees that of Augustine ; the dispute between ominalism and Realism underlies profound views of original sin and redemption, which employs the scholastic mind ; the mighty principle of justification sways the theology of the Reformation. Ideas which in one day are of vital interest are quite forgotten in the next. A theological proposition, in the time of Luther an expetiiiuntitm crucis in too literal a sense, is now a piece of antiquated divinity ; and men wonder that any should have gone to the stake for so abstract a matter. To come nearer home, our ew England contests of old and new school, of physical and moral ability, and the like, are beginning to be merged in far broader questions, which have arisen on the theological horizon ; in the contest, for life or death, between a gigantic naturalism and a Christian supernaturalism ; or, on yet another side, between the claims of private judgment and Catholic authority. Yet, amid these differences, we ever behold the law of reproduction ; the old questions are repeated in new form, and the reigning tendencies of belief and heresy cast in the same mould. Calvin reproduces Augustine, and Socinus

develops the germ of Alius. The tenets of the school of Armmiusare a iticipated in the Greek fathers. Modern Oxford speaks in the cognate dialect of Cyprian and Vincentius. Early ew

England theology moved in the same cycle of metaphysical thought as the scholastic ; and the later contests with a growing and now fullgrown Unitarianism have been fought, inch bv inch, on almost every portion of the ancient battle-ground, whose record will form, when a philosophic historian is found, a chapter of rich phenomena unsurpassed in Christian annals. It is facts like these which make the study of doctrinal history of so vast importance, not more than, but equally with, dogmatic theology itself. The doctrinal expressions of every age are more or less always polemic, and reflect a particular phase of thought. But, in the systematic study of opinions, the scholar takes each successive point of view ; he sees pass before him the varied eras of faith, of struggle, and from his philosophic centre can calculate their real and apparent distance ; he perceives in this or that doctrine the necessary reaction of one extreme upon another ; he knows that in his own, as in other ages, prevailing errors have their little hour, and vanish ; and he thus becomes, in his comprehensive largeness of vision, not a polemic of his time, but the Christian sage of all times, who, amid the fluctuating forms of belief, recognizes the quod semper, ubiqiie et ab omnibus, the un-

changed and unchangeable truth of revelation. —E. A. Washburn, D.D. (5) Symbolical and confessional doctrine. [12240] A creed, or rule of faith, or symbol, is a confession of faith for public use, or a form of words setting forth with authority certain articles of belief, which are regarded by the framers as necessary for salvation, or at least for the wellbeing of the Christian church. A creed may cover the whole ground of Christian doctrine and practice, or contain only such points as are deemed fundamental and sufficient, or as have been disputed. It may be declarative or interrogative in form. It may be brief and popular (as the Apostles' and icene), for general use in catechetical instruction and at baptism ; or more elaborate, for teachers, as a standard of doctrine (the symbolical books of the Reformation period)'.—/". Schaff, D.D. [ 1 2241] Si'/i/SoXov, symbolism {iioia avfiPaXKtiv^ to throw together, to compare) means a mark, badge, watchword, test. Cyprian, A.D. 250, first uses it in a theological sense. It was chiefly applied to the .Apostles' Creed at the baptismal confession, by which Christians could be known and distinguished from Jews, heathen, and heretics, in the sense of a military synod or watchword {tessera miUtaris) ; the Christians being regarded as soldiers of Christ fighting under the banner of the cross (Ambrose, d. 397). Ruffinus uses the word likewise in its military sense, but gives it also the meaning of ^i^Z/rt/.*'.?,

contribiitio (confounding o-r/i/JoXoiMvilh .\i;), with reference to the legend of its contribution by the apostles. Others take the word in the sense of a compact or agreement. Still others derive it from, the signs of recognition anaong

Z48 12241 — 12247]

C//IC/ST/AX DJCMAT/CS.

[introduction.

the heathen in their mysteries. Luther and Melancthon first applied it to Protestant creeds. A distinction is made sometimes between symbol and symbolical books, as also between symbolia publica and privata. — Ibid. X. Its Scientific Features. I It is scientific in its method of gathering its principles. (1) Ftrr/s are studied for the purpose of discovering jrin^ ip.'cs.

[12242] If Christian inquiry consisted, as is often supposed, in nothing but the investigation of human opinions and opposing theories of Christian doctrine, so as to enable us to determine on which side, in religious cuntroversy, the truth is to be found, there would be as little prospect of success in the future as there has been in the past. The miii-horse would still have to pace his endless round, while the same problems would present themselves afresh to every succeeding generation. But Christian inquiry, as conducted on the inductive method, is nothing of the kind. It is something essentially different from this. It consists in the study of the Christian facts themselves, for the purpose of discovering the great doctrinal principles revealed in them. — Percy Sirutt, M.A. (2) The facts and the underlying principles are in the Bible as the facts and principles of science are in ?iature. [12243] There is a fine parallelism between the Bible and nature. The Bible contains theology as nature contains science. All the principles of science are in nature. It is the gradual discovery of these principles by researches into the arcana of nature that constitutes the progress of science. There is not a single principle in science that was not in nature first. ature is the result of the application of the principles of Divine science— all perfect, all unerring. And it is just as men, by close observation and experiment, elicit these principles, and in their

own humble and limited, yet often very wonderful way, apply them, that science advances. ow thus we take it to be with theological science. As natural science is the elicited knowledge of the volume of nature, theological science is the elicited knowledge of the volume of revelation.— A'. Wardlaiv, D.D. (3) The principles are reached through the facts by the inductine process. [12244] I do not depreciate the proper value of deduction. It enters largely into every sustained course of reasoning. or do I deny that many religious lessons and some points of doctrine are gained by this process. Infant baptism, for instance, is now^here directly asserted in Scripture, but is clearly deduced from direct as'frtions. Our church declares w-hat is contained in Holy Scripture, and what is gathered from it and proved by it, to be of equal authority. But, in proportion as the links of proof are lengthened, a degree of uncertainty, although it

may be indt-finitely small, hangs about the process. Even this, however, is absent from " the faith " as embodied in the icene Creed. For not one of its articles rests on deduction, but on the direct positive assertions of the Word. The immediate voice of God Hims-lf alone renders doctrine binding upon the conscience. The process of gathering these tru.hs out of Scripture is a process of induction. The texts bear-

ing upon the special subjects stand in the position of the facts ; the comparison of the texts with each other corjcspimds to the generalization from the facts { and the doctrine answers to the scientific truth. The technical statement, like the scientific formula, is but the assertion of the fact. — E. Garbett, M.A. [12245] Within certain limits, and under due guidance, "inference" is the movement, it is the life of theology. The primal records of revelation itself, as we find them in Scriiture, are continually inferential : and it is at least the business of theology to observe and marshal these revealed inferences, to draw them out and to make the most of them. The illuminated reason of the collective church has for ages been engaged in studying the original materials of the Christian revelation. It thus has shaped, rather than created, the science of theology. What is theology but a continuous series of observed and systematized inferences, respecting God in His nature and His dealings with mankind drawn from premisses which rest upon God's authority? — Canon Liddoii. (4) The inductive process tahes the facts not in their isolation but in their combination. [12246] The use of the Scriptures in dogmatics must not, however, consist in a mere appeal to single passages, or in a comparison of single passages ; this mode of procedure too often betrays the nai row-minded view that nothing is true which cannot be proved to

be literally found in the Bible. We agree rather on this point with Schleiermacher, w hen he says that in our biblical studies there should be constantly developed a more comprehensive use of the Scriptures, in which stress shall not be laid on single passages taken apart from the context, but in which attention is paid only to the longer and specially fruitful section, in order thus to penetrate the course of thought of the sacred writers, and find there the same combinations as those on which the results of dogmatic study themselves rest. — L>p. Martensen. [12247] Astronomers must begin their investigations by taking the earth as their basis, and regarding it as their centre ; but after having determined in this w^ay that the sun is the true centre, they change their point of view, and look on the whole planetary system from the sun as the central point, and their measurements become heliocentric instead of geocentric. All inquirers into heavenly truth, proceeding in an inductive method, must, like astronomers, begin with the earth ; but after having proceeded

CHRISTIA nOGilfAT/CS.

12347 — 12251]

249 [introduction.

a certain length, and detennined that there is a God, they may view all things as from heaven. it is when surveyed from both points that we attain the clearest idea of their exact nature and relation one to another, and to God. — McCosh. (5) The inductive process takes account 0/ all the facts and seeks to harmonize them. [1224S] It is in theolog)', as a science, as it is in other sciences. In astronomy the results of multitudinous observations give certain facts, which must be all accounted for and included in any theory of the science which claims acceptance. In theology each passage of Scripture is a fact ; and the undoubtedly ascertained qualities of man's nature are other facts. Any doctrinal theory, in order to be true, must unite in itself, and take account of, all these facts. If it fails to unite them (within those limits which are possible to man), it is not a true doctrine. If the results of our induction, carefully conducted, lead to two apparently conflicting doctrines, it does not follow of necessity that either is false. For example, the free-will of man, to such an extent at least as to make him responsible, is an unquestionable fact of Scripture and experience. The foreknowledge of God, and His universal sovereignty, are necessary deduc-

tions of reason and clear assertions of Scripture. Perfectly to reconcile these with man's free-will may be impossible. This need not distress us when we have carefully followed our facts to the verge of the infinite or the unknown. There we must leave them, and we need have little difficulty in feeling assured that the missing facts which would reconcile the apparent contradictions in our deductions lie within, and probably not many steps within, the dark margin at which we pause. — T. P. Boultbee, D.D. [12249] Though man cannot add to or improve the subjects of any science, he may enlarge his own acquaintance with them — he may correct or qualify his former conclusions by a more copious induction of facts — he may push his generalizations into higher regions, and so as to lay hold of higher laws — and he may always purge his science of the defects which haste, self-confidence, or prejudice may have introduced into it. It is in this way that all the natural sciences have advanced and are advancing. There are no more planets now than there were in the days of Ptolemy ; but we are acquainted with several of which he knew nothing. The sun is in no wise improved, nor are his relations to the earth in any wise altered since Hipparchus invented his epicycles, but we have made juster observations on both the sun and the earth since then ; we know more about both of them, and about their mutual relations ; and we have made more accurate investigation of the laws by which these relations are influenced. The result is, that our chart of the solar

system, instead of being a confused and hypothetical delusion, " with cycle and epicycle scribbled o'er," is a just, and we may say nearly perfect, transcript of the actual aspect of ature

in that part of her domains. It is the same with the other sciences ; they have advanced by getting accessions to the stores of their facts, by a more truthful analysis and classification of those facts, by the casting out of mere hypothetical assumptions which had usurped the place of facts, and by thus being brought more into a state of accordance with nature in its simplicity and majesty. If, then, progress in science generally be the gradual bringing of science into a state of conformity with nature, progress in theological science must be the bringing of theology into a growing state of accordance with Divine revelation. What the theologian has to do in his science is exactly what the naturalist, mulntis mutandis, has to do in his ; he must strive to collect all the facts of his science — to observe them accurately, to classify them accurately, .to abstract from them all heterogeneous, all merely hypothetical admixtures ; to generalize with a calm, clear, and steady mind, from what he has thus observed and classified — and thus to bring his science ever more and more into a harmony with nature and the Bible. A perfect theology is one which takes note of all the facts of revelation, whether in the world or in the Word ;

which takes note of them as they are, and not as they may be supposed to be ; which takes note of them to the exclusion of others that may pretend to belong to them ; and which, from this exact and scrupulous noting of them, proceeds to give them a scientific development, by classifying them according to the great principles they manifestly involve. In this way alone can theology be brought into correspondence with the simplicity and majesty of revelation. — VV. Lindsay Alexander, D.D. (6) The inductive process strives to reduce the whole to laws which are in the facts and principles themselves. [12250] Science assumes that the relation of the biblical facts to each other, the principles involved in them, the laws which determine them, are in the facts themselves, and are to be deduced from them, just as the laws of nature are deduced from the facts of nature. In neither case are the principles derived from the mind and imposed upon the facts, but equally in both departments, the principles or laws are deduced from the facts and recognized by the mind. — C. Bodge, D.D. [1225 1] The two books of nature and of revelation are not merely written by the same hand, they are to a certain extent written in the same style ; both are marked by a wondrous variety, yet with a certain unity pervading it ; in both we observe the frequent repetition of typical ideas, in both we note the same absence of scientific

arrangement. Any department of nature will illustrate our meaning. We select the group of the mammalia. We find the earth covered with different species of animals resembling one another in their way of nourishing their young, but we do not find them classified in nature,

25°

CHRISTIA DOGMATICS.

-12254]

! ITRODUCTIO.

One continent is not inhabited by those that ruminate and another by those that gnaw. The tiger in an Indian jungle is allied to the cat on our hearthrug ; the antelopes of South Africa to the Persian gazelle, or the Alpine chamois. The ox, the weasel, and the rabbit take up their abode in the same field. Or, to look at the subject in reference to time instead of space, the mammalian type first meets our eye at Swanage or Stonesfield among the debris of the oolitic

period, then come mammoths and elephants, and megatheria of all sorts, now extinct, and the rich zoological treasures of Kirkdale or Montmartre, till among the luxuriance of a recent fauna, man himself, the noblest of the mammalia, appears on the stage of this world's history. Placed in the midst of all this apparent confusion of animals, the zoologist has carefully to collect his facts before he can hope to generalize, or to discern typical resemblances, and build up a system ; and then he meets with the whale and the bat to show how untiue to nature are the sharp lines of his classification. Just so in God's word, we have here a promise, there a tender exhortation, a doctrine lies imbedded in a narrative or an argument, a precept is conveyed in a burst of poetry or a group of proverbs. But in vain do we search the Bible for anybody of divinity, for any theological system ; we do not find one part devoted to the office of God in the scheme of redemption, another part to what is necessary on the side of man ; we do not find a definition of original sin, or an exposition of the Trinity. The materials are all there from which the student may frame his own classification and draw his own lines of definition. — Bj'itish Quarterly Review. 2 It is scientific in reducing its principles to form and order. (l) Its materials easily lend themselves to systematic treatment. [12252] The doctrines of Christianity con-

stitute a system by virtue of the organic unity pervading them. It is not only that they have been systematized by theologians, but it is that an internal sequence and coherence pervades the doctrines themselves. They constitute a complete history of humanity and of the world. The act of creation and the relation existing between the Creator and the created form the first links of the chain. The primaeval harmony of the two in the paradisaical state ; the interruption of it by the sin and fall of man ; the purpose of God to restore the broken harmony by the salvation of His fallen creatures ; the work of the I ncarnate Son, schemed, undertaken, and completed with this object ; the operations of the Holy Ghost ; the salvation of the individual soul, and the final glorification of the people of (iod at the restitution of all things — are doctrines which beyond all possible dispute are closely connected with each other. So close is their connection that the omission of any one dislocates the order of the rest, as manifestly as broken links in a chain destroy the continuity of the whole. Any misconception

in one doctrine vitiate- the conception of the whole, as certainly as a broken circuit interrupts the course of the electnc current. For instance, a denial of the full creative work of God, or a low estimate of the extent of the depravity of man, extends its effect throughout the entire circle of doctrine. The faith is not an accidental aggregate of isolated units, but a coherence of

connected members in an organized body. This structural unity of the faith arises naturally from the personal unity of its Author. One mind has schemed it ajl, and therefore one thought pervades it all. The authorship and the authority are equivalent. The faith is equally systematic in the structure of the inspired documents [i], in the relation of its doctrines to each other, and in the grounds of its obligations upon reason and conscience. — E. Garbett, M.A. (2) In its systematized form it takes rank with other sciences. [12253] Theology is "systematic" in the sense in which "astronomy" or "chemistry" or " geology," or any other of the sciences of '• induction," are so ; that is, as astronomy or chemistry is a systematized view of certain classes of facts in the external world, whether a perfect rationale of these facts can be given or not (generally it cannot), so systematic theology is a systematized view of the facts respecting God and our relations to Him ; and a systematic Christian theology is such a view, obtained by induction, of the substantial contents of revelation. Chemistry, like theology, does not prove its principles cl priori ; and, like theology, it finds no lack of inexplicable mysteries when it proceeds to consider the ultimate facts it discovers, in relation to the unknown properties of matter with which they stand connected : its most searching analysis still leaves it in utter

darkness with respect to the molecular structure of matter, and in little less as regards the 7-ationale of the facts of chemical affinities. -Still, it is a systematic exhibition of certain classes of phenomena, and of unspeakable value as far as it goes ; and it is much the same with theology. — British Quarterly Review, 1866. (3) As a system it answers to a universal want of the human mind. [12254] The human mind, by its own law of progress and self-education, has from the earliest times endeavoured to generalize the facts that came under its cognizance, and to reduce its knowledge of things to groups. The formation of all such general terms as "tree," "animal," " man," " fire," shows the dawn and germ of the process. All terms and phrases which denote the qualities of the various objects of sense, such as descriptions of form, weight, colour, property, were further attempts at abstraction and generalization. The beginnings of science in diftcrent nations and civilizations were the still more comprehensive and penetrative attempts to reduce to the forms of the

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12254— 12257'|

2S> [introduction.

numan mind the multiform facts and relations of nature. Every science, from the time of Thales to ewton, from Anaxagoras to Comte and Darwin, has been witness to the ineradicable conviction, that as the wonderful phenomena of nature can be reduced to the forms of the human mind, can be thouj^ht out in their numerous relations to each other, man has been drawing nearer and nearer to the mind of God, and, as Kepler said, "thinking God's thoughts after Him." It is then in perfect harmony with this universal tendency of thought that religious men, that those who have believed that the Eternal has spoken to them, and given them His thoughts, and made known His will, should also have endeavoured to abstract and to generalize these revelations of the Divine nature, and to bring the whole into or under the forms of the human mind. Mental powers have been required for this process ditierent from the spiritual faculties needed to receive and to utter Divine revelations, but they have been none the less necessary to the progress of the race. — Ibid. 1877. (4) In Us divisions it proceeds on fixed priti-

ciples. [12255] The division of the dogmatic material must naturally not be arbitrary, but must be carried out according to a fi.\ed principle. A thoroughly good division requires that all the parts of the whole be included in it ; that each part has its own proper place ; and that the collective parts be not only co-ordinated by each other, but be subordinated to one central thought which they illustrate and develop. We may specially desire that the basis of the division be not sought elsewhere, but be derived from the domain of the science itself. Who would seek the clue to the treatment of some part of natural science in the domain of speculative philosophy ? Who will not divide the history of the church differently from the history of the world .' And again, who will not place the history of dogma in an order different from that of the church ? A division may be logically irreproachable, and yet unsuited to its purpose, and thoroughly faulty. The cause of many failures in this method has been that men only asked, How can the doctrine of faith be brought into a symmetrical scheme to a welldefined whole? instead of considering what was the inner unity and connection of the revelation, and into what parts that unity spontaneously divided itself before the investigating eye. — Van Oosterzee {condensed).

XI. Its Technical Terminology.

I Arises out of the necessities of the case. [12256] The technical form and the technical language employed by theology to e.xpress the doctrines of the faith arise from the necessities of the inductive process. For many texts of Scripture contain one and the same truth. Take, for instance, the true divinity of Christ,

or the indivisible union of the Got head and the manhood in His one person. It. speaking of the first of these Bishop Pearson quotes more than one hundred texts. But to require for the clear assertion of the deity of Christ the repetition of the whole of these one hundred texts would be exceedingly absurd. We therefore adopt one formula, so worded as to express the common truth, and to combine in this one expression of it all the particulars contained in the texts. The church does this in the Apostles' Creed by the words, " I believe in Jesus Christ His only Son." When the Arian heretics so refined upon language as to enable them to use these words of the Creed, and yet under cover of them to deny that Christ was true God, the Fathers of the Council at icaja made their language more positive, and declared the Son to be " God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God." The Creed of Athanasius employs a term of yet more precise significance, and proclaims Him to be " God of the substance of the Father." The Church of England in the Second Article repeats nearly the same words,

'■ Very and Eternal God, of one substance with the Father." But these fuller expressions add nothing whatever to the truth of our Lord's true deity, as the Son of God, expressed in the Apostles' Creed. That one phrase, " His only Son," includes all that the longer definitions include. But although it includes all the truth, it does not specifically exclude all the forms of error with the same definiteness as they do. For they grew out of the experience of controversy, and met its exigencies as they arose. —E. Garbett, M.A. 2 Is not scriptural in form but in substance. [12257] Some of the terms confessedly are not to be found in Scripture — such as the word Person, the word Trinity, the phrase Catholic Church, and others of the same kind. From Athanasius down to Calvin the Church has ever given the same answer to objections drawn from this source. She has ever replied, that although the words are not in Scripture, the sense expressed by them is there. The words are a vehicle to the meaning, a sign of the thing signified. Each one is really an embodied dogma, accepted on the authority of many texts summarized into the single word. If the dogma be in Scripture, and no more accurate term can be found to express it, it is sheer wantonness to object to the word. For in no other way than the use of such terms can separate dogmas be combined in a common proposition. By an exactly similar process the terminology of science has been formed. Each word expresses

an ascertained truth, and can only be explained to an untrained mind by the long statement of the truth. Such are the phrases, "specific gravity," " insensible distances," and a host of others. But as the incessant reiteration would be equally absurd and vexatious, the truth is embodied in a single term for the sake of brevity and convenience. — Ibid.

252 12258 — I226o]

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[introduction.

3 Is of value in elucidating the doctrines for which it stands. [12258] The great words of theology, and still more of the Bible, are not dead words, whose classification is of importance merely for the sake of perspicuity ; but are, as Luther says of St. Paul's words, " living creatures having hands and feet." By getting below the surface, by making out what they are, or were in them-

selves, we arrive at the very essence of the Christian doctrine or dogma. — Dean Stanley. 4 Is of great historical and moral importance. [12259] Theological terminology often becomes painfully obscure to after generations and distant peoples, to nations using different languages and living amid other circumstances. But the old creed-form indicates the high-water marks of faith at moments of consummate interest to the progress of mankind. Expressions which now fail to rouse enthusiasm, or even to convey altogether distant ideas, were at one time war-cries of contending forces, the utterances of intense conviction — were once maintained by folios of now forgotten argument, regarded perhaps as the very pillars of the moral universe, and worthy even of great sacrifice of blood and treasure to uphold or defend. There was a time when every word of the Creed of Chalcedon, every syllable of the Catechism of Trent, every line of the Confession of Augsburg or of Westminster, every clause of the Thirty-nine Articles, meant life or death to men and women. Quite recently faith could cheerfully sacrifice comfort, position, honours, life itself, to maintain propositions, many of which may be unintelligible now — not as historical realities, but as living forms of conviction. But until the impossibility and incredibility of Divine relation be proved to the satisfaction of cultivated intelligence, the value of all these great fundamental generalizations

of Divine revelation, the value of the very forms in which they have enshrined themselves, in face of the antagonisms of heathenism, materialism, and worldliness, can scarcely be overstated. When sciolists treat with wit, irony, or scorn, certain creeds or articles, let the hour, the place, be called to mind when these words were dearer than dear life to multitudes, and when they stood in living, intimate, thrilling relation with some of the most impressive realities of human existence. Thus, phrases which have become almost unintelligible in their translated form, meant, when first uttered, a protest against polytheism, or spiritual despotism, or blatant animalism : they were cries for Divine help, they were acknowledgments of Divine supremacy or vindications of human freedom. There was a direct and thrilling link of connection between these forms and the life of souls. If these evils are yet prevalent in the world, the forms are not without use and potency at the present hour. They may start into fresh significance any day. They are

capable of wonderful expansion and exposition. Errors and negations of God and His revelation which were current in the second and fourth centuries have reappeared in the nineteenth. We have to fight again the battle with paganism and dualism and atheism. We have to aid the faith of our brethren in the Divine original and eternal destiny of man. We have still to say what is meant by the incarnation and

humiliation of the Son of God. We have to confront a spiritual despotism to which that of Innocent III. and of .Gregory VII. were relatively the mere lispings of infancy. There is boundless significance to-day in the Theses of Luther, the Apology' of Jewell, the Westminster Confession of Faith. Like notes of music brought before a competent orchestra, some of these crabbed forms and archaic terms and carefully balanced sentences may and do, when occasion arises, ennoble the pealing chorus or compel the eloquence of song. The thought of the dead artist becomes on due occasion some choral burst of instrumental harmony. The recorded faith of churches and communities, the confessions and apologies of mighty movements of the church, contain within themselves the power of shaping anew the destinies of the world. — British Quarterly RevieWy 1877. XII. Its Progress and Development. I The various opinions on this subject. [12260] The whole body of religious truth and theological opinion, as it now exists, may, without absurdity, if not with strict propriety in all points, be compared to an extensive mine, which has been known and wrought for ages, and on which mining companies and individual miners are still busily employed. Among these miners there is a great diversity of practice, arising from a corresponding difference of theory, as well in relation to the value of the

ore as to the method of procuring it. All are agreed that gold is to be found there, and that it there exists in combination with other metals or with certain earths But one of the oldest and most active companies proceeds upon the principle that these adjuncts must not be separated from the gold, having been formed in combination with it, and being for that reason equally precious. Another company, or rather a solitary member of the first, departs so far from the opinion of his fellows as to hold that the adjuncts are of later date, having by some mysterious process been evolved from the gold, in which they were originally latent, and of which they consequently still form part. A third set, or company, assume an opposite position, namely, that the gold has been formed, or at least brought to perfection, by the successive combinations into which it has entered as a constant element, and that the adscititious substances with which it is now mixed have had a share in this creative process, although worthless in themselves and now superfluous. A fourth

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12260 — 12261 1

255

[introduction.

class admit! the latter part of this opinion, but rejects the first, alleging that the adjuncts are and always have been worthless, and insisting on their total separation from the precious ore, by precisely the same nicthc^ds and the use of the same implements employed by their own predecessors centuries ago. Any change in the hereditary processes of mining and metallurgy is looked upon by these as a depravation of the gold itself. By way of contrast to this strange idea, a fifth set steadily maintain tliat no regard whatever should be paid to any former practice or contrivance, but that every miner should begin de novo, manufacture his own tools, and invent his own methods, as if no experiment had yet been made and no result accomplished. While each of these laborious companies is wedded to its own peculiar theory and practice, and regardless of the rest, there is a sixth, which differs from them all, and yet in some degree agrees with each, by carefully distinguishing the gold from the alloy, and laboriously separating one from the other, in the use of the best methods which their own experience or that of their forerunners has brought to light and proved to be effectual. The application of this parable, so far as it requires or admits an application, is as follows : The first class or company of miners repre-

sents the vuli^ar Popish doctrine, which puts Scripture and tradition on a level, and requires the monstrous after-growth of ages to be treated with the same consideration as the primitive doctrines and institutions, out of whose corruption it has sprung. The second theory is ewman s, in wliich a series of gradual additions to the primitive simplicity is granted, but alleged to be the natural evolution of a germ or principle implicitly contained in the original revelation, and designed from the beginning to be thus evolved. Over against this stands the doctrine maintained by many German vriters, which recognizes all the absurdities and heresies of past times, either as modifications of the truth, or as processes without which it would never have attained its present value, so that the truth is actually more true than it would have been but for the many falsehoods which have heretofore usurped its place, obscured its light, and marred its beauty. The miners who persist in the exclusive use of the ancestral implements and methods are those orthodox traditionalists who, not content with holding fast to the original doctrines of the Reformation, attach equal sanctity and value to the ancient forms of definition and elucidation, making no distinction betw-een one who teaches a new doctrine and one who propounds an old one in new language. These theologians would would as soon go to the stake for the scholastic formula in which the truth is set forth by some human teacher as they would for the truth itself or the authoritative form in which the Word of God exhibits it.

A worthy counterpart to this school is the one which rushes to the opposite extreme of foolishly ignoring all the past, and makes selj the startinc^-

point of all development and human progress. These are the miners who are so afraid of being hampered by adherence to the implrnirnts and methods of their predecessors, that they obstinately sink new shafis instead of going down the old ones, and waste no little time in the cre.ition of original spades and grubljing hoes. Lastly, the really enlightened miners, among whom we of course aspire to hold an humble place, while they inaintain the immutability of the truth itself and the completeness of its revelation in the Word of God, believe themselves at liberty, or rather, under the most solemn obligations, to employ the best means of discovery, exposition, illustration, and diffusion, and as a necessary means to this end, seek to know the methods of their predecessors and the fruits of their exertions, abjuring neither the experience of their fathers nor the use of their own judgment, but applying both with freedom and discretion, as alike essential to complete success. These miners neither bind themselves to use the rude and awkward apparatus of the first explorers, nor engage to fabricate a new one for themselves. They only promise to employ the best, an undertaking which implies a due regard to previous improvements

no less than to fresh researches, as it still holds good of the religious teacher, whether from the chair, the pulpit, or the press, that " every scribe instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old." — British and Foreign Evangelical Revieiu, 1853.

2 The opinions on this subject examined. (l) Those which pervert the trite doctrine of development. [ 1 2261] The theory of Pctavius adopted by Dr. ewman has prejudiced many devout minds against the true doctrine of development. And not unnaturally. For when we find it maintained that there can be an indefinite expansion of the Christian faith as time progresses, and that the church is not only able to mould new shapes out of old truths, but also to introduce new truths into the deposit of the original faith, by the action of her own mind upon the original revelation ; when the ideas of congruity, ^ priori desirableness and suitableness, are made the tests of a development being true or false ; when the Apostles' Creed, held in the first ages to contain within it all necessary articles of the faith, is declared an incomplete summary and a mere sample of the more elementary parts of that faith ; when all this and much more is

propounded and justified in the name of development, no wonder that men should fear a word bearing so ill-omened a sound. For this theory implies that there is no fixity, no certainty. The truth which St. Jude said was once for all delivered to the saints, and the alteration of which St. Paul declared to make the innovator anathema, may be enlarged, amplified, extended, developed, till it is totally transformed into

254 I226x 12265]

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[iTRODUCTIOw.

something else from what it previously was, and absolutely contradictory of its original self ; nor can it be doubted that the theory implies that the apostles to whom our Lord addressed Himself in John xv. 15 were ignorant of Christian truth, and were but babes in Christ, not full-grown men of perfect stature ; or else that they voluntarily kept back what they knew to be essentials of the faith from those to whom

thc) were sent to preach the gospel and make disciples of. Such an evolution of doctrine is pronounced by Dr. Mill " more to resemble the growth of Brahminical theology and science, from the dissimilar stock of the Vedas, as the Indian gymnosophists love to describe it, than the genuine developments of that faith which the apostles once for all planted in the earth."—/-". Meyrick, M.A. [12262] There is a theory which makes development to consist in Christianity casting off its luisk ami coinitvg forth in it- original brightness. When analyzed it seems to consist in the substitution of hazy fancies for the coverings which are the necessary forms of Christian doctrine, the said hazy fancies being paraded as the central idea. For example, the coming of Christ in the flesh is rationalized into the idea of the delivery of man by the Eternal Spirit through the manifestation of Himself, from the tyranny of the carnal principle ; His resurrection into the victory won, through suffering, by the higher principle in man over the lower ; and each of the other facts revealed in Scripture are made to be nothing else than a materialized representation of some spiritual truth, in a form capable of being apprehended by the gross minds of ordinary men. In short, the Gnostic theories are once more presented to us, and called a development of Christianity. As though the incarnation of the Son of God and His resurrection from the dead were not either facts or falsehoods, and as though, if they were facts once, they were not equally true and

important facts now, and as though, if they were false at first, they were worth troubling ourselves about any more than any other mythical or poetical representations of bygone ages I — Ibid. [12263] i*ut surely, it is said, the churches will never be content with a stereotyped theology ; why shall theology not keep pace with the other sciences which arc making such remarkable progress? If the enemies of our confessional theology will only consent to conduct their inquiries, even according to the method and spirit which have directed and developed the successes of secular science, we can assure them their reforming efforts will be most welcome. It is the habit, in scientific inquiries, to recognize and accept certain principles as fixed and immutable beyond cavil or question, and not to allow an exceptional phenomenon to derange these fixed laws or prim iplcs, and cast all loose again. We dcm.md, then, that they should deal with theology, as they

deal with any widely accepted system of astronomical, or botanical science to which they take exception ; they do not undervalue or reject botanical science because nature isuntechnical, informal, and free, or reject the demonstrations and discoveries of ewton and La Place, because the telescope would be more free to range and sweep the heavens. The liberal theory implies, in fact, that we cannot tell what Chris-

tianity is, and that the Christians of eighteen centuries did not understand it : it palsies all preaching, reduces the guilt of unbelievers Ic an infinitesimal point, since the points of belief are so difficult to ascertain, makes it impossible for ministers to judge a heretic or cast him out for false doctrines, and nullifies the office of the Holy Spirit as the teacher of truth. — British and Foreign Evangelical Review, I S67. (2) Those who deny the doctrine of development. a. The denial is based on a misapprehension of the true doctrine. [12264] The schoolmen warmly debated whether theology was a progressive science. The one side strenuously maintained the negative, appealing triumphantly to the finality of Scripture, the unanimity of experience, and the closed canon. By the other side the victory was claimed on the score of the steady improvement in Biblical interpretation, the gradual apprehension of doctrine, and the prevalent uncertainty upon many features of revealed truth. Before the discussion had proceeded far, it became evident that this was but another instance of the old story of the knight and the shield. Inquiry necessitated investigation, accurate investigations resulted in more minutedistinctions, more refined distinctions disclosed shades of truth previously unsuspected, and the controversy solved itself. — A. Cave, D.A.

b. This denial is foolish when it is considered that some kind of progress is inevitable. [12265] ^o those who deny all progress it may be replied that all that is contended for by the advocates of legitimate development is a loL^ical one, which draws conclusions by logical rules from premisses revealed in Scripture. Such action of the human mind as this is recognized in the words, " may be proved thereby," in Church Article. If a conclusion necessarily follows from a fact or statement of Scripture, we are permitted to draw such conclusion ; and so, if from the great dogmas of Christianity there may be derived by necessary consequence other truths, we may accept them as having been implied or involved in the larger statement. Thus, from the doctrine of the Trinity there follows by necessary consequence the doctrine of consubstantiality of the Son, and of the personality of the Holy Ghost ; and in like manner, to take a negative instance, the condemnation of Monophysitism involved in itself the condemnation of Monothclitism, for there could not have been two perfect natures

CHRISTIA DOGMATICS.

12365— 12268J

[introduction.

in the Son unless there had been a will in each. —F. Meyrick, M.A. 3 Theology in the first age. [12266] It would be folly to expect in that ase an integral system : we must be content to discover ide.is and tendencies. The harbinger of this Christian philosophy was Justin Martyr ; yet while in his writings we find whole suggestions, especially in his idea of the Xoyof mrtpftaTiKos (v. Apollog. II.). which shows a perception of the unity of all philosophic truth, with him Christianity was rather a fuller revelation of doctrines, already known in part by the ancient mind, than of a central, supernatural fact of redemption. It is when we turn from his cruder reasonings to the works of Clement and Origea that we find the richest developments. Filled with the spirit of Christian faith, while nursed in the atmosphere of Greel; genius, their writings are a mine of precious metal, as yet in the ore, but piercing the soil everywhere with broad veins, and its very sands heavy and shining with grains of golden wisdom. Origen is greater and more sympathetic of the two. We have nothing to say here of his errors. The fallacy of critics, in judging their remains, has resulted from looking at them in the mass, and so pronouncing them a farrago of follies and

fancies. All the works of that age are what Clement called his Stromata, materials for a doctrinal edifice rather than the edifice itself It is not their views on particular doctrines that claim our attention ; it is only their fundamental ground as to the relation of Christianity to reason ; and it is by our recognition of this their central aim that we must judge of the influence of those great men. Clement, and yet more, Origen, in his work :r£p< apx'^''' laid down this position, new to that age, that the Divine revelation was the distinct source of all truths which concerned redemption ; that, while the speculative reason might range freely beyond the circle of these truths, within this it must bow in faith, and from this centre build up a Christian philosophy and ethics. It was thus a position, opposed on one side to the empiricism of the mere letter, on the other to the idealism which destroyed it. This was their work ; thus they laid the corner stone of a legitimate Christian science, and this result they handed down to the ages after them. The rubbish and dross of Origen were cast aside ; the gold was refined into later and better wisdom. — E. A. Washburn, D.D. 4 Its development and progress when deteriorated. (1) ot altogether unserviceable to the truth. [12267] Almost all the great practical doctrines of the gospel, after having been presented in their purity by the apostles, were gradually

deteriorated, until they came to be almost entirely perverted ; and then, by the interposition of God, they were rescued from the load of corruption under which they were buried, and exhibited anew in their original brightness.

During the whole period of declension, however, these doctrines never ceased to be recognized. They were not only distinctly apprehended and openly avowed by here and there a chosen witness, but they underlay the religious experience of thousands who never framed them into doctrinal propositions ; and they gave form and character to the very corruptions of which they were the subjects. These corruptions were not so much errors entirely foreign to the gospel, as perverted forms of truth. A leper is still a man ; and the lineaments of the human form may be traced under all the disfiguring effects of disease. So the truth is always to be discerned under the grossest corruptions to which it has been subject. When the Church of the middle ages taught that there could be no regeneration or holiness but by means of certain rites, this was not a denial of the necessity of grace, but a false view of the mode and conditions of the Spirit's operations. When it was taught that pilgrimages and penances obtained the pardon of sins, it was still asserted that they were the me.ms of securing an interest in the Christ, to whom all their efficacy was referred. When the priest interposed himself between the sinner and God,

it was not that he dared to deny the priesthood of Christ, but that he assumed that Christ's priesthood was exercised through the church. Behind these fearful corruptions, therefore, which hid the truth from the view of the people, were still to be discerned the great doctrines of the Biljle. As this is true with regard to other points, it is no less true with regard to the doctrine of the church. All the corruptions of that doctrine, great and destructive as they have proved, are but perversions of the truth.— C. Hodge, D.D. 5 The landmarks which this progress has already passed. [12268] A good way of determining the progressive landmarks of theology might be by selecting typical texts to describe the points made emphatic by the principal teachers of the church. Thus, to take only six. It would connect the name of Athanasius with the words, "Go ye into all the world, teaching and baptizing, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Augustine with the words, " By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves ; it is the gift of God." " ot by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on us abundantly." Anselm with the words, " Christ suffered for our sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God."

Remigius : " I am the good shepherd ; the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. My sheep hear my voice." Luther: " Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works

«S6 12268 — 12273I

CHRISTIA DOGMATICS.

[introduction.

of the law ; for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." And Calvin : " Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love." — Projessor John Duncan, LL.D. 6 The further needed progress. ■• [12269] There is a large sphere of inquiry

still open to the scanctified scholarship of the church ; particular portions of systematic theology may demand re-adjustment, the consistency of systems as a whole may be presented in a fuller and clearer light, excrescences may be pared off, the meaning of the sacred text may be brought out more intelligently by deeper learning and critical insight, and all that is of real value in the philosophies of the time may be adopted and utilized. There is room, then, for improvement in various departments, but not such improvements after Tiibingen models, as, under the pretence of defending a doctrine, will attempt explanations that subvert it — not such improvements as will bring us back under the bondage of exploded philosophies — eoPlatonism and the like — which unmeaning phraseology, seems intended to cover a variety of view on religious questions, according to the exigencies of their polemic strategy. — British and Foreign Evangelical Review, 1S67. [12270] In the critical studies which distinguish the theology of our time, the adversaries of the orthodox faith of the church have gained the immediate advantage of precedence in time. This has generally been the case. The assault precedes the defence. Seldom has the church spontaneously, and with systematic manifold labour which has been evoked and sustained by her own purpose, elaborated, sifted, and defined any one of the great Christian doctrines. An Arius is necessary to call forth the icene Creed. Pelngianism must precede the expositions of Catholic faith by Augustine. In like

manner the doctrine of the church with regard to the Bible, though it has existed as a mighty inarticulate faith, has never hitherto been minutely examined or exactly formulated. It needed the attacks of unbelieving criticism to rouse the attention, and to concentrate the labours, of Christian scholars upon this subject, in order that, after their investigations and discussions, the communis sensus of the church may express, in clear, well-grounded, and articulate language, the doctrine of the church upon this subject. The providence of the Spirit continues to use the hostility of men who attack and repudiate the faith of the church in order to awaken a profounder consciousness of that faith, and to stimulate such combined and thorough investigations as shall define that faith in accurate terminology, and establish it on a sectire basis. — W. B. Pope, D.D. 7 The Divine direction of its development. [12271] In the bosom of creation and revela-

tion there are yet waiting to be revealed "things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man." May we not then pray that God will give unto us, too, the Christi ins of our own time and generation, "the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the acknowledging of Him, tliat the eyes of our understanding also may be enlightened, and we too may know more and more what is the hope of His calling, and what His power to usward

who believe." We believe that the Spirit is working now, working jiow as He ever has worked, " preventing us with his most gracious favour, and furthering us with his continual help." And when we affirm that the wOrk of the apostles and evangelists was peculiarly the Spirit's work, that they were inspired by Him for their special office, let us never deny that He inspires men still. Only let us remember that their work once done, was done for ever ; their work, once completed, can never be done over again. — C. A. Swaitison, M.A. XIII. Its Relations. 1 To the church and to the Scriptures, and to the Author of both. [12272] The theory of dogma includes three elements. If we start from our own standingpoint, the first in order is the church as a visible community of saints, linked by a continuous succession of members to the time of our Lord. The second element is the existence in the possession of this church of a body of dogmatic truth traceable to the same period and identical in substance during every age. Third in the calculation is the canon of the Scriptures, as the authoritative documents of the faith ; the fountain-head, from which all the streams of truth have flowed, and to which they may be traced back. All the three, the cliurth, the dogma, and the documents, synchronize. They appear in the history of the world at the same time, that time being identified by independent

evidence with the ministry of Jesus Christ the Prophet of azareth. They are found to stretch side by side from that date continuously to the present time, and they still exist in indissoluble union. They are thus, when considered simply as matters of historical fact, three distinct lines of evidence converging into one conclusion, three rays of light shining out of one Sun. The church might conceivably h.ave existed without the dogiTia, the dogma without the church, and the sacred writings considered as ancient books without either the one or the other. As a matter of fact they all exist, and have ever existed, together, a threefold cord between man and God. — E. Garbett, M.A. 2 To faith. [12273] Dogmatics docs not make doubt its starting-point, as philosopliy is often required to do ; it is not developed out of the void of scepticism, but out of tlic fulness of faith ; it does not make its appearance in order by its

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J 2273— 12277]

flTRODUCTIO.

arguments to prop up a tottering faith, to serve as a crutch for it, as if, in its old aye, it had become frail and staggering. It springs out of the perennial, juvenile vigour of faith, out of the capacity of faith to unfold from its own depths a wealth of treasures of wisdom and of knowledge, to build up a kingdom of acknowledged truths, by which it illumines itself as well as the surrounding world. Dogmatics serve, therefore, not to rescue faith in the time of its exigency, but to glorify it — in gloriam, in gloriain Dei. — Bp. Martensen. [12274] The body of doctrine known as the Christian faith is distinct from thequality of faith, but it is not separable from it. The one is the objective work of the Holy Ghost ; the other His subjective work. In the one, the Spirit provides the material for faith ; in the other, He bestows its living power and energy. The one is the outward structure, the other the indwelling life. The body is not the life, but it is in the organized body that the Spirit lives, and through it the Spirit acts. The outward doctrines are not the soul's inner act ; yet that Divine faculty by which the soul takes hold of Deity, and comes into actual immediate contact with things unseen, cannot act without the doctrines. Faith can no more live and work in this imperfect state of ours without objective truths to throw light into the intellect and supply food for the afi'ections, than a spirit can live and work with-

out the instrument of the body. In another world it may be different. Amid the fruitions of heaven and the full blaze of the beatific vision of God, the glorified spirit of the saint may unite itself by immediate contact with the Deity, just as in the world of the unseen disembodied spirits live a life, doubtless of intense activity and measureless capacity for enjoyment or for suffering, apart from the body as it moulders meanwhile in the grave. But in our present state body and spirit are constitutionally associated, and it is but the dream of the fanatic to think of separating them. In the same way belief can only live on what is believed. Conviction, affection, emotion, dissociated from definite points of belief, become evaporated into ghostly names, and merge into mystical fanaticism or sceptical indefiniteness. — E. Garbett, M.A. 3 To exegesis. [12275] When exegesis has done its proper work on the elements of theology, it is still necessary, if we would see how they are related and co-ordinated, how they limit and illustrate one another, that we should take these separate "polished stones" and see what fabric it is they compose ; in other words, make an induction of the most important truths, and as viewed in their mutual relations and subordination, out of the contents of Scripture. If we would have a clear notion of the sum of the results, or the relations of one truth to another, this is necessary. ow the two processes are very distinct,

though the one is the complement of the other, VOL. IV. 18

and they are both constantly exhibited in the treatment of secular literature. For example, after exegesis has done its utmost for every sentence in every dialogue of Plato, there would still remain the question, which has tasked the utmost energies of many a great thinker, "What is the entire system of philosophy which the diversified writings of the Greek philosopher were intended to propound ! " And, in relation tliis object, many an accomplished gramtnarian has proved but a sorry commentator. Without this patient induction, the man of a few texts is apt to be in the same position as the man who is prejudiced in his exegesis by the preconceptions of a narrow system of theology. Extrciiius meet ; and both these men, in different ways, though for a similar reason, namely, the want of a comprehensive induction from Scripture, commit the same error, i.e.., they hastily look about for reasons which shall support a preconceived and partial hypothesis ; and if texts look another way, every sort of adroit artifice or open violence of criticism — coaxing and the thumbscrew by turns — is exercised upon them to break their refractory spirit or bend them to compliance. But it is only as the key turns in all the wards of the lock that we know it fits ; and in like manner, when the

results of interpretation fairly quadrate with every Scripture statement on the same subject, then, and then alone, may we be perfectly satisfied with them. — British Quarterly Review, 1866. 4 To apologetics. [12276] In relation to apologetical science, dogmatics must be regarded as essentially resting upon it, inasmuch as here all that has been secured by the former science must necessarily appear as its ultimate grounding. For if apologetics deals with the genuineness and authenticity of the Scripture records, the results of these investigations must appear in dogmatics in the reception of these Scriptures as an infallible ground and ultimate source ; if it deals with the general question of Christian evidences, the results must appear in dogmatics in the acceptance of the Christian religious ideas ; if it deals with the question of the possibility of certain Scripture facts, as of miracles, prophecy, &c., all these reappear in dogmatics, when, from their apologetically established possibility, we dogmatically maintain their reality. Yet while we acknowledge this intimate connection which subsists between the science of apologetics and the science of dogmatics, we must be equally careful to avoid any confusion regarding their distinctive spheres. — J. Macpherson, M.A. 5 To the office and work of the religious teacher.

[12277] The position of inquiry is inconsistent with the first conditions of the ministerial office. A teacher must know what he teaches ; and where teaching is moral and experimental, must hold as the guide and comfort of his own sou)

2S8 12277 — 12283]

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[introduction.

what he stands forward to proclaim to bo the guide and comfort of other men's souls. Who can ever forget to the last day of life the solemn question put to him at his ordination, "Wilt thou be ready, with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God's Word?" or, while memory continues, lose the recollection of the charge, " Take thou authority to preach the Word of God and to minister the Holy Sacraments in the congregation.'"' An inquirer after truth cannot be a teacher of truth. He may teach, no doubt, others less advanced than

himself, but it will be the teaching of his own struggles and difficulties. An honest and truthful mind must retlect itself in all its outgoings. The language must be the mirror of the man. What is in the heart must, consistently with self-respect and the love of truth, find its utterance in the mode of thinking, feeling, and speaking. A teacher should be a believer, not an i¥Lr"'rer ; and a teacher in the ministry of a dogmatic Church should be a believer in a dogmatic faith. He dare not teach what he does not assuredly believe, lest he should either convert a lie into the truth of God, or turn the truth of God into a lie. The humble village preacher or city missionary, little as he may know of the history of doctrine, little as he may value its terminology, could not do what he does, or be what he is, but for the creeds and formularies by which he sets so little store. For many of the terms he finds it convenient, or even necessary, to use he is indebted to dogmatic theology ; while others which he does not employ are held in solution in his mind, and are with him though he knows it not. The range of his oblii,'ations to dogma extends from the icene Creed to the Westminster Confession, or later on. Literally it was for him that the icene Council discomfited Arianism, and made the word Homoousion the chosen symbol of the Church's faith in the true Godhead of Jesus Christ. For him Anselm asked the question, '' Cur Deus Homo ? " and answered it by bringing out the doctrine of satisfaction for sin by the voluntary death of the

God-man. It would be easy to multiply illustrations. The popular sermon, the Sundayschool address, the article in the religious magazine, reveal to the stuilent their dogmatic origin and line of descent. — Professor F. VV. Macdonald. 6 To religion itself. ( I ) Religion and tlieohgy are distinct. a. The one is the product of intellect, the other of faith. [12278] Theology is the product of the intellect seeking after worthy definitions of the Divine — an inevitable task imposed both by the development of Christian thought and the rise of anti-Christian error. Religion is the fruit of faith, tlie liie within the soul cleaving to a higher Life and a Perfect .Sacrifice, even where knowledge is obscure and dogma lacking. — Frituipal Tullocli.

b. The one begins with God, the other with the soul. [12279] Theology signifies the knowledge of God as He is. And it is dying out among us in these days. Much of what is called theology now is nothing but experimental religion, which is most important and useful w-hen it is founded on the right knowledge of God, but which is not

itself theology. P"or theology begins with God, but experimental religion, right or wrong, begins with a man's own soul. Therefore it is that men are unaccustomed^ to theology. They shrink from it as something very abstruse, only fit for great scholars and divines, and almost given up nowadays even by them. They do not know that theology, the knowing of God, is full of practical everyday comfort and guidance for their conduct and character, yea, that it is — so says the Bible— everlasting life itself. — Rev. Chailes Kingslcy, M.A. c. The one is knowing about God, the other is knowing God. [12280] The patriarch's words (Job xlii. 5) suggest the distinction between theology and religion; or, in other words, the distinction between a religious faith which is merely speculative and theoretical, and a faith which is experimental and practical. To know about God is not necessarily to know God. To have religious convictions and beliefs is one thing, but to be possessed of spiritual appreliensions and affections is quite another. The one is concerned only with knowledge or opinions ; the other with character. What the patriarch calls " hearing of God by the hearing of the ear," has merely respect to what one knows or believes about God. What he calls '''seeing Him with his eye," has reference to a direct and experimental acquaintance with Him. The one is theological belief; the other personal religion.— A'. Milne, M.A.

d. The one is the science, the other the art of Christian life. [122S1] A knowledge of theology is by no means a proof of a religious character, and many men are religious who are quite destitute of any scientific theology. Theology and religion are related to each other as science and art, theory and practice, knowledge and life. Religion is character and conduct, inspiration, conviction, obedience to law, fulfilment of duty, worship, prayer, praise, a holy living, a triumphant dying. Theology sets forth those principles upon which such life depends. — LI. D. Bevan, D.D. (2) Religion and theology are yet united. a. Religion is inseparable from theology. [12282] A religion without theology means, for the most part, a religion without God. — Prof. Robertson Smith. b. Religion is founded on theology. [122S3] It will not do for us to take refuge in that instinctive horror of systematic divinity and to say, " Our position is religious, not

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[introduction.

theological ; we are more concerned with life than with creed, with practice than with thought, with piety than with S|)i.'Cul.ition." Why, life, practice, piety, are in large measure built upon creed — are in large measure determined by and dependent upon our ideas of God, our conceptions of duty, of salvation, of eternal things ; and this creed, these ideas and conceptions, are our theology. — British Quarterly Review. [12284I Religion, to support itself, must rest consciously on its object : the intellectual apprehension of that object as true is an integral element of religion. In other words, religion is practically inseparable from theology. '1 he religious Mohammadan sees in Allah a being to whose absolute decrees he must implicitly resign himself ; a theological dogma then is the basis of the specific Mohammadan form of religion. A child reads in the Sermon on the

Mount that our heavenly Father takes care of the sparrows, and of the lilies of the field, and the child prays to Him accordingly. The truth upon which the child rests is the dogma of the Divine Providence, which encourages trust, and warrants prayer, and lies at the root of the child's religion. In short, religion cannot exist without some view of its object, namely, God ; but no sooner do you introduce any intellectual aspect whatever of God, nay, the bare idea that such a Being exists, than you have before you not merely a religion, but at least, in some sense, a theology. — Canon Liddon. c. Theology is the power of religion. [122S5] The doctrine was not meant to be an opinion, but a power : " The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." It therefore had to pass from the form of a Divine announcement into the form of a human experience. It had to establish its own connection with the world of human thoughts and feelings. Once spoken by the mouth of the Lord, it mi^'ht perhaps have been left to make this transition according to the natural laws of the human mind. But the transition in itself was too great, the consequences of error in the first stage of it would be too m')mentous for the Author and Finisher of our faith to leave the Church to her ordmary resources at so critical a moment. He would give a Divine certainty and authority to the first human apprehensions of His truth. He would make it sure that He had Himself conducted those first experiences

and applications of the word, by which future experiences and applications might be guided and tried for ever. Therefore the word spoken to men by the voice of Jesus changed into a word spoken in men by His Spirit, creating thus a kind of teaching which carried His word into more intimate connection with human thought, and more varied application to human life.— r. D. Bernard, M.A. d. Theology is the nurse of religion. [12286] Admitting that the spiritual life is the

highest revelation of the Spirit of God in humanity, we maintain that the food, the nourishment, the stimulant of that life in its highest forms, are religious truths in their most comprehensive and intensive expression ; and life does not dispense with nor treat as no longer valuable the very truth and forms of truth on which it depends for its own vitality. Life is as dependent upon dogma as dogma is upon the revealing facts, upon the scattered though special truths of which it gives an account, and as (in the same way) these special revelations are dependent again u[>on the more general revelations of conscience, history, and nature.— London Quarterly Review. e. Theology moulds religion. [12287] The attitude of the soul towards God must be determined by what is known and

believed about Him. Religion cannot therefore be separated from theology. Christian doctrine may be said to sustain the same relation to Christian character that the laws of sound do to music. You might as well demand the erection of a material structure without regard to the laws of mechanics, as expect to produce religious sentiments and feelings without religious convictions. The earth would not be clad with verdure, or bring forth its fruit, without the causative operation of certain physical laws : no more can moral and spiritual results be produced in human souls apart from rational means and influences. You cannot have emotions in the heart without ideas in the mind. Knowledge and conviction are motives to action. What is faith, or love, or devotion, without something and some one believed in and trusted .' Christian character is therefore moulded on Christian truth. " Faith cometh by hearing ; and hearing by the word of God." Our text, in announcing the completion of religious experience, gives also its natural and necessaiy order. First hearing, then knowledge : first religious conviction, then spiritual apprehension. " I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear ; but now mine eye seeth Thee."— .ff. Milne, M.A. f. The victories of religion have been won by theology. [1228S] The victories of Christianity, wherever they have been won, have been won by distinct doctrinal theology ; by telling men of Christ's

vicarious death and sacrifice ; by showing them Christ's substitution on the cross, and His precious blood ; by teaching them justification by faith, and bidding them believe on a crucified Saviour ; by preaching ruin by sin, redemption by Clirist, regeneration by the Spirit ; by lifting up the brazen serpent ; by telling men to look and live, to believe, repent, and be converted. — Bp. Ryle. 7 To ethic3. (l) The points of union and distinction. [12289J In dogmatics the relation between God and man is exhibited as an existent rela-

26o 12289 — 12296]

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[ITRODUCTIOK.

tion, whereas in ethics it is regarded as a relation still future, to be attained by the free eiforts of believers. Hence dojjmatics presents the Christian sense of God in its repose ; ethics

presents the same in its motion. This dift'erence is, it is true, only relative, but it is yet of importance that these leading aspects of the .general theme be kept apart, since otherwise the one may easily be supplanted by the other, especially the ethical by the dogmatical, ethical principles being treated only as supplements to the dogmatic principles, and not as being in themselves independent. — Bp. Martensen. [12290] Dogmatics has to do with the doctrine of salvation, ethics with that of life ; the first with the works of God, the second with the vocation of men ; the one with the theoretical, the other with the practical side of truth. They are as certainly independent and yet as related as God and man. — Van Ooshrsee {condensed). (2) The relation essential and organic. [12291] To e.xpect to preserve the morals of Christianity while we deny the truth of Christian theology is like expecting to cut down the tree and to keep the fruit. If the Apostles' Creed is given up, the Sermon on the Mount and the parables will go too. Parodies of them are inexpressibly dreary ; and to try to keep them alive by new ceremonies and forms of worship made on purpose, is like preparing ingredients and charms which would make Medea's caldron efficacious. — Sir J. Fityaines Stephen. [12292] Christian morality is Christian chiefly because it has a dogmatic foundation. What is peculiar in it arises from what is peculiar in

the teaching of Christianity respecting God and man, and the relations between them. So absolutely is this true that it is impossible to separate the moral from the dogmatic teaching, or, in fact, to tell when the one begins and the other ends. The law of God as the supreme rule of duty is an organic part of the revelation of the nature of God. All conceptions of Christian duty, all specific rules of Christian conduct, are grounded on the Christian conception of God in Christ; and they can be no more divided the one from the other than a living tree can be divided from its own roots and its own branches. —F. Aleyrick, ALA. (3) The mutual starting-point. [12293] The point of unity from which both dogmatics and ethics start as to their immediate source of knowledge is Christian experience or Christian faith. — Vomer, (4) The dogma motive for moral conduct. [12294] The connection between Christian doctrine and Christian morals is exhibited in the order of the subjects dealt with in each Epistle by St. Paul. First comes dogmatic teaching : springing out of that there follows the inculcation of morality. For example, in the early part of the Kpistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul teaches the great doctrine of the adop-

tion into the family of God. As a consequence of that doctrine, because Christians are the children of God, he warns them no longer to " walk, as the Gentiles walked, in the vanitj' of their mind, havin;,' the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that was in them because of the hardness of their heart, who, being past feeling, had given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness " (Kph. iv. 17-19), but to give themselves up to good works, to piety, purity, and love. The dogma is the motive for their Christian conduct — F, Meyrick, M.A. 8 To science. (i) The objects and processes differ. [12295] Theology does certainly differ from other sciences, more particularly from the natural sciences. The object of these latter sciences is to discover truths ; of theology, to maintain and apply them. The purpose of a physical science is to supply a remedy for the ignorance of man in respect to the subject of the science, and to compel nature more and more to yiela up its secrets to the systematized observation of man. Patience on the part of the student is sure to be rewarded by the discovery of truths previously unknown. On the other hand, theolog)' begins with the acceptance of all the essential truths with which it has to deal at the hands of revelation. It does not promise to the student the discovery of new truth as the reward of his study.

Its language is that of St. Paul, " 1 have received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you" (i Cor. xi. 23 ; see also i Cor. xv. 3, and Gal. ii. 2). Physical truths man can discover : mental laws he can find out by observing the process of the mind's action ; but Divine things are above his ken ; they are not discoverable by him ; they are past his finding out. In technical language other sciences may by induction arrive at major premisses or universal principles, as well as deduce particulars from those principles, but theology has to begin with the major premisses which are supplied to it by revelation — that is, the dogmas of Scripture — justif>'ing them, deducing from them consequential truths, and apph iu'^j them when and where they require to be applied. — Ibid. {2) TIte training necessary for the one differs from the training necessary for the other. [12296] There is no mental power for which there is not as full range in theology as in science ; none of which some of the best models may not be found among theologians ; but, during pupilage, the general trainings are very different and their influence is rarely lost. The scientific student is encouraged to incjuiry, guessing, and testing, the theological to acceptance of acknowledged truth ; the one is assured that knowledge cometh with observation, the other that it does not all so conic, and that much is given to him that will do the will of God ; the one is guided to the exclusion of all sentiment and partiality, the other to such intense desire

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261 [introduction.

for the honour of God and our Saviour as shall wish everything to be true that can minister to W.—SirJ. Paget. (3) The inferences drmvn by one and the other are not ahuays iuirmonious. [12297] When any doubtful thing is studied by both theologians and men of science — especially if it be studied by those who are by mind or education chiefly either the one or the other — their conclusions are often different. It is as if two groups of men, placed at stations wide apart, were to look into a dark room containing various strange objects, on which each group could throw from afar some light. The glimmerings of the various forms, lighted from their different lamps, could not seem alike to

all ; you would not expect the same descriptions from them all, much less the same inferences and reasonings on what they had seen. Similarly, when theologians pure and men of science pure study and reflect on any doubtful matter, it cannot but happen that the opinions of the one group should often seem to the other absolutely wrong and mischievous, wrong and incompatible with the truth. — Ibid. (4) 77/1? conflict between theology and science is mostlv -waged by incompetent reasoners. [12298] On each side many persons, and these not usually of the wisest, think it easy to judge and just to condemn the works of the most learned on the other side. This is, indeed, the way of the world ; each man thinks it easy to judge in his neighbour's business. Mr. Darwin, for instance, endowed with a matchless power of observation, with the simplest and purest love of truth, with rare caution and rare power of reasoning on his facts, spends a long life in the study and interpretation of the ways of nature : he submits his facts and his beliefs to the scientific world ; they are scrutinized and discussed, and approved by a vast majority of those who are able to judge them ; and then some one with no more knowledge of natural history than may be gathered from popular lectures or magazines does not hesitate to speak of these beliefs as absurd, irreverent, subversive of the teaching of the Bible. On the other side. Dr. Pusey or Dr. Westcott

spends year after year in the study of theology, with all the helps of rare literary and linguistic knowledge, with keen analysis, deep reasoning and meditation, and with earnest longing for the truth ; and some mere student of science, or one who, at most, has read a little theology at leisure times, thinks himself fit to decide that there cannot be good reasons for any of the beliefs which theologians such as these mamtain and teach. — Ibid. (5) In this conflict neither side has been -worsted by the other. [12299] Professor Huxley has said that " extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science, as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules." But where is the proof? Athanasius was a theologian, but his view of

the Divine ature physical science does not affect, and subsequent theological science has in great measure endorsed. Augustine was a theologian, but his conception of man and his deepest need^ physical science has corroborated rather than destroyed. Luther and Calvin were theologians, but their doctrines of salvation by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the religious experience of subsequent generations justifies, and modern science has not touched. ay, more : these great theologians were pursuing religious truth in the scientific methods of their age when physical science was verily in its cradle, dream-

mg vain and foolish dreams or proposing childish and futile inquiries. Instead of extinguishing theologians as Hercules strangled snakes, science has always, like Cronos, devoured her own children. The Copernican theory of the universe extinguished the Ptolemaic ; Sir Isaac ewton's doctrine of attraction extinguished Descartes' doctrine of vortices ; astronomy extinguished astrology, chemistry alchemy, electricity magic ; and recently the process has been repeated. In natural philosophy, the corpuscular hypothesis of light has been discredited by the undulatory hypothesis ; in geology, the convulsionists have been devoured by the uniformitarians ; and in natural history, evolutionists are attempting to dispose of the creationists, and the advocates of the theory of the transmutation of species to make short work of the advocates of the theory of the persistence and immutability of species. It would really be more exact to say, " Extinguished scientific teachers lie about the cradle of every science," &c. ; for it is Cuvier and Agassiz, not Augustine and Calvin, that Darwin and Haeckel are strangling ; and it is certainly M. Comte and Messrs. Congreve and Frederick Harrison, and not Archdeacon Paley and Bishop Butler, that Professor Huxley extinguishes. Theologians and theology may be largely benefited by physical science, they will not be extinguished by it ; nay, rather they will be resuscitated. And may we not ask with all respect whether the scientific method was not first practised by theologians, and afterwards adopted with such great results by men of physical science .' At all events, the kingdom of God

had been entered in the spirit of the little child long before the kingdom of man was entered in the same spirit, and the theology of a thousand years ago is a much wiser and truer thing than the physical science of that same age. — British Quarterly Review, 1877. (6) Efforts have been made to close hostilities, I. By an impossible compromise. [12300] The educated men of this generation appear very generally to go on to the conclusion that the things of science and the things of faith have no points of contact, and have absolutely nothing to do with each other. This conclusion is probably the more readily acquiesced in, because it affords a basis for a treaty of peace between what are regarded as the rival claims of religion and of science. Religious men and scientific men have often proposed a treaty of

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[introduction.

peace on this simple basis, that each of the two should leave the province of the other alone. But it is, in the nature of things, impossible for such a treaty to be permanently observed ; and the attempt to observe it will continue only so long as neither party is quite in earnest. For, however unanswerable may be the proof that science has not, and cannot have, a tlxological basis ; yet no one who is really in earnest can rest in this conclusion as final. Every religious man believes that God is in all His creation ; he may therefore reasonably expect that those discoveries which reveal the structure of the universe, and the processes by which it has assumed its present form, will throw a retk-cted liyht, not perhaps on the Divine nature, but on the Di\ine government ; and if he is unable to see any such connection between the things of science and those of faith, his natural inference will be, not that there is no such ccnnection, but that it is yet to be discovered. And every student of science knows that all scientific progress discloses new and unexpected relations between branches of science that formerly appeared to be altogethei unconnected ; and why should he expect religion to be alone an exception ? Whether the student of science is a believer or an unbeliever in religion — or, to use lan;;uage which is less liable to the cl-.arge of ambiguity, whether he believes theology to be true or false — he ought to expect to find such a connection. If he believes it to be true, he

ought to expect that the truths of science and the truths of faith will have much light to cast on each other ; if, on the contrary, he believes it to be false, or at least uncertain, his most logical conclusion will be, not that science has no bearing on theology, but that science will be found full of proofs of the untruth, or of the uncertainty, of theology. — J-J. Murphy. 2. By a recognition of the validity of mutual standpoints, and patient waiting for harmonizing discoveries. [12301] Both sides are right in that which may be claimed as well-ascertained knowledge, and that distant inferences on one side should not be allowed to weigh against knowledge or great probability on the other. If it be maintained, as an inference from facts in science, that miracles are impossible, or a resurrection, or that God became man, so let it be : from the purely scientific point of view such things seem impossible. But from the religious point 01 view we may hold them to be not only possible but sure ; and the religious conviction has a right to be not less strong than the scientilic. Let, then, each side hold firm by that for which there is clear evidence, whether it be of revelation or of science ; let both wait and work for the intermediate truths that will prove both to be in the main right ; let both be aware that the further they carry their inferences from what is known into tliat which is unknown, the greater is the probability of error and of controversy. Science cannot infer or define all

possibilities ; theology cannot interpret all the

truths of science ; on doubtful things they are nearly sure to disagree : they had better wait, not for an untying, but for the tying of the knot which shall combine their many truths in one. — Sir J. Paget. 3. By a recognition of mutual claims and effort for mutual understanding. [12302! Each side has to recognize the claims of the other as standing for truths that are not to be ignored. He who contemplates the universe from the religious point of view must learn to see that this which we call science is one constituent of the great whole, and as such ought to be regarded with a sentiment like that which the remainder excites ; while he who contemplates the universe from the scientific point of view must learn to see that this which we call religion is similarly a constituent of the great whole, and being such, must be treated as a subject of science, with no more prejudice than any other reality. It behoves each party to strive to understand the other, with the conviction that the other has something worthy tc be understood, and with the conviction that when mutually recognized this something will be the basis of a complete reconciliation. — Herbert Spencer, (7) RecoTiciliation should be urged from a

threefold consideration. 1. That of mutual solidity. [12303] Science has a foundation, and so has religion. Let them unite their foundations, and the basis will be broader, and they will be two compartments of one great fabric reared to the glory of God. Let the one be the outer, and the other the inner court. In the one let all look, and admire, and adore ; and in the other let those who have faith kneel, and pray, and praise. Let the one be the sanciuary where human learning may present its richest incense as an offering to God, and the other, "the holiest of all," separated from it by a veil now rent in twain, and in which, on a blood-sprinkled mercy-seat, we pour out tlie love of a reconciled heart, and hear the oracles of the living Godl — J. M'Cosh, LL.D. 2. That of mutual interest. [12304] The departments of theology and science in many points overlap each other. Science takes cognizance of man ; his origin, nature, prerogatives, and powers. So does theology. The philosopher has no right to warn the theologian olf this ground as a trespasser ; and the theologian has no right to put the pliilosopher under an interdict. Botli have their rights. The field is common to both. They differ not as to the subject to be investigated, but as to the mode of investigation. Science seeks to learn what man is, by in-

duction and analogy ; theology by revelation. Let each pursue its course independently yet harmoniously. either should ignore the other. It is not only unwise but unphilosophical for the man of science to conduct bis investigations or

CHRISTIA DOGMATICS.

12304 — 12310!

263 ITRODUCTIO.

the assumption that nothing more than scientific facts can legitimately be taken into view. The horse is found in a wild state all over the American continent. What would be thoii.;ht of the naturalist who should insist on dcicrmining the question of its origin, and the relation of its varieties, as a mere question of zoology ? What would any man of sense care for his conclusions, if in contradiction to the known historical fact of its introduction by the Spaniards ? or what would be said of the man who should undertake, on the zoological principles alone, to determine the origin and relation

of the different tribes of Europe, ignoring all the lights of history ? — C. Hodge, D.D. [12305] The theologian has as much at stake in the scientific field as the physicist, and as much right to work in it. The physicist, if religion be a reality and a truth, is concerned in the theological field of thought, and his priceless interests are at stake in the use that the religious world make of religion. As the physicist is vitally concerned in the religious teachings and influence of the theologian, so the theologian is vitally concerned in the results of the speculations of the physicist. All these departments of truth overlap each other, and are inseparably and vitally connected. either party can erect a Chinese wall of exclusion of the otlier, and the enclosure of itself alone. All truth is but part of one interwoven, vitally connected, and mutually dependent whole. — Chirk Brodin. [12306] Far be it from a theologian to imagine that true science and true philosophy, pursued to the utmost limits of human powers, can be other than a real help to religious knowledge. Far be it from a Christian philosopher to doubt that however far he may be enabled to extend the borders of real knowledge in any department, there still needs the sacred cultivation of the imniorlal spirit in the revealed truths of God, in and by the Church, the body of Christ, the faithful reliance on the atoning blood of the Redeemer, and the cherished life of the Holy Spirit of santification in the heart of regenerated

man. — Bp. Soberly, 3. That of mutual indebtedness and service. [12307] I believe it possible to place religion on a scientific basis. But if this is true it does not follow that science contains the germ of religion. These expressions are metaphorical, and need to be explained ; and they may be best explained by the analogy just referred to, of the relation of the laws of life to those of matter. Life presupposes matter ; that is to say, there cannot be life unless there is matter to be vitalized, and the laws of life to a certain extent imply those of matter, and cannot be stated without presupposing them. But the converse is not true : there can be matter without life, and the laws of matter do not in any degree presuppose the laws of life. Thus matter constitutes a basis for life, and the

sciences of matter constitute the basis for the sciences of life ; but the germ of life is not to be found in matter ; the vital forces are not resultants from the physical ones, and the properties of living things are not deducible from the properties of dead matter. As I conceive it, the relation of religion to science is of this kind : Science is the balsis of religion, because supernatural truths imply natural ones, and cannot be stated without presupposing them. But science does not contain the germ of religion ; on the contrary, the peculiar truths

of religion are, as I believe, incapable of being discovered by man for himself, and have been communicated to mankind in an altogether peculiar manner, by revelation. — J. J. Murphy. [12308] Theology runs in a sounder, steadier, more wholesome channel in the Christian world than it used to do in ancient times, and the human sciences have been made serviceable to advance the purposes of the gospel. Astronomy displays the magnificence, the glory, the power of our Creator : metaphysics help us to understand the spiritual essence of our souls, the dominion of Providence over free agents, the independence of the soul upon a corporeal frame for its existence : the study of man leads to the right understanding, and manifests the expedience of the doctrines and precepts delivered in Holy Writ : the study of ature discovers the being of a God, and displays His stupendous wisdom conspicuous in the wonderful variety and regularity of our courses. — A. Tucker. [12309] If our faith in God rests upon truth then any new step in advance in the scientific knowledge of nature must give us a new argument for its justification, must confirm it, strengthen it, and illustrate it ; for if there is a God, in the religious sense of the word, then nature is of necessity His first and oldest revelation. — Ulrici. [123 10] Theology comprehends all other sciences as its tributaries, and with a generous

reciprocity dift'uses through them all a genial influence ; it derives illustrations from all arts, and returns a singular and sometimes scarcely visible aid in the prosecution of all. The intricate and complex theory of law would be more clearly elucidated if our lawyers were better theologians, and their pleas would be more perspicuous and cogent if they were more fully based on the science of the God of equity. The structure of the human frame would be more thoroughly understood if our physicians were more conversant with the analogies which may be traced between the object so fearfully made and Him who so wonderfully made it ; and they would practise with more safety and skill if their minds were more elevated, and their hearts more purified, by those principles which, though but faintly traced in all the emana lions, are exhibited perfectly in the universal source. If theology renders such im-

264 123IO— 12313]

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[introduction.

portant service to other sciences and other arts, it must be pre-eminently serviceable to the science and the art of pulpit eloquence ; and the preacher must feel that his success in preaching depends not on his graces of delivery, or his beauties of style, so much as on his enlarged and familiar acquaintance with the principles of religion. — Prof. Park. g To philosophy. (1) The relation discriminated. [12311] We have to consider the relation between do;;matic theology and philosophy. One thing is clear, that do,L{matic theology is totally opposed to heathen philosophy which aims at arriving at truth by its own means. As Christianity entered into the world with a call to repentance and conversion, and with a doctrine drawn from a source totally different from philosophy, its necessary influence was, of course, to lead away from the wisdom of this world. But, having itself given birth to a new sum of knowledge, to a system of theology, the question arises whether there is room for a Christian philosophy alongside of Christian theology, and in what relation the two stand to each other? We take for granted at present that there is such a thing as Christian philosophy ; we take for granted, further, that it is subject to the same fundamental conditions of knowledge as theology, that is, that it must start with the

credo ut intelligam : but we distinguish between the former and the latter as follows — philosophy, even when Christian, is a knowledge of the universe, a systematic view of the world as a whole ; theology is the knowledge of God. — Bp. Marlensen. (2) Theology and speculati-e philosophy distinguished. [12312] a. They differ in their objects. Philosophy looks only to the intellect, and does not even attempt to supply the practical wants of the conscience, the will, and the affections. The faith, on the other hand, fixes itself at the central springs of the whole complete man, and, throned in the will and the conscience, throws its blesacd beams over every part, diffusive and quickening as the sun in the natural heavens. b. They differ in their inetlwds. Philosophy relies upon deductions from ideas devoid of all external evidence, and speculatively conceived in the mind itself. Its authority is self — the human fallible self; and its conclusions are loose and indefinite as the authority whence they are derived. The faith, in its formal shape, consists of inductions from IJivine facts, generalized from the inspired records by the process to which we are indebted for all the marvellous triuniplis of natural science and art in modern times. The Divine facts are themselves divinely given, and free therefore from the fallibility attached to human observations even at their best. The dogmatic doctrines as

formulated by the Church are no more than the scriptural truths in a technical statement. They therefore rest on the same authority — that is,

on the authority of God. Hence they are clear, definite, positive, and unchangeable as their author. c. They differ no less widely in the course of their history. The life of philosophy has ever been flickering and inconstant, blazing up into flame here and there, and then immediately dying away again. The life of Christian dogma was steadily progressive up to the Christian era. Then, under the special inspiration of our Lord and His apostles, it broke all at once into glory, rising to its zenith in a revelation containing all things necessary for salvation, and able to make the man of God " perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works." From that zenith it has never declined. o cloud has permanently interrupted that light ; no progression of time or change has darkened its beams or enervated its quickening powers. It shines like the sun over a troubled sea. Schools of philosophy have been no more than the sea waves rising and falling again ; but the everlasting sunbean s shine on and shine for ever, eternal and immutable as God. d. They differ in their results. Philosophy has done little for the world. It has not one

practical triumph to show. It has discovered no new truth, it has inaugurated no new principle, it has produced no new element of good. It cannot point to one of life's many evils either removed by its strength or alleviated by its influence. It has achieved no triumph of civilization, no trophy of human happiness. Were the whole swept away we should not lose any abiding or substantial benefit. Were all else swept away and it left alone, we should sink into absolute ignorance, and should not possess one fixed truth to elevate human nature by its dignity, or bless it by its beneficent influence. The dogmatic faith has given us Christian civilization, with its national liberty, its pure morality, its lofty benevolence, its energetic activity and enterprise. This is its lowest eflect. It reveals all we need to know ; answers every question relative to ourselves and to the Unseen we need to ask ; plants a new life within the soul itself ; comforts every distress, brightens every joy, make life worth living, and then transforms death into the threshold of another and a higher state. All this it does because it is dogmatic. Take away the dogma, and you take away the Divine foundations, and in their absence the grand superstructure totters, shakes, and crumbles into ruin. — E. Garbett, M.A. (3) The character of the relation between true theology and sound philosophy. I. it is recii)rocal.

[12313] Dogmatic theology enters into a reciprocal relation to philosophy. As the Church exists in the world, the mind of the Church must develop itself in connection with and relation to the culture and wisdom of the world ; the relation of dogmatic theology to philosophy must be not merely a polemiclf-consciousncss, as every man is one with himself. And the phrases and ex» pressions of -Scripture, whereby the unity or oneness of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are expressed, rec|uirc this sense. Thus the Son is the eternal word and wisdom of the Father, and therefore as intimate to Him as every man's reason is to himself, and knows the Father, not by external revelation, but as every man knows himself. — IV. Sherlock, D.D. {condensed).

12426 — 12439]

chr/stiax dogmattcs. 297 [the normal relations between god and man.

[124:6] The Holy Scriptures do not ascribe ■crcaliitn to the Father only, nor re>lemption and sanctification to the Son or Spirit alone. It is also said of the Son that by Him all things were created (Col. i. i6), and that He upholds all things by His powerful word (Heb. i. 3> ; the name of Saviour {nunnp) by which we are

accustomed to reverence Christ is also given to the Father (i Tim. i. i, ii. 3, iv. 10 ; Tit. i. 3, iii. 4) ; the Son Himself prays to the Father that He would sanctify His disciples (John xvii. 17). In like manner, also, certain individual acts comprised in the total work of redemption and sanctification are ascribed, now to one, and now to another of the Divine Persons ; e.g., it is usually said that the Father raised up Jesus from the dead (Acts iii. 15); but Christ also declares that He has power to lay down His life and to take it again (John .v. iS) ; it is God the Father who judgeth without respect of persons (i Pet. i. 17), and yet the judgment is committed to the Son (John v. 22). When those gifts, offices, and powers are spoken of, by which the Church is made the temple of the indwelling Spirit (l Cor. iii. 16), not only is the Holy Spirit named as the author of them, but one Lord and one God are also mentioned, through whom, whatever is demanded for the common good, is imparted to every member (i Cor. xii. 4-7). In short, there seems to be no Divine work from which any one Person of the Godhead can be excluded. — A. D. C. Tweslen. (3) In the Godhead there is an union of im4tual const iousncss. [12427] In finite created spirits, which have no parts and no extension that we know of, no more than a thought, or an idea, or a passion have extension or parts, their numerical oneness can be nothing else but every spirit's unity

with itself, and distinct and separate subsistence from all other created spirits. ow this self-unity of the spirit which has no parts to be united can be nothing else but self-consciousness ; that it is conscious to its own thoughts, reasonings, passions, which no other finite spirit is conscious to but itself. This makes a finite spirit numerically one, and separates it from all other spirits, that every spirit feels only its own thoughts and passions, but is not conscious to the thoughts and passions of any other spirit. And therefore, if there were three created spirits so united as to be conscious to each other's thoughts and passions as they are to their own, I cannot see any reason why we might not say that three such persons were numerically one, for they are as much one with each other as every spirit is one with itself, unless we can find some other unity for a spirit than self-consciousness ; and I think this does help us to understand in some measure this great and venerable mystery of a Trinity in Unity.— fF. Sherlock, D.D. [1242S] How we may conceive of these relations as distinct from one another, and yet not

distinct from the nature of God, is well illustrated in Keckermann by the relation of existence and mode of existence. " E.g., one and the same hand is now shut and now open ; the closed hand is not a dififeient one from the opened, and yet the fist difl'ers and is distin-

guished from the opened hand ; yet it is not really distinguished but in the mode. ... As therefore the degree of heat is not the heat, and the degree of li-ht is not the light, thus, too, the modes of things are not the things themselves, but are something pertaining to the things. A more obscure light and a more clear light are not two things (res et res), are not light and light, but one and the same light with a certain mode or degree, which degree is distinguished from the light itself not really, nor yet by reason or thought alone, but as certain modes from the thing modified." That is, the distinction is not arbitrary, but there is something in the thing itself which justifies it. It will be still more appropriate to refer for illustration to that threefold relation which we find to be the condition of self-consciousness, where the / makes itself its own object, and in this object again recognizes itself. Here there are certain antagonisms, the making itself an object and the being made such, the giving itself to be known and the being known, which must be looked upon as really different from one another ; and yet this threefold /, which makes itself an object, which is made such, and which knows itself as such, is only one /, by virtue of a unity which is not merely generic, but numerical ; only it is conceived of in different relations to itself. These relations are not really distinct from the /, which without them would not be /, yet in our conceptions of them they are distinguished from it, and that, too, by a necessity which exists in the very nature of self - consciousness. Yet

we repeat that thus we can only analogically illustrate the sense of the definitions of the Church respecting this doctrine, but cannot exhaust or adequately express them. — A. D. C. Twesten. 2 As to the plurality of Persons in the Trinity. [12429] If God reveal Himself to the world as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, it is because He is what He reveals Himself as being. The Trinity of revelation implies and presupposes the Trinity of inward being which it thus makes manifest. The eternal generation of the Son and procession of the Spirit involve a Divine impulse from eternity to creation and redemption. In like manner the Trinity of revelation has ontological elements. If love be the essence of the Divine nature, the impulse to revelation is inherent in it. In other words, God's actions "without imply inward workings and revelations, and His inward actions and revelations are the necessary premises and preparations for His outward working. In revelation God reveals Hi'r.sel/, and the impulse of

zgS 12429— 12433]

CHRJSTIA.V DOGMATICS. [the normal 2ELATI0S BETWEE GOD AD MA.

self-manifestation belongs to His inmost being. — T. Christtieb, D.D. {condensed). [12430] In the opera ceconoinica the distinction of the persons is much more apparent. The restitution of the human race is indeed a work of the whole Trinity, which is achieved by the Father /hrough the Son in the Holy Spirit, according to the principle of the order and mode of the operation of the Persons, which is here, too, of valid application. But since, to the execution of this work through the Son, that is, to our redemption, the incarnation of God is necessary, which can be attributed terininative only to the Son ; and, to the completion of this work in the Holy Spirit, that is, to our sanctification, the indwelling of God in believers is necessary, which can be attributed ierminative only to the Spirit ; to which elements, then, as a third, the eternal purpose of the Father from which the whole work of redemption proceeds is to be co-ordinated ; it is clear from this that the participation of the the Three Persons in this work of restitution, which is designated by the prepositions from, through, and in, expresses a wholly difterent relation from that of their participation in the work of creation, which is also designated by the same prepositions. On this account the

opera axonomica are called personalia and minus communia; but yet only minus coinmunia (not as the internal works, divisa), and personalia only secundum quid (not absolutely personal, as are generation and procession) ; for it is not so much the efficiency itself as its result, its terminus, in which the separation of the persons is revealed. And even terminative we cannot make this separation valid, without taking precautions for again holding fast the union of the persons in some other manner ; this is done by means of the conception of the sending (the missio) of the Son. — A. D. C. Twesten. 3 As to the co-equality in the Godhead. [12431] If these Three Persons be thus mutually in each other they must be all equal ; for if the Father be in the Son, how can the Son be less than the Father, if He comprehends the Father and all His infinite perfections? If Son and Holy Ghost are in the Father, and Father and Holy Ghost in the Son, and Father and Son in the Holy Ghost, imagine what inequality you can between them ; if Son and Holy Ghost are conscious of all the infinite perfections which are in the Father, and have all the perfections they are conscious of, how can Son and Holy Ghost be less perfect than the Father, or than each other ? I am sure our Saviour attributes all His wisdom and knowledge and power to His intimate conscious knowledge of His Father, which He calls seeing Him, which is such a knowledge

as creatures cannot have of God (John v. ig, 10).— \V. Sherlock, D.D. [12432] Considered in His personal subsis-

tence, the Son cannot be called ainoQioi;, but only the Father, since He alone is a.yivv\\TOi ; but the ayf.vv^a^a of the person is not to be confounded with the absoluteness of the essence. Or, if one should say that the former is something absolute, and that what is begotten or what proceeds is, in distinction from this, something relative, yet we are not obliged to give to this terminology any other sense than we do when we speak of God in His absolute independence and in His relation to the world, or when we distinguish the absolute and relative attributes of God, by which we do not miply that the latter conflict with the idea that God is an unconditional and infinite Being. What Keckermann says of the notion of the infinite may be perfectly applied to the notion of the absolute in this connection. He cites the objection : " Person in God is either finite or infinite ; if finite, then it is not God ; if infinite, then there are three infinites, because three Persons ; '' and to this he replies : '' Person is to be considered in a twofold way : i. In respect to the essence, and so it is infinite but is not triple. 2. In respect to the relation, or mode of existence, and so is neither finite nor infinite, because finitude and infinitude are properties of an entity or thing ; but a person, so far as person, that is, in

respect to the mode of its existence, is not an entity, but the mode of an entity ; modes, however, are neither finite nor infinite." — A. D. C. Twesten.

4 As to the special offices of the Three Persons in the Godhead. (l) Although all the Divine attributes belong equally to all the Persons in the Godhead, yet some are especially appropriate to the different Persons when speaking of their various functions and acts. [12433] The reference by appropriation (fer appropriationem) is made, when attributes which are essential to the Divine nature are assigned to one of the Persons of the Godhead, or when one of these Persons reveals Himself by attributes of the Divine nature. This is especially the case when such an attribute stands in closer connection with the hypostatic character of the Person ; which is seen in this, that, although we cannot deny it to any one of the Persons, we yet find it to be especially appropriate to the one or the other (this may be called appropriation in the more limited sense, while the other cases may be designated by the more general word, attributio). Thus, for example, power, wisdom, and love are attributes of the Divine nature in general ; but, per appropriationem, power is assigned to the Father, wisdom to the Son, and love to the Holy Ghost.

So, loo, it is said of (jod, without special designation of the Persons, that of (from) Him, through Him, and to Him (hV avrm) are all tilings (Rom. xi. 36) ; and even of the Father (Epii. iv. 6), that He is above all, through all, and in all ; but, per appropriationem, the from is ascribed to the Father, the through to the

\

12133— "437]

chrrstian dogmatics. 299 [the normal relations between god and man.

Son, the in to the Hnly Spiiit. That this is not arbitrar)', will be apparent to every one who has a clear view of the distinction of the Persons, in accordance with the declarations of the Scriptures, and the doctrinal development of this distinction, although it is not easy to carry out the proof of it, since we have here to do with attributes of the Divine nature which are common to all the Persons ; and it is especially difficult if, with the majority of the evangelical theologians, we have doubts about taking our

point of departure from any speculative views of the Trinity. The most important point here is the appropriation of the partictilce diacrititce it, iui, and si', which may be directly and sufficiently justified from the Holy Scriptures themselves (cf. I Cor. viii. 6 ; Eph. ii. iS ; John i. 3) ; for this appropriation is made in view of the relation of the Persons to the Divine works, and points, on the one hand, to the difference in the order and mode of action, and, on the other hand, to the unity which still exists in the action itself; for, when the Father works through the Son in the Holy Spirit, the action is one, and yet it is defined in a threefold way in reference to the Three Persons. — Ibid. [12434] Under internal characteristics we comprise both the order and the manner of subsistence (prdo subsistendi, ratio si/bsistendi). By the former is meant that the Father is unchangeably the first, the Son the second, and the Holy Spirit the third Person in the Godhead ; by the manner of subsistence, which is the necessary condition of the order, is meant that the second Person has the ground of its subsistence in the first, and the third in the first and second. This last rests upon two acts immanent in the Divine essence {opera ad intra, actus personates), from which we derive, on the one hand, those three peculiar properties which constitute the notion of the three Persons {proprietatcs personates) ; and, on the other hand, some other characteristics (called notiones personates), which also serve to distinguish them. —Ibid.

5 As to the order of Persons in the Godhead. [12435] Ordo subsistendi. Since now it is clear that any inequality of nature or essence is utterly out of the question, because the essence in all three Persons is one and the same, the difference which exists can relate only to the subsistence, and not to the notion or the necessity of the subsistence, but only to the order thereof [ordo subsistendi). By virtue of this the Father is the first, the Son the second, the Holy Ghost the third Person ; not in the order of time (ratione teinporis), for in God all is alike eternal ; not in their nature {ratione nature), for this is coincident with the essence which is identical in all ; but in view of the origin or emanation of one Person from another, in their relations as generating, generated, and proceeding, upon which alone the distinction of

the Persons reposes. In this sense, then, the Athanasian Creed can maintain that '• in this Trinity none is afore or after other" (that is, in time), "none is greater or less than another" (that is, in nature), " but the whole three Presons are co-eternal together and co-equal " (that is, on account of their consubstantiality or sameness of substance) ; and yet an inequality can be conceded, if thereby nothing else is meant than that the Father is the principle of the subsistence of the Divine essence in the Son,

and that the personality of the Spirit has its ground in the Father and the Son ; for the doctrine of the Church is so far from denying this, that it is, on the contrary, wholly based upon it. — Ibid. VIII. The Connection between the Church's Teaching and that of THE Scriptures Touching the Trinity. [12436] These do indeed believe that they can prove the ecclesiastical formulas more directly from the Scriptures, not only of the ew, but even of the Old Testament, than we find to be possible. For in the latter, only through the mediation of the ew Testament, can we find the germs ; and even in the ew Testament it will be hard to find the form of the doctrine of the Trinity as it is received in the Church in any other way than as we interpret it in view of the elements of its historical development, and of the conflicts through which it passed ; for even the questions to which we seek an answer in the Scriptures are, for the most part, given to us only in subsequent history. Yet even our older divines concede that the termini introduced into the Church (without which, however, the doctrine itself cannot be maintained) are derived only by inference from the Scripture, in order to set aside erroneous conceptions, and that, outside of the theological sphere, the truth can and should be communicated only in the words of the Bible.

We believe it to be true, that if we follow the development of the doctrine of the Trinity in a historical and genetic mannei', that the antagonisms and points of contest, which must come up and be discussed, one after another, could not be otherwise adjusted or decided than they have been, in order to be in accordanca with the results of a true interpretation of Scripture, as guided by a vital Christian experience, consequently that the dogma itself could not take any other form than it has taken. — Ibid. IX. ature and Characteristics of the Doctrine. I It is the distinguishing feature of Christianity. [12437] We see in it that which specifically distinguishes our religion from all antecedent and contemporary faiths ; exactly defining it against polytheism, on the one hand, and He-

30O 12437— 12447]

CHRISTIA- DOGMATICS. [the normal RELATIO'S BETWEE GOD AD MA.

brew and Arabian monotheism on the other. We see in it the sublimest and completest theory of God — a God whose nature is neither diffracted by multiplicity, nor yet concluded in singularity ; who is neither the unconscious all of pantheism, nor the insulated self of Judaism ; a God whose essence is not to be sou.:,'ht in lone seclusion, but in everlasting selfcommunication ; whose being is a unit, and yet a process — a process of which the two associated names, Son and Holy Ghost, are the august terms and the perfect method ; a God who allies Himself with finite intelligence by the co-eternal, mediating word, and rellects Himself in human nature and enchurches Himself in human society by the ever-proceeding sanctifying Spirit. — E. Robie. a Its discovery is altogether supernatural. [1343S] It is a discovery altogether supernatural ; yea, ature is so far from finding it out, that now, when Scripture hath revealed it, she cannot by all the help of art comprehend or set it forth as she doth other things, grammar itself wanting proper and full words whereby to express, logic strong demonstrations whereby to prove, and rhetoric apt similitudes whereby to clear so mysterious a truth. The terms essence, persons, trinity, generation, procession, and such-like, which are commonly made use of for want of better, have been and will be cavilled at as short of fully reaching

the mystery in all its dimensions. Of the similitudes usually brought for its illustration that which Hilary said is most true : " They may gratify the understanding of man, but none of them exactly suit with the nature of God." Well, therefore, may rhetoricians say it is not in us and in our similitudes fully to clear this high point ; logicians also. It is not in us and in our demonstrations fully to prove it. — Arro-uisndtli. 3 It is a mystery, the greatest of all mys. teries. [12439] That God, who is a Spirit, should yet be three in Person is a mystery purely of revelation, and therefore one which, when once stated in such terms as are made known to us, we can no further explain or elucidate. — Bp. Moberly, 1868. [12440] A mystery is something of which we know that it is, although we do not know how it is. A self-contradiction is the inconsistency of a proposition with itself or with its own implications. I know tluit, but not houi, the grass grows ; I know tliat my will lifts my arm, but not how it does so. The mystery does not hinder my believing the facts.— AVt'. Joseph Cook, 1878. [12441] It is a mystery, the protest of all mysteries, and the key of all mysteries, but itself has no key. — Vinct. [12442] St. Augustine tells us that, while

busied in writing his discourses on the Trinity, he

wandered along the seashore, lost in meditation. Suddenly he beheld a child, who, having dug a hole in the sand, appeared to be Ijringing water from the sea to fill it. Augustine inquired what was the object of his task. He replied, that he intended to empty into this cavity all the waters of the great deep. " Impossible ! " exclaimed Augustine. " ot more impossible," replied the child, "than for thee, O Augustine, to explain the inystery on which thou art now meditating."' [12443] I believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost as three distinct Persons ; but I believe that above our knowledge there is a point of coincidence and unity between them. What it is I do not know. That is the unrevealed part. The revealed part is that the Divine nature stands forth to us as separate, individual Father, separate, individual Son, and separate, individual Spirit ; and that in the vast recess of the being of God, which transcends our knowledge, there is a coming together of the three. — H. IV. Bcecher. [12444] You are not to be curious in your inquiries beyond what is written in this matter, how far the subsistents in the Godhead are three, and in what sense one. They cannot be both in the same sense. But there is latitude enough to conceive how they may be distinct

from each other, and yet agree in one nature ; which in none of them depending upon will and pleasure, sets each of them infinitely above all created being, which for Divine pleasure only was and is created. — J. Howe, 1693. 4 It is not against reason, but above reason. [12445] You believe there is such a thing as light, whether flowing from the sun or any other luminous body ; but you cannot comprehend either its nature or the manner wherein it flows. How does it move from Jupiter to the earth in eight minutes, two hundred thousand miles in a moment.'' How do the rays of the candle brought into the room instantly disperse into every corner .' Again, here are three candles, yet there is but one light. Explain this, and I will explain the Three-One God. — y. WesUy. [12446] A gentleman, passing a church with Daniel Webster, asked him, " How can you reconcile the doctrine of the Trinity with reason ? " The statesman replied by asking, " Do you understand the arithmetic of heaven?" The application is evident. [12447] The Trinity is purely an object of faith, the plumb-line of reason is too short to fathom this mystery ; but where reason cannot wade, there faith must swim. There are some truths in religion which may be demonstrated by reason ; as that there is a God : but the Trinity of persons in the imity of essence is wholly supernatural, and must be believed by

faith. — T. Watson.

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5 It is a mystery best understood by personal experience. [1244S] He that goes about to speak of and to understand the mysterious Trinily, and does it by words and names of man's invention, or by such which signify contingently, if he reckons this mystery by the mythology of numbers, by the cabala of letters, by the distinctions of the schools, and by the weak inventions of disputing people — if he only talks of essences and existences, hypostasies and personalities, distinctions without difference, and priority in co-equalities, and unity in pluralities, and of superior predicates of no larger extent than the inferior subjects, he may amuse himself and find his understanding will be like St. Peter's upon the mount of Tabor at the Transfiguration ; he may build three tabernacles in his head, and talk something, but he knows not what. But the good man that feels the " power of the

feather," and he to whom '' the Son " is become " wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption ;" he in "whose heart the love of the Spirit of God is spread ; " to whom God hath communicated the "Holy Ghost the Comforter;" — this man, though he understands nothing of that which is unmtelligible, yet he only understands the mysteriousness of the holy Trinity. o man can be convinced well and wisely of the article of the holy, blessed, and undivided Trinity, but he that feels the mightiness of "the Father begetting him to a new life ;" the wisdom of "the Son building him up in a most holy faith ; " and the " love of the .Spirit of God making him to become like unto God." — Taylor. X. Adumbration of this Doctrine in Heathen Mythology. [12449] A trinity of deities is common to all nations. The Emperor of China offers once every year a sacrifice to the Spirit of Trinity and Unity. Lao-tse (600 B.C.) says : Tao is by nature one ; the first begat the second ; both together brought forth the third ; these three made all things. We are more familiar with the Indian Trimurti, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, who are represented and worshipped as three persons, though the original Divine principle Brahm is but one. In a commentary on the Rig Veda it is said : There are three Deities, but there is only one Godhead, the great soul. The so-called Chaldean oracle says, " The Unity brought forth the Duality which dwells with it and shines in intellectual light ; from these pro-

ceeded the Trinity which shines through the whole world.' The names of the Chaldean Trinity are Anos, Illinos, Aos. In like manner we find a Divine Trinity among the Babylonians (witness the three images in the temple of Belus), the Pha:nicians (Ulomus, Ulosurus, Eliun), and the Esiyptians (Kneph or Ammun, Pthah, and Osiris). The divinities of Greece were grouped by mythologers both in a successive (Uranas, Chronos, Zeus) and a simultaneous trinity (Zeus, Poseidon, Aidoneus). So, too, among the Irish (Kriosan, Biosena, Jiva), the Scandinavians

(Thor, Woden, Fricco), the ancient Prussians, the Pomeranians, the Wends, and the old Atnericans. Do not all these coincidences serve as an indirect proof to compel us to acknowledge that Schelling was right when he said, " The philosophy of mythology proves that a Trinity of Divine potentialities is the root from which have grown the religious ideas of all nations of any importance that are known to us? . . . This idea does not exist because there is such a thing as Christianity ; on the contrary, Christianity exists because this idea is the most original of all." — T. Christlieb,D.D. {condensed). XI. Scripture Proofs of the Doctrine. I Introductory remarks as to their nature. [12450] o evidence is demanded to prove the Godhead of the Father. It is a fact universally credited — unquestionable and conclu-

sive. Our opponents believe it equally with ourselves. He is God of gods and Lord of lords, the supreme fountain of life, the giver of all goodness, the beginning and the end. Our attention will therefore be directed to inquire what definite information the Scriptures give of any other persons distinct from and equal to Him. {a) Divine names are applied to all the Persons alike, {b) Divine perfections are ascribed to them. Eternity, power, omniscience, omnipresence, holiness, truth, benevolence, {c) Di7'ine works are performed by them. Creation, providence, resurrection, inspiration, sanctification. ((/) Divine worship is paid to them. [12451] The doctrine of the Trinity is firmly established by those passages of Holy Scripture which on the one hand prove the unity of God, and on the other the personality and deity of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. If God is absolutely one, and yet the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are severally God, then the Trinity of God is a necessity and a demonstration. Besides these, are other passages of Scripture which bear on this great doctrine in its more general aspect, and as a whole. They are found in both the Testaments, and give unmistakable evidence of doctrinal truth.— H^'w. Lord, D.D. a The intimations in the Old Testament of a plurality in the Godhead. (i) In the words in Genesis by which Moses describes the primal creative act of God.

[12452] The two words D'^P^? '*??> by which Moses describes the primal creative act of God, was not insisted upon by the primitive Church teachers. It attracted attention in the Middle Ages, and it was more particularly noticed after the revival of Hebrew letters. When Moses is describing this Divine action, he joins a singular verb to a plural noun. Language, it would seem, thus submits to a violent anomaly, that she may the better hint at the mystery of several powers or persons who not merely act together, but who constitute a single agent. We are indeed

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told that this name of God, Elohim, was borrowed from polytheistic sources, that it was retained in its plural form in order to express

majesty or magnificence, and that it was then united to singular verbs and adjectives in order to make it do the work of a monotheistic creed. But, on the other hand, it is confessed on all sides that the promulgation and protection of a belief in the unity of God was the central and dominant object of the Mosaic literature and of the Mosaic legislation. Surely such an object would not have been imperilled for no higher purpose than that of amplification. There must have been a truth at stake which demanded the risk. The Hebrew language could have described God by singular forms such as El, Eloah, and no question would have been raised as to the strictly monotheistic force of those words. The Hebrew language might have "amplified" the idea of God thus conveyed by less dangerous processes than the employment of a plural form. Would it not have done so, unless the plural form had been really necessary, in order to hint at the complex mystery of God's inner life, until that mystery should be more clearly unveiled by the explicit revelati(jns of a later day? The analogies of the language may indeed prove that the plural form of tlie woi'd had a majestic force ; but the risk of misunderstanding would surely have counterbalanced this motive for using it unless a vital need had demanded its retention. or will the theory that the plural noun is merely expressive of m.ajesty in n'ri^S n3i avail to account for the plural verb in the words, " Let us make man." In these words, which precede the final act and climax of the creation, the early fathers detected a clear intimation of a plurality of persons in the Godhead.

— Canon Liddon. [12453] Who is this that God converses with here ? To whom are these notifications and determin.itions of His pleasure directed? ot to any of the creatures already made, much less to those things which were not yet created, but undoubtedly to some person who was then present with the Father, with whom He communicated His counsels, and of whose agency He made use in the creation of them. And who could this be but His eternal Word? With whom can we conceive the Father holding this conference but with His .Son, the Divine Logos, that wisdom of God that was present with Ilim, and acted with Him in the creation of the world, who was in the beginning with God, and was God ? and who saith of tlimself, " When He prepared the heavens, I was there ; when He appointed the foundations of the earth, then was I by Him as one brought up with Him." — Athanasius. (2) In the priestly blessing. [12454] In umbers vi. 24-27 : Jehovah bless thee and keej) thee : fehovah make His face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee :

Jehovah lift His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

If the three members of this form of benediction be attentively considered, they will be found to agree respectively with the three Persons taken in the usual order of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The Father is the Author of blessing and preservation ; illumination and grace are from the Son ; illumination and peace from the Spirit, the Teacher of truth, and the Comforter. — R. Watson. [12455] The three repetitions of the name Jehovah intimates a great mystery ; neither is the remark of R. Menachem to be rejected concerning the three variations of the accents on the same word : what can it signify more aptly than the adorable Trinity of Divine Persons in one Deity, whence as from an everflowing fountain all benediction is derived to us? Compare 2 Cor. xiii. 14; Rev. i. 4-6. The first section, " The Lord bless thee and keep thee," is very conveniently referred to the Father, concerning whom Paul writes (Eph. i. 3) : " Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritu.il benediction in Christ ;" and to whom Christ Himself saith (John xvii. 11) : "Holy Father, keep them through Thine own name.' The next section, "The Lord make His face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee,'' belongeth unto Christ, who is the light of the world, and of the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev. xxi. 23) ; "whose face sliineth as the sun" (Rev. i. 16) ; in whose face is " the light of the knowledge of ^he glory of God " (2 Cor. iv. 6) ; in whom is most completely accomplished that

proverb of the wisest of kings, " In the light of the king's countenance is life, and his favour is as a cloud of the latter rain'' (Prov. xvi. 15) ; in whom, finally, are " the exceeding riches of His grace" (Eph. ii. 7). The last section, "The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace" — where He signifies the application of grace and the communication of peace and joy — is properly applied to the Holy Spirit, through whom the " kingdom of God is to us righteousness and peace and joy " (Rom. xiv. 17). — Witsius. (3) In the seraphic vision of Isaiah vi. [12456] The inner ])art of the Jewish sanctuary was called the Holy of Holies — that is, the holy place of the holy ones ; and the number of these is indicated and limited to three in the celebrated vision of Isaiah, and that with great explicitness. The scene of that vision is the holy place of the temple, and lies therefore in the very abode and residence of the holy ones, here celebrated by the seraphs who veiled their faces before them. And one cried unto another, and said, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts." This passage, if it stood alone, might be eluded by saying that this act of Divine adoration is merely emphatic, or in the Hebrew mode of expressing a superlative, though that is assumed and by no means

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proved. It is however worthy of serious notice that this distinct trine act of adoration, which lias been so often supposed to mark a plurality of persons as the objects of it, is answered by a voice from that excellent glory which overwhelmed the mind of the prophet when he was favoured with the vision, responding in the same language of plurality in which the doxology of the seraphs is expressed: "Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us.'" But this is not the only evidence that in this passage the holy ones, who were addressed each by his appropriate and equal designation of holy, were the three Divine subsistences in the Godiiead. The Being addressed is the " Lord of Hosts." This all acknowledge to include the Father ; but tlie Evangelist John (xii. 41), in manifest reference to this transaction, observes, "These things said Esaias when he saw His (Christ's) glory,and

spake of Him." In this vision, therefore, we have the Son also, whose glory on this occasion the prophet is said to have beheld. Acts xxviii. 2? determines that there was also the presence of the Holy Ghost : "' Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers, saying, Go unto this people and say, Hearing ye shall hear and not understand, and seeing ye shall see and not perceive," &c. These words, quoted from Isaiah, the Apostle Paul declares to have been spoken by the Holy Ghost, and Isaiah declares them to have been spoken on this very occasion by the " Lord of Hosts." " And he said, Go and tell this people, Hear ye indeed and understand not, and see ye indeed but perceive not," &c. — Ji. IValson. 3 The express declarations in the ew Testament of a plurality in the Godhead. (i) In the baptism of Christ. [12457] At our Saviour's baptism we have the Father speaking, the Son acting, and the Spirit coming down — a text so evidently holding forth the Persons of the Trinity, in their distinct and separate existence and agency, that in ancient times, when any one was suspected of being an Arian, it was said to him, "Go to Jordan, and there thou wilt see a Trinity — Father, Son, and Spirit." — British and Foreign Evangelical Review, 1859. (2) In the baptismal forrmila.

[12458] In this formula our Lord has presented to faith the name and nature of God in its perfect revelation. Christian baptism is to be administered into the name liq to ovo^a, into the new name : not names as of many, but name as of one. Yet the repeated icai, and of, •declares a spiritual distinction in the Godhead as the object of faith, trust, hope, and full devotion, for baptism meant this and nothing less. These were not to be called to believe in God and two subordinate gods ; that would have been only the introduction of a new form of the polytheism from which the heathens were to be converted ; nor in God, and a Mediator, and an JInfluence, for the names Father, Son, and Hcly

Ghost are not simply names of office. — W, B, Pope, D.D. [12459] To baptize is, in a general sense, to cleanse from defilement, and to set apart for a pure use : as an ordinance of the Christian religion to be received but once, it is symbolically to cleanse from the defilement of sin, and to consecrate by a perpetual obligation to a Christian life. This obligation is the most comprehensive which can be imposed : it involves faith, worship, and obedience ; the devotion of body, and soul, and spirit : and it is incurred to the name not only of the Father, but of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. It is not worship towards one, obedience towards another, and faith towards another ; nor is it all these in a

difl'erent sense and degree towards each ; nor yet is it all these in the same sense towards one, through another, and in another. Our Saviour does not make any division, distribution, or gradation of our baptismal engagements ; neither does He distinguish one person, as more especially, or in a higher degree, the object of those engagements than another. — 7. S. L. Vogan, M.A., 1S37. (3) /// Christ's farewell discourses, John xiv-xvi. [12460] The Divine sovereignt) of the Father being everywhere understood, Christ presents Himself to enforce His own claims as the Son of God through nearly the entire of twelve or thirteen successive chapters. He is now the prominent figure ; His connection with the Father ; His mysterious prerogatives thence arising ; the power and glory of the kingship He inherently possesses as God, and has won to Himself as man ; these are the topics that engage the pen of the Evangelist. In the fifth and sixth chapters, more especially, Christ speaks in a tone of dignity which seems to centre in Himself the whole power of the Godhead. All seems (in comparison) to disappear from the scene except the Second Person, and His claims to unbounded fealty as the sole dispenser of every blessing from His Father to man. He alone is visible between us and heaven ; in Him light, and life, and salvation ; beyond Him clouds, and desolation, and darkness. At length the hour arrives when He

must leave the scene He had so long almost exclusively occupied. Accordingly, His prominence as the main object of the record gradually lessens ; but exactly in proportion as it lessens, a new occupant fills the field of view. Chrisi, simply as Christ, is, in His turn, almost lost in the glory of "another Paraclete" who is "to abide'' with the Church of God "for ever." Thenceforth to the close of His teaching it is this Being who is the principal object disclosed to the spiritual anticipation. — W. Archer Butler, M.A. (4) In the apostolic benediction, 2 Cor. xiii. 14. [12461] We have stated in this text, not merely the three Divine Persons mentioned by

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name, but we have a grand characteristic assigned to each, some great feature by which each one actuates man, brings its influence to bear upon man, and how it is that blessings are

brought down from heaven, from God, and conveyed to those that are the people of God. This text, this benediction, supplies to us what we may call the three great watchwords of the Christian faith — grace, love, and fellowship. There is a triple work ; there must be a triplicate of workers to perform that triple work, and each Person discharging His own individual work. I am not going to enforce upon you a mere dogma or doctrine of the Trinity ; I want to lift it out of dogma into reality, and then it is a proper doctrine. To speak about the offices of the three Divine Persons, and not about the three Divine Persons themselves that fill those offices, would be indeed but poor doctrine. Talk about an office apart from the man, and you talk about a sinecure, you talk about a fiction, you talk about, perhaps, a fancy, you talk about a thing that does not really e.\ist ; but fill the office with the person, fill the niche with the person that is to occupy it, and let us see that office fulfilled, and the work that is to be done there executed, and then all becomes real at once. And so here is the doctrine of the Trinity, that there are three great and effectual works to be wrought upon man. God the Father has undertaken one of these ; that makes Him real, and His work real. God the Son has undertaken another of these ; that makes Him real and His work real ; and God the Holy Ghost has undertaken to discharge the remaining one of these three, and that makes the work and the Person of the Holy Spirit to be alike real. — H. Afaguire, D.D.

(5) In the opening Apocalyptic visions. Rev. i. 4, 5. [12462] Here the Father is described by a periphrasis taken from His attribute of eternity, and the seven spirits is a mystical expression for the Holy Ghost, used upon this occasion either because the salutation is addressed to seven churches, every one of which had partaken of the Spirit, or because seven was a sacred number among the Jews, denoting both variety and perfection, and in this case alluding to the various gifts, administrations, and operations of the Holy Ghost. Since grace and peace are prayed for from these three Persons jointly and without discrimination, we infer an equality in their power to dispense those blessings ; and we further conclude that these three Persons together constitute the Supreme Being, who is alone the object of prayer, and is alone the giver of every good and of every perfect gift. — Bp. Tomline. Xn. Confirmation OF the Doctrine by Arguments drawn fro.m Human Reason. [12463] (i) The eternal existence of Deity being a necessary truth, the attributes of Deity

must exist necessarily and eternally. (2) Some of the attributes are active powers, and must therefore have been eternally active. (31 The

exercise of the Divine attributes necessarily implies both an agent and an object. If intelligence be exercised, there must be an object known, as well as the agent who knows. If power be exercised, there must be both agent and object in its exercise. If love be exercised, there must be an object beloved as well as the agent who loves. (4) The agent and object cannot be numerically, identically, personally, and in every respect thfe same. They involve such different relations to each other as cannot be sustained by an absolute unity. (5) In the exercise of some of the Divine attributes it is essential that the object as well as the agent should be a conscious and intelligent existence. This truth is demonstrative, especially as it applies to the moral attributes, such as truth, justice, holiness, love, and the disposition for communion. (6) Created existence presents a vast collection of objects in reference to which the Divine attributes have been, and still are, exercised ; but, vast as is the aggregate of these objects, the whole are not sufficient, either in duration or extent, for the full, eternal, and infinite exercise of the Divine perfections. (7) The mental archetypes of created existence could not be the adequate objects for the exercise of the Divine attributes. For if the objects, when actually existing, are inadequate, the mere ideas of those objects must be equally insufficient, and therefore eternally insufficient. (81 The Divine nature itself is the only sphere in which God's attributes can have adequate scope for their fullest exercise. His absolute perfection and infinity are as essential as his existence, and

therefore his own nature must be adequate to the fullest scope of the exercise of his attributes ; and as the eternal exercise of his attributes is as essential as the existence of his attributes, it follows, that not only must his nature afford an ample sphere for the fullest exercise of his attributes, but such must be the peculiar mode of his being as to admit the possibility of the Divine attributes being exercised within and upon itself (9) If the Divine nature be the only adequate sphere of the activity and exercise of the Divine attributes, then the jicculiai mode of the Di\ine nature must include both agent and object within itself (10) If the Divine nature include both agent and object within itself, there must be some plurality in the Godhead. (11) If the Divine nature include some ])lurality, it must be a plurality of persons. It would be irrational to suppose a plurality of essences. It cannot be a plurality of offices, for mere offices, however distinct, cannot be agent and object to one another. or can the plurality consist of the Deity and His attributes, for neither can these be reciprocally agent anc' object one to another. The plurality must consist of persons — if the agent be a person, so must the object be a person, for they are reciprocally agent and object to each other. — \V. Cooke, D.D. {condcnscii).

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XIII. Confirmation of the Doctrine BY Arguments drawn fro.m the Religious Consciousness. 1 The Christian doctrine of the Trinity unites and satisfies the wants felt by the cravings of human nature. [12464] There are elements in natural religion which are met by the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. These are : the sense of dependence, the consciousness of man's greatness, and the sense of solitude. The natural man asked himself, " Whence am I ? " and the answer which occurred to him as the most satisfactory was : " ature gave me birth." The earliest form of rational religion is nature-worship, and in this worship nature is the substitute for Fatherhood. The early religion of India stands as the representative of this phase of the first pre-Christian problem. The second is discovered in Greece. Then man had got to know his own importance, and no longer looked up to nature as above him. The result was that mere nature-worship was replaced by the worship of mind, the universal mind, the great soul of the world. This phase of the problem is represented by Platonism. But Platonism,

with its love of the universal, had made man solitary, and human nature craves for companionship. This want was met in the mythology of the West by the deification of men. This phase could not appear at the earliest stage of religious experience. Only after man had conquered nature could he begin to deify himself. He does so in self-defence. In losing nature-worship he has lost the worship of an outward power, and he dreads to find himself alone. To fill the blank he weaves out of himself a new religious world. Thus following the process of human need, we arrive at a threefold thought of God reached by the religious world which lived before the Cross — the thought of a fatherly or begetting principle from which humanity emanated, of a Divine spirit in which humanity has its being, and of a human form which huminity can give to the Divine. The Christian Trinity unites and satisfies the three wants — the first in the Father, the second in the Spirit, the third in the Son. In natural religion the three needs revealed themselves at different times and in different peoples, but their appearance anywhere and at any time showed them to be real needs of man, though not always or equally felt. In the Christian Trinity we see the reconciliation of the elements which the heathen world has divided.—^. B. Bruce, D.D. 2 The doctrine of the Trinity is demanded by Christian experience.

[12465] It arose not from metaphysical speculation imported from without, but from a devotional necessity in men's own hearts ; not from Platonic philosophy, but from the demands of Christian experience, in its inseparable connection with the teachings of the sacred Scriptures, .^nd so now it is the practical interests vol. IV.

of Christian experience, in their connection with the great facts of redemption, that prompt inquiry into this subject. The Christian heart feels that the Christ it adores, and from whom it has received forgiveness of sins, is not a mere creature, however exalted, but is the very brightness of God ; and that the Holy Spirit who reveals Christ to us, and forms Christ within us, is not an impersonal influence, but an everpresent Comforter and Friend, in whom we have communion with God and with all who love God. Here there is manifestly some sort of threeness in the Divine Being. The Christian heart equally demands the Divine unity. The problem is to harmonize these demands. — E. Robie. [12466] My heart demands the Trinity as much as my reason. I want to be sure that God cares for us, that God is our Father, that God has interfered, stooped, sacrificed Himself for us. I do not merely want to love Christ, a Christ, some creation or emanation of God's,

whose will and character for aught I know may be different from God's. I want to love and honour the abysmal God Himself, and none other will satisfy me. o puzzling texts shall rob me of this rest for my heart that Christ is the exact counterpart of Him in whom we live and move and have our being. I say boldly, if the doctrine of the Trinity is not in the Bible, it ought to be, for the whole spiritual nature of man cries out for it. — Charles Kingsley, 1877. [12467] When we reflect upon the author of creation and the author of redemption, there comes into our minds a decided contrast between Him who, when He created all things, gave them over, as it were, to a separate and independent existence, and Him who, in that He redeemed created beings from death and sin, called them back from the struggle they were making to live without God and for themselves alone, to a life of union with God, to a life which comes from God. And so, when we restrict our thoughts to the work of redemption alone, we feel and see a contrast between Him to whom the world was to be reconciled, and Him who made the reconciliation ; between the Father who conceived the purpose of bringing bick a sinful race to blessedness by means of the merits of His Son received by faith, and the Son, who was sent by the Father, and who by His life and doctrine, by His sufferings and work, by His death and resurrection, carried that purpose into eff'ect and wrought out salvation for us.

Accordingly we say that the religious consciousness of the Cliristian seems to demand, not only that we refer our redemption to God, but also that we make a distinction between God so far as we owe to Him our redemption, and God so far as we consider Him as the author of our natural existence. — A. D. C. Tivcsten. [1246S] When I sate as a boy on my mother's

3o6 12468 — 12472]

CHR/Sr/Aiir DOGMATICS. [the normal relations between god and mam.

knees, and learned from her to pray, I believed on God the Father, who reig'ns aloft so great and good, who created the beautiful earth and the beautiful men and women that are upon it, who to sun and moon and stars foretold their appointed course. And when I grew a little older and bigger, then I understood more and more, then 1 took in new truth with my reason and my understanding, and I believed on the Son — the well-beloved Son, who in His love

revealed to us what love is, and who for His own reward, as always happens, was crucified by the senseless world. And now that I am grown up, and that I have read many books and travelled in many lands, my heart swells, and with all my heart I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of God. He it is who works the greatest of miracles, and greater miracles yet shall He work than we have yet seen. He it is who breaks down all the strongholds of oppression and sets the bondmen free. He it is who heals old death-wounds and throws into the old law new life. Through Him it is that all men become a race of nobles, equal in the sight of God. Through Him are dispersed the black clouds and dark cobwebs that bewilder our hearts and brains. — Heine. XIV. Illustrations of the Trinity. I Preliminary remark respecting the purpose for which they are used. [12469] Any illustration on the subject of the Trinity should be used with the deepest reverence. one such are quoted here, not because there is not some aptness in them ; but what Hilary says is most true — "They may gratify the understanding of man, but none of them e.xactly suit the nature of God." " Sir, in these matters," said one of our reformers, " I am so fearful that I dare not speak further. Yea, almost none otherwise than as the Scriptures, as it were, lead me by the hand." — Rev. G. S. Bowes.

[12470] It is sometimes erroneously supposed that such illustrations as this are intended to explain how the sacred mystery in question is possible, whereas they are merely intended to show that the words we use concerning it are not self-contradictory, which is the objection most commonly brought against them. To say that the doctrine of the .Son's generation does not entrench upon the Father's perfection and immutability seems at first inconsistent witli what the words Father and Son mean, till another image is adduced, such as the sun and radiance, in which that alleged contradiction is seen to exist in fact. Here one image corrects another ; and the accumulation of images is not, as is often thought, the restless and fruitless effort of the mind to enter into the mystery, but is a safeguard against any one image, nay, any collection of images, being supposed sufficient. If it be said that the language used concerning the sun and its radiance is but popular, not philosophical, so again the Catholic lan-

guage concerning the Holy Trinity may, nay, must be economical, not adequate, conveying the truth, not in the tongues of angels, but under human modes of thought and speech. — John Henry ewman, D.D. 2 Illustrations drawn from physical laws. [12471] Indications of complex unity meet us

at every turn. One of the most striking is found in binocular vision. If we look at an object, each eye takes in a perfectly independent, separate and distinct, spectrum. Indeed, the two spectra are not absolutely identical ; yet we see but one object with our two eyes, and by no effort of our will can we see two. The facts of the case are very plainly brought out by means of the stereoscope ; but the stereoscope does no more than explain to us w-hat takes place whenever we open our eyes. Again, in a musical chord there is no mixture or confusion of the three sounds. The ear perceives each separately and by itself ; yet all three form one sound. What is more, the notes of the triad have a certain correlation which cannot be displaced. Invert them as you may, the tonic, the mediant, and the dominant retain each its characteristic properties. To say that one is three may be numerically false, but there are other departments in nature where it is true, and thus, when discussing the nature of God, it is absurd to suppose that we are bound by arithmetical considerations. — Church Times, 18S4. [12472] It is quite conceivable that there might be one living force manifested in three different ways, without its being a Trinity. Let us try and understand this by an illustration. Conceive a circular thin plate of metal ; above it you would see it such ; at some yards distance as an oval ; sideways, edgeways, a line. This might be the account of God's different aspects : in one relationship to us seen

as the Father, in another as the Son, in another as the Spirit ; but this is not the doctrine of the Trinity, it is a heresy, known in old times by the name of Sabellianism or modal Trinity, depending on our position in reference to Him. Further, this is not merely the same part of His nature, seen in different aspects, but diverse parts of His complex being — persons — three causes of this manifestation. Just as our reason, our memory, our imagination, are not the same, but really ourselves. Let us take another illustration. A single white ray of light falling on a certain object appears red ; on another, blue ; on another, yellow. That is, the red alone in one case is thrown out, the blue or yellow in another. So the different parts of the one ray by turns become visible ; each is a complete ray, yet the original white ray is but one. So w-e believe that in that unity of essence there are three living Powers which we call Persons, distinct from each other. It is in virtue of His own incommunicable essence that God is the Father. It is the human side of His nature by which He is revealed as the Son, so that it was

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CHRISTIA DOGMATICS. 307 [THE ORMAL RELATIOS BETWEE GOD AD MA.

not, so to speak, a matter of choice whether the Son or the Father should redeem the world. We believe that from all eternity there was that in the mind of God which 1 have called its human side, which made it possible for Him to be imaged in humanity ; and that again named the Spirit, by which He could mix and mingle Himself with us. This is the doctrine of the Trinity, explained now, not to point the damnatory clause of the Athanasian Creed, but only in order to seize joyfully the favourable opportunity of professing a firm belief in the dogmatic truth of the Trinity.—/'. W. Robertson, M.A. 3 Illustrations drawn from psychological and metaphysical laws. [12473] ^^'fi can distinguish in ourselves a threefold way of viewing our own personality (a threefold me) ; that which is hidden in the ground of our being, which comes out of this ground, and views itself as an object ; this objective personality, in which we look at ourselves objectively ; and, again, a subjective personality, a viewing of this second, objective personality, as being still identical with, or nothing other than ourselves ; and as these three are yet one and the same person (the same /), only seen in diflerent aspects or referred back to itself in different ways, in the same manner the Divine nature presents itself to our consideration under three internal rela-

tions. Considered as generating the image (or idea) of itself, it is the Father ; considered as existing in the eternal idea (a thought) of itself, it is the Logos, the Son ; considered as having this thought of itself in distinct vision, or as returning back from it again into itself, it is the Spirit. But it returns back in order again to proceed forth in action, to unfold in the world the riches of the Divine omnipotence, wisdom, and love ; for with the very thought of His infinite perfections, united as this must be with the highest complacency in them, we also conceive that there is connected the will or purpose of God, to bring these perfections mto full view in the world, and to impart His own blessedness to His creatures. — A. D. C. Twesten. [12474] Take three — the will, the affections, and the thoughts of man. His will is not his affections, neither are his affections his thoughts; and it would be imperfect and incomplete to say that these are mere qualities in the man. They are separate consciousnesses, liv-ing consciousnesses — as distinct and as really sundered as it is possible for three things to be, yet bound together by one unity of consciousness. ow we have distincter proof than even this that these things are three. The anatomist can tell you that the localities of these powers are different. He can point out the seat of the nerve of sensation ; he can localize the feeling of affection ; he can point to a nerve and say, " There resides the locality of thought." There are three distinct localities for three distinct Qualities, personalities, consciousnesses ; yet all

these three are one. Once more, we will give

proof even beyond all that. The act that a man does is done by one particular part of that man. You may say it was a work of his genius, or of his fancy ; it may have been a manifestation of his love, or an exhibition of his courage ; yet that work was the work of the whole man : his courage, his intellect, his habits of perseverance, all helped towards the completion of that single work. Just in this way certain special works are attributed to certain personalities of the Deity ; the work of redemption being attributed to one, the work of sanctification to another. And yet just as the whole man was engaged in doing that work, so does the whole Deity perform that work which is attributed to one essential. — F. IV. Robertson, M.A. 4 Illustration drawn from the relation of moral law to the author of law. [12475] We may perhaps illustrate the eternal or timeless relation of the Son to the Father by the relation of moral law to the author of law. God did not create moral law any more than He created His own being ; yet moral law is derived from God, and resides in God, and is eternally dependent on God. Moral law is as eternal as God Himself; yet it does not and cannot exist separate from or independent of God. It has its source and seat and strength in the bosom of God for ever. So God did not create the Son ; but the Son is derived from

the Father, and is in the bosom of the Father. The Son is as eternal as the Father ; but He can do nothing of Himself; His whole being is in and of the Father, and whatsover things the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son. — E. Robie. XV. Importance and Practical Efficiency OF THE Doctrine. X It has enriched and enlarged our concep. tion of God. [12476] When we now think of God, the ever-blessed object of trust and worship, we think of a Being who is one, yet not single. His unity of moral life results from the perfect interaction of a plurality, and this is a higher and more fruitful sort of life than if He were an absolutely simple unit — a monad. At least, we find that, in all sorts of created life we know, the higher or nobler the life, the more complexity is found in it. From the newly inorganic simplicity of a polypus to the infinite riches of man's manifold being, with its exquisite trinity of body, soul, and spirit, you can trace this law of life : the more complex life is, involving the interaction of various parts, so much the more fertile and noble does life become. What is single remains alone ; it is capable of little fruit. Thus a fixed and rigid monotheism is the most blank or the least productive of all creeds, as you can see in that sternest and most barren faith of islam. The Mohammedan world reposes with a latalistic, death-like torpor upon this solitary tenet : there is but one God. And in that single God

is no play of affection, no interaction of life, no human likeness ; nothing but a mechanical and

3o8

ii.476 — 12480]

christian dogmatics. [the normal relations between god and man.

fateful decree, which lies on human hearts like a gravestone. Contrast with this, I pray you, the rich and lovely and manifold play of social afiections which Scripture suggests within the ever-blessed and sacred Three. Our God reveals Himself as eternally capable of the most perfect blessedness, because He was never solitary, even when alone. Before creation began to rise, within the awful depths of an eternity v.here nothing was save God, we already discern at the heart of the infinite Deity this sacred companionship. God is not now — He never was — simply and solely " I."— 7. Oswald Dykes, D.D.

2 It is the necessary means of manifesting and supporting in the mind of our race a faith in the true personality of God. [12477] The actual departures from this faith have been in two directions. On one side, the religious sentiment, subjected to a process of intellectual generalization, has resulted in Pantheism. On the other side, the religious sentiment, subjected to a process of sensual limitation, results in some form of idolatry. Despairing to conceiveof personality without limitation, some men rush over to the one ; despairing of retaining a Deity near enough for love and sympathy who is literally infinite, others stop short with a deity who is not God. These implanted wants are wonderfully satisfied in the Divine Trinity. In the absolute and one only Godhead all man's highest, purest, largest, most far-reaching conceptions, stretching away into the regions of infinitude, eternity, almightiness, have their full and complete e.xercise. In the incarnate Christ, taking up our humanity, the longing for a personal, sympathizing, companionable Deity, is blessedly answered — and yet God is there ; there is no loss of the essential and veritable Deity. In the Holy Spirit, the natural desire of the devout mind to connect God with all the operations of the present world, the processes of creation, the welfare, renewal, revolutions, sanctification of the human family, finds its lawful verification. — £p. Huntiiii^ton. 3 It affords the only possible basis for a

just revelation and representation of the Fatherhood of God. [12478] It is a fatal objection to the Unitarian theories of this subject, as viewed under the teaching of the Scriptures, that God is nowhere represented, or named, as the Father, till after the appearing of Christ. It is also an objection equally fatal to the Sabellian theory, which, as commonly understood, represents that God is the Father, in virtue of His creation and government of the world. For if He is the Father simply as the one God, by wh.at accident does it hapjien that He never gets the appellation till aficr the coming of Christ? Or, if He gets it as the Creator and Governor of the world, the world was created and governed long before that day, why, then, is He still unknown as ll.e Father? True, He is called a Fatlier, just as

He is called a rock, or a tower, but never the Father, as in the baptismal formula, and by Christ ordinarily. There is, in fact, no real and proper development of the Father, which is older than Christianity, and here the designation is developed in connection with the Son and Holy Spirit as a threefold denomination of God. —H. Bushnell, D.D. 4 It provides the only adequate basis for communication between God and man. [12479] Revelation seenjs to encourage us in

believing that the chief ultimate object of religion is to elevate man into affinity with his Creator. For this he was created in Paradise ; l/iis the new creation is to regain. To ensure this community of nature Christ came on earth in ours in order that first occupying our nature He might spread His own through us. Hence was he made at first in " the image" of God ; hence are we perpetually reminded that the spiritual life on earth is conformity to the image of the Son ; hence the glory of heaven is declared to consist in being "like Him," as "seeing Him as He is." ow mark, through the entire compass of the ew Testament this mystical communion between man's soul and the powers of eternity is, without a sh.-. IL Theories of Creation IIL Its Ascription to the Three Persons of the Godhead IV. Biblical Doctrine and Geological Science V. Superiority of the Biblical to other Cosmogonies VI. Analogy between the Works of God and the Works of Man VII. Evolution as related to the Creation VIII. The Plan of the World IX. The Biblical Record of Creation

X. The System of ature in the Universe specially considered XI. Special Characteristics of the Divine Work XII. The Purpose of Creation Generally XIII. The Divine Attributes implied in the Act XIV. The Consummation of the Perfect Plan of the World in the Creation of Man XV. Man's Threefold Constituency of Body, Soul, and Spirit Distinctively an Conjointly considered XVI. The Institution of atural Law in Divine Government XVII. The World of Spirits Generally XVIII. The Angelic Host XIX. The Powers of Darkness and the Dominion of Satan

rAGB 320 320 321 321

322 322 323 323 325 329 340 340 342 343 347 354 361 364 370

320

THE ORMAL RELATIOS BETWEE GOD AD MA {Continued). DIVISIO C. ^ THE CHRISTIA DOCTRIE OF CREATIO.

I. Definitions of Creation. I Creation is the absolute bringing into existence of the world by God. [12517] It is tnat act of God by which He, standing before and above all mundane and natural things, made and arranged the universe. It embraces everything which is not God. — J. F. Hurst, D.D. [125 18] Creation is the power of God causing beings and things to spring into existence from nothing, and thus filling immensity with the works of His hand. The creations of man (as they are termed) are wonderful. But they are confined to casting into new forms, and bringing into original combinations, materials furnished to his hands. He cannot originate a single particle of that matter upon which he exercises his skill. The power of causing something to exist from nothing belongs to Omnipotence alone. — VV. C. Wisner. [125 19] Creation is not something rising up out of absolute nonentity. It assumes existence in one form, it supposes Being, Being infinite and eternal — but only this. As the act of the eternal One, creation is not the bringing of something out 0/ nothing, as if nothing were either the material or the place out of which something is brought. It is not the conversion

of nothing into something, as if nothing were a kind of substratum on which the Infinite Power acted. But, so far as we are capable of conceiving and embodying it, creation is "causing existence to begin ;" an instant ago, it is supposed, there was absolutely nothing save the Infinite Life, but this instant something else has begun to be. — y. Youn^, LL.D, II. Theories of Creation. I The Deistic. [12520] The Deist so far agrees with the Christian as to admit that God is related to the world as its Creator ; and that He must have made it out of nothing by the fiat of His will. But with this admission — momentous as it is — the old Deism practically closes its account of God's free personal action upon His

work. Since the creation, God's action is represented as being practically superseded by a system of unchangeable routine ; and this routine is conceived to be so strictly invariable as to bind the liberty of the presumed Agent. The Deistic theory of the universe might remind us of the relations which, at least until some very recent events, were understood to exist between the Government of Eg)'pt and the Sublime Porte. There was occasionally a formal recognition of the sovereign power on the part of the nominal dependency, but Egypt w-as governed by a practically independent viceroy ; the

suzerain's name was mentioned rarely, or only in a formal way ; his active influence would have been at once resented, the real power being lodged elsewhere. According to the old Deism, God created the world ; but He cannot be supposed ever to interfere with the ordinary laws of its government. He cannot work miracles ; He is, in no tangible sense, a Providence. He is well out of the way of active human interests : it is not to be supposed that He can hear the prayer of a worm writhing on one of His planets ; that the happiness or misfortunes of a larger sort of animalcuUe can give Him any real concern. — Canon Liddon. 2 The atomic. [12521] We must be informed how the universe came to be a universe ; how it came to have a unity which underlies its diversity ; if it resulted from a countless multitude of ultimate causes. Did the atoms take counsel together, and devise a common plan and work it out ? That hypothesis is unspeakably absurd, and yet it is rational in comparison with the notions that these atoms combined by mere chance, and by chance produced such a universe as that in which we live. Grant all the atoms of matter to be eternal, grant all the properties and forces which with the smallest degree of probability can be claimed for them to be eternal and immutable, and it is still beyond all expression improbable that these atoms with these forces, if unarranged, uncombined, ununified, unutilized by a presiding mind, would give rise to anything

entitled to be called a universe. It is millions to one that they would never produce the simplest of the regular arrangements which we

12521—12326]

CHKISTIAU DOG.IfAT/CS. 321 [the normal relations between god and man.

comprehend under the designation of the course of nature, or the lowest of vegetable or animal organism ; millions of millions to one that they would never produce a solar system, the earth, the animal kingdom, or human history. o number of material atoms, although eternal and endowed with mechanical force, can ex])lain the unity and order of the universe, and therefore the supposition of their existence, does not free us from the necessity of believing in a single intelligent cause — a supreme mind — to move and mould, combine and adjust, the ultimate atoms of matter into a single orderly system. — Pro/. Flint {condensed). III. Its Ascription to the Three Persons of the Godhfad. [12522] Creation is ascribed to each Person of

the Trinity ; to God absolutely, Gen. i. i ; the Father, i Cor. viii. 6 ; the Son, John i. 3 ; Col. i. 16, 17; Heb. i. 3; the Holy Spirit, Gen. i. 3; Job xxvi. 13 ; Psa. civ. 30 (cf. the three divisions of the icene Creed). — G. S. Bowes, B.A. IV. Biblical Doctrine and Geological SaECE. I Their comparison. [12523] In the present condition of geological science, and with the great obscurity of the record of creation in Gen. i., it may be wise not to attempt an accurate comparison of the one with the other. Some few points, however, seem clearly to come out. In Genesis, first of all, creation is spoken of as " in the beginning," a period of indefinite, possibly of most remote distance in the past ; secondly, the progress of the preparation of the earth's surface is described as gradually advancing from the rocks to the vegetable world, and the less perfectly organized animal creation, then gradually mounting up through birds and mammals, till it culminates in man. This is the course of creation as popularly described in Genesis, and the rocks give their testimony, at least in general, to the same order and progress. The chief difference, if any, of the two witnesses would seem to be, that the Rocks speak of (i) marine plants, (2) marine animals, (3) land plants, (4) land animals in their successive developments ; whereas Moses speaks of (i) plants, (2) marine animals, (3) land animals ; a difference not amounting

to divergence. As physiology must have been nearly, and geology wholly unknown to the Semitic nations of antiquity, such a general correspondence of sacred history with modern science is surely more striking and important than any apparent difference in details. Efforts have been made to compare the Indian cosmogony with the Biblical, which utterly fail. The cosmogony of the Hindoos is thoroughly adapted to their pantheistic theology ; the Hebrew corresponding with the pure personal monotheism of the Old Testament. The only important resemblance of any ancient cosmogony with the VOL. IV.

Scriptural account is to be found in the Persian or Zoroastrian. — Bp. Harold Browne. 2 Their harmony. (i) The Scripture doctrine is not at variance with science itself, but with the ever varying scientific guesses. [12524J There is not one fact— one observed phenomenon of geology — that has the slightest conflict with any statement of the Scriptures. The conflict is between the guesses of geologists as to the cause of the phenomena, or their age, or relative order of succession. There is not one geologic hypothesis now accepted that has stood the test of a score of years. There is not

one geologic theory or hypothesis that may not be overturned to-morrow by the discovery of some phenomenon or fact now unknown. Over one hundred years ago the French Association of Science publislied a list of over eighty geologic hypotheses that had been accepted for a time and then exploded and abandoned. Over twenty years ago Lyell added fifty to the list, and as many have followed since that time. We can safely say that within the last one hundred and fifty years over one hundred and fifty theories or speculations have been suggested as hypotheses in geology and exploded and abandoned. Many of these were the fundamental ideas of geology in their day, and were urged as established scientific truths, and most of them were arrayed against the Scriptures, and men were arrogantly called upon to cast to one side the faith of ages because it did not accord with these guesses that their advocates have since abandoned, and some of which they would blush to have attributed to them. These conflicting, changing, inconsistent speculations have each tried to act usurper in its ephemeral moment of existence, and then given place to some new pretender. — Clark Braden. [12525] The Eible, in its very first word, affirms a beginning. Science also, when closely examined, points not obscurely to the same truth. Both exclude, as a mere figment, the idea of a succession of past ages of time, strictly infinite, a view which strives to escape from a Divine mystery, only to involve us in a direct contradiction of sound reason. — T. R. Birks.

[12526] There is, account for it as we may, a general correspondence between the record in the Bible and the record in stone. My friend Hugh Miller may not have been able to point out an identity in every minute particular ; but he has certainly established a general congruity. There is an order and there is a progression very much the same in both. In both there is light before the sun appears. In Genesis, the fiat goes forth, " Let there be light, and there was light " the first day, and the sun comes forth only the fourth — in accordance with science, which tells us that the earth was thrown off ages before the sun had become condensed into the centre of the planetary system. In both, the inanimate comes before the

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CHRISTIA DOGMATICS. [the nokmal relations between god and man.

animate ; in both, the grass and herb and tree, before the animal ; in both, fishes and fowls, before creeping things and cattle. In both we

have, as the last of the train, man standing upright, and facing the sky ; made of the dust of the ground, and yet filled with the inspiration of God. Such is the correspondence between science and Scripture. You will find no such correspondence between modern discovery and any work of heathen mythology. Eastern or \\"estern. Prima facie, there must be a great truth in that opening chapter of Genesis, which has anticipated geology by three thousand years. —7. McCosh, D.D. [12527] I. The Bible recognizes the intimate connection shown by science to subsist between the parts constituting the material universe. 2. Scripture teaches what all sober science affirms, and what atheistic theories do not disprove, that the universe is not eternal, but had a beginning both as to matter and form. 3. Reason and science unite in testifying that the universe is the effect of an adequate cause, one intelligent and powerful. The Scripture teaches that that cause is the all-wise and all-powerful God. 4. Although not eternal, the material universe, as now constituted, is scientifically demonstrated to be of vast antiquity. The Bible nowhere assigns a date to the origin of the world. 5. The order of successive creations in Genesis is on the whole the order of geologj'. 6. Both agree that life once begun has ever since been continued without pause or interruption. 7. Both affirm that man's appearance is of comparatively recent date ; and 8. That with the introduction of man creation came to a close. This striking similarity cannot be the result of accident ; and

it would be equally preposterous to attribute to Moses or his contemporaries any knowledge of physical science ; and yet the author writes in a way unattainable even by philosophers until within a recent period, and as if acquainted with the sciences of the present day. The harmony above traced is explicable only on the principle that the Creator Himself is the author and source of this record of the production of this almighty pov^er. — D. Macdonald, M.A. {condensed). V. Superiority OF THE BiELiCAL TO OTHER Cosmogonies. [12528] I. Coincidences, (i) Intimations of a primeval darkness corresponding to the "darkness on the face of the deep." (2) An unarranged chaos — an empty, desolate waste, " without form and void." (3) The preponderance of water in connection with this stale of things. (4) The widely spread notions concerning the mundane e^'idently connected with " the Spirit brooded on the face of the waters," from which probably originated the designation of the Spirit as a.doz'e. (5) The advance from the imperfect to the higher and more perfect forms. (6) The origin of animals from the earth, and man's likeness to the Lord's. How are these coincidences to be accounted

for ? ot on the hypotheses of (i) accident, or (2) the nature of the case, or (3) the Bible, because the traditions are found among nations

far beyond its range, reaching back to the remotest times, but (4) in the theory of a primeval tradition extending back to the cradle of the race. 2. Contrasts, (i) The Biblical is distinguished by the absence of everything fanciful and absurd, with which the others teem. (2) The Biblical betrays nothing of a local or national character, whereas the others are indelibly stamped with them. (3) The Biblical is characterized by correct and worthy conceptions of the Creator, the rest either ignore Divine interposition, ascribe eternity to matter, introduce some demiurgic principle, or exhibit a supreme Being in a way degrading, confused, and indistinct. (4) The Biblical is simple, grand, and consistent, embodying all the truths in heathen cosmogonies, but free from their chaotic, grotesque, and self-contradictory representation. — Ibid.

VI. Analogy between the Works of God and the Works of Man. [12529] Between the stupendous structure of the universe and the tinyedifices built by human hands — between the great home of humanity and the little home of the individual man, vast as is the difterence in scale, there is yet a unity of principle and design, and we can interpret the one by the other. The cyclopean powers of nature and the puny hand of man, dilTerent

as are the style and the materials of their masonr)', yet work essentially according to the same plan. We can trace between them a correspondence of parts and an identity of design. It is, for example, no mere figure, but a simple fact, to say that the solid strata of the earth's rocky crust are its floor, the firm basis which sustains its manifold furniture, and all its forms of busy life— that the mountain ranges are its partition walls, the dividing barriers of nations, and boundaiy lines ofdiverse regions and climes — that the seas and rivers are its passages, busy lines of communication between country and country, the separate chambers, as it were, of the great family home — that the quarries and mines are its store vaults, wherein the Great Householder, provident of the wants of His whole family, hath piled up supplies adequate to the necessities of a world, and the consumption of thousands of years. Such analogies require only to be stated to strike every mind with all the force of truth ; and the more deeply we reflect on the subject, the more clearly and impressively does that grand unity reveal itself. The works of God and the works of man are seen to correspond to one another, as the sun to a drop of dew ; and the great globe itself, and all which it inherits, stands before the mind's eye as but the sublime and perfect archetype of each little dwelling of earth, or wood, or stone, which each man builds for himself, and in which he

125=9— '=534]

christian dogmatics. 323 [the normal relations between god and man.

plants his hearth and his home. — J. Hamilton, D.D. VII. Evolution as related to the Creation. I Its definition. [12530] ature's great progression from the formless to the formed, from the inorganic to the organic, from blind force to conscious intellect and will. — Prof. HuxUy. a Summary of its failures. [12531] First, it fails to account for the origin of life, or to show that it is possible to produce living out of non-living matter. Until it can effect this it is useless for the purposes of atheism. Strange to say, unbelief is compelled to live by faith. It is confident that the discovery will be made hereafter. -Secondly, it fails to give any account of the origin of those qualities, which the original germs of life must have possessed, in order that a

starting-point may be found for the course of evolution which it propounds. Thirdly, it assumes the concurrence of a multitude of fortunate chances, so numerous as to approximate to the infinite, of what common sense refuses to believe to be possible, and which hopelessly conflict with the mathematical doctrine of chances and probabilities. Fourthly, it demands an interval of time for the carrying out of this vast process of evolution, which although abstractedly possible, other branches of science refuse to concede to it as lying within the existing order of things. Fifthly, it utterly fails to bridge over that profound gulf which separates the moral from the material universe, the universe of freedom from the universe of necessity. All that it can urge with respect to the origin of life and of free agency, is that it hopes to be able to propound a theory at some future time which shall be able to account for these phenomena. Sixthly, the theory in question, including the Darwinian theory of the production of the entire mass of organisms that have existed in the past, and exist in the present, by the sole agency of natural selection, without the intervention of intelligence, is in fact a re-statement in a disguised form of the old theory of the production of all the adaptations and correlations in the universe, by the concurrence of an infinite number of fortunate chances — a theory

which contradicts the primary intuitions of our intellectual being. Seventhly, as a fact, the recorded observations by mankind for the last, say, four thousand years, show no instance of evolution of one species from another, but display variation, not infinite but limited, and recurrent to the original form. Eighthly, as a fact, geology (Palaeontology) shows the same absence of such evolution and of indefinite variation. inthly, all the ascertained facts point only

to creation by a plan, or in accordance with a rule, which permits variability within discoverable limits, and requires adaptation, and therefore furnishes no evidence of evolution of species. Let me set before the reader in two sentences the result of the foregoing reasonings. The atheistic theory of evolution utterly breaks down as affording a rational account of the origin of adaptations and correlations with which every region of the universe abounds. Consequently the theistic account of their origin, which satisfies alike sound philosophy and common sense, is the only adequate one ; or, in other words, they have originated in an intelligence which is possessed of a power ade-

quate to their production. — C. A. Row. VIII. The Plan of the World. 1 Its meaning. [12532] By a plan of the world we mean that which God definitely ivil/s, and thus consequently presents to Himself as iht/inal aim of all His works, in contradistinction from that which He either does not will, or does not thus will. o Divine world of ideas, in the Platonic sense, herein stands before our mind ; but a holy, Divine decree, for which that, which at God's behest became gradually realized, already existed beforehand in thought. — Van Ooster::ee. 2 Its proofs. (l) The prc-existence of some plan proved from marks of order in the world. ['-533] If there be an order and harmony, there must be an orderer, one that " made the earth by His power, established the world by His wisdom, and stretched out the heavens by His discretion " (Jer. x. 12). Order being the effect, cannot be the cause of itself. Order is the disposition of things to an end, and is not intelligent, but implies an intelligent orderer ; and therefore it is as certain that there is a God as it is certain there is order in the world. Order is an effect of reason and counsel ; this reason and counsel must have its residence in some being before this order was fixed. The

things ordered are always distinct from that reason and counsel whereby they are ordered ; and also after it, as the effect is after the cause. o man begins a piece of work but he hath the model of it in his own mind ; no man builds a house or makes a watch but he hath the idea or copy of it in his own head. This beautiful world bespeaks an idea of it or a model, since there is such a magnificent wisdom in the make of each creature, and the proportion of one creature to another ; this model must be before the world, as the pattern is always before the thing that is wrought by it. This therefore must be in some intelligent and wise agent, and this is Qodi.— Cliainock. 3 Its systematized method. [12534] I. Matter is brought into being. It

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is rudimental. The Holy Ghost — whose special province is process, evolution, organization — broods over the elemental abyss. There are dividings and combinings, and, at length, there is a becoming of light, with (doubtless) its kindred agents, such as heat, electricity,magnetism. Processes go on, and the atmosphere is constituted. The new agents become additional forces in the great laboratory ; and there results the mineral kingdom, with its gradations of rocks, clays, chemical compounds, and crystalline formations. 2. The mineral kingdom is a preparation for higher planes of being. From the organizing processes of the brooding Spirit the floral world has a becoming. All that have gone before have been made tributary to this. It takes them up and assimilates them, transforming them into living organisms of root, and trunk, and bough, and frond, and flower, and fruit, and seed. 3. The vegetable system is a prophecy of something higher. It has scant meaning if it is to find its end in itself. In due time the animal world appears. It gathers up into itself the elements of all below it, and exalts them into the more complex and nobler organisms of flesh and blood, bone and sinew, nerve and brain, sensation, instinct, affection, and will. [12535] "Out of the depths of eternity. He

looked onwards to the period when creation should commence." From everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was, when therewere no depths, no fountains abounding with water, when as yet He had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest parts of the dust of the world. He anticipated the period when all these would be. Beyond this, He looked on to the remote period when the earth should be prepared for the reception and sustenance of animal life. He saw its forests wave ; its waters roll ; its surface clothed with verdure ; and the whole replenished with variousordersof sentient being. Ages beyond, and when, by successive creations and mighty intervals of change, the earth should have been slowly prepared for the reception of a being such as man. His eye fixed on the time when, in order to that event. He should prepare the heavens, and set a compass upon the face of the deep ; when He should establish the clouds above ; and when He should give to the sea His decree that the waters should not pass His commandment. Already in His prescient view the sun had received its final commission to shine, and earth had received its general outline of Alp, and Apennine, and Himalaya — of Atlantic, Pacific, and Mediterranean. Already Eden bloomed, and a river went out of it to water the garden. Man's mansion was prepared, but where was the great inhabitant ? The theatre was ready — where was the being in whose introduction the mighty drama should begin? Already in intention He saw that creature come, radiant in His own image — the crown of creation : and, as He saw. He already

heard "the morning stars sing together:" saw earth's first sabbath dawn ; beheld man's

earliest act of adoration ; and pronounced the whole to be " good." Even then, though existing only in His Divine purpose, " He rejoiced in the habitable parts of the earth, and His delights were with the sons of men ; " His blessing enlarging Japheth and causing him to dwell in the tents of Shem. His purpose had formed the great continents of the earth, had smoothed the valleys where nations should be cradled, and given directions to the course of the rivers whose banks should become the seat of empire. The actual distribution of Canaan among the tribes of Israel was only'the transcription of an eternal plan. " Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations ; ask thy father and he will show thee, thy elders and they will tell thee, when the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance ; when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel." Before Moses, before Pisgah itself, from which Moses looked down on the promised land, existed — His eye had looked down from the height of His sanctuary, and had beheld perspectively that Sinai whence His law should be given ; that Zion which should be crowned with His temple; that Calvary which should sustain the mystery of the cross. —7. Harris, D.D.

4 Its inscrutable wisdom. (i) The scheme cf the creation, be its character ■what it may, is constructed with a view to long ■processes and far-off results. [12536] Science might teach its disciples that processes which demand a long patience before their results are disclosed are likely to exercise it to the full ; and that many curious, difficult, and perplexing phenomena are sure to present themselves, especially in the earlier stages of the evolution. A substance that has to undergo many modifications, and to pass through many transformations, is sure to puzzle and bewilder the patient observer at some point, probably at many points, of its development. But he watches and waits cheerfully, sure that, if he has followed the right method, it will justify his faith and patience by the result. And the Scripture tells us that it is thus, and must be thus, with the scheme of the creation. The Scripture tells us that God demands eternity to work out His plan in the creature ; and that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain with the burden of an issue which eternity only can reveal. — J. Baldwin Brown, B.A. 5 Its grandeur and perfection. ['2537] The exaltedness of this plan already appears when we consider it in itself It is wholly unlimited, and comprehends all that exists. Consciously or unconsciously, all must subserve and work together to one adorable

end. It is, moreover, purely moral, such as is only to be expected of a holy God ; the founding of one spiritual kingdom of truth and love, of holiness and blessedness. The solution of the highest life-questions for the individual man

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and for humanity lies thus, not in the physical, not even in the purely intellectual, hut in the religious and ethical domain. This Divine plan of the world is moreover independent IlwA. eternal. It was not first formed to counteract the effects of sin. either reason nor Scripture affords ground for the opinion that the free will of sinful man has set aside God's original design. On the contrary, God's plan with regard to the world dates from before the times of the ages ; and even the abuse of freedom made by man was taken up by God as a link in the chain of its development. It has its ground, not in the creature, but in God's own sovereign, immutable good pleasure, and has as its centre Him in whom, as its spiritual Head, the whole of humanity is represented before God, the chosen

One, in whom the good pleasure of the Father is fulfilled to an ever greater extent. — Van Oosterzcc [condensed). [12538] In an intelligent creature, we are accustomed to regard it as an indication of deficiency in wisdom to proceed without a plan or previous arrangement. And, if the system of operations be extensive, involving many interests, along with his own credit and his own happiness, such a pre-arrangement is considered by us all the more necessary. We extol the sagacity of the projector in proportion to the comprehensiveness and completeness of his plan ; the amount of skill discovered in the mutual adjustment of all its parts, as well as of shrewd and penetrating foresight in anticipating and providing against difficulties, and probable or even possible hindrances and interruptions. It were surely to impute to Deity a wisdom less than human to suppose Him, in the creation and government of the universe, to act without a plan. And if He does act upon a plan, that plan must, in all its larger and minor details, be absolutely and unimprovably perfect. — R. IVardhiw, D.D. 6 Its connection with the doctrine of God. [12539] The connection between the discussion of the idea of God and that of the Divine plan of the world is not difficult to discover. Thus far we have been learning to know God as the self-conscious and freely working Spirit, who possesses in Himself an infinite fulness of

life, which, as He is the highest Love, He cannot cease to reveal and to communicate to others. That He actually has done and is doing this, is apparent from a glance at His works. But these works are simply the expression and realization of an eternal thought of God ; and in order properly to comprehend them, the knowledge of the Divine plan of the world is necessary beforehand. — Van Oosterzee [condensed). 7 Its moral and redemptive aspects. [12540] There is and there must ever have been a settled plan in the moral, as in the material world. But nothing can be more manifest than that the plan is not human. There has been no compact, no concert among

men, and there is no such thing now, for carrying out this holy design. It is true that men have been the acting parties ; so far as has been apparent to the eye, they have been the only acting parties. But the plan has been heaven's alone ; the great laws of the moral world, also, which have reigned in all its movements have been from above, and the entire machinery, by which whatever success is yet witnessed has been gained, and by which perfect ultimate success shall be achieved, is Divine. — T". Young, LL.D. [12541] Redemption was purposed from the first as the means of manifesting, not to the

fallen creature only, but to the wliole universe, the fulness of the Divine nature, the perfect wisdom, the perfect righteousness, and the perfect love of God. Redemption was not devised as the means by which the wreck which sin had wrought might just be repaired, and the purpose and hope which the Fall had frustrated might just be realized. It is distinctly set forth in Scripture as the means by which results might be secured for the universe through eternity, which without such a " work of God " would have been for ever impossible ; by which the Dix'ine nature would be able to reveal itself with a fulness, and man's nature would be lifted to a height, which would make the new creation, through which the keynote of redemption should reign, the theatre of the unfolding of a transcendently beautiful, blessed, and glorious life, the life of beings trained by trial, perfected by suffering, and prepared by a rich, full, and deep experience of all the possibilities of freedom, to enter into the fellowship of the Divine life through eternity. The true statement of the matter is that, had redemption remained a dream of possibility instead of a power — the power of God to rule and to bless the creation, and to fulfil its highest hope — God would have remained a name, a shadowy shape without form or voice, to the very noblest and loftiest of His creatures ; and the race most capable of knowing, loving, and serving Him would have been left to mourn over the impotence or the indifference of the supreme. — 7". Baldwin Brown,

B.A. 8 Its end in view. [12542] The plan of the world has in view nothing less than the founding of a kingdom of God, immeasurable in extent, under one Head, the God-man ; through whom all the members stand in the closest relation to each other and to Him. The gradual realization of this thought, fraught with all blessing, to the glorifying of His name, is the final aim of all God's works. — Van Oosterzee {condensed). IX. The Biblical Record of Cre.^tion. I The sources of the narrative [12543] We cannot suppose that man was placed on the earth in ignorance of his own

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origin, or of the orifrin of the creatures by which he is surrounded, and of which he is at once the crown and glory. Doubtless Adam was well instructed in the history of creation ; and it is most unlikely that he should have withheld this knowledge from his family, or that they should have failed to transmit it in some way or other to their posterity. We know that Abraham was the instructor as well as the governor of his household, and that the fathers possessed supernatural revelation, so that there is nothing incredible in the idea of Moses obtaining the materials of his history from authentic tradition or ancient records. In a somewhat recent anonymous work on the anthropology of the Bible, entitled "Primeval Man Unveiled" (p. 22), an ingenious and by no means eccentric argument in favour of this view is built on the reference in the gospel-song of Zacharias to the Old Testament predictions of the Messiah "spoken by the mouth of his holy prophets which have been since the world began." " Since the world began ! " The reference is most suggestive. Who were those prophets ? Was not Enoch one of them ? And is it unreasonable to suppose that .'\dam and Setli and oah and Shem and others were also of the number ? And if so, can we believe that they left behind them no authentic memoirs, in the form of family and other chronicles, or at least oral narratives, to be handed down from father to son, so that they might "shew to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His strength, and His wonderful works that He hath done ; that the chddren which should be

born should arise and declare them to their children, that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God?" — E. A. Thompson, D.D. 2 Its purposes. [12544] The purpose of the record is double, theological and moral : theological, as referring to God the primal acts and the successive acts also, and as setting forth the relations of the universe and of man to God. Moral in this, that it is intended to set forth the goodness of that which was done, and to shut out from the conception of the reatler that the evil which we see in the world, and which we feel therein, had any part in its original constitution, or in its original nature. It e.xcludes all evii also from the progressive developments of life and being. The purpose is not scientific. It deals with causes, and it dc.ils with the moral qualities of results. — Canon Ashwcll. 3 Its wide acceptance. [12 545] The doctrine that Godcreatedplantsand animals in the beginning, " after their kind," has prevailed for three thousand years, from .Moses until now, among the best, noblest, and wisest of men. It has been no crude fancy of ignorant peasants alone. Among its firm believers are all the prophets and all the apostles, most of tlie '".reek philosophers, and Christian divines and

men of science for fifteen centuries, the intellectual lights and standard-bearers of the leading nations of the earth. It includes among its disciples and adherents nearly all the great names, like Bacon, Kepler, Boyle, and ewton, by whom the chief advances of modern science have been made. Its true birthplace is in no flint-weapon manufactory, or bone-cavern — in an "era of profoundest darkness." It is in thick darkness of a very opposite kind, when Moses, learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians — the foremost, wisest, and noblest of all living men, drew near to the "presence of Jehovah, talked with Him face to face in the holy mount as a man speaketh with his friend, and received from Him those messages which have enlightened and cheered the minds and hearts of sinful men through every later age of the world's history.— /■. R. Birks, M.A. 4 Its characteristics. (1) // is (ii-finilely concise. [12546] That the glorious universe we see around us is the work of an Almighty Creator, the true and living God, is taught in the first sentence of the Bible, and affirmed throughout all the later books of Scripture. It holds the foremost place in the two main creeds of the Christian Church, and there is taught in the words, " I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of alt things visible and invisible." The Law, the

Psalms, and the Prophets abound in testimonies to this great truth. It is declared strongly and plainly in the (jospels and Epistles of the ew Testament, and is proclaimed anew in the song of the heavenly elders, and in the oath of the mighty Angel, in that great prophecy which crowns and completes the written messages of God. This truth is not set before us in the Bible with nice definitions or metaphysical subtleties, which might only obscure its simple grandeur. But it plainly includes two main ideas, that there is a self-existent ISeing, the supreme and all-wise Creator ; and that all other beings are creatures which receive their being as the gift of His bounty, and depend from the first on His good pleasure alone. — Ibid. (2) It is specificatly relatii'e. [12547] It relates specifically to the race of man. Besides being prepared for man, it concerns itself chiefly, if not exclusively, with what belongs to him. Of the creation of nn;els nothing is said. Respecting the starry heavens a brief clause is employed ; for what are they all to man, in his present state, compared with the sun which makes his day, the moon which rules his night, and the earth on which he dwells. In the account of the vegetable creation, no mention is made of timber-trees, the giants of the botanical kingdom ; the history is confined to the production of grasses, or food for cattle ; to herbs, or grain and leguminous plants lor his

own use, and to fruit-bc.uing trees ; all relating, directly or indirectly, to the want' and conve-

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niences of mankind. Man himself is described as created last; plainly intimating that all which had gone before was only a means of which he was to be the suborilinate end. And not only the process, but even its termination is made to subserve his welfare, for it is laid as a reason for the institution of the sabbath. If the creation itself, then, be thus designed to subserve his welfare, it is only in harmony with this fact that the account of the creation should be given in a style so familiar as to be easily understood by him ; in a manner so graphic as to make him present, and to paint it to his eye ; and that it should confine itself chiefly to that which more immediately concerns him. — J. Harris, D.D, (3) // is expressively harmonious. [1254S] It is important rightly to estimate the character oi \\it. Mosaic account of the creation.

Having no reason whatever to regard it as a poem, a myth, a philosophic speculation, a translated hieroglyph, or in any other light than that which it assumes to be — a history of facts, of Divine origin, conveyed through the limitation of a human medium, and for human use — we find, on reading it, that it exhibits precisely those characteristics which analogy would have led us to expect. It is strictly anthrofopathic, or in harmony with the feelings, views, and popular modes of expression which prevail in an early state of society, and which are always best adapted for universal use. Hence the colloquial or dramatic style of the account. For example : And God said — not that there was any vocal utterance, where, as yet, there was no ear to hear (each of which would imply a corporeal structure) — let there be light — let there be a Jirmaincnt — let the earth bring forth — by which we are to understand that these effects were produced just as if such a fiat had been, in each instance, vocally uttered, and such a formula actually employed. The bare volitions of the Infinite Mind are deeds. So, again, when it is said that God " rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made ; " the truth involved obviously is, not that of reposing from fatigue, for Inspiration itself affirms that " the Creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not, neither is weary," but that of ceasing or desisting from a process which has reached completion. The pause at the close of the sixth day, and the continuation of it on the opening of the seventh,

resembled the quiet of a person relaxing and at rest after a laborious and exhausting process. —Ibid. (4) // is simply natural. [12549] Let us suppose that to some very early prophet, like Enoch, the seventh from Adam, the injunction was given to proclaim to mankind the doctrine that God is the absolute Creator of the material universe and all its forces, and that from His will all the tribes of animate beings, including man, sprang to life ; let us farther suppose t'.;at, in fitting and illuminating the prophet for his task, the whole

course of nature from the beginning to the end was unveiled, and all the discoveries and inventions of man, and the speculations of philosophy, down to the present day were shown to him. ow if this hypothesis explains all the facts in the case, and if there is no fact to be found inconsistent with it, then it is fair to infer that so much of the hypothesis as may be found necessary to explain the facts is true : and this inference will be greatly strengthened if the hypothesis extends farther, and explains facts not at first taken into view ; also if the imagination in vain seeks any other explanation. In the first place the prophet would naturally seek to say that God is the Creator of matter and its forces. But in what terms can he do

this.' o speculations have as yet discussed the origin of matter ; there is no word signifying to create ; the arts have not sufficiently advanced to make a distinction between material and product, and there is no word for matter ; neither have the sciences reached the state in which the forces of nature were named. Of course, in addressing men the language of men must be used, and the prophet having no words by which to express his ideas, and being forbidden by the necessity of making himself intelligible from coining words, must use periphrases. He endeavours to declare that God was the Creator of matter by saying that God shaped the heavens and the earth, and the earth was waste and empty, and darkness lay over its abysses, and the breath of God brooded over its waters. This representation of the forming of a formless earth is the nearest approach to a declaration of the creation of matter that the language of that early day could make. Then, in order to declare God to be the author of all the forces of nature, and that He holds them under His control, what resource is there but for the prophet to select the most striking of those forces, and to say, God made that, and thus imply that he made all the rest that would be hereafter discovered. He chooses light, the most striking and wondrous of all to the untutored eye, most wonderful in itself, in its revelations and its suggestions, and declares, God said light be, and light was. The emphasis throughout the whole chapter is upon the Divine name ; the proposition to be conveyed being not so much that God said, as that it

was God who said — a distinction which the rude language could not make. All things sprang from His foreknowledge and His will — this is the prophet's meaning ; it is only the poverty of the uncultivated language of the time which forces him to express himself in this way. God saw that the light was good ; that is, He predestined it for its multiform uses in the economy of vegetative and animal life, and in the development of the human intellect. And it was He who separated the light from the darkness ; He retained the control of the force which He had created, and appointed of His foreknowledge the alternations of day and night. In like manner with all the forces of nature afterward to be discovered in scientific research

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— heat, electricity, galvanic currents, chemical affinities, actinic rays, whatever they were — they came at God's command, they were foreseen by Him as good, and designed for their

uses, and they are retained in His power of guidance. How could the prophet say this to the rude people of his early time better than in those sublime words selected from their unpolished language, to shine, nevertheless, as undimmed brilliants throughout all ages : " God said, Let there be light : and there was light." —Presidcjit Hill. (5) It is reasonably supernatural. a. The scriptural view of creation is part of a sacred supernatural system. [12550] The supernaturalism of the Scripture system is coherent and complete ; the record is supernatural, and so, throughout, are the things recorded. God is above and distinct from the universe. His personal free agency is the first cause throughout its history as well as in its origination. His sovereign primary causation extends alike through physical nature and the moral or spiritual world, alike through the old creation and the new. Thus God " is all, and in all," and "worketh all in all." The syste/n is one of all-pervading supernaturalism. At the same time, the supernaturalism is reasonable, not unnatural or monstrous. It is in the line of nature, in keeping with nature, and for purposes which nature shows to be good and worthy of God. God is not lost in the universe, nor is the universe in God. As truly as though there had been no God, man remains man, physical nature remains physical nature ; they retaining their respective subsistences and

modes of operation, while God is all and works all. And its place in a system thus completely and reasonably supernaturalistic, is for the Scripture view of creation one element of credibility or ground of belief. — y. Iveradi, A/.A. 5 Its testimonies to the truth. [12551] Gen. i. i excludes five speculative falsehoods : that nothing can be known of God or the origin of things ; that there is nothing but uncreated matter ; that there is no God distinct from His creatures ; that creation is a series of acts without a beginning ; and that there is no real universe ; or more briefly, nihilism, materialism, pantheism, evolutionism, and negativQ idealism. — T. A'. Birks, M.A. 6 The dates and eras of the Mosaic account. [12552] The Mosaic account recognizes in creation two great eras of three days each — an inorganic and an organic. Each of these opens with the appearance of light : the first, light cosmical ; the second, light from the sun for the special uses of the earth. Each era ends in a day of two great works ; the two shown to be distinct by being severally pronounced "good." On the third "day" — that closing the inorganic era— t there was, first, the dividing of the land from the waters, and afterwards the creation of vegetation, or the institution of a kingdom of life— a

work widely diverse from all preceding it in the era. So, on the sixth day, terminating the organic era, there was, first, the creation of mammals, and then a second far greater work, totally new in its grandest element — the creation of man. We have, then, the following arrangement : I. The Inorganic Era. 1st Day. — Light, cosmical. 2nd Day. — The earth divided from the fluid around it, or individualized. (I. Outlining of the land and 3rd Day. — \ water. 1,2. Creation of vegetation. II. The Organic Era. 4th Day. — Light, from the sun. 5th Day. — Creation of the lower orders of animals. 1 1. Creation of mammals. Creation of man.

6th

Day.- I J;

In addition, the last day of each era included one work typical of the era, and another related to it in essential points, but also prophetic. Vegetation, while for physical reasons a part of the creation of the third day, was also prophetic of the future organic era, in which the progress of life was the grand characteristic. The record of Moses thus accords with the fundamental principle in history, that the characteristic of an age has its beginnings within the age preceding. So, again, man, while like other mammals in structure, even to the homologies of every bone and muscle, was endowed with a spiritual nature, which looked forward to another era — that of spiritual existence. The " seventh " " day " — the day of rest from the work of creation — is man's period of preparation for that new existence ; and it is to promote this special end that, in strict parallelism, the Sabbath follows man's six days of work. — J. F. Hurst, D.D. [12553] The Hebrew word for "beginning," n't'l (res/nth'), is in the original without the definite article ; so that Moses really says, " In reshith (not in the reshith) Elohim created the heavens and the earth." The Septuagint, Chaldee, and Syriac versions corroborate the antiquity and correctness of this reading. Thus there is an indefiniteness of the time of creation. It may have been millions of years ago just as easily as thousands, for the Hebrew word is indefinite, and the verse reads in substance

thus : " Of old, in former duration, God created the heavens and the earth." — Ibid. [12554] Arguing from analogy, many contend that the term "day" does not mean literally twenty-four hours. That word often signifies in the I'ible undefined periods of time, as the " day of the Lord," " the day of vengeance," " tli.-it day," " the night is far spent, the day is at hand." The first day consisted of an alternation of light and darkness ; but how long the night lasted, and how long the darkness

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CHRISTIA' DOGMATICS. 329 [the normal relations between god and man.

until the next dawn, is not stated. The whole time of light in which God's creative work proceeded He called "day,'' and the whole time of darkness He called "night." It was not a day measured by the presence of the sun's light, nor a night measured by the absence of that light. The name "day" is therefore regarded as given, not as a measure of extent — which is a later and a subordinate idea— but as denoting a wondrous phenomenon, marking the first

great transition, and calling up the dual contrast which has entered into the corresponding name ever since, " God called the light day, and the darkness He called night." He called it Yoni, and from that has come the lesser naming. We now indicate the gradual developing character of the creation. It was not the work of six ordinary days, measured by twenty-four hours, but a series of supernatural growths extending over vast periods of time. — Il/id. [12555] Whatever differences maybe entertained respecting the particular period referred to by the prophet (Zech. xiv. 6, 7), there can be no question that the otii: day\s the proper designation of a peculiar day, " dies unicus prorsus singularis" iMaurer); " ein a'/ic/j^es Ta^" (De Wette) ; or "eiii:i^ in seiner Art" the only one of its kind (Hitzig) ; and that the form of expression is strictly parallel with Gen. i. 5. The coincidence is certainly very striking, and naturally suggests the question, if prophecy, which predicts the far-distant future, has, as thus evinced, its unique day, why may not also creation, which has to do with a remote past, whose days -were completed long ere history began?— 2?. Macdonald, M.A. X. The System of ature in the Universe SPECIALLY considered. 1 Its definitions and revelations. [12556] ature is a term used Ijoth in an active and in a passive sense. In its passive

sense it stands for the causally connected sequences which appear in time and space. In the active sense it represents the forces which in their adjustments and conditions produce the phenomena of matter and finite mind. In using the word in its most general passive sense, care is necessary to avoid confounding it with universe ; for then there would seem to be no room left for the term " supernatural." — G. F. Wright. [12557] What we call nature is the whole circuit of things which has been evolved by the invisible powers and virtues of God. He is " clearly seen," therefore, as Paul afnrms, " in the things which He has made." ot seen as an artist is seen in his picture, nor as an architect is seen in his architecture, but seen as a man is seen in the body in which he lives, and which has been evolved from his spirit. For God is immanent in His universe. He wears it " as a garment ; " so that both as a -whole, and in all its parts, it is alive with His

life. "It lives, moves, and has its being in Him." In the old reverential Scriptures of the prophets, the word ature never occurs. They simply speak of heaven and earth as being full of God, full of His glory. "The whole earth is full of His glory" (Isa. vi. 3). "Do not I fill heaven and earth .' saith the Lord " (Jer.

xxiii. 24% His ame is, He that "filleth all in all ; " and the All lives and moves in the pow-er of His breath. Heaven and earth are His Spirit made manifest, "clearly seen." They are His bush, in which He dwells, and which is full of the fire of His life. But note what manner of fire His fire is ! How meek ! how sweet ! It consumes not, but causes the whole bush to live and glow, bloom and sing. What we call nature is Peniel, "the face of God," in large outline. " I have seen God face to face." ature is the incarnation, which Jesus sums up and heads in His Person. It is His fulness laid open in stupendous form — in granite cathedral elevations, reared up through and beyond the clouds, and standing in their calm majesty, unveiled in the eternal ether. On their heads they wear a crystalline crown, glistening in the sun ; on their shoulders flowing robes of verdure ; in their laps are vineyards and gardens, and at their feet tender grass for the cattle, and running streams. Yes, in the reverences and grandeurs of the Alps, in the flowering beauty of their slopes, in the wealth of corn in their valleys, in the life-like flow and frolic of their streams, "I have seen God face to face," as in a mirror — " clearly seen " His invisible essence in His visible creation. I have seen heaven and earth married, making one exquisite harmony, glowing, dancing, rejoicing in their unity. — J. Pulsford. [1255S] The actual revelation recorded in the Bible employed nature as its organ. In the revelation of new truth, God is constantly found

availing Himself of the old creation. Dreams and visions, and voices to the ear, the thundercloud on Sinai, the cleft sea, dearth and the plague, the vicissitudes of war, conquest, and revolt, were all turned into vehicles for teaching saving lessons to mankind. The whole of Bible teaching, too, attaches itself to the parables of nature. Domestic and social life, the farm, the fishery, the garden, are inspired with deeper thoughts than they naturally utter. God makes nature vocal with redemption. Above all. His final revelation of Himself is in the life of a man, a true natural life resting on the physical basis of a true body, " born of a woman ;" so that the highest of all revelations is in appearance the most human, the least supernatural. ow, how could all this be ? how could the new revelation utilize the old creation, and make earth, and sun, and sky, above all, man himself, its ministers to preach salvation, unless, first of all, creation were itself full of God, and yet were, after all, God's servant, to work withal }—J. Oswald Dykes, D.D.

33° 12539— 125541

christian dogma! izs. [the normal relations between god and man.

2 Antiquity of its idea. ['-559] The idea of the unity of nature must be at least as old as the idea of one God ; and even those who believe in the derivation of man from the savage and the brute cannot tell us how soon the monotheistic doctrine arose. The Jewish literature and traditions, which are at least among the oldest in the world, exhibit this doctrine in the purest form, and represent it as the doctrine of primeval times. The earliest indications of religious thought among the Ar>'an races point in the same direction. The records of that mysterious civilization which had been established on the ile at a date long anterior to the call of Abraham are more and more clearly yielding results in harmony with the tradition of the Jews. The polytheism of Egypt is being traced and tracked throiii;h the ready paths which lead to the fashionmg of many gods out of the attributes of one. — Duke of Argyll. 3 Origin of its worship. [12560] The great fact of the whole ancient world was this, that its multiform religions started from a nature basis. The sun and stars, the reproductive forces of animal and vegetable life, the decay and revival of the year, the wondrous cycle, in short, of cosmic change through which ature accomplishes herself, was the

common fact which very early riveted the attention of primitive man, till out of it there grew up in many lands, under many shapes, a system of religious observance everywhere the same in principle. Plainly this system of religion started from the Bible truth that nature is a revelation of God. By degrees, no doubt, the Divine idea became obscured. The sense of nature's unity grew feeble. Men came to see not so much one God speaking through all His creatures, as rather a separate morsel of Divinity inherent in each separate creature. From using the sun, or the dawn, or the sky, or the spring, as a symbol only for that Invisible Being whose thoughts these objects revealed, men began to adore the symbol, and to forget the Invisible Person behind it. Easy and rapid was the downward plane to idolatry and polytheism and gross fetish-worship. Yet what is worth noting is, that such nature-religions would have been impossible had not ature really spoken to unsophisticated men a Divine message, had it not been charged to their souls from the first with Divine ideas. — J. Oswald Dykes, D.D. 4 Unity of its laws. [12561] One sign of unity is given to us in the ties by which this world of ours is bound to the other worlds around it. There is no room for fancy here. The truths which have been reached in this matter have been reached by the paths of rigorous demonstration. This earth is part of the vast mechanism of the

heavens. The force or forces by which that mechanism is governed are forces which pre-

vail not only in our own solar system, but, as. there is reason to believe, through all space, and are determining, as astronomers tell us, the movement of our sun, with all its planets, round some distant centre, of which we know neither the nature nor the place. Iiloreover, these same forces are equally prevailing on the surface of this earth itself. The whole of its physical phenomena are subject to the conditions which they impose. The structure of our own bodies, with all that depends upon it, is a structure governed b}', and therefore adapted to, the same force of gravitation which has determined the form and the movements of myriads of worlds. Every part of the human organism is fitted to conditions which would all be destroyed in a moment if the forces of gravitation were to change or fail. or is gravitation the only agency which brings home to us the unity of the conditions which prevail among the worlds. There is another — Light — that sweet and heavenly messenger which comes to us from the depths of space, telling us all we know of other worlds, and giving us all that we enjoy of life and beauty in our own. — Duke of Argyll. 5 Its scientific analysis and classification, [12562]

tiindainental Ideas. Scieitces. Classification. Substance . . . Metaphysics . Essential Being. Space and Time . Mathematics . Quantity or conditions of dependent being, i Astronomy .In • j Cause, or Power Physics . . Unorganized Ichemistrsr . ) J^^^ies. Design, or Wisdom ^^^'Z^"''' ' \ Organized ° ( Botany . . J Bodies. Goodness . . . Zoology . . Sentient Being. f Apphed sciences ■) Rightness . . .•^Ethics . . , J. Rational Being. (.Theology . . j —7. //ams, D.D. 6 Its inter-relations. [12563] Everything is related to everything. But if we take any one event as central, and look back in the direction from which it came, we soon arrive at a point which compels us to stop, but where something invisible and unknown must be presupposed, in order to account for its existence ; if, then, we look forwards in the direction in which it is travelling, we see

that there is no end to its effects, though it soon passes into a domain where we have no power to follow it ; while, in both directions, we see it, in its progress, touching innumerable other things on the right hand and en the left, or touched by them, all of which are similarly charged with influences interminable. — Jiiil. 7 The existence of matter. (1) lis failure, conditions, and properties. [12564] Three alternative views have been held concerning the nature of matter, that it is continuous, solid, extended, and infinitely di-

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CHRISTIAlf DOGMATICS. 33 1 [the normal relations between god and man.

visible ; that it consists of solid, discrete, but extended atoms, endued with various forces, and with a large amount of porous interstice or interval between them ; and that it consists of centres of attractive and repulsive forces alone. The first is the popular view before close attention to the facts of science, the second is that

• of ewton, the third of Boscovich. — T. R. Birks, M.A. [12565] The necessary constituents of our notion of matter the primary qualities of bodies, are thus all evolved from the two Catholic conditions of matter — (i) the occupying space, and (2) the being contained in space. Of these, the former affords in) trinal extension, explicated again into (i) divisibility; (2) size, containing under it density or rarity ; (3) figure ; and (b) ultimate incompressibility ; while the latter gives {a) mobility and {b) situation. The primary qualities of matter thus develop themselves out of the original datum of substance occupying space. — Sir IV. Hamilton. [12566] one of the processesof nature, since the time when nature began, have produced the slightest difference in the properties of any molecule. We are, therefore, unable to ascribe either the existence of the molecules or the identity of their properties to the operation of any of the causes which we call natural. The quality of each molecule gives it the essential character of a manufactured article, and precludes the idea of its being eternal and selfexistent. — Prof. Clerk Maxwell. I [12567] As we look on matter, we recognize in it certain essential properties, so essential that we cannot conceive of its existence without them. They are extension, form, density, impenetrability, rarity, malleability, ductility,

elasticity, porosity, and inertia. If we place ourselves back of the first constitution of things, we cannot conceive of matter as e.xisting without them. — Clark Bradeii. [12568] If inertia is a property of matter, the power to evolve organization, life, and thought, cannot be ; but that inertia is a property of matter is a proposition susceptible of overwhelming proof from the necessary beliefs of the mind, from common consent, from the agreement of philosophers in all ages, and from all the results of experiment and observation. By inertia, I mean the incapacity to originate force or motion, or that quality which causes matter, if set in motion without other resistance than itself can supply, to keep on moving for ever ; or, if left at rest without other force than its own, to remain at rest for ever. — Joseph Cook. (2) Its relation to, and dependence on mind. [12569] Two men are in a room : one is handcuffed and fettered ; or, to make the comparison more complete, let us say paralyzed. ow suppose some beautiful work of art is brought into existence in that room. It would

be very certain that the work of art was made by the man who was not paralyzed. The universe is such a room. There are only two things in it — matter and mind. But matter is

handcuffed. The works of art which the universe contains must be the present product of mind. — Ibid. [12570] Matter has extension, impenetrability, figure, divisibility, inertia, colour. Mind has neither. ot one of these terms has any conceivable meaning in application to thought or— emotion. What is the shape of love ? How many inches long is fear.' What is the colour of memory? Since Aristotle and St. Augustine, the antithesis between mind and matter has been held to be so broad, that Sir William Hamilton's common measure for it was the phrase, '• the whole diameter of being." — Ibid. [12571] I. If matter is essentially inert — that is, if it cannot originate force or motion — every exhibition of force or motion in matter must originate in mind. 2. But matter is essentially inert, that is, it cannot originate force or motion. 3. Therefore, every exhibition of force or motion in matter originates in mind. The reasoning underlying the first premise may be analytically stated as follows : — 1. Only matter and mind exist in the universe. 2. Matter is inert, that is, it cannot originate force or motion.

3. If, therefore, matter moves or exhibits force, that force must originate in mind. 4. That mind is God. 5. Matter does move and exhibit force now and here. 6. God, therefore, is now and here, since where He acts, there He is. — Ibid. [12572] There are but three methods by which matter may be invested with the property of thought. I. It may be inherent in every form of matter. And then the stones, the flowers, your toes, your fingers, are all thinking as well as your brain ! o sane man believes this. 2. Thought may be the result of a peculiar organization ; as when particles of matter are combined in the shape and proportions of the human body, thought may manifest itself. ow, if there is no innate tendency to thought in the isolated particles of matter (and there cannot be, unless the previous supposition be true), then, of course, these particles cannot, under any circumstances or combinations, contribute anything to thought as the result. It is not in them separately, and it cannot, therefore, be in them collectively. They cannot impart what they do not themselves contain. ow, if it is affirmed that, when these thoughtless atoms are cast into the human form, intelligence is the product of this material configuration, then you have an eft'ect for which you have no cause. You have thought, for the creation of which the

particles have no power. You have in the whole more than the parts thereof possess • in

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the product, more than the factor can produce ! Is it in any sense possible that five pounds, say, of sand, can be cast into any shape whatever so that, as a result, the same sand shall weigh ten pounds? This is the feat of materialism ! 3. Or the power of thought may be superadded to the ordinary properties of matter ; in which case the power of thought must inhere to every part of the organization, so that each particle shall contribute its share to the final sum of intelligence. But here the theory is pressed with the problem of the divisibility of matter. Since the atoms of the body are extended and divisible, the soul, mind, or thought, adhering to these particles, must be extended and divisible also. This is inevitable. And then, in the language of Dr. Thomas Brown, "it will not be more absurd to talk of the twentieth part of an affir-

mation, or the quarter of a hope, of the top of a remembrance, and the north and east corners of a comparison, than of the twentieth part of a pound, or of the different points of the compass in reference to any part of the globe." — T. McRae. 8 The power of natural forces. (1) Their manifestatiojis. [12573] Starting with the abstract notion of force, as emanating at once from the Divine will, we might say that this force, operating through inorganic matter, manifests itself in electricity, magnetism, light, heat, chemical affinity, and mechanical motion ; but that, when directed through organized structures, it affects the operations of growth, development, chemicovital transformation, and the like; and is further metamorphosed, through the instrumentality of the structures thus generated, into nervous agency and muscular power. — VV. B. Carpenter, M.D. (2) Their limits. [12574] Too frequently the assertions concerning certain so-called facts of science, after being carefully considered and examined, become resolved into the vaguest conjectures. Such indeed are many of thestatements which have been made about the formative and constructive capacity of force. Energy dues not construct or form, although it has been affirmed over and over

again that it does form living things, that force constructs the worm and forms the bee, and that suns, the fountains of force, resolve themselves into the living beings that people this earth ! But where is the evidence in favour of the constructive power of force.' Is it not strange that any one should maintain that force should be competent to construct the marvellous mechanism of a living plant or animal, when he must needs confess that all force is impotent to make a wheel or build a mill ? But force is actually oijposed to construction, and before anything can be built up, the tendencies of force must be overcome by formative agency or power. Unless force is first conquered and then regulated and directed, structure will not

be evolved. Force may destroy and dissipate, but it cannot build ; it may disintegrate, but it cannot fashion ; it may crush, but it is powerless to create. It is doubtful if it would be possible to adduce a dogma more unfounded than the dogma that the sun forms or buildsconstructs or resolves itself into anything that possesses structure, and is capable of performing definite work of any kind for any purpose. — Lionel S. Beale, M.D. (3) "John Stuart Mill's pessimistic indictment as to natural forces vict and refuted. ['-575] "ext to the vastness of the natural forces, what strikes us," he says, "is their per-

fect and absolute recklessness. They go straight to their end without regarding what or whom they crush in their round. In sober truth, nearly all the things which men are hanged or imprisoned fordoing to one another are nature's every-day performances. She kills once every being that lives. She abridges their due term, and she does so in manners violent and insidious. ature impales men — breaks them as on the wheel— casts them to be devoured by wild beasts — burns them to death — crushes them with stones like the first Christian martyrs — starves them with hunger — freezes them with cold — poisons them by the quick or slow venom of her exhalations, and has hundreds of other hideous deaths in reserve, such as the ingenious cruelty of a abis or a Domitian never surpassed. And all this nature does with the most supercilious regard, both of mercy and of justice, emptying her shafts upon the best and noblest indifferently with the meanest and worst. And besides taking life, she takes the means whereby we live. A single hailstorm destroys the hope of a season. A flight of locusts, or an inundation, desolates a district. A trifling chemical change in an edible root starves a million of people. The waves of the sea, like bandits, seize and appropriate the wealth of the rich and the little all of the poor. ature has her poignards more fatal than those of the assassin. Her explosions of fire-damp are as destructive as human artillery. Her plagues and her choleras far surpass the poison cups of the Borgias. The Keign of Terror is overmatched in injustice, ruin, and death by a hurricane or

by a pestilence." There is the tremendous indictment: dare a Christian look it in the face? Most certainly he dare— that and any other view which may be offered to him of God's universe ; and what he says of this indictment as a whole is, that while it does contain an element of truth, and points to a mystery which he has never professed entirely to solve, yet, first of all, it is enormously exaggerated. The rare and exceptional eli'ects which, after all, are veiy few, are presented as though they were the frequent and the normal. And, in the next place, a very opposite picture, indeed, might be drawn of nature with, at least, equal truth. Happiness not only predominates, but immensely predominates, in her domain. Though her creatures do prey upon each other ; thouijh the

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CHRISTIA DOGMATICS. 333 [the normal relations between god and man.

May-fly is chased by the swallow, the swallow speared by the shrike, and the whole little wood wherein we live is a world of plunder and of prey, yet they are utterly undisturbed — these living things— by the certainty of death ; and

no one can look at the creatures in their elements — the cattle grazing peacefully in the meadow, the wild beasts bounding through the forests, the fish gliding in the waters, the birds sporting amid the sunny trees, the insects quivering in the summer noon — without seeing that they are happy, and saying, " They are very good." And though man, mainly through his own faults and follies, is not altogether happy, yet on every hand he is surrounded by beneficence. Over his head all day long is the pomp and prodigality of heaven. And then, thirdly, how large a part of this impeachment turns on the four facts of pain, accident, disease, and death ! But in spite of all these, may we not say that there must be an overbalance of happiness still? Men not only cling, but passionately cling, to life ; and may we not say of them separately that pain, however hard to understand, is made to subserve very blessed purposes — that it is a salutary premonition of clanger, a blessed stimulus to tenderness, a faithful warning against sin .' And may we not say of accident that we can often trace how it is all God's unseen Providence, by men nicknamed chance ? And of disease, may v.e not say that nine-tenths of it is not the fault of nature, seeing that it is distinctly due to preventible conditions, perfectly avoidable by moral and sanitary care ? Where there are good drainage and decent houses, typhoid and cholera would disappear. Were men temperate, were men pure, there would soon be no gout, no delirium tremens, very little madness, nor would the blood of myriads be poisoned, from child-

hood upwards, by a deadly taint. Is nature, then, to be charged with cruelty if men neglect her warnings and violate her laws ? or is she as little to blame — if I may borrow an illustration—as the ocean and the sea breeze are to blame, though the ocean floats the pirate, and though the sea breeze swells his sails? Is death, then, so great an evil? Is it so difficult to die ? Is it not a thing perfectly natural, and even beautiful ? Do not the old in age pass away as the ripe fruit falls? Do not "whom the gods love die young?" Does not God know when our day's work is over? and whether that be early or late, does He not then give His beloved sleep ? Is not death, in our belief, but the beginning of a new life? Would it not almost make us die for sorrow to be told that we should not die? So far from regarding death as an unmitigated curse for which we may accuse nature, may we not hold that whether it comes by the sudden plunge of a precipice, or the lingering declivities of a disease — by the sinking of a ship, or the e.xplosion of a colliery, it is the great birthright of mankind to die? — so that putting death apart as no evil at all, or, if an evil, one which we may approach with a smile because it has been robbed of i:s victory

and of its sting ; and putting also aside all that incredibly vast proportion of accident, and disease, and pain, which is due to the folly and the ignorance of man — the result of nis carelessness, or the retribution of his sins — how

much then is left which is not entirely consonant with the power and the mercy of an infinitely merciful and an infinitely holy God? — Archdeacon Farrar. g Characteristics of nature. (l) Mysterious?!ess and Tuonder/ulness. [12576] In all departments of philosophy, human curiosity is stopped, at an earlier or at a later stage, by an impassable barrier— it meets what is inscrutable. The constitution of the elements in the material world is inscrutable ; the gravitating force, and the principle of chemical affinity — the nature of light, and the principle of vegetable life — these things are utterly inscrutable : so also is the principle of animal life ; and so, in like manner, but not more so, is mind. At all these points alike, and as to each of them for the same reasons, we reach a limit which the human mind has never yet passed. — Isaac Taylor. [12577] If the baffled inquirer then drops out the search after God, as many do, and says — I will go down to nature, and it shall, at least, be my comfort that nature is intelligible, and even a subject of definite science, he shortly discovers that science only changes the place of mystery and leaves it unresolved. Hearing, with a kind of scientitic pity. Job's question about the thunder — who can understand " the noise of His tabernacle?'' he at first thinks it something of consequence to say that thunder is

the noise of electricity, and not of God's tabernacle at all. But he shortly finds himself asking, who can understand electricity ? and then, at last, he is with Job again. So, when he hears Job ask, " Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven?" — he recollects the great ewtonian discovery of gravity, and how, by aid of that principle, even the weights of the stars have been exactly measured, and their times predicted, and imagines that, now the secrets of astronomy are out, the ordinances of heaven are understood. But here, again, it finally occurs to him to ask, what is gravity? and forthwith he is lost in a depth of mystery as profound as that of Job himself. And so, asking what is matter .' — what is life, animal and vegetable ? — what is heat, light, attraction, affinity ? — he discovers that, as yet, we really comprehend nothing, and that nature is a realm as truly mysterious even as God. ot a living thing grows out of the earth, or walks upon it, or flies above it ; not an inanimate object exists, in heaven, earth, or sea, which is not filled and circled about with mystery as truly as in the days of Adam or Job, and which is not really as much above the understanding of science as the deepest things of God's eternity or of His secret life.—//. Bushnelh D.D.

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CHRISTIA DoOMAT/CS. [the normal relations between god and man.

[12578] All this visible universe is only an imperceptible point in the vast bosom of nature. The mind of man cannot grasp it. It is in vain that we try to stretch our conceptions beyond all imaginable space ; we bring before the mind's eye merely atoms in comparison with the reality of things. It is an infinite sphere, of which the centre is everywhere, the circumference nowhere. In short, the strongest proof of the almighty power of God is that our imagination loses itself in the conception. — Pascal. [12579] Has it not wondrous things many and ine.xhaustible ; wonders on a large scale, and wonders on a small ? First, it has beautiful landscapes, which it asks no efibrt to admire, which we have only to open our eyes and behold. And though landscapes vary in beauty, there are perhaps fewer than we imagine, in which a contemplative eye can discover nothing of the beautiful. Rugged countries, with their purple heather and their wild heights, though wanting in wood and foliage, may not be deficient in sublimity. Tame countries on a dead level, yet with abundance of trees and hedgerows, have, despite their monotony, a pleasant domestic character. — Dean Goulbiirn.

[125S0] The lowest musical tone consists of pulsations of air at the rate of about thirty per second ; while it is estimated tliat the umU'.lations of the cosmic ether producing green light are at the rate of 600,000,000,000,000 per second. Man's organization is not elastic enough to respond to all intervening vibrations. If our senses were ten times more numerous than they are, and a hundred times more acute, the larger share of what goes on in the universe would still be unknown to the human race. — G. F. Wright. (2) Awfulness and grandeur. a. As manifested in the sun, the moon, and the stars. [ 1 2581] The ancients saw the splendour of the sun ; they felt its warmth ; they thanked (jod for its glory. To David it was, as you know, "as a bridegroom cometh forth out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a giant to run his course." It was thought a monstrous extravagance when one of the Greek philosophers said that it was a fiery mass, and anotlier that it was about the size of Attica. But what is it to us? Look at the bas-relief on the tomb of ewton in Westminster Abbey, and there you will see the little genius weighing the sun, and the earth, and the planets on a steelyard. Yes, we know its weight; we know its distance ; we know its revolution. We know even, of late years, by spectrum analysis, of what metals and gases it is composed. o human language can express its awfulness.

i"he latent treatise on astronomy has warned us that if we call its chromosphere an ocean of fire, we must rem'-mber that it is an ocean of fire as deep as the Atl.intic is broad. If we spe.ak of its storms, we must remember that tliose raging vortices of flame tear across its

surface as far in one second as the wildest hurricane on earth in a year. If we talk of its eruptions, we must think of streams of burning hydrogen, rushing up 50,000 miles into the sky; and blazing cyclones in any one of which our whole earth would, in one second, be calcined and destroyed. That great orb, as we have discovered, bursts and boils with a horrible impetuosity, such as no human imagination can conceive ; and yet this vast, portentous globe of fire is made to subserve the humblest purposes of man. It ts but one thirty-second millionth of this sun's light that this earth receives ; and yet that mere fraction of its effluence gives man temperate warmth. It gives him golden days. It evaporates the waters. It ripens the fruit. It quickens the seedling. It tinges the odorous blossom of the rose. " What is it that is driving that railway train?" once asked the greatest of our engineers of Dean Buckland,the great geologist, who was then dean of Westminster Abbey, at the party assembled in the house of the illustrious statesman. The party there assembled made many and various guesses. " o," said George Stephenson, " it is none of the things that you have said. It is

the sun which is driving that train. It was the sun's heat which was transformed into the vegetative life of antediluvian forests. The forests decayed into coal ; the coal feeds the fire ; the fire evaporates the water into steam ; the expansion of the steam is but the setting free of the stored-up forces of noon-days that blazed upon this world before man was. It is sunlight, latent for ages, which is again brought forth and liberated, and made to work in that locomotive for great human purposes." So spake one whose genius has altered the conditions of modern life ; and when we thus know what the sun is — what it does for us— ought not 3,000 years of additional knowledge to have infused new adoration and new intensity into David's words? "It goeth forth from the uttermost part of the heaven, and runneth about unto the end of it again ; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." And yet the sun — nay, even our whole solar system — is a mere nothing — is no more in the sidereal heavens than a mote in that sun's beam. — Archdeacon Farrar. [12582] To the ancients and to David the moon was but an ornament of the night, a silver cresset hung by God's hand in heaven to illumine the darkened earth. To us it is, indeed, this, and we thank God for it, and also for its services, unknown to our forefathers, of attracting the waters, and so causing to roll, from hemisphere to hemisphere, that great tidal wave which purifies the world. But we have also learnt with amazement what the moon is. We know that it is a small world, in structure like

our own ; but without atmosphere, without clouds, without seas, without rivers, rent with enormous fissures, scathed and scorched with eruptive violences, a burnt-up cinder, a volcanic waste, the wreck, for all wc know, of some past home of existence, a corpse in night's highway, naked.

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christian dogmatics. 335 [the normal relat'ons between god and man.

fire-scathed, accursed ; and if, in the complications of her silent revolutions, "She nij^htly, to the listening earth, Repeats the story of her birth," yet that story presents us with so blank a mystery, that it forces our acknowledgment that it may seem as if its one blank hemisphere was only turned to this earth and its science in mocking irony, as though to convince us, against our will, that what we know is little — what we are ignorant of immense. — Ibid. [12583] Turn to the millions of stars in the Milky Way. Our son is neither more nor less

than just one, and one unimportant, star in that Milky Way. To David, when he said that the heavens declared the glory of God, only were known two or three thousand stars visible to the naked eye. To us are known somewhere about fifty millions. To us is known that the Galaxy is but the fused light of stars innumerable, that the nebute of the Centaur and the clouds of Magellan are composed of star clusters so infinitely distant that, though separated from us by abysses of the heaven, ihey seem by myriads to touch each other, so that our whole solar system would be but a speck in the infinite expanse ; and that our whole firmament is but one of some 5,000 firmaments, and that each one of those so-called fi.\ed stars is a flaming sun, iierhaps with its attendant planets, of which the nearest of all — the star Sirius — is supposed to be' fifteen times larger than our own sun, and is rushing away from the earth at the rate of twenty miles a second, and yet separated from us by a space so inconceivably immeasurable that it is as bright as it was two thousand years ago. And, yet, I say again that the Christian is not in the least appalled by all this vastness. Space is nothing to that God who extends through all extent, and in the hollow of whose hand all those worlds lie as though they were but a single waterdrop. But, by the telescope, better without it— " Man may see Stretched awful in the hushed midnight, The ghost of his eternity." — Ibid.

(3) Beauty and utility. a. The greatest richness of beauty appears to be lavished on the minutiae of nature. [12584] Many of the greater works of nature appear almost chaotic : there is no order or regularity in the magnificent confusion of volcanic eruptions or of iceberg-drifts ; but there is regularity and a high degree of beauty in the hexagonal crj-stals of snow, in the structures of the seed-vessel of a moss, and in the sculpture of a microscopic shell. Thus the Diatomacea;, a group of lowly microscopic organisms of vegetable nature, " have shells of pure silex, and these, each after its own kind, are all covered with the most elaborate ornament, striated, or fluted, or punctured, or dotted, in patterns which are mere patterns, but patterns of perfect and 'sometimes of most complex beauty. In the

same drop of moisture there maybe some dozen or twenty forms, each with its own distinctive pattern." — Duke of Argyll. b. Beauty is largely manifested in unity amidst diversity. [12585] The true theory of beauty is that which admits unity as one of the essential elements, but which also admits of diversity as no less essential. Look at this beautiful flower. It is without doubt admirably connected : unity,

order, proportion, symmetry, are there; for without tliese qualities reason would be absent, and all things are made with a wonderful reason. But, at the same time, what diversity, what grace in the details, what shades in the colours, and riches in every part ! We know not whether to admire the most — this variety, always new, or this unity, everywhere present.— Cc/^j/«. c. The apparent want of beauty in some departments may be accounted for. [125S6] God is not bound to make every creature beautiful. He has scattered beauty all around us, in earth and sky, in plant and animal, in man and woman ; but it is not necessary for our happiness and comfort that He should impart to every object qualities which are fitted to raise excited aesthetic feeling. For it is not reckoned the highest taste to have every part of a scene characterized by sublimity or beauty. In historical painting, the grand figures are made to stand out from plain neutral colours. And, once more, God contemplates, in all His works, higher ends than the gratification of lesthetic taste ; and we are not to expect Him to sacrifice utility to grace or ornament. To apply these principles to only one of His examples : o one would say that the camel is as beautiful as the horse or the deer ; yet no one who has true taste will say that it is ugly. The camel is an object of interest to every thinking mind, and has even a sort of beauty, as it is seen performing its beneficent ends in its native clime. It has been shown that what may seem to be deformities enable it

the better to fulfil the good ends of its existence. The enlargement of its feet, with their con\ex soles, allows it to tread easily on the loose yielding sand of the desert ; and the callosities, or pads, upon its legs allow it to lie down and repose on scorching surfaces. And these humps are supplies of superabundant nourishment provided for their long journeys : so that, when deprived of other food, their frames feed on this nutriment ; and it has been observed that, at the close of a long journey, their humps have been much diminished in size. Every organ has thus a purpose, though that may not be the production of beauty. — J. McCosh, D.D. d. Ends and uses are the regulative reasons of all existing things. [12587] It is precisely the uses zf things that are most palpable. These uses are to God, no doubt, as to us, the significance of His works. And they compose, taken together, a grand reciprocal system, in which part answers actively

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to part, constructing thus an all-comprehensive and glorious whole. And the system is, in fact, so perfect, that the loss or displacement of any member would fatally derange the general order. If there were any smallest star in heaven that had no place to fill, that oversight would beget a disturbance which no Leverrier could compute ; because it would be a real and eternal, and not merely casual or apparent, disorder. One grain, more or less, of sand would disturb or even fatally disorder the whole scheme of the heavenly motions. So nicely balanced, and so carefully hung, are the worlds, that even the grains of their dust are counted, and their places adjusted to a correspondent nicety. There is nothing included in the gross, or total sum, that could be dispensed with. The same is true in regard to t'orces that are apparently irregular. Every particle of air is moved by laws of as great precision as the laws of the heavenly bodies, or, indeed, by the same laws ; keeping its appointed place, and serving its appointed use. Every odour e.xhales in the nicest conformity with its appointed place and law. Even the viewless and mysterious heat, stealing throu;,'h the dark centres and impenetrable depths of the worlds, obeys its uses with unfaltering exactness, dissolving never so much as an atom that was not to be dissolved. What now shall we say of man, appearing, as it were, in the centre of this great circle of uses.' They are all adjusted for him : has he, then, no ends appointed for him-

self? oblest of all creatures, and closest to God, as he certainly is, are we to say that his Creator has no definite thoughts concerning him, no place prepared for him to fill, no use for him to serve, which is the reason of his existence? — H. Bushiiell, D.D. e. There is nothing useless in nature. [125S8] We live, it is manifest, in the midst of a system every one part of which is adapted with the greatest nicety to every other. We see before us what we reckon a useless plant, and we conclude that the species might be eradicated, and no evil follow. But the conclusion is rash. For the seed of that plant may be needful to the support of some kind of bird, or the root of it to some insect ; that bird or insect may serve an important purpose in the economy of the earth ; and were we completely to root out that plant bearing seed after its kind, we might throw the whole of nature into inextricable confusion. —J. McCosh, D.D. (4) Vasiness, unity, and continuity. [12589] What eye can measure the boundless universe of God ? The strongest telescope of the astronomer fails to discover its limits. Beyond all the stars or worlds which we discern through his instrument, we behold the faint gleams of the pale light of still more distant and unknown realms of space, which may be the reflection of still remoter stars, located in parts of the infinite universe which will ever remain

hidden to man. The wonderful rapidity with which light

travels has been calculated ; the relative distances have been measured between the sun and the planets that revolve round him, and which borrow their light from him ; but to express the relative distances of the gi'eater number of stellar systems, words and numbers fail us. Stars which we see glimmering in the heavens because their light is still travelling towards us through immeasurable space, may have been long extinguished. ew suns may have come into existence at inexpressible distances from us, which we do not see because the light from them has not reached our eye. So immense is the universe ! — nay, not the universe, but merely the small p.irt of it which we can discover from our earth ; and this small part, according to the suppositions of the most distinguished astronomers, is far from the glorious centre round which the worlds revolve. The earth, the sun, the myriad stars, float in the great ocean of space, and revolve round a greater sun which, however, remains hidden from our mortal ken. Each hour the globe we inhabit moves fifteen thousand miles, and each day three hundred and fifty-five thousand miles, onward in space. Hourly and daily the sun, with the eleven planets (worlds like our own) and eighteen moons (all of which cannot be seen by the naked eye) belonging tohis system, in like manner move along with in-

conceivable rapidity, without our being able to perceive it. So immeasurable are the distances that separate these worlds belonging to one and the same system, that even after a century's observation, we are hardly able to discern their motion round another — to us unknown — sun. And these numberless spheres, almost all of which are of infinitely greater magnitude than the globe we inhabit, are intimately connected with each other, in spite of the enormous distances that separate them. Similar to each other in forin, they mutually dispense to each other the light which they irradiate, and which is perhaps the same as that which flashes front the thunder-cloud, and which beams so brightly in the Aurora Borealis. Ah ! what is the finest masterpiece from the hand of the first hur^iau artist compared with the great, the wonderful, the boundless universe whereon God is enthroned ! .And all these worlds form a unity— are the intimately connected, closely related parts of a continuous whole.— jY. Schokke, D.D. [12590] Consider the facts and phenomena of everyday life, and the relations of coinmon things which we see in the world around us — are these suggestive of the doctrine of continuity or of discontinuity ? For example, in the most ordinary phenomena of nature is change per saltuin, or gradual change, nature's law ? We can have no hesitation in answering this question. The gradual dawn of morning's

light "shining more and more unto the perfect day " — the gradual deepening of evening's twilight into the gloom of night — the gradual bursting of the buds in spring — the gradual painting of summer's landscape with the more

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sombre tints of autumn, have been enshrined in immortal verse in the literature of our own and every other language • " oiselessly as the daylight comes back when night is done, And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek grows into the great sun ; oiselessly as the spring-time her crown of verdure weaves, And all the trees on all the hills open their thousand leaves."

Continuity, and not discontinuity, is taught us by the phenomena of the seasons and the changes of day and night. And what does nature teach us in the vegetable world .' Do we find to-day a gigantic oak flourishing where yesterday there was smooth, unbroken sward .' Or is nature's mode of working, that there is first a tiny seedlmg peering through the soil, which a child could crush beneath its foot ; then in the course of years a stout shrub, which a strong man might have difficulty in uprooting ; then, when years and years have come and gone, the mighty giant tree, which bids defiance to the storm ? Or, to take an illustration from animal life, and to take of that life the highest form in its highest manifestations, do we find great statesmen, poets, painters, and men of science springing into being fully developed and glittering, Athenae-like, in all their intellectual panoply.' Or is it true that all the men who are now in any capacity leaders of thought, of taste, or of action, were once feeble infants, physically helpless, and with just sufficient mental capacity to have a dim consciousness of being ? We state these simple questions which everybody can answer, because, although everybody can answer them, many people do not grasp their significance, and because they lead to a suggestive line of thouglit and investigation. We only need to study the matter to see that everywhere around us — in the changes and phenomena of inorganic nature, in the growth of animal and vegetable life, in the growth and development of that intellectual and moral strength which is the highest attribute of the

highest form of life — we have continuity everywhere, gradual change, the less perfect developing into the more perfect ; developing however, let us note^for it is a truth missed by all the opponents and most of the defenders of the doctrine of evolution — not without constant care and supervision, and in many instances not without a hard struggle against adverse environments. — Prof. Leebody. 10 Illustrations of God's wisdom in its adjustments. (l) As regards the relation of bodies in respect of their properties and quantity. [12591] Every one knows how needful the atmosphere is for the sustaining of animal and vegetable life. When air is inhaled by a living being, its oxygen unites with the carbon of the blood to produce carbonic acid ; and the combination, being a kind of combustion, is one VOL. IV.

source of the heat necessary to the preservation of the frame. But for the skilful composition of the atmosphere, and the greater disposition of oxygen to unite with carbon than with nitrogen, and the production of heat by the chemical combination of carbon and oxygen, it is evident that animation could not be sustained. It appears that a slight change in the composition of

the atmosphere, or even the chemical instead of the mechanical combination of its two elements, would render it no longer capable of accomplishing these ends. And it is by a most skilfully arranged process that the atmosphere, amid the changes which it undergoes in fulfilling its offices, is still enabled to retain its purity. The germination of plants, and the respiratiim of animals, are constantly active in producing carbonic acid, and in setting nitrogen free. But these in e.xcess would give the air a deadly tendency, and this is prevented by a beautiful provision, whereby the carbon of the carbonic acid is absorbed by plants, as being necessary for their sustenance, and in the absorption the oxygen is set free to join the superfluous nitrogen liberated by the other processes. The animal and vegetable kingdoms are thus made to balance and sustain each other, according to a general law ; but this, be it observed, by means of the most skilfully arranged adjustment of the properties of bodies to each other. The different powers which bodies have of absorbing and radiating heat also furnish illustrations of the skilful adjustments with which nature abounds. The grass and foliage absorb heat in the summer season during the day, and again radiate it into the clear atmosphere at night, till the plants are so reduced in temperature as to congeal the moisture floating in the air into the dew necess.iry to refresh them. Every separate plant has its peculiar power in this respect, and by means of the colour of its leaves keeps the measure of heat, and seeks the measure of dew needful to its well-being. —

J. McCosh, D.D. [12592] An earth greater or smaller, denser or rarer, than the one on which we live, would require a change in the structure and strength of the footstalks of all the little flowers that hang their heads under our hedges. There is something curious in thus considering the whole mass from pole to pole, and from circumference to centre, as employed in keeping a snowdrop in the position most suited to the promotion of its vegetable health. — Whewell. (2) As regards the relation of bodies in respect of time and space. [12593] Such adaptations are very numerous. Organs, e.g.., appear at the very time they are needed. Teeth, which woul4 be useless to the infant and worse than useless to the infant's mother, appear as soon as they can be of advantage. That mother's milk, too, flows at the very period when the wants of her new-born babe require it. The very birth of certain animals is adjusted to the season of the year.

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and to the period of the food most conducive to its well-being, the preparation for the birth of the animal and the preparation for the birth of its food (say the larva: of insects) dating from different points of time. So in other departments. There are, e.g., in the sunbeam three difierent principles : the chemical, the luminiferous, and the calorific, each of which has a special function to discharge. The chemical principle has a powerful influence in germinating the plant ; the luminous rays assist it in secreting from the atmosphere the carbon which it requires in order to its growth ; while the heat rays are required to nurture the seed and form the reproductive elements. ow the first of these is most powerful in spring, the second in summer, and the third in autumn ; while each of the others is correspondingly lessened — i.e., each becomes potent at the very time when its action is most required. — J. McCosh, D.D. [12594] We know of infinite time peopled with innumerable e.xistences, of infinite space crowded with unnumbered worlds. . The sense of the world's unknown antiquity and of the heaven's inconceivable vastness date respectively from two epoch moments in the history of modern science — one when, about a hundred years ago, some remains of extinct animals were first brought to the great French naturalist Buffon, and then flashed upon his prescient mind the process by which geology was destined

ultimately to explain the yet undeciphered hieroglyphs carved upon the rocks by the hand of God ; and the other was when, more than two hundred years ago, Sabileo, from the top of Fiesole, first noticed through the telescope the phases of the planet Venus, and so divined the as yet hidden secret of the stars. But how vast are the resultant conclusions ! To David the earth probably seemed comparatively a thing of yesterday. We know of ages when the earth may have been a nebulous mass ; of ages more when it was certainly one tangled growth of gigantic vegetation ; of ages more when it was trodden by huge and fearful lizards — dragons of the prime, tearing each other with lethal armour of incomparable deadliness. We look at a piece of chalk, and we know that to form it took the spoils of millions of living organisms ; and the man sinks powerless before the effort to conceive the years which it must have taken, by ordinary processes, to build up the white ramparts of our coasts. And yet the Christian looks with perfect steadfastness, entirely unterrified, over the edge of this yawning abyss of time, because he is clinging fast to the hand of Him to whom a thousand years are but as one day, and one day as a thousand years. ay, more ; he sees how, even through those long ages, the purposes of love were preparing this earth for man ; how the monstrous and terrible creatures disappeared ; how tlieera of humanity was also the era of the wheat-ear and the rose ; how, if these tangled forests of pine and treefern had not flourished and decayed, the great >', cupC). " It excludes " — to use the words of an esteemed divine — " it excludes all idea of a life connected with flesh and blood derived from earthly materials, all idea of a form of life holding the same confined relations to place and space as does our gross organism, all idea of dependence upon conditions of life and laws of movement such as we have to do with, without at all denying that the angels have proper bodies, and an outward life conformable to the nature of those bodies. For the Scriptures reveal to us a sphere of corporeal life, in addition to and beyond our own as it at present subsists, and which, just as our present life with its ' tabernacle of clay,' its gross earthly character, corresponds to our terrestrial system, in like manner, as a faitliful transcript of the celestial systems, is adapted to the nature of a pure spirit TrrjD/ia, just as further, our present body is adapted to the nature of a mere et powerful and glorious in their measure, and even in a high degree ; if in these circumstances he sinned at all, the probability is, that it would be by forgetting his duty to his Maker, by arrogating to himself independence on God, if not equality to Him, and by requiring from inferior spirits that homage and obedience which were due to Jehovah. Hence we find that pride was the spirit which he breathed when he seduced our

first parents, the essence of the sin to which he tempted them : " Your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil : " equality to God was what he proposed to them. And as his design A'as to ruin them, what would appear to him more likely to accomplish his purpose than that which ruined himself? In accordance with this, we find that he endeavoured in the same way to overcome the blessed Redeemer. When his other attacks had failed, he proposed all the kingdoms of the world, and all the glory of them, hoping that

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this might enkindle the flame of ambition in the breast of even the illustrious Messiah. — \V. Scot!. II The miserable condition in eternal damnation of Satan and his associates. [12783] Me miserable I which way shall I fly Infinite wrath, and infinite despair? Which way 1 fly is hell ; myself am hell ; And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep

Still threatening to devour me opens wide. —Milton. [12784] It is a generally admitted principle, established by reasoning and verified by facts, that the more excellent anything is in itself, and the more important the purposes to which it can be applied, the worse, the more corrupt and vile (if it is capable of vileness), the more destructive does it become when it is entirely perverted. What would be so injurious to man as the food on which he lives, or the air which he breathes, if its properties were so changed as to become the very reverse of what they are? It is not within the range of possibility that an irrational animal should ever become so hateful and pernicious a being as a thoroughly wicked man. It requires the perversion, the utter depravation of an angel, to make a devil ; of an archangel, to produce the prince of the devils. In proportion, therefore, to the height of capacity and power, of dignity and happiness, to which Satan and his associates were raised by the omnipotence and bounty of the great Creator, must necessarily be the depth of the gulf of depravity and wretchedness into which they precipitated themselves by sin ; a gulf out of which they can never rise, and from which we have fearful intimations in the Scriptures that God will never raise them. — IV. Scott. [12785] Darkness is a state obviously suitable for beings to whom the light of heaven was unsatisfactory and odious ; and chains are most

proper for beings whose proud and wanton wishes were discontented with the glorious liberty of the sons of God. lioth also united form a degradation eminently fitted for beings v.ho, at the head of the created universe, were impatiently ambitious of a hi_;her station. Both nt the same time constitute a proper temporary punishment for beings who rebelled against the government of God Himself. 13 The mighty but limited power of Satan. [12786J Power of Satan, (i) Vast and mysterious, (a) Physically, over nature, animate and inanimate ; over natural phenomena, probably over diseases, over the bodies of men ; how far, and under what circumstances and limits, we cannot say, further than that it is an acknowledged truth of Scripture (Job. i 12, ii. 4-7 ; Luke xiii. 16; Acts x. 38 ; l Cor. v. 5 ; 2 Cor. xii. 7 ; I Tim. i. 20). {b) Spiritually, over the mind and spirit of man ; to blind (2 Cor. iv. 4) and deceive (Rev. xx. 2.3); to seduce (i Tim. iv. i); to harass and sift (Luke xxii. 31); to tempt (i Chron. xxi. I) ; to hinder the good seed

taking root (Matt. xiii. 19) ; to sow tares (Matt. xiii. 25, 39) ; to thwart Christ's ministers in their work (i Thess. ii. 18). ic) Over the world, as in a sense its permitted ruler and prince (John xii. 31, xvi. 11). ( John xvii. 24 ; Acts xiii. 48 ; chap, viii. 28-30, ix. 23, xi. ; Eph. i. 4, 5 ; i Thess. i. 4, V. 9 ; 2 Tim. i. 9 ; i Pet. i. 2 ; 2 Pet. i. 10. 3. Its range comprises : (l) Faith (2 Thess. ii. 13); (2) Holiness (Eph. i. 4); (3) Eternal life.— C. . [13014] Election must be traced either to God or to man ; it cannot be the combined result of two essentially distinct and opposite agencies. Grace and works are mutually exclusive. A tax cannot be both voluntary and compulsor)-; it must be one or the other. A piece of land cannot be both part of an island and of the mainland ; it must be one or the other. And so if words have any meaning attachable to them, if ideas are realities, election cannot be both by grace and by works ; it must be by one or the other. o combination or mixture of the two is conceivable in the very nature of things (Rom. xi. 6). — Ibid. [13015] The doctrine of election may be understood in two ways ; either as the choosing out of mankind some individuals or communities for the enjoyment of peculiar advantages temporal or spiritual in this world, or the selecting

some individuals as partakers of eternal happiness in the next. — Archdeacon Jones. 2 Its negations. (i) // is no part of the doctrine of election that God created a part of mankind merely to duinn them. [13016] It is indeed revealed that God will punish multitudes of the human race " with everlasting destruction from His presence," but He did not bring them into being merely for //;. Henry Ham's, B.D. [13034] In her views on this deep subject, the Church of England is neither Calvinistic nor Arminian : her aim at least is to be Scriptural. As opposed to Calvin, she altogether excludes the doctrine of reprobation. The assertion that certain persons are chosen to condemnation is nowhere found in her Articles, her Homilies, or her Liturgy. Such doctrine appears to be utterly at variance with the revealed character of God, who " willeth not that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance," and is virtually condemned by our Lord in the twenty-fifth chapter of St. Mattliew, where he describes the King as saying to " tliem on His right hand. Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world ; " but adds, "Then shall He say also unto them on His left hand. Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared (not for you, but) for the devil and his angels" (Matt. xxv. 34, 41). As opposed to Ariiiinius, our Church refers the cause or ground of God's election, not to the foreseen faith of His people, but to His own good pleasure. His counsel secret to us. — Rev. Sir Lmilius Bay ley, B.D. ['3035] The doctrine is occasionally pushed to extremes which shock all our instinctive feelings of justice, besides openly contradicting some of the plainest teaching of Scripture. It

has been argued, then, somewhat as follows : " Since God has predestinated some to everlasting happiness, and others to eternal misery, it is of no use my trying to alter the sentence which was passed upon me before I was born." . . . To such a mode of argument . . . we reply that the Bible goes from first to last on the very opposite principle ; it never allows God's elect to rest for a moment upon the certainly of their salvation ; it keeps urging them again and again to make their calling and election sure, to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling. And so, on the other hand, it docs not give up any as hopelessly and irreclaimably lost. It keeps reminding us that God does not will the death of a sinner, but ratlier that he should turn to Him and live. — Rev. Henry Harris, B.D. [13036] The Church of England recognizes the doctrine of predestination in its twofold aspect. The doctrine of predestination to

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grace is implied in the Catechism, in which

every baptized child is taught to "believe in God the Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth him and all the elect people of God," and in the collect of All Saints' Day, where the elect are spoken of as knit together in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of Christ, or in the Church, the elect unquestionably meaning all the baptized or members of the Church. In the 17th Article predestination to glory is affirmed ; and, according to the wording of the Article, no other interpretation appears tenable than that all the elect or the predestinate are there represented as being finally saved. — Rev. John Henry Blunt, M.A. VI. Points of Difference between the Apostolic Doctrine and that taught by calvinism. [13037] Are the references to the idea of election in the ew Testament such, as a general thing, that they may be fairly construed in the known and established sense of the Calvinistic dogma ? or are they so circumstanced and conditioned as to require plainly a different interpretation .' On this point there is no room for any serious doubt. The ew Testament doctrine of election, as it meets us, for instance, m the Epistles of St. Peter, and rules continually the thinking and writing of St. Paul, is something essentially different from the doctrine of election which is presented to our view in Calvin's " Institutes." The proof of this is found sufficiently in one single consideration. The Calvinistic election involves, beyond the possi-

bility of failure, the full salvation at last of all those who are its subjects ; there is no room to conceive of their coming short of this result in any single instance, made certain as it is in the form of a specific purpose and pre-determination in the Divine mind from all eternity. . . . The " elect " in Calvin's sense have no power really to fall from grace or come short of everlasting life. But plainly the "elect" of whom the ew Testament speaks, the " chosen and called of God " in the sense of St Peter and St. Paul, are not supposed to possess any such advantage ; on the contrary, it is assumed in all sorts of ways that their condition carries with it, in the present world, no prerogative of certain ultimate salvation whatever. . . . Plainly, we repeat, the two conceptions are not the same. The difference here brought into view is such as to show unanswerably that the Calvinistic dogma is one thing, and the common ew Testament idea of election altogether another. The Calvinistic election terminates on the absolute salvation of its subjects ; that forms the precise end and scope of it in such sort that there is no room to conceive of its failing to reach this issue in any single case. The ew Testament election, as it enters into the teaching of .St. Peter and St. Paul, terminates manifestly on a state or condition short of absolute salvation. Whatever the distinction may involve, for those who are its subjects, in the way of saving grace,

it does not reach out at once to the full issue of

eternal life. The fact it serves to establish and make certain for them is of quite another character and kind, it sets them in the way of salvation, but it docs not make their salvation sure. — Dr. evin. [13038] Calvinism teaches that by the decree of God some men are foreordained to everlasting death ; Paul teaches that it is the will of God "that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth." Calvinism teaches that " neither are any other redeemed by Christ, . . . but the elect only ;" Paul teaches that "Christ gave Himself a ransom for all." Calvinism teaches that God's choice falls on men when they are not " in Christ," and brings them into union with Him that they may receive the forgiveness of sins and eternal life ; Paul teaches that the elect are those who are " in Christ," and that being in Him they enter into the possession of those eternal blessings which before the foundation of the world it was God's purpose, His decree, to confer upon all Christians. According to the Calvinistic conception, some men who are still " children of wrath, even as the rest," to use a phrase which occurs later in this epistle, are among the " elect," and will therefore some day become children of God. That is a mode of speech foreign to Paul's thought ; according to Paul no man is elect e.xcept he is "in Christ." We are all among the non-elect until we are in Him. But once in Christ, we are caught in the currents of the eternal purposes of the Divine love ; we belong to the elect race ; all things are ours ; we are

the children of God and the heirs of His glory. God has " blessed us with every spiritual blessing . . . in Christ." God "chose us in Hiii: before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love."— i^. PV. Dale, D.D. VH. Points of Difference between St. Augustine's Doctrine and that TAUGHT by Calvinism. [13039] The theory of Calvin was a revival . . . with certain modifications of the predestination theories of St. .-Vugustine, whose works the reformer frequently cites, and to whose authority he mainly appeals. . . . The especial difference between Augustinism and Calvinism was, that according to the former system, God was not in any degree chargeable with the sin of Adam and of his posterity. The other important difference related to the grace of holy baptism, St. Augustine believing in the real bestowal of sacramental grace, or that all the baptized in and through baptism were regenerated. Calvin did not believe that grace in any real sense was bestowed on the non-elect. If given at all, it is represented as the shadow rather than the substance of a Divine gift ; or a deceptive or illusive grace intended to render them excusable. Effectual grace leading to salvation was given only to the elect ; hence he

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limits the grace of regeneration or adoption to the elect amongst the baptized. — Rev. John Henry Blunt, M.A. [13040] It is undeniable that the Augustinian doctrine has been held by many of tlie greatest and subtlest intellects from Augustine's time till now. It has a sort of fascination, especially for masculine and vigorous natures. Is not the explanation probably to be found in the fact that such natures find " a deep peace " in the belief that their own greatest efforts are not really efforts at all, but the natural fruits of a Divine necessity ; that they can neither fail nor succeed so long as they obey implicitly, but only transmit the energies and register the decrees of a diviner might and wisdom? o doubt there is a great fascination in a mode of thought which almost obliterates the human instrument in the grandeur of the inevitable purpose. Calvinism is a personal and Christian way of merging the individual in the grandeur of a universal destiny. — Spectator. [13041] Perhaps the greatest danger in the

tendencies of modem thought is that of the subversion of the moral freedom of man by the general acceptance of the doctrine that physical law is just as valid in the moral world as in the material. That the Calvinistic doctrine tends in this direction cannot be denied. And this tendency is doubtless one of the grounds, if not the chief ground, of the modern reaction against Augustinianism among spiritual thinkers (as distinguished from materialists) on the one hand, and of the various schemes of modified Augustinianism which have been proposed within the theological sphere as substitutes for extreme Calvinism — as Baxterianism, the so-called moderate Calvinism, and the ew England theology. — McClintock and Strong. VIII. Statement bv the Westminster Confession of Faith on the Doctrine OF Election. ■ [13042] We desire to examine the Westminster Confession of Faith on the great subject of predestination. What does it say hereon.' It says that " God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass ; yet so as thereby God is neither the Author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established." In these words you have a grand saving clause, most comprehensive in its import and application — a clause which governs all which is advanced on this subject

by the Confession : this saving clause is, first, that God must not be made the Author of sin ; second, that no violence must be ofk-red to the will of the creature, which will must be regarded as free ; third, that the liberty of second causes must be left untouched, and that there is contingency in the world. I wish for nothing more

than these three watchtowers which the Confession has itself set up as beacons of light, and as sources of caution and of consideration, in forming our conclusions on this great subject. — Rev. George Jamieson, IX. Answers to Objections urged against the Doctrine. [13043] St. Paul, in the ninth chapter of Romans, deals with two objections which are usually urged against the doctrine of election : I. That it is inconsistent with God's justice (vers. 14-18). 2. That it interferes with human responsibility (vers. 19-24). In his reply the apostle exhibits wonderful tact and skill. He does not touch upon the philosophical aspects of the doctrine, around which, in the present order of things, clouds and darkness must ever rest. As to the first objection, he shows that the doctrine of election is not inconsistent with Divine justice by an appeal 10 the I'entateuch, where we find God acting both in the exercise

of mercy (vers. 15, 16) and of judgment (vers. 17, 18), on the principle of free, sovereign choice. As the apostle was dealing with those who admitted the authority of the Old Testament Scriptures, such an answer was sufficient and complete. After all, with our finite faculties and present knowledge, it is impossible, without the aid of revelation, to handle such deep and abstract questions as to what is and what is not inconsistent with God's justice in His dealings with a fallen race. As to the second objection, he deals with it as one not so much of an intellectual as of a moral character. Such a cavil on the part of man as to the Divine procedure springs from an evil heart of unbelief. It calls for rebuke rather than for reasoning. It is occasioned by a mistake altogether as to the relationship of the Creator to His sinful creatures. The human race, being universally guilty and condemned, has no claim upon God for mercy. Even if any of us should urge the fact that we inherit Adam's entail of sin, yet our consciences assure us that, after making all allowances on that score, we have not lived up to our light, and have a sense of guilt, as not only being one of a fallen race, but as viewed in our individual capacity. Hence the apostle disposes of this cavilling objection, of this expression of a rebellious spirit, by pointing out : I. That such is not a fitting attitude for the creature to assume in regard to the Creator. It is altogether to leave our province (vers. 19-21). 2. That God, how-

ever, even in His punitive acts, deals with leniency and for benevolent purposes (vers. 22-241. The apostle next shows that in the Old Tcst.iment the calling of the Gentiles and the preservation of only a renmant of Israel was foretold (vers. 25-29). From the Divine aspect of the question he now passes on to the humnn. He shows that unbelief and wilfulness on the part of the Jew?

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explain and justify their rejection (vers. 30-33). —C. . [13044] It is objected that this doctrine tends to the ne,!'. 2 The truths embodied in the symbols. [131 15] Of what truths are these figures the symbols .'' Water is the symbol of the supernatural operation of God the Holy Ghost in

the regeneration and sanctification of the soul, whereby are conveyed and applied the forces of Divine Grace to the soul of man. " According

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to His mercy He hath saved us, by the washing of regeneration and tlie renewing of the Holy Ghost." This is St. Paul's figure. Blood is the symbol of that atoning sacrifice, whereby is declared unto us, at once, man's sin with its consequent ruin and helplessness, and that unspeakable, unfathomable mystery of grace, wherein God's holiness and pity came together into one redeeming concord, and righteousness and peace kissed each other on the Cross. " In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins." Again, St. Paul. Word symbolizes the method of communicating this to man's understanding. For hereby, through the conveying of the facts and truths, and ideas, and promises of the gospel to the

heart and conscience through the reason, in words written or spoken, his spirit is seized, touched, stirred, broken, and healed. " Preacliing peace by Jesus Christ," this is St. Peter's account. In a word, the Blood is the exhibition and operation of a Divine redemption ; the Word is the vehicle of that wondrous gospel to the intelligence of mankind ; the Water is the visible s;gn and instrument by which that message is applied and assured. The end of it is that Christ having died and risen again, and the Spirit having been given as the Father's promise to men, accompanying and vitalizing the gospel of a full and free and present salvation to them that are afar off, and also to them that are nigh, they who perceive their own necessity, and know and believe God's great love to them, cast themselves at the feet of Christ the Redeemer, and are made "clean every whit." — Jbid. 3 Their doctrinal significance. [131 16] Thoughtful divines have constantly recognized in the incident of the Paschal Supper (John xiii. 3-17) and the teaching that goes with it, a close connection not only with Holy Baptism, but with the entire economy of grace in the continual cleansing of the imperfect but faithful soul. If there is no such thing as spiritual cleansing in baptism, Ananias's direction to Saul has no meaning, and it becomes an empty and disappointing formalism. Surely, to the faithful recipient of that Divine ordinance a free forgiveness is assured. " One

baptism for the remission of sins" is the expression of the Catholic faith ; and while the baptism cannot be repeated, that primal forgiveness is pledge and firstfruits of pardon renewed, and bestowed as fmilty requires and repentance prepares. In Holy Communion, while we ask " So to eat the flesh of Jesus Christ and to drink His blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by His body, and our souls washed through His most precious blood," we can plead it as our ground of access, mak" it a sacrifice of thanksgiving, only when it is first a season of penitence. Claiming our privilege as children, we will always remember that the possibilities of the prodigal arc deep within our souls ; called to be saints, let us ask for the power of the resurrection continually to

deliver us from the bondage of indwelling sin. Perhaps we none of us know what we miss through lack of explicit and detailed and honest and sorrowful confession of sin. Yet to the English Churchman the service of Holy Communion, with its ample opportunities for private and close reflection, would bring much more solid and vivid comfort, if there were less desultoriness and more effort for detailed prayer. —Ibid. VI. The Grand Import of this Doctrine TO the Chur.vH of God. [13117] Forgiveness of sin means four in-

finitely blessed and life-giving truths for the Church of God. First, the full free, present, unreserved forgiveness of sins, to every penitent and believing soul approaching God by Christ, and, presenting in an act of faith, His merits and sacriiice as the one ground of propitiation and mercy, whereby His holy grief and displeasure are put away, the plagues and penalties of it remitted, the veil that shut out His face taken away, and constant access opened into His presence. Loved before, or why should it have been redeemed, now the soul is doubly loved ; and in the g^and hyperbole of the Psalmist, " As far as the east is from the west, so far shall He remove our transgressions from us."- — Jlnii. [131 18] With pardon goes righteousness. You cannot really separate one from the other, either in the purpose of God's mercy or in the method of it. So much so, that when St. Paul writes about it to the Romans he not only includes the one in the other, but practically identifies them as two halves of one whole. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, " Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Li)rd will not impute sin," which means, only diversely expressed, that to whom He does not impute sin, forgiving him. He does impute righteousness, justifying him. One act deos both, and one love bestows both. To be forgiven is the same thing as to be accounted righteous before

God. For, clearly, it is either both or neither. It is either the prodigal crouching in the outside darkness, or the accepted child standing before the Father in Christ, His representative and head. — Ji/id. [131 19] With pardon for sin and the Divine righteousness going with it is the pledge of continuous grace, assured protection, and final victory. God is ever consistent in His purpose, which is to overcome sin in us ; and righteous in His character, which never claims anydiing that we arc not reasonably able to perform. Christ died for our sins that wc might die unto them. Therefore, we are told to reckon ourselves "dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Be sure

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that whatever we need for holiness and victory God has for us — in Christ — only we are to ask for it. " The river of God is full of water." — Jbiii. VII. The Solemn Warning involved in

THE COSIDER.\TIO OF THAT OE AD OLY Sin to WHICH THE DOCTRIE OF FORGIVEESS DOES OT APPLY. [13120] There is one thought, an awful one, for it involves terrible issues, yet so much in front among the controversies of the time that one who presumes to write about forgiveness could hardly pass it over without, at least, one word to counsel, though not to explain. A disciple was present at the Paschal Supper, of whom it was said by One who knows, " Good were it for that man if he had never been born." Truly aufiil words. Of a certain sin, that against the Holy Ghost, the same gentle, holy Saviour warned His hearers that it hath no forgiveness, not in this world, nor in the world to come. Again, the apostle of love, St. John, in his general epistle carefully distinguishes between sins about which we may pray, and a sin " unto death ; I do not say that he shall pray for Wr—ihid. [See Section XIV., " Sins."] VIII. The Two Great Lines of Thought AS TO the Final Restoration of the Unforgiven. [13121] The two chief lines of thought on this question . . . are each nobly jealous for the character of God, and yearning for the salvation of man. One of them feels outraged by the

supposed injustice to His mercy in the prospect of a hopeless exile from His face and service for those who pass away in impenitence. The other is so profoundly impressed by the unspeakable, inconceivable evil and consequences of sin in the universe, and its detestableness before Almighty God, that even to try to open a door of mercy which seems closed may mean to make light of what God abhors. Both, however, readily admit the extreme peril of going one hair's breadth beyond the Saviour's own utterances on this matter ; also the unconscious yet real presumptuousness of attempting to protect God's character from His own revelation of it, or to make human mercy and human righteousness more merciful and more righteous than W\i.—Ibid. [13122] There can be no doubt that Holy Scripture, from the tender lips of the Saviour, contains awful warnings about the final condition of the wicked, which it is a sort of impiety to explain away, and a grave irreverence to sup90se to have been uttered merely to frighten us. \Vhen He who so loved Jerusalem, that He died for it, wept over it because He could not save it, were those dramatic tears ? " Doubtless God has so surprised us by His former acts of grace, by such an inconceivable interposition in the .'ncarnation and the Cross, that it does not be-

come us to say that anything is impossible with Him, except to deny Himself But still less

docs it become us, creatures such as we are, who know so little, whose hearts and minds are so feebly under control, whose wills are so treacherous, whose passions are so blinding, either to narrow or enlarge His words. If, indeed, He has told us of more than we supposed His words to mean, in God's name let it be shown. If not, let us take care what we are doing. We may be claiming to be wiser than the wisest, more loving than the most loving, who even on earth partially lifted the veil from the unseen world, and in parable and vision disclosed its awful secrets." — Ibid. [13123] Silence for those who dare not add to a book which, in their judgment, at this page has been deliberately closed, trust from those whose personal experience of God's love and righteousness make them infinitely and immovably sure that God will in the end justify Himself as merciful and true before the entire universe, diligence unwearied and tender, from all who love God and hate sin, and wish to make their brethren's risks as little as they can, by doing their best both to bring them unto light and love — here seems to me to be the true and humble wisdom of the servants of God. To preach the gospel of One who is mighty to save, and who to the last, though in vain, tried to save even Judas, with unfaltering boldness to proclaim the sinfulness of sin, and its awful unknown reward, here and hereafter, is our twofold and solemn duty. Here also to leave it with Him who is both Saviour and Judge. The gospel of mercy to tender and gentle hearts will

ever be a more congenial theme ; but the gospel of holiness is at least as needful. Only in the concord of the Divine perfections, only in the full and unflinching declaration of a full-orbed doctrine, is the secret of a right judgment to be found. — Ibid. [13 124] "Discourses about the restoration of all things are about something that we have not the least knowledge of, nor any faculties or foundation for such knowledge ; we have nothing certain or plain within ourselves about it, and so have nothing to oppose to anything that is told us. The irrecoverable state of men and angels is a dreadful thought to us ; our sense of misery, tenderness, and compassion for our fellow-creatures makes us wish that no creatures should fall into it, and we are unable to show how such a state should result from the infinite wisdom, goodness, and perfection of God. But then we must consider that we are here governed by our passions and weakness, and only form a God according to our own conceptions. For my own part, this one saying, ' Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?' is a stronger support to my mind, and a better guard against all anxiety than the deepest discoveries that the most speculative, inquisitive minds could help me to. With this one assurance of the infinitely infinite goodness of God, I resign up myself, my

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friends, relatives, men, and angels to the adorable yet incomprehensible disposal of His wisdom." IX. egations implied in a Reverent Meditation on the Doctrine. 1 Forgiveness does not mean that the moral and physical consequences of sin, as far as this life is concerned, can ever be re. mitted or repealed. [13125] As much in the moral government of God as in the majestic order of nature there is an inexorabl« reign of law. It is as true for a saint as for a reprobate, " Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." While it is true that the drunkard may be utterly delivered out of his cups, and the demon of strong drink cast out of him, yet the tissues, both of body and mind, until he drops into his grave, must be marked by the excesses of the past, fifty years of abstinence in front can only prevent future mischief; they cannot drain out of his system one drop of what has been already

swallowed. That the past is irrevocable is a law for all men in everything and everywhere. We must consent meekly to bow to this absolute rule of righteousness. We must recognize and accept in it the merciful severity which, to prevent sin, deliberately makes its results evident and abiding, which will never try to avert evil and assist goodness by making evil as sweet as goodness. — /6ii/. 2 Forgiveness does not imply that because sin has been forgiven and put away, it will never tempt us again. [13126] In our regeneration sin may have received a deadly wound, but being hard to kill it still lives on, and, unless we take care, may soon lift up its head and be too much for us again. Its forms, no doubt, will be varied and modified by our years, for self-love has a thousand developments. The old man's temptations are not the boy's. A man in middle life is tempted by trials of his own. But it is the same mischief under a new dress. Till we die "the motions of sins in our members" will ever be tempting us to be false to Christ ; nay, occasionally it almost seems that those who most wish to be like Christ are those who are most with Him in the severity of His temptations, and that the disciples whom He most dearly loves, honourably uses, continuously sanctifies, are those whom the tempter is permitted (as with Job of old) to harass with the most grievous and poignant temptations. Sometimes, as the Psalmist crying up to God from the revealed

depths of a heart which makes tlicm loathe themselves, they call aloud to God, " Hath God forgotten to be gracious ? Hath He in anger shut up His tender mercies ? " — J/'ni. [13 1 27] Repentance being of a slight and superficial character is often the cause why old evil habits and practices break out with such disastrous consequences in the after life. Evil habits are like "dormant buds," and are liable at any moment to burst ijt with rank profusion when

conditions unhappily favourable present themselves. Much of the extravagant and erroneous teaching which mars revival movements arise from a defective view of the indestructible nature in this life of the germs of sin even in the regenerate. — C. A'. 3 Forgiveness does not of necessity involve that sin forgiven is sin forgotten, either by God, by man, or by ourselves. [13128] We may be quite sure that David's sin about Uriah was never forgotten either by his enemies or by himself, until the rest of the grave had soothed him into forgetfulness St. Peter never forgot that he had denied hi. Lord. Had he forgotten it, there would have been many ready to give the set on of memory a pull. This, too, bitter and humbling as it may be, is also wholesome and sobering, operating by the force of law through the action of

memorj', and the power of mental association, sometimes, too, through the cruelty of unrelenting hearts. Yet it is no proof whatever that we are neither forgiven nor loved. What it does show is that there must be some fresh lesson for us to learn of humility or watchfulness ; more tenderness to acquire in dealing with the infirmities of tempted brethren, more sympathy to manifest in helping them to bear their burdens up the steep Hill Difficulty to the house where Evangelist discourses on the gospel of grace. Once more, and oh, that this awful truth could be written as with the point of a diamond in our hearts ; it never can be quite the same thing, no, not even in eternity, to have sinned as not to have sinned ; however profound the repentance, complete the conversion, devoted the service, edifying the life. A blameless past must always be better than a stained one. It is blessed to repent and to be forgiven ; but blesseder, oh, far blesseder, is it never to have left our Father's house at all, and to have kept ourselves in a pure youth and an upright manhood. Every one and everything is worse for sin. For sin goes on scattering its contagions and harvesting its results long after it has been confessed, forsaken, and forgiven, nay, long after he who has sinned has joined the white-robed throng. To some, this thought of the terrible and, in a sense, unending vitality of sin would be almost intolerable, if they could not somehow leave it with Him who, in forgiving, knows what He has forgiven, and has other ways, we trust, of preventing and healing, and finally overcoming evil, than He has been

pleased to reveal. [13129] What I would press is that not for one moment is the thought to be tolerated, that because Christ has died for us, and God is reconciling us to Himself in Him, therefore a little sin, more or less, is of small consequence. If only for five minutes we could contemplate the anguish of a lost soul over unforgiven sin, could feel the gloom of the outer darkness settling down on an unhappy spirit banished

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from the King's marriage feast, we should better understand how to loathe and resist it now. — Dr. Antliony Thorold, Bishop 0/ Rochester. X. Cautions to be observed in the Contemplation of Divine Forgiveness. I As regards the discrepancies and dangers of modern unbelief, and the occasional laxity in statement of the opposite ex-

tremity of religious speculation. [13130] Modern unbeUef boldly and emphatically maintains that forgiveness of sins is at once impossible with God and destructive for man. Impossible for God ! since, if He is consistent with Himself in all His operations and dealings with us, the same God (as Bishop Butler presses in his great argument) in the kingdom of grace that is in the world of nature. He will act in the one as He acts in the other, and be careful not to contradict Himself. But it is certain that He never permits or forgives the slightest violation of physical order. Every breach of nature's laws has its inevitable recompense and reward. Equally certain, then, must it be that He never can, never ought to condone any offence against the moral law. As for man, it is positively injurious to him, because essentially subversive of all authority without, and of all mor.al sense within, to suffer him to suppose that if he sins he can be treated in any oilier way than that of personally suffering all the consequences. ay, at all times this notion of a free and gratuitous pardon is alleged to have been the fruitful source of moral disorder, in encouraging men to suppose that they can sin with impunity ; and with equal eagerness is repudiated the notion that even the deepest and truest repentance can be any just claim with God that the law should not take its course. At quite the other extreme we occasionally find a perilous looseness of statement as to the facility of pardon, and, consequently, by no remote inference of the comparative import-

ance of sin. The Divine readiness to forgive may, it is obvious, be pressed in such serious disproportion to other equally true and solemn verities about the guilt of sin and the true meaning of sincere repentance, that it may come even to represent God as winking at it, through the freeness and gloriousness of the remedy that manifests His redeeming love to sinners. The parable of the prodigal son is almost the most precious exposition in all the Bible of the heart of the Father towards mankind. But it is possible so to depict the welcome of the penitent, and the eager readiness of his father to forgive and forget his guilt, as to tempt the feeling that no slight injustice was done to the elder brother, who was ever with him sharing his home and his love. — Ibid. [13131] Sin affects not only man himself, but his relationship with his fellow-man, and, worse still, with God. Though hating sin, God still loved, and always loved, the world of man ; for He Himself purposed from all eternity to give

His only-begotten Son as the Saviour of the human family. God could not consistently with His own personal holiness and His other inhnile perfections, and also with the claims that lie upon Him as King of kings and Lord of lords, have loved man unless the scheme of propitiation had been devised. But as God loved the world. He removed all hindrances out of (he

way of possessing and manifesting His love by sending His Son to die, "the lust for the unjust." It was only in view of Christ's coming redemptive work that in former times God could pass by sins and in any degr.;e be merciful and favourable ; and it is only in consideration of Christ's completed redemptive work that God, as a just and holy God, and viewed in regard to Himself as Ruler of the moral ui'.iverse, is enabled to pardon and to be propitious — ready, willing, and eager to forgive, to justify, and to glorify. — C. . [131 32] There is an immature peace which is not generated by a true repentance. There is an insecure peace which does not spring from the favour of God. The false assurance rests on something within us. The true on some one without and above us. The assurance of my own feeling may be the heated creation of a deluded fancy. The assurance of faith rests as on a rock upon the Person and Word of God. Christ has died for me, and risen again. He invites me to come to Him, to rest on Him, to believe His love, to accept His salvation, to receive His grace, to bear His yoke. I will believe His love, on the authority of His Word, far above what I can either ask or think. I accept the salvation which the voice of His quickening Spirit has made a supreme necessity to my conscience, and, by methods chosen by Himself, has brought home to my heart. I receive His grace through the channels He has ordained for it, themselves important witnesses of His life and purpose — the Word and Sacra-

ments ; careful not to measure it by my own unaccountable and uncontrollable feelings at the moment, but by His own promise to be present with His ordinances. I accept His yoke, perhaps not too cheerfully at first. Yet the more readily I carry it, the more He blesses me, and the wider the freedom that I feel. As to its verification, what is the tenor of my life and the main direction of my will.' The play of my feelings may vary as the clouds on the mountain side, or the hues of the tossing sea, and the fault be none of mine. But if my will be true, that is all that really matters. Disturbance there may be, perhaps there must be, sometimes as the trial of our faith, sometimes as the recognition of faithful endurance, sometimes, let it be confessed, from slacked devotion, grave inconsistency, indulged infirmity. Then it is God's kind and holy frown. Perhaps the soul that has always the same amount of assurance about God, and of communion with Him, may have reason to doubt the soundness of the one, and even the existence of the other. — Dr.. Anthony Thorold, Bishop of Rochester.

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[13133] The world will not believe a man repents, And this wise world of ours is mainly right ; Full seldom doth a man repent or use Both grace and will to pick the vicious quitch Of blood and custom wholly out of him, Ani make all clean, and plant himself afresh. XI. HOMILETICAL REMARKS AD APPLICATIOS. [13134] Pardon is a Divine act, which never stands alone. Whenever pardon is really given, there is always a sense of sin, and a sense of mortification of sin also. Too many persons pray for pardon as a kind of general duty, without at all weighing the evil of sin, or having a real desire to resist the same sin the next time they are tempted to it. It is the glory of God's pardons that they are so bestowed, that the act of pardon involves the most powerful motive not to do wrong again. Coming from the cross of Christ, as far as possible, sin is made most repulsive, in that it slew the Son of God. And thus the motive is put afresh into the heart, of fresh love by Him to whom we owe so much. — Rev. G. S. Bowes,

B.A. [13135] Pardon, acceptance, victory, imply and include our usefulness. Observe this in the case of St. Peter. Even before he denied his Lord, it was laid on him by anticipation. " When thou art converted strengthen thy brethren." This is just what happened. After the resurrection, as they walked together by the sea of Galilee, Jesus asked him, " Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me? Feed My laitibs ; feed My sheep." He did feed them. Does any one wish to know if he is forgiven? .It is neither a foolish wish nor a presumptuous one. Let him ask himself not only if God is using him, but also if he is willing to be used. The Master of the house is not so rich in faithful witnesses that He can afford to dispense with one of them. If the joy of the Divine forgiveness has really touched the quick of our heart, it will be quite impossible for us to be idle. — Dr. Anthony Thorold, Bishop of Rochester. [13 136] Faith's discovery of forgiveness in God, though it have no present sense of its own peculiar interest therein, is the great supportment of a sin-perplexed soul (Psa. cxxx. 4). — Dr. Owen. [i3»37] . . . Alasl alas, Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once ; And he that might the vantage best have took, Found out the remedy. How would you be, If He, which is the top of judgment, should

But judge you as you are ? Oh ! think on that ! [13138] Is any reader sore and wounded by the thought of past unworthiness ; whose reason tells him, that even God cannot make it as though i' had not been, but that nothing can be

done now to repair or diminish what has been written down in the Books that are to be opened ? Be humble and gentle, be charitable and forbearing, even considering, when others fall, your own past need of mercy, and how great a forgiveness God has bestowed on you. But also be bright and fearless, manful and strong. If you can humbly look up in your Saviour's face, because, on your confession and repentance, He has cast your sins behind His back, surely you may look your neighbour in the face. If God for Christ's sake has consented to forgive you, surely your brother may. If not— "if God be for us— who can be against us ?" You are not alone in your sinful history, nor in your past experience. Thousands and thousands share it with you, of whom the Church and the world dream not. In the great multitude which no man can number, plucked as brands from the burning, everlasting monuments of infinite grace will be David and the Magdalen, the great Augustine, and the author of the " Pilgrim's Progress," and a host of purified souls, that deeply sinned, and passionately repented, whose early transgressions have been equitably and generously forgotten in the grand

usefulness of their after-lives and the sweet fragrance of their sanctity. The more you have been forgiven, so much the more thereby you know of God's patience and compassion, so much greater the burden laid on you of confessing about it to others. As to your heaven, be sure of this, that whatever your present sadness, or still unhealed remorse, when once the welcome flashes on you from the face of the Lamb that was slain, there will be perfect soundness, and cleanness in the presence of us all. As you look into your heart and feel no sin there, as you wonder at the whiteness of your robe, and find no stain there, the sentence will steal into your heart and heal it for ever, "clean every whit." — Dr. Anthony ThoroU, Bishop of Rochester, [13139] Wherein the blessedness of forgiveness doth appear. i. God doth pronounce the forgiven blessed. 2. Because they are delivered from the greatest evil. 3. Because they are taken into covenant with God — into God's favour — God's family — under God's providence; they have free access to God in prayer ; they have communion with God in all His ordinances. 4. They are in a better stale than Adam was in his first creation. 5. Because they shall be blessed : (i) The future blessedness which the pardoned shall have in the blessed and glorious place where they shall live, in the blessed and glorious company which they shall converse with — saints, angels, the Holy Ghost, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Father. In

the blessed and glorious state they shall attain to a state of peace, of wealth and pleasure, of honour and dignity, of holiness and purity, of perfect happiness and glory in soul and body. (2) Prove that pardoned persons shall assuredly attain this future blessedness from God's election, God's promise. — Thomas Vincent, 1662.

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PART IV.

RESTORATIO OF THE ORMAL RELATIOS BETWEE GOD AD MA {Coniinued).

DIVISIO C. {Continued.) [4] Bestowal of Grace,

SYLLABUS. I. General Definition and Primary Significance of Divine Grace

IL Its Embracements and Analysis III. Its Properties IV. Its Process V. Its Blessedness and Influence VI. Its Evidence and Witness VII. Its Abuse VIII. Distinction between True Grace and its Counterfeit. IX. Distinction between Restraining Grace and Renewing Grace X. Questions raised on the Subject XI. HOMILETICAL APPLICATIOS ,

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{^Continued), DIVISIOi C. {.Continued.)

BESTOWAL OF GRACE. I. General Definition and Primary Significance of Divine Grace. [13140] Grace is the free favour of God by which He has in Christ provided a way of salvation, and enabled man in Christ to embrace that way. ... It is a supernatural gift of God to man, given for supernatural purposes, and bestowed freely for the sake of Christ's merits, including all supernatural powers and abilities by which the work of Christ is carried on in the Church and in the heart of man, and comprehending within the sphere of its operation all the powers and affections of man. — Rev. John Henry Blunt, M.A.

[13141] As the word mercy in its primary signification has relation to some creature either actually in a suffering state or obnoxious to it, so grace, in its proper and strict sense, always presupposes unworthiness in its object. Hence, whenever anything valuable is communicated by the blessed God, it cannot be of grace any further than the person on whom it is conferred is considered as unworthy. For, so far as any degree of worth appears, the province of grace ceases, and that of equity takes place. . . . When the Word of God represents the capital blessings of salvation as flowing from Divine grace, it describes the persons on whom they are bestowed, not only as having no claim to those benefits, but as deserving quite the reverse ; as having incurred a tremendous curse, and as justly exposed to eternal ruin (Rom. iii. 19,23 ; Gal. iii. 10). . . . Grace is, therefore, . . . the favour of God manifested in the vouchsafement of spiritual and eternal blessings to the guilty and unworthy through our Lord Jesus Christ. Such is the eternal origin, such the glorious basis of our salvation 1 Hence t proceeds and is carried on to perfection. Grace shines through the whole. For, as an elegant writer observes, it is "not like a fringe of gold bordering the garment, not like an embroidery of gold decora-

ting the robe, but like the mercy-seat of the ancient tabernacle, which was gold, pure gold, allgold throughout." — Encyclopedia of Religious

Knowledge. [13142] Grace is a comprehensive word with many meanings in Scripture, but all comprised in two things : (i) God's goodwill towards us ; (2) God's good work in us. — Rev. G. S. Bowes, B.A. n. Its Embracements and Analysis. I The grace of God's undeserved favour. (l) The well-spring of all good. [13143] Divine grace first includes that original goodness and favour by which God inclines to fallen man, with the consequent steps which in the counsels of God were necessary for man's salvation. God's first will is that all men shall be saved ; His second will, that this salvation shall be through His Son. Here is, therefore, the grace of the Father, His first love and the gift of His Son ; the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor ; and the grace of the Holy Spirit, through whose overshadowing the Son was conceived and born into the world. — Rev. John Henry Blunt, M.A. [13144] St. Paul says, " By the grace of God I am what I am." He reserved no part to himself, as if this were his own, not God's. All which is good in me, all which I have or am of good, that I am, by the grace of God. He speaks of his very " I," himself, not of any gifts, graces, wisdom, knowledge of Divine

things, inspirations, labours, love, zeal ; not of any one thing which God had given him ; not of the aggregate of all God's gifts, but his very self, around whom all these things hung, in whom they were, his very inward self, had become what it was, by the grace of God. — Dr. Pitsey. [13145] By grace we stand, by grace we persevere ; Ourselves, our deeds, our holiest, highest deed^ Unworthy aught ; grace worthy endless praise. If we fly swift, obedient to His will,

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He gives us wings to fly ; if we resist Temptation, and ne'er fall, it is His shield Omnipotent that wards it off; if we, With love unquenchable, before Him burn, 'Tis He that lights and keeps alive the flame. —Robert PoUok. [13 146] There is grace in the origin and

grace in the execution of the plan of substitutionary atonement ; and when the atonement has been made, there is grace in the bestowment, on account of it, of all the blessings, commencing with pardon, of everlasting salvation. Beginning, middle, and end, from eternity to eternity, all is grace. Christ Himself is God's unspeakable gift, and eternal life is the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Grace provides the atonement, and grace, as free as ever, bestows its results 1 — Ralph Wardtaw, D.D. 2 The grace of outward instruction. fl) T/ie appointed instruments of good. 13147] The term grace includes the revelation of the mystery of redemption, the declaring to man the Word of life. Christ, Himself the Word, was the first preacher of the Word. The Holy Spirit speaks by the prophets. And to the Church of God is committed by the Son, with the agency of the Holy Spirit, the ministry of the Word and sacraments. — Blunt's Doctrinal and Historical Theology. 3 The grace of inward sanctification. (l) That which ^ives effect to the instruments of good. [1314S] The term grace includes that supernatural gift to man whereby he is enabled to embrace the salvation provided and offered, whereby the sufferings and merits of Christ, which are sufficient for the salvation of the

whole world, are made available and effectual to the salvation of the faithful. And this is nothing else than the working of the Holy Spirit on the hearts of men. — Ibid. 4 The grace of prevention, operation, and co-operation. (i) Grace does not constrain the will, but delivers it from bondage and makes it truly free. [i3i49]As St. Austin saith well, A man that is freed from sin ought to thank God as well for the sins that he hath not committed as for the sins that he hath had forgiven ; for it is a greater mercy that a man fall not into sin as for his sin to be pardoned. And so for troubles too. It is God's mercy to prevent troubles as well as to deliver out of trouble when we are fallen into it. — R. Sibbes,D.D., 1577-1635. [13150] Grace maybe distinguished into (i) the preventing grace, which gives the first notions towards goodness ; (2) the operating, which produces the freewill to good ; (3) the co-operating, which supports the will in its struggles, and enables it to carry its desire into act ; and, lastly (4), the gift of perseverance. — Augustiru

HI. Its Properties. [13151] Divine grace is (i) sovereign (Rom.

v. 21), springing wholly from the Divine sovereignty and good pleasure seen in (a) the election of the saints of God without any merit to commend them, but in spite of natural enmity against God ; (b) the passing by of the apostate angels, though, to our finite judgment, their redemption would have conduced more to " the praise of the glory " of Divine grace ; (c) the calling away of so many in infancy and early life . . . without the conflicts and troubles of earth's hard battle-field. (2) Free, the result of no necessity on the part of God ; no moral obligation to confer grace. Grace is not an essential attribute of Deity, which must manifest itself in a certain channel ; nor from any merit, or fitness, or deserving on the part of man. — Rev. G. S. Bowes, B.A. [13152] In Romans iii. 24 "freely" seems to point, first, to the exclusion and negation of human merit and desert, and, secondly, to the Being from whom the gift descends. " By His grace," on the other hand, directs attention, first, to the Being from whom the gift descends ; and, secondly, to the exclusion of human merit and desert. Their combination teaches that " if grace," as Augustine pithily says, " be grace in any way, it must be grace, or gratuitous, in every way." — C. . [13153] I may compare this free grace of God to a diamond ; as it came out of the rock it came pure and whole and fair, and it was as curiously cut, as I may so express it, by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, that all the

lustres of it might have their utmost advantage : but now all the hazard is, when it comes to be set in the ring, set in our hearts, set in faith — though faith be gold — lest it should be so unskilfully set as that any of the lustres of this diamond should be impaired, that though there be never so much in us, good works or whatever it be, yet all may say — faith speaking in the name of all the rest— We do but serve to hold forth the glories of this grace, and the full brightness of them, without obscuring any. — T. Goodwin, D.D., 1600- 167 9. [13 1 54] The very fact of the Lord's being gracious shows sin to be so evil a thing, that man being a sinner, his state is utterly ruined and hopeless, and nothing but free grace will do for him — can meet his need. — Anon. Quoted by Dr. H. Bonar. [13155] If God should make us an offer thus large — " Search all the generations of men since the fall of Adam, find one that has done only one action which has passed from him pure, without any stain or blemish at all, and for that one man's only action neither men nor devils shall be tormented," do you think any one person could be found that has done one such perfect action ? We firmly believe not ; and, if so, then all must be of free grace. It is the

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peculiar glory of gospel grace to humble every believer in the dust, and from gratitude and love to produce the best obedience. — Hooker. [13156] Grace is (i) Eternal. The foundation of the everlasting covenant given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, and reaching in its effects to all eternity to come. (2) Manifold. A stream running in many diverse channels (l Pet. iv. 10). (3) Abuiidatit (Rom. v. 15-17, 2o\ called " rich " (Eph. i. 7), " glorious " (Eph. i. 6), "exceeding abundant" (2 Cor. ix. 14). (4) True (i Pet. i. 12).—Iiev. G. S. Bowes, B.A. IV. Its Process. [13157] Tyndale tells us that " a block of ice under the converged sunbeam will suddenly (an inch or inches below the surface) seem to resolve itself into a cluster of glittering stars, each with six petal-rays, shining with the lustre of burnished silver. Those petal-rays are a tiny

water-flower, formed around a star-like vacuum, and vying in beauty with the frost-works of a winter^s morning." So, down deep in the icy heart of the worldling, the little water-flowers are forming around the vacuum that glitters in the consciousness, under the melting power of love ; and the little water-drops trickle out here and there, when none but the All-seeing notes their fall.— i". H. Piatt. [13158] Grace comes into the soul as the morning sun into the world ; there is first a dawning, then a mean light, and at last the sun in his excellent brightness. — T. Adams. [i3'59] The grandest operations, both in nature and in grace, are the most silent and imperceptible. The shallow brook babbles on its passage, and is heard by every one ; but the coming on of the seasons is silent and unseen. The storm rages and alarms ; but its fury is soon exhausted, and its effects are partial and soon remedied ; but the dew, though gentle and unheard, is immense in quantity, and the very life of large portions of the earth. And these are pictures of the operations of grace in the Church and in the s.ow\.— Richard Cecil. V. Its Blessedness and Influence. [13160] This is the inexhaustible source of all those inestimable blessings which the Lord bestows on His unworthy creatures in this or in a future world. It is this which, in all that He does, or ever will do for sinners, He intends

to render everlastingly glorious in their eyes, and in the eyes of all holy intelligences. The indelible motto inscribed by the hand of Jehovah on all blessings of the evangelical covenant is, "To the praise and glory of His grace." . . . Divine grace as reigning in our salvation not only appears, but appears with majesty ; not only shines, but triumphs ; providing all things, bestowing all things, working in us (»r' with

us) all things necessary to our eternal happiness — Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. [13161] As grace weakens, so does corruption more and more increase, and as grace increases, so does corruption lose of its strength. These two are like a pair of balances, when the one goes up the other is sure to go down.— TVjo^. orton, D.D. [13162] Grace infuseia spirit of activity into a person ; grace doth not lie dormant in the soul ; it is not a sleepy habit, but it makes a Christian like a seraphim, swift-winged in his heavenly motions ; grace is like fire, it makes one burn in love to God. — T. Watson, D.D. [13163] By God's grace the most abject of His creatures may rise to the rank of a celestial force. — Mme. Swetcltine. [13164] Grace is that which truly ennobles the soul ; it raises it up to converse with the

highest and with the noblest objects, and every man is as the objects are with which he converses. If the objects are noble, the man is so ; if The objects are base with which a man converses, the man is base. A man may better know what he is by eyeing the objects with which his soul does mostly converse, than by observing his most glorious and pompous services. — T. Brooks, 160S-1O80. [13165] Grace is of the greatest and sweetest use to the soul ; it is an anchor at sea, and a shield at land ; it is a staff to uphold the soul, and a sword to defend the soul ; it is bread to strengthen the soul, and wine to cheer the soul ; It is physic to cure all diseases, and a plaster to heal all wounds, and a cordial to strengthen the soul under all faintings. Grace is thy eye to see for Christ, thy ear to hear fur Christ, thy head to contrive for Christ, thy tongue to speak for Christ, thy hand to do for Christ, and thy feet to walk with Christ. — Ibid, [13166] There is a Divine chemistry which can extract the purest spirits out of the most gross and feculent matter. The beast on the altar differs not in kind from the beast at the slaughter. There is a lawful craft of coining our money over again, and adding the image and superscription of God to that which is Cxsar's. It is said of the philosopher's stone, that it turns whatsoever it touches into gold. — Seeker. [13167] The power which is tobrii g us to God

is not any human device, however excellent or however useful ; it is not instruction, or example, or exhortation, or education ; it is not anything to act upon our outward conduct, or that is to reach us through our senses ; it is the direct influence of God, and of God only. These various influences which act upon us from without are excellent in their place. They are, we may say, the work of the husbandman on the soil. But

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they are all in vain unless the seed have life in itself. o work of the husbandman can make dead seed grow ; and so no work of man can make a soul which had not God's grace into a servant or a child of God. There is one power, and one only, which can lay hands on the enemy with whom we are contending ; and that power is the power that first made the soul itself. He who stands as it were behind the secret fountains from which our being issues, He and He alone can deal with this awful disease by which we are all afflicted ; He and He alone can attack sin in the ver)' citadel of its

dominion, and win the victory which we could never win. — Bp. Temple. [13168] What is grace ? Grace, some ancient misbelievers asserted, was exterior influence, God's authority, or God's favour and benefit. Grace, modern people reiterate, is something of the same kind ; a mere expression for a smile of kindliness, so to speak, on the face of the Creator. Grace is nothing of the sort. Grace is a power, an interior power, an internal force ; it comes from the life of God ; it pierces to the soul of man. It cannot be seen, but it can be felt in its consequences, and verified in its results ; and for that reason it is parallel to the forces of nature, with which all are more or less conversant. To borrow an obvious illustration by no means original : Is any one in the habit of working in the telegraph office? If so, he guides, almost governs, forces which he cannot see, forces he cannot measure, except in their consequences ; forces awful and real, though unseen ; forces the mystery of which he cannot fully explain, although he may register their effects ; and so, at his slightest motion of that little needle, lo ! a message is flying across the world, because an influence from the powers of nature is brought to bear on a special object, through the scientific research and successful efforts of human minds, and under the guidance of a free and energetic will. ow this is like grace. Grace is a power from the love of God. He "charges" His Church with it, if I may use the simile, in order fhat the battery of that Church may play upon the soul. Grace is no

magical influence; it requires, as it forms a moral conformity. Grace is no superstitious imagination ; grace is no mere influence at all. It is an interior/(??r^y it is that " well of water springing up into everlasting life." Oh, my brothers ! it is the life, the essential life-force of the Creator, as it is applied through the human life of the Incarnate Jesus, giving strength to the sacraments, meaning to the teaching of the Word, force to our prayers, vitality and energy to the poor soul that must stand face to face with its God, and wants the strength to love and act upon His truth. That is grace. — Rev. W. J. Knox-Litile. [13169] Cicero complains of Homer — that he taught the gods to live like men ; but grace teaches men to live like gods. — W. Seeker. VOT,. IV.

[13170] It is the very nature of grace to make a man strive to be most eminent in that particular grace which is most opposed to his bosom sin. — Thomas Brooks. VI. Its Evidence and Witness. [13171] Grace is known by its own evidence. It is the white stone, shining to him only that does possess it ; for a man is no more able to express this work, so as to convey a full notion of it to the mind of him that has it not, than

by words and discourse to convey an idea of colours to him who was born blind, or the proper relish of meats to him who has no taste. — /\'. South, D.D., 1633-1716. [13172] There are three things which are pertinent hereunto. There's the having of grace, the discerning of grace, and the acknowledging of it. The first lays ground for the second, and the second for the third ; and all must go together. We must have it, that we may discern it ; and where we do discern it, we must own it, and acknowledge it in ourselves. — J. orton, 1675. ['3'73] A diamond will shine even in the dust.—/;. Dyke, 1618. [13 1 74] Grace doth not lie as a sleepy habit in the soul, but will put forth itself in vigorous, and glorious actings. Grace can no more be concealed than fire ; like new wine, it will have vent. Grace doth not lie in the heart as a stone in the earth, but as seed in the earth ; it will spring up into good works. — T. Watson. VII. Its Abuse. I When the doctrine is perverted by the misrepresentations of antinomianism and kindred theories. [13175] Properly speaking, those only areantinomians who are avowedly hostile to the law of God ; who neither preach nor profess to

embrace it, but term those legalists who do. . . . Others of a similar description, but who are not aware of the tendency of their own statements, have embraced a system which, by perverting the doctrine of Divine decrees and efficacious grace, sets aside all moral obligation, and destroys the accountability of man. Justification by such a species of faith as is not necessarily productive of good works, and the righteousnessimputed to it, are the doctrines by which this class of professors are distinguished.— £'«iyt/(7pcedia of Religious Knowledge. [13176] Antinomianism means, literally, opposed to law, or, as the word is generally understood, to the moral law of God. We first read in ecclesiastical history of the antinomianism of various Gnostic sects, not only held as a pure theory, but in its development of gross licentiousness. The principal Gnostic teachers maintained that there was a radical difference amongst men ; some, created evil, were incapable

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of salvation ; and others, who were of celestial or Divine origin, would finally be saved, however licentious their lives. St. Irenasus gives an account of the gross immorality of the followers of Simon Magus, and of Carpocrates and the Cainites, and there are allusions to Gnosticism in the ew Testament — its strange and mon-strous creed, &c. — by St. Paul (i Tim. vi. 20, 21 ; Col. ii. 18, 19 ; i Tim. iv. 1-5) and St. John (l John ii. 18-22, iii. 7-9). But we should wholly mistake the theory of antinomianism did we suppose that it merely flowed from man's ■corrupt nature, or was an excuse for the gratification of his evil desires. Antinomianism, or 5uch opinions as generally or necessarily lead to it, alleges in its support the teaching of Holy Scripture, and we cannot doubt, from the allusions to faith by Gnostic teachers, that they attempted in some degree to Justify their licentiousness from the supposed meaning of St. Paul's teaching on justification. . . . The teaching of Holy Scripture on the subject will be seen in Deut. v. 29, vi. 24, 25, x. 12, 13, XXX. 9, 10; Psa. Ixxxi. 11-16, cxii. 1-4; Isa. i. 16-20, xxxii. 17, Iviii. 6-1 1 ; Eccles. xii. 11 ; Micah vi. 8; Matt. vii. 16-27, '"'v. 31-45 ; John -xiv. 15, 21, 23, 24, XV. 2, 8, 10; Rom. ii. 6>-io; Gal. vi. 7, 8; Eph. ii. 10; i John ii. 3-6, 17, 29, iii. 4, 6-10, V. 3, 18; I Pet. i. 14, 15;

2 Pet. i. 3-1 1 ; Rev. xxii. 12, 14, 15 ; and the Church, following its guidance, has ever represented as of primary and indispensable importance the duty of obedience to God's commandments, which is the only s.itisfactory proof of love to Him; and has condemned such theories not merely as presumptuously intruding into those "secret things" which belong to God only (see Deut. xxix. 29), but as likely to set aside our bounden duties and obligations as Christians, assuring us that " in keeping God's commandments we please Him both in will and deed." — Blunfs Doctrinal and Historical Theology. [•3'77] John Agricola, the founder of antinomianism — at first a disciple of Luther, but afterwards an opponent both to him and Melancthon — is said to have taught that the law ought not to be proposed as a rule of life, nor used in the Church as a means of instruction ; and, of course, that repentance is not to be preached from the Decalogue, but from the Gospel only ; that the Gospel alone is to be inculcated and explained, and that good works do not promote our salvation, nor evil works hinder it. — Encyclopedia 0/ Religious Knowledge. [13178] The unguarded expressions which some persons have used, the bold positions they have advanced, and the construction to which their language is liable, have led others to charge them with antinomian principles, when in reality they meant not so. As when they have spoken lightly of good works, or

have asserted that believers have nothing to do with the law of God without fully explaining what they mean ; . . . these, and similar expres-

sions, whatever be the private sentiments of those who advance them, have a direct tendency to injure the minds and morals of mankind, though it be under a pretence of enhancing the riches and freeness of Divine grace. — Ibid. VIII. Distinction between True Grace AD ITS Counterfeit. [13179] We could not ask less than a volume to state the differences whereby we may discriminate counterfeit virtues from true in all their several specialities. They are faced alike ; they are clad alike ; the marks are inward, and scarce discernible by any but the owner's eyes. In a generality we shall thus descry them in our own hearts. True grace comes down from above, even from the Father of Light ; God's Spirit, working with and by His own ordinances, produceth it in the soul, and feeds it by the same holy means whereby it is wrought ; the counterfeit is earth bred, arising from mere nature out of the grounds of sensuality. True grace drives at no other end than the glory of the Giver, and scorns to look lower than heaven ; the counterfeit aims at nothing but vain applause or carnal advantage, not caring to reach an inch above his own head. True grace is apt to cross the plausiblest incli-

nations of corrupt nature, and cheers up the heart to a delightful performance of all good duties as the best pastime : the counterfeit is a mere parasite of fleshly appetite, and finds no harshness but in holy devotions. True grace is undauntedly constant in all opposition, and, like a well-wrought vault, is so much the stronger by how much more weight it undergoes. This metal is purer for the fire ; this eagle can look upon the hottest sun : the counterfeit shows most gloriously in prosperity ; but when the evil day Cometh it looks like the skin of a dead chamelion, nasty and deformed. Lastly, true grace is best alone : the counterfeit is all for witnesses. — Bp. Hall, 1574-1656. [13180] As grace is a fire to bum up and consume the dross and filth of the soul, so it is an ornament to beautify and adorn the soul. True grace makes all new, the inside new and the outside new : " If any man be in Christ, he IS a new creature " (2 Cor. v. 17), but temporary grace doth not this. True grace changes the very nature of a man. Moral virtue doth only restrain or chain up the outward man, it doth not change the whole man. A lion in a grate is a lion still ; he is restrained, but not changed, for he retains his lion-like nature still. So temporary grace restrains many men from this and that wickedness, but it doth not change and turn their hearts from wickedness. — Brooks. IX. Distinction between Restraining Grace and Renewing Grace.

[13181] There is a great difference between restraining and renewing grace ; the one only charms and chains up sin ; the other crucifies

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;and \ve:ikens it, whereby the vi_^our of it is not withheld only, but abated. The one turns the motion and stream of the heart to another channel ; the other keeps it in bounds only, though still it runs its natural course. The one is contrary to the reign, the other, only to the rage of sin. — Bp. Reynolds, 1599-1676. X. Questions raised on the Subject. 1 If God would have all men to be saved, and if Christ died for all men, why is it that all are not saved .' [13182] God's principal desire and will touch-

ing man's happiness is not always satisfied. The whole history of mankind, the whole narrative of the Bible, is but a long example of God's designs of mercy thwarted by man's negligence, perverseness, and sin. Our Lord's words when He wept over Jerusalem suggest the only answer which can be given. — Blunt's Doctrinal and Historical Theology. [13183] It is true, indeed, that grace, wherever it is, hath a principle in itself, that makes it desire and endeavour to preserve itself, according to its strength ; but being overpowered, must perish, except assisted by God, as fire in green wood (which deadens and damps the part kindled) will in time go out, except blown up, or more fire be put to that little. So with grace in the heart ; God brings His grace into the heart by conquest : now, as in a conquered city, though some yield and become true subjects to the conqueror ; yet others plot how they may shake off this yoke : and therefore it requires the same power to keep, as was to win it at first. The Christian hath an unregenerate part, that is discontented at this new change in the heart, and disdains as much to come under the sweet government of Christ's sceptre, as the Sodomites that Lot should judge them. What ! this fellow, a stranger, control us ! And Satan heads this mutinous rout against the Christian : so that if God should not continually reinforce this His new planted colony in the heart, the very natives, I mean, corruptions, that are left, would come out of their dens and holes where they lie lurking, and eat up the little grace the

holiest on earth hath ; it would be as bread to these devourers. — Gurnal. [13184] It is on all sides confessed that His will in this kind oftentimes succeedeth not, the cause whereof is a personal impediment making particular men incapable of that good which the will of His general providence did ordain for all mankind. — Hooker. i If salvation be of grace, has then man nothing to do ? [13185] Man has nothing to do in the way of earning any merit, but much in the way of accepting and receiving. The Holy Spirit works in us as rational, responsible beings, by loving constraint, not by mechanical impulse. We are to ii?e the appointed means, to " buy with-

out money and without price ; " to hold out the withered hand to receive the gift ; to bring the empty pitcher to the flowing river. — Aev. G. S. Bowes, B.A. 3 Is the revelation of the gospel an external instruction merely, or is it accom. panied by a supernatural work on the heart of the hearer .' [13186] " I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me." " As often as ye eat this bread . . . ye do show forth the Lord's death." The Spirit,

" when He is come, will convince the world of sin," &c. Hence, with an adequate proposal of the gospel by the Word and sacraments, there is always exerted on the hearts of men the great power of the gospel, the death of Christ, through the influence of the Spirit. . . . Hooker distinguishes between the apmess and ableness of the will — the aptness freely to take or refuse things set before it, which is so essential to the will that, being deprived of this, it loses the nature and cannot possibly retain the definition of will — and the ableness which actuates the possibility of the will in that which is good. This ableness has been lost. If we had kept our first ableness, we should not need grace ; had aptness been also lost, grace could work in us no more than it does in brute creatures. Freedom of operation we have by nature, but the ability of virtuous operation by grace ("Hooker's Works"). — Blunt's Doctrinal and Historical Theology. 4 What has God's grace effected for man. kind irrespective of the revelation of the mystery ? [13187] Christ is the Saviour of all men, though especially of them that believe (l Tim. V. 10). He has rendered all men salvabiles — capable of salvation, and salvandos — designed to salvation. He has redeemed all mankind (see Barrow, " Sermons on Universal Redemption "). With regard to those who have not the gospel, the law of nature written in men's hearts, the dictates of reason, the secret whisper of

grace and checks of conscience, the ordinary works of creation, the continual expression of God's beneficence — by these men may seek God, if haply they may feel after Him and find Him (Acts xvii. 27). And these are by the grace of God, by the working of the Spirit, in virtue of the Incarnation, no less than the grace of the gospel. The Spirit strives with all men, and from the first there has been no influence of the Spirit, except in virtue of Christ's mediation. — Ibid. 5 Is there in those who do obey a more energetic action of God's grace than in those who do not obey .' [13188] A variety in the measures of outward grace is evident ; but there is no proof in Holy Scripture that any difference is made by the Holy Spirit between any two men who are alike subjected to the same measure of outward grace. They who assert that there is such a

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difference are led to the assertion as an inference from the doctrine of election and predestination. We are not to draw inferences from that doctrine, as if it were within our comprehension, and could possibly be made one of the premisses of a syllogism. The Scriptures which speak of the calling of the elect do not deny the calling of others. Romans viii. 29, 30, asserts that the elect, whosoever and wheresoever they are, in due time are called. It does not assert the superiority of the call which is obeyed over that call (Matt. xx. 16) which is not obeyed. It implies the further grace given to those who obey the first call ; that further grace would have been given to all had all alike been obedient. — Jlnd. [13 1 89] Persons coming below a certain standard are, as candidates or competitors, regarded equally in the light of failures. There is in one sense "no difference" between them, although in many respects there may be much difference in their bodily and mental prowess. For instance, all the men in a village who wish to enlist in the Life Guards might be rejected because they came below the regulation height. There would be no difference between them in regard to their qualifications for admission, yet, compared with each other, they would vary much in stature and physique. Or, again, all the candidates for a government examination might fail to reach the prescribed standard.

ow, there would be, doubtless, a wide difference between the best and worst of these ; but none in relation to the vacant appointments. It is not meant that there is no diversity in the characters of men, and in the respective measures of their guilt. In relation to the need, offer, and efficacy of God's righteousness there is no real difference and appreciable distinction. All alike stand in need of the Divine righteousness ; all, too, may in the appointed way become possessed of this gift, and attain unto the glory of God. In these respects there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, and between man and man, considered under every phase of life ; none "between sovereigns, for instance, and their meanest subjects ; between the cultivated and the most uncultured ; between the sage and savage : no difference between the most punctilious Pharisee who observes every ceremony of the Church, and, gathering up his garments, steps fastidiously aside from every indecency of social life, and the most reckless offcasts who ' rough it ' on the highways of life, or riot and rot in the lowest of our city dens" (J. Morison). — C, . 6 Does the grace of God work in the elect or with them ? Does it require a concurrent action of man's will ? [13190] Our present wording of the Tenth Article of Religion ... is based on those Scriptures which, while they speak of God's working in us, require at the same time the work of man, thus, " preventing us that we may have a good will, and working with us when we

have that good will." Work, for God works with you, and both the will and the work are God's (2 Pet. i. 10; Heb. xii. 15 ; 1 John iii. 24). And all the varied precepts of Scripture given to those who have received the grace of God show the same, that we are to work because God worketh in us. — Btunt's Doctrinat and Historical Theology. [13191] All those to whom the gospel is adequately proposed are called by God's grace. Many are called ; but the grace is not irresistible, and few are chosen. [13192] According to Calvinism, grace is indefectible — that is, grace which cannot be lost, or fail of its intended purpose — the salvation of those on whom it is bestowed. Such is the grace, according to the theory given to the elect, which is represented as irresistible, or necessarily leading to salvation. It is shown . . . that, according to Holy Scripture, grace is not irresistible, and that this Calvinistic tenet cannot be reconciled with man's free-will. — Ibid. [13193] Let the Spirit be never so prompt, if labour and exercise slacken, we fail. The fruits of the Spirit do not follow men, as the shadow doth the body, of their own accord. If the grace of sanctihcation did so work, what should the grace of exhortation need .' It were even as superfluous and vain to stir men up unto

good as to request them when they walk abroad not to lose their shadows. Grace is not given us to abandon labour, but labour required lest our sluggishness should make the grace of God unprofitable. — Hooker. [13194] It is possible to come short of the promise of the grace of God. — W. M. Punshoii. [13195] So long as the concurrence of man's will and man's work is required, so long will a failure in man defeat God's mercy, so long may he quench the Spirit, so long may he depart from grace given, and draw back unto perdition (Heb. x. 39). God's grace is sufficient ; but grace, excluding possibility to sin, was neither given to angels in their first creation, nor to man before his fall, but reserved for both till God be seen face to face in the state of glory. Grace is not therefore given here in that measure which taketh away possibility of sinning, and so effectually nioveth the will as that it cinnot. — Hooker. [13196] The good angels did not make their own wills good. God created them, as He did man, wholly good. God upheld thein, freely through His grace choosing Him. They abode in the good-will in which God had created them, by abiding in Him ; their good-will abode I n them, because, through the grace wherewith He endowed them, they, upheld by Him, clave inseparably to Him, and, by partaking of Him, were fixed in unchangeable bliss through His unchangcableness. — Vr. Pusey.

['3'97] God worketh in us these three thinps

I3'97— 13201]

CHRISTIA DOGMATICS. 469 [restoration of the normal relations between god and man.

— to think, to will, to perform what is good ; to think, without us ; to will, with us ; to perforin, through us. From God then, doubtless, is the beginning of our salvation, and not either through us nor with us. But consent and act, although not from us, are not yet without us. \V« must beware lest, when we feel these things done invisibly in us or with us, we attribute them either to our will, which is weak, or to a necessity from God, which is none ; but to the grace of God wherein He aboundeth. Grace arouseth free-will when it soweth the thought ; healeth, when it changeth the affection ; strengtheneth, when it leadeth to act ; preserveth, lest it fail. But grace so worketh with free-will, that it forecometh only in thought, in the rest accompanying ; to this end forecoming, that henceforth it may be co-operated with. Yet so what was begun by grace alone is perfected conjointly, so that in each advance they ope-

rate unitedly, not severally — together, not alternately. Grace doth not act in part, and freewill in part ; but they each, by an undivided operation, accomplish the whole. Free-will doth all, and grace doth all ; yet, as the whole is in free-will, so the whole is from grace. — St. Bernard. 7 Who are in a state of grace .' [1319S] In the first degree the whole world are in a state of grace. God so loved the world that He sent His only Son. The benefits accruing to mankind in general through the Incarnation cannot be overrated. Secondly, in a higher degree all are in a state of grace, to whom is come the Word which preaches peace by Jesus Christ. But the words, " state of grace," are commonly used, as is natural among Christian men, with reference to the grace of inward sanctification. ... It is by the washing of regeneration that men are put into a state of grace (Titus iii. 5). The Holy Spirit then imparts a new principle by which the mind and will of man, . . . before weighed down are purified and elevated. Further grace is added to sustain the new life, that the whole body, soul, and spirit may be preserved blameless unto the coming of Jesus Christ. They, then, are in a state of grace who live and walk in the Spirit, and the measure and test of their state are the fruits of the Spirit that they bear. And the Spirit of God witnesses with our spirits that we are the children of God, not by oracle, or voice, or whisper within us, but, first, by those

gracious fruits and effects which it has wrought in us ; and, secondly, by enlightening our understandings, and assisting the faculties of our souls, as need requires, to discern tnose gracious fruits and effects (Bull, " Discourse on the Testimony of the Spirit "). The testimony of a renewed conscience is the witness of the Spirit that we are in a state of grace. — Bliinl's Doctrinal and Historical Theology. [13199] As the chief conditior for a man being in the state of grace, ive mention, first, that the life must be firmly grounded nn the founda-

tion of baptism. But although, in a certain sense, it may be said that all the baptized are placed under grace, it must yet, on the othei hand, be allowed that, in order to stand in grace, it is not only requisite to be baptized, but also that we stand in personal relation to the grace that has been bestowed on us in baptism. And here, presupposing baptism, we know of nothing else to be mentioned but repentance and faith. Repentance, as repenting of sin and regret for sin, is not e.\clusively in place only in the history of the once occurring conversion. For although conversion may be regarded as a single event in a definite portion of man's life, the matter is by no means so that we are done with conversion once for all. We need a continued conversion, " daily sorrow and repentance," with ever new renunciation of the kingdom of darkness, and the spirit of dark-

ness, till the day of our death. But inseparable from this is the faith that has not only once appropriated the comfort of the gospel, but daily appropriates it anew. This constant renewal in faith is, however, only possible in that we earnestly strive and oppose all that would disturb the life of faith in us, that is, only by a sincere will and resolve after righteousness of life and holiness. Thus if a Christian also sins — and " in many things we oftend all " — as long as he ever repents again of his sin, and may be renewed in sincere sorrow for it ; so long as he is raised up again by faith in the gospel, offered to him in the means of grace ; and so long as he is renewed to obedience, and ever afresh engages in the struggle, so long he stands under grace, despite his sinfulness and incompleteness. And, on the other hand, it is evident that he who feels no regret for sin, in whom faith is only " a dead fly," an outward acceptance of certain statements, without heart-comm.union with the Lord ; that he who knows of no struggle or resistance against sin, cannot possibly be in the state of grace. — Bp. Martensen. .XI. HOMILETICAL APPLICATIOS. [13200] There is nothing so effectual to obtain grace, to retain grace, and to regain grace as always to be found before God, not over-wise, but to fear. Happy art thou if thy heart be replenished with three fears — a fear for received grace, a greater fear for lost grace, a greatest fear to recover grace. — F. Quarks.

[13201] The God of thy life, sinner, in whose hands thy times are, doth, with much higher right, limit thee to the present time and expects thy present answer to His just and merciful offers and demands. He circumscribes thy day of grace ; it is enclosed on both parts, and hath an evening as well as morning ; as it had a foregoing, so it hath a subsequent night ; and the latter, if not more dark, yet is usually much more stormy than the former, for God shuts up this day in much displeasure, which hath terrible effects. — J. Howe, 1684.

47° 13202 — 13205]

chkjstian dogmatics. [restoration of the normal relations between god and man.

[13202] The object of grace is not to change the nature of sin, or of its ser\-ice, or of its wages, but to induce you to choose another master. The evil of sin does not consist in its producing misery or death, but in its essential contradiction to rightness. A righteousness which does not seek to make others righteous is not really righteousness. If we saw a father punishing his child, and when we asked him what effect he e.\pected to produce, he were to

answer, "I don't think of that ; I only think of what he has deserved," should we not at once say that he was neither a loving father nor a righteous man ? So long as I believe that God's condemnation of sin is not connected with this purpose, and that He punishes me merely because I deserve it, it is impossible to trust Him ; but when I understand that His condemnation contains within it an unchangeable purpose to draw me out of my sin, I can accept His condemnation and bless Him for it. It seems to me that the gospel of Jesus Christ is just the full and living manifestation of this purpose^ that it means this or nothing. The sentence of sorrow and death is not to be set aside, but passed through ; and the foregone sins, though pretermitted and passed over — that is, not regarded by God as reasons for abandoning His purpose of training us in righteousness — must yet receive their penalty. — 1 he Spiritual Order and Other Papers, Selected from the Manuscripts of the late Thotnas Erskine of Linlathen. [13203] God hath established a throne of grace whereon He sits, and unto which He invites His people to approach with a becoming confidence (Heb. iv. i6j. " Let us come boldly to the throne of grace." As that emperor counted his clemency disparaged, when any delivered a petition to him with shaking hand, as though he doubted of his favour — so God loves, when we make our addresses to Him, that we should do it with full assurance of faith, nothing doubting of acceptance with Him and of an answer from Him. He that asks

timorously only begs a denial from God ; but yet, that this boldness may not degenerate into rudeness and irreverence, He requires that our freedom with Him be tempered with an awful fear of Him ; we must come in all humility and prostration of soul, with broken hearts and bended knees, to touch the golden sceptre that He holds forth to us. — Bp. Hopkins,

[13204] The doctrine of free grace in every way exalts the love of God, it abases the pride of man, it furnishes the strongest foundation of . . . hope for all . . . united to Christ ; it teaches the duty of forbearance in Christians to all men. If we have had such grace shown to us, should we not bear and forbear with others .'' — Rev. G. S. Bowes, B.A. [13205] o doubt there are special moments, and crises of the soul, "when God conies neat and whispers His very presence into the heart. There are special as well as ordinary gifts of grace, and it is possible to miss both. They may be to anticipate some great trial that is at hand, or to prepare us for a sudden advancement, or to lift us out of the fog of a blinding perplexity, or to assure us of His presence, before something takes us into the strife of tongues. God has His times for visiting the souls He loves ; and it is our wisdom to seize them, and to take what they offer. Surely it is significant that it was when Solomon had been offering sacrifice to God, that God came to him

with this offer, "Ask what I shall give thee." God met His child's gift by giving him another. The more we get, the more we become able to get. To be filled is one thing ; to have much to be filled is another. A child's drinking-cup and the depths of the Atlantic may both brim over ; but we know which holds most, and even God cannot force on us more than we can receive. There is no exhausting the grace of God. What most grieves Him is to doubt Him. He is able to give us all, " much more than these." What we really need to learn is, how much God has for us ; and to do is to get it ; and to conquer is our strange dumbness in the presence of the King. There are many lessons we cannot learn. Life is not long enough here. Also, about many things it does not so much matter whether we learn them or not. But the gospel has its length, and breadth, and depth, and height, which we are to consider, if we cannot fathom them, and the one prayer we ought all of us in the time to come to learn to say more humbly, more sincerely, more gratefully,, more trustfully than ever is, " Lord, show us the Father." — iJr. Anthony Thorold, Bishop of Rochester. [For the misapprehensions of Pelagianism on this subject, and its contrast to Augustinianism, see Vol. I., Division E., o. 117.J

471

PART IV.

RESTORATIO OF THE ORMAL RELATIOS BETWEE GOD AD MA (^Coniinuc'd).

DIVISIO C. {Continued). [5] Justification of Sinners. SYLLABUS. I. Meaning of the Term and General Significance of Justification . n. History of the Doctrine in. Man's Great eed of this Divine Provision IV. The Source or Origin of Justification V. Its Ground or Meritorious Cause VI. Its Instrumental Cause VII. Its Relation to Sanctification

VIII. Question as to the Time of Justification . IX. The Accordance between the Teaching of St. Paul and the Early Fathers X. The Teaching of St. Paul and St. James Reconciled ... XI. The Articles of the Church of England on Justification XII. Importance of the Doctrine XIII. Ho.miletical Re.marks

472 473 475 476 476 4S0 4S4 485 4S6 486 487 4S8 489

47a

RESTORATIO OF THE ORMAL RELATIOS BETWEE

GOD AD MA {^Continued), DIVISIO C. {Continued.)

^JUSTIFICATIO OF SIERS. I. Meaning of the Term and General Significance of Justification. [13206] The term justification in theological usage is employed to designate the judicial act of God by which He pardons all the sins of the sinner who believes in Christ, receiving him into favour, and regarding him as relatively righteous, notwithstanding his past actual unrighteousness. Hence justification, and the remission or forgiveness of sin, relate to one and the same act of God, to one and the same privilege of His believing people (Acts xiii. 38, 39 ; Rom. iv. 5, 8). So, also, " the justification of the ungodly," the "covering of sins," "not visiting for sin," " not remembering sin," and " imputing not iniquity," mean to pardon sin and to treat with favour, and express substantially the same thing which is designated by " imputing or counting faith for righteousness." Justification is, then, an act of God, not in or upon man, but for him and in his favour ; an act which, abstractly considered, respects man only as its object, and translates him into another relative state. — McClintock and Strong,

Cyclopcedia. [13207] Justification is a forensic term which signifies the declaring or the pronouncing a person righteous according to law. It stands opposed to condemnation. It docs not signify to make men holy, but the holding and declaring them free from punishment. It has been defined " an act of God's free grace in which He pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in His sight only for the righteousness of Christ." — Edwards. [13208] The forensic or judicial sense of the term may be established by three distinct proofs arising from the antithetic, correlative, and equivalent expressions which occur in Scripture. I. We place the aniitlietic first because the meaning of any term is often best ascertained from that of those which are placed in opposition

to it. The Hebrew and Greek verbs which are employed to denote "justification" are invariably set over against such as denote "condemnation." They are applied to the judgments oj nun (Deut. xxv. l ; Prov. xvii. 15 ; Isa. v. 23. See also 2 Chron. xviii. 6,7). Here and elsewhere two judicial sentences are mentioned which are directly the reverse of the other, and are so stated that thejustification of the righteous no more signifies the infusion of righteousness than the condemnation of the wicked signifies the infusion of sin. With reference, again, to

\{\t judgments of God, the same terms are employed in the same way (Rom. viii. 33, 34 ; Matt. xii. 37 ; Rom. v. 16). Like condemnation, therefore, justification, its opposite, is a forensic and judicial term, and the latter can no more mean to make righteous inherently than the other can to deprave. 2. All the correlative terms with which it is associated bear a forensic character and designate the various circumstances which are implied in a process of judgment. In strict connection with it we read of a-jtnent{¥sz. cxliii. 2) ; oi a. judge (Gtn. xviii. 25 ; Rom. ii. 2) ; of a tribunal (Rom xiv. 10; 2 Cor. v. 10) ; of an accuser (Rom. viii. 33, 34) ; of an advocate (i John ii. i) ; and of a sentence of absolution (Psa. xxxii. l). 3. U the equivalent expressions which are sometimes substituted for justification, and sometimes serve to explain it, cannot imply infusion of righteousness, but denote either forgiveness or acceptance, they show that justification denotes a change in the sinner's judicial and not in his moral relation to God. Well, it is described as the imputation of rigliteousness (Rom. iv. 3, 6) ; it is inclusive of tlie non-imputation, the covering, the forgiveness of sin (Rom. iv. 7, 8) ; it is equivalent to reconciliation (2 Cor. v. 19) ; and it amounts to making us the righteousness of God (2 Cor. v. 21). These equivalents show that justification can mean nothing more than the acceptance of a sinner as righteous in the sight of God. — J. Huclianan, D.U. (abrijgcit). [13209] Thejustification of sinners isa judicial act of Him who is a just God and a Saviour, l)y

which, for the s.ike of what Christ has done and suffered for them. He remits the punishment due to their offences, and accepts them as

13209— I32I3]

christian dogma r/cs. 473 [restoration of the normal relations between god ano man.

righteous — as though they had fulfilled the law which all have violated. — B/>. O'Br/en. [13210] Justification, as employed in Scripture, both in the Old and in the ew Testa, ment, is a legal term, denoting the acquittal of the accused. It signifies not to make just, but to declare just, to acquit, to pronounce righteous. To quote all the passages in which it is thus employed would be tedious ; let a few examples sunice : In the law of i^Ioses God is represented as saying, " Keep thee far from a false matter ; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not, for I will not justify the wicked." But if to justify meant to make just or righteous, it is evident that in this sense it is highly pleasing to God to justify or make holy the wicked. When, then, God says, " I will not justify the wicked," the meaning must be, I will not acquit

or absolve the wicked. " If," says Job, " I justify myself " — that is, if I should declare or profess myself to be righteous or innocent, " mine own mouth shall condemn me." And the same is the meaning of the term in the ew Testament (Luke vii. 29, 35, xvi. 15 ; Acts xiii. 39 ; Rom. ii. 13). This meaning of the term will appear evidently to be the correct one, when we consider that it is by the sacred writers opposed to condemnation. This is done both in the Old and in the ew Testament (Deut. XXV. I ; Prov. xvii. 15 ; I Kings viii. 32 ; Matt. xii. 37 ; Rom. v. 16, 18, viii. ^S)- These two terms, then, condemnation and justification, are contrasted : they are opposites^to justify is not to condemn, and to condemn is not to justify. But to condemn is not to make, but to declare guilty ; it does not make him who was Defore righteous inherently wicked, but passes sentence upon him on account of his wickedness, real or supposed. If previously righteous, he still continues to be so ; if wicked, his condemnation does not increase, but declares his wickedness. And hence justification, also, is not a making, but a declaring righteous ; not a change of character, but a change of condition with respect to the law. — Paton J. Gloag, D.D. [132 11] What is "justification" in the ew Testament sense but " moral rectification .' " There can be no "justification" only in the case of innocence. But there can be " moral rectification " where there is sin. To be justified is to be made right, and to be made right requires faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in Him kills the

"old man" of its corruptions and lusts, and creates the "new man" in righteousness of Christ. The righteousness of Christ is given to man — given as the countless beauties of the landscape are given to the sun. II. History of the Doctrine. I Teaching of the Early Church fathers and the Latin Church. [13212] Ecclesiastical science from the beginning of its development occupied itself with a

discussion on the relation of faith to knowledge ; but even those who attributed the greatest importance to the latter recognized faith as the foundation. A merely logical division into subjective and objective faith, and an intimation of a distinction between a historic and a rational faith (in Clemens Alexandrinus, " Stro. Mat.," ii. 454 ; Augustine, " De Trinitate," xiii. 2) were of little consequence. Two conceptions became prevailing ; faith as a general religious conviction, particularly as confidence in God, and the acceptance of the entire doctrine of the Church, Jides Catholica. The formula that faith alone without the works justifies is found in the full Pauline sense in Clemens Romanus (i ad Cox inthios c. 32), and is sometimes used by Augustine polemically in order to defend the freedom of grace and the priority of faith. More generally it is used as an argument against the

necessity of the Jewish law (Irenasus, iv. 25 ; Tertullian, "Adv. Marcell." v. 3). The cecumenical synods were instrumental in gradually giving to the conception of fides Catholica the new sense that salvation could be found only by adherence to ecclesiastical orthodoxy. But as a mere acceptance was possible without a really Christian sentiment, and as the Pauline doctrine was misused by heretics in an antinomian sense, it was demanded that faith be proved by works. Church discipline developed this idea with regard to the sins of the faithful, so as to demand a satisfaction through penances and good works (Augustine, Serm., 151, 12). It became, therefore, the doctrine of the Church, that such faith alone works salvation as shows itself in acts of charity, while to merely external works, faith or charity is opposed as something accessory. Pelagius assumed only a relative distinction between naturally good works and the good works that proceed from faith ; in opposition to which Augustine insisted that the difference is absolute, and that without faith no good works are possible at all. As salvation was thought to be conditioned by works also, it was, even when it was represented as being merely an act of God, identified with sanctification. The importance attributed to abstention created gradually a distinction between commands and advices, and the belief that through the fulfilment of the latter a virtue greater than required would arise (Hermes, Origen, Ambrose}. — McClintock and Strong, Cyclopcedia.

2 Teaching of the Greek Church. [13213] Little discussion and little controversy has occurred on this doctrine in the Greek Church. Faith and works together are regarded as the conditions of salvation. The words of St. James are referred to first, yet faith is declared to be the stock from which the good works come as the fruits. The description of faith proceeds from the definition in the Epistle to the Hebrews to the acceptance of the entire ecclesiastical tradition. Man is said to participate in the merit of the Mediator

474 13213-

13216]

CHRISTIA DOGMATICS. [kESTORATIO of the normal relations between god t »D MAX.

not only through faith, but also through good works. Among the latter are comprised the fulfilment of the commandments of God and of the Church, and, in particular, prayers, fastings,

pilgrimages, and monastic life. They are considered useful and necessary, not only as a means of promoting sanctification, but also as penances and satisfaction. — Ibid. 3 Doctrine of the Reformers of the sixteenth century and the old Protestant dogmatics. [13214] The Reformation of the si.\teenth century renewed the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith alone, emphasizing, in the sense of Augustine, the entire helplessness of man, and made it the fundamental doctrine of the Reformed Church. This faith is represented as not merely an acceptance of historic facts, but is distinguished as fides spccialis from the general religious conviction, arising amidst the terrors of conscience, and consisting in an entire despair of one's own merit and a confident surrender to the mercy of God in the atoning death of Christ. Worked by God, it does not work as virtue or merit, but merely through the apprehension of the merit of Christ. Its necessity lies in the impossibility of becoming reconciled with God through one's own power. Hence this reconciliation is impossible through good works, which are not necessary for salvation, though God rewards them, according to His promise, upon earth and in heaven, but, as a necessary consequence, the really good works will flow forth from faith freely and copiously. The opinion of Amsdorf that good works are an obstacle to salvation was regarded as an unfortunate e.xprcssion,

which may be taken in a true sense, though it is false if understood in a general sense. As man is unable to satisfy the law supererogatory works and a satisfaction through one's own works are impossible. Justification through love is impossible, because man cannot love God truly amidst the terrors of conscience. Hence justification is a Divine judicial act which, through the apprehension of the justice of Christ, apprehended in faith, accepts the sinner as just though he is not just. — Ibid. [13215] The strict distinction between justification and sanctification was maintained, on the one hand, aijainst scholasticism, which, throui;h its Pelagian tendencies, seemed to otTend against the honour of Christ, and to be unable to satisfy conscience, and, on the other hand, against Osiander, who regarded justification as being completed only in sanctification. The works even of the regenerated, according to the natural side, were regarded by the reformers as sins. The Reformed theology in general agreed with the doctrine of justification as stated above, yet did not make it to the same extent the fundamental doctrine of the whole theology. According to Calvin, justification and sanctification took place at the same time. The dogmatic writers of the Lutheran Church

distinguished in faith, knowledge, assent, and confidence, assigning the former two to the intellect, the latter to the will. From the fides

generalis they distinguished the justifying faith, and rejected the division \r\M fides informis ct fonimta. As a distinguishing mark they demanded from a true faith that it be efficient in charity. For works they took the Decalogue as a rule ; a certain necessity of works was strictly limited. But however firmly they clung in general to the conception of justification as something merely external and foreign (iiiipiitatio justitia: Cliristij, some dogmatic writers held that justification had really changed something in man, and indeed presupposed it as changed. Holiaz pronounced this doctrine openly and incautiously, while Quemstedt designated these preceding acts as merely preparatory to conversion. — Ibid.

4 Doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. [13216] The scholastics regarded faith as an acceptance of the supersensual as far as it belongs to religion, dilfering both from intuition and from knowledge, and although essentially of a theoretic character, yet conditioned by the consent of the will, which, however, in the description of faith, is reduced to a tniiiimum. Originally, only God is an object of faith, but mediately, also the Holy Scriptures ; as a summary of the Biblical doctrines, the Apostles' Creed, and, as its explication, the entire doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. As an accurate knowledge of the doctrines of the Church can-

not be expected from every one, the subjective distinction was made between fides intplieita and explicita; the former suhicient for the people, yet with the demand of a developed belief in some chief articles. There was, however, a diti'erence of opinion on what these articles were, and even Thomas Aquinas wavered in his views. Faith may, even upon earth, partly become a science, and appears in this respect only as the popular form of religion. It is a condition of salvation, but becomes a virtue only when love as animating prmciple {forma) pervades it {fides formata) ; with a mere faith {informis) one may be damned. The fides formata includes the necessity O the good works for salvation, but they must be founded in pious sentiment. All other works not proceeding from faith are dead, though not entirely useless. The necessity of good works is fully carried out only by the inculcation of penance as salisftie!io/i, but with constant reference to a union of the soul with Christ, and the moral effect of the good works. Justification, according to Thomas .^ciuinas, is a movement from the state of injustice into the state of justice, in which the remission of sins is the main point, though it is conditioned by an infusion of grace which actually justifies men. As an act of God which establishes in man a new state, it is accomplished in a moment. Among the people the Pelagian views prevailed that man by

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CHRISTIA DOGMATICS. 475 [restoration of the normal relations BETVl . E GOD AD MA.

merely outward works had to gain his salvation, and the Church became, especially through the traffic in indulgences, a prey to the immoral and insipid worship of ceremonies. In opposition to this corruption many of the pious Mystics pointed to the Pauline doctrine of faith. —IM,l. 5 Doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church since the Reformation. [132 1 7] The Council of Trent, in order to make a compromise with the Pauline formula, recognized faith as the beginning and the foundation of justification, but the full sense which Protestantism found in it was rejected. This faith is the general belief in Divine revelation, though in transition to a special faith, yet a mere knowledge which still gives room to mortal sins. Justification is remission of sins and sanctification through an infusion of the Divine grace, in as far as the merit of Christ is not merely imputed but communicated. It is given through grace, but as a permanent state it grows through the merit of good works ac-

cording to the commandments of God and the Church, through which works the justified, always aided by the grace of God in Christ, have to render satisfaction for the temporal punishment of their sins, and to deserve salvation. ot all the works done before justification are sins, and to the justified the fulfilment of the commandments of God is quite possible, although even the saints still commit small, venial sins. A further development of this doctrine is found in the writings of Bellarmine. He admits faith only as Jiifi's geiicrahs, as a matter of the intellect, yet as a consent, not a knowledge. Though only the first among many preparations for justification, a certain merit is ascribed to faith. The Council of Trent had rejected the imputation of the merits of Christ only as the exclusive ground of justification ; Bellarmine rejected i.t altogether. He explicitly proclaimed the necessity of good works for salvation, though only a relative salvation. The npera supcrcrogationis, which were not mentioned at Trent, though they remained unchanged in tradition and practice, are further developed by Bellarmine. According to him they go beyond nature, are not destined for all, and not commanded under penalties. — Ibid. III. Man's Great eed of this Divine Provision. [13218] A state of condemnation is the opposite of a state of justification ; and by the assertion that man by nature is in a state of condemnation, we mean that man has transgressed

the law of God, and that by this law he is condemned. It supposes a liability to punishment. Punishment is the penalty which the law pronounces against transgression ; and man, by transgression, has become obnoxious to that penalty. ow, that this is the natural state of man, will be clearly seen when we consider these three things — that the law of God demands

perfect obedience— that it pronounces a curse upon transgression, and in this consists its condemning power — and that we have all transgressed. — Pa/on J. Oloag, D.D. [13219] Reason as we may about human depravity, apologize for men, or justify them as we may, they certainly do not justify themselves. Even in the deepest mental darkness concerning God, stifled, we may almost say, as regards their proper humanity, under the sottish and debasing effects of idolatry, still we see the conscience struggling with guilty fears, unable to find rest. An indescribable dread of evil still overhangs the human spirit. The being is haunted by shadows of wrath and tries all painful methods of self- pacification. Vigils, pilgrimages, sacrifices, tortures, nothing is too painful or wearisome that promises to ease the guilt of the mind. Without any speculations about justification, mankind refuse to justify themselves. A kind of despair fills the heart of the race. They have no courage. Whether they know God or not, they know themselves,

and they sentence themselves to death. If they have only soine obscure notions of a Divine Being, then they dread the full discovery of Him. If He lurks in their gods, they fear lest their gods should visit tliem in vengeance, or plague them by some kind of mischief The sky is full of wrathful powers, and the deep ground also is full. Their guilty soul peoples the world with vengeful images of its own creation. And here, now, if we desire to find it, is the true idea of Christian justification. We discover what it is by the want of it. Justification is that which will give confidence, again, to guilty minds ; that which will assure the base and humiliated soul of the world, chase away the demons of wrath and despair it has evoked, and help it to return to God in courage. — Horace Bus hue II, D.D. [13220] In the Book of Psalms it may be safely affirmed that every point in the gospel doctrine of justification is brought out by anticipation and strikingly exhibited in connection with the faith and worship of Old Testament believers. Here is the same confession of sin (xiv. i) ; the same conviction of guilt and demerit (cxxx. 4, 7) ; the same fear of God's righteous, judgment (vi. i) ; the same sense of inevitable condemnation on the ground of God's law (cxliii. 2) ; the same earnest cry for undeserving mercy (11. i) ; the same faith in His revealed character as the just God and the Saviour (x.w. 8) ; the same hope of pardon, resting on a propitiation (c.xxx. 7) ; the same pleading of God's name, or the glory of all His perfections (xxv. 11) ; the

same joy and peace in believing (Ixxxix. 15, 16) ; the same trust in God and the faithfulness of His promises (Ixxxix. I, 2) ; the same trust in the Saviour of sinners (ii. 12) ; the same confidence in another righteousness than their own (Ixxxiv. 9) ; the same patient, persevering, hopeful waiting upon God (Ixii. 5-8J. — "J. Buchanat\ D.D. {.condensed).

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IV. The Source or Origin of Justification. I The free grace and love of God. [13221] Justification, instead of bein;j inconsistent with grace, is its glory and triumph. If the atonement were intended to make God merciful, instead of only making way for Him to appear so, in a manner consistent with the principles of moral government ; if, instead of

being the contrivance, fruit, and expression of the Father's infinite love, it were to be exclusively ascribed to the interposition of the Son, by which Divine anger was transformed into pity, and the flames of vengeance were quenched in the blood of His cross, we could not speak of being justified freely through the grace of God. But when the whole emanated from the benevolence of God the Father ; and when, in His pity for the apostate race of Adam, He determined to give up the Son who had been in His bosom from eternity, that He might justify the ungodly through His righteousness, and thus be at once the just God and the Saviour ; this is grace, the wonders of which will fill immensity with its glory, and eternity with its praise. — 7. A. James. [13222] Salvation is no commercial transaction m which God, like a merchant, bargains to give so much for so much ; but it is a Divine gift which, in the exercise of almighty power and God-like bounty. He confers upon the needy and the helpless. — Rev. and Hon. D. W. oel. [13223] Fifteen hundred years before Christ an important question was proposed, which has in all ages perple.\ed the wisest and best of men — "How can man be just with God?" It was felt that man was guilty ; but how his guilt was to be pardoned, and man restored to his Maker's favour, was the great problem which the united sagacity of ages failed to solve. The philosopher tried. He discoursed much on the dignity

of virtue and the law of morals ; he lived temperately, and, by abstinence from popular vices, hoped to secure the wished-for blessing, but his heart was still an aching void, and his sin remained unpurged. The people tried. They came before God with " tliousands of rams and ten thousands of rivers of oil ; they gave their firstborn for their transgressions, the fruit of their body for the sin of their soul," but the conscience was still uncleansed, Jehovah unpropitiated, and the question unsolved, " How can man be just with (lod ? " The recluse tried. He went far from the haunts of men, clothed his flesh in sackcloth, ale bitter herbs, dwelt in a solitary cave, and tried to make Heaven his debtor by weary works and sclf-morlification ; but the heart was still sorrowful and the soul defiled. The music of the gospel is that we are justified freely by the grace of God, through Jesus Christ.—//. Gill, 1862. [13224] To justify is evidently a Divine pre-

rogative. It is God that justifieth (Rom. viii. 33J. That Sovereign Being against whom we have so greatly ottended, whose law we have broken by ten thousand acts of rebellion against Him, has, in the way of His own appointment, the sole right of acquitting the guilty, and 0/ pronouncing them righteous. He appoints the way, provides the means, . . . and all in perfect agreement with the demands of His offended law and the rights of His violated justice. But

although this act is in some places of the infallible Word more particularly appropriated personally to the Father, yet it is manifest that all the Three Persons are concerned in this grand aftair, and each performs a distinct part in this particular, as also in the whole economy of salvation. The eternal Father is represented as appointing the way, and giving His own Son to perform the conditions of our acceptance before Him (Rom. viii. 32) ; the Divine Son as engaged to sustain the curse and make the atonement ; to fulfil the terms and provide the righteousness by which we are justified (Titus ii. 14) ; and the Holy Spirit as revealing to sinners the perfection, suitableness, and freencss of the Saviour's work, enabling them to receive it as exhibited in the gospel of sovereign grace and testifying to their consciences complete justification by it in the court of heaven (John xvi. 8, 14). — Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. [13225] Our salvation is entirely God's gift to us ; and it must be so, because we cannot make it or get it for ourselves ; we have no power of our own to make it for ourselves, nothing of our own to offer in exchange for it. If our salvation docs not come to us as God's free gift, it can never come to us at all. This is what St. Paul keeps insisting upon over and over again in his statements of the doctrine of justification ; it is the foundation upon which the whole doctrine has to be reared. And so the very first step of all in the way of our salvation must be taken by God Himself ; we can have nothing at all to do with it. — Rev. Henry Harris, B.D.

[13226] Men are justified by that method by which the Divine glory is most illustrated, and the honour of our salvation referred to God alone. But those who determine that man is justified by any virtues or works, in the matter of justification, do not leave the glory of man's salvation entirely with God, but ascribe it, in some part to their own merit. But, as we are accustomed to ascribe the whole glory of alms promised and given, not to the beggar receiving them, but to the donor freely bestowing them, so we assign the whole glory of man's justification and salvation, not to faith tending towards Christ, and attaching Him to itself, but to God Himself, gratuitously justifying the believer. — Bp. Davenant. V. Its Ground or Meritorious Cause. I The perfect righteousness of Christ. [13227] The righteousness by which we are

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justified must be equal to the demands of that law according to which the Sovereign Judge proceeds in our justification. But where shall we find, or how shall we obtain a justifying righteousness? . . . That which is the end of the law is our righteousness, . . . the obedience of our exalted substitute (Rom. x. 4). . . . " By Jesus Christ all that believe are justified from all things, from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses (Acts xiii. 38, 39). " He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification" (Rom. iv. 25). — Edwards. [1322S] Christ's death expiated our sins, rendered satisfaction to the Divine justice, merited pardon, righteousness, and every blessing for time and eternity for the family of man. Concerning all this we have the testimony upon the cross, " It is finished." But there were yet some things necessary for men's actual participation in the benefits of Christ's blood-shedding. 1. The first of these acts was one which we had nothing to do with, one entirely on God's part. The resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ was the act which publicly and authoritatively proclaimed before the intelligent creation that the sacrifice was accepted, and that all who believe on Christ might be acquitted of sin and proclaimed righteous. In the resurrection of Christ was involved the justification of every one who shall be justified, as all future oaks are wrapped up in the single acorn. 2. The other of these acts is partly on God's

side and partly on ours. A dead Christ was not the object to quicken faith in man. A risen, living, life-giving Christ was the object by which God would produce the "gift of faith." " I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me " (John xii. 32). We look to the death of Christ, but by virtue of the power we receive from a living and not a dead Saviour. "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection '' (Phil. ii. 10), was the apostle's desire. In fine, the resurrection of Christ rendered available and energizing the act of acquitting sin and accountmg righteous. — C. . [13229] If we are justified solely on the ground of the perfect work of Christ, there is nothing to prevent the justification of all men, without a single thought or act on their part, but the rectoral character and relation of Jehovah, which renders it necessary that some rule of justification should be enacted, that the justice of the Divine Being may be rendered apparent by His bestowing it upon those, and those only, who comply with that rule. — Dr. Payne. [13230] I. Man is naturally and necessarily under a law to God. 2. This being so, some righteousness is absolutely necessary to his justification. 3. Every righteousness, however, is not sufficient for this purpose. That righteousness must be such as fully answers to the purity and perfection of that law under which man is placed, and which God has given him as the rule of his obedience 4. But we have no such

righteousness of our own, nor can any mere creature furnish us with it. 5. Christ, however, has such righteousness, by virtue of that perfect obedience with which He has performed the law. 6. If ever we are justified, therefore, it must be by the righteousness of Christ, by what He did and suffered in our room and stead. — Kau'lin, 1797 {condensed). [13231] The justification of sinners is directly connected with Christ as a propitiation, and described, in every variety of expression, as having been effectually procured by and founded upon that propitiation. It is connected (i) with the death of Christ (Rom. v. 10) ; (2) with the blood of Christ (Eph. i. 7 ; Rom. v. 9) ; (3) with the obedience of Christ (Rom. v. 19) ; (4) with the righteousness of Christ (2 Cor. v. 21) ; (5) with the name of Christ (i Cor. vi. 11 ; Acts x. 43) ; (6) with the knowledge of Christ (Isa. liii. 1 1 ; John xvii. 3, 4). In short, in every part of Scripture this connection is seen, and Christ's people are so absolutely dependent on what He did and suffered for their pardon and acceptance that He is said to be their life, their peace, their righteousness, their hope, their joy, as if "all their springs were in Him," and "Christ were all in all." — J. Buchanan, D.D. {condensed). [13232] There are three distinct considerations which should be seriously weighed before we adopt the opinion that the pardon of sin restores us to a state of innocence, and that

nothing more is necessary to raise us to acceptance with God. I. Adam before his fall was innocent— z'.c, not guilty, and even personally holy ; but while he continued in a state of probation, he was not righteous, in the sense of having a title to eternal life, which was promised only on condition of perfect obedience. 2. The precept of the Divine law not only forbids sin, but requires righteousness ; and the mere remission of sins does not imply such a righteousness as is required. 3. While remission absolves us from guilt and condemnation, neither that nor even regeneration restores us to such a state of holiness as that in which Adam was created. We have still the remains of indwelling sin, and our acceptance can only be ascribed, therefore, to the merits of Christ. — Ibid. [13233] A state of condemnation supposes a forfeiture of the reward of obedience, as well as a liability to the punishment of disobedience ; and we, by our sins, have forfeited all claim to the favour of God ; we are in a state of alienation from God. ow Christ has not only, by His atoning death, satisfied the penalty of the law, by reason of which we may be pardoned, but by His meritorious obedience He has procured for us a perfect righteousness, by reason of which we may be accepted as righteous. It is solely on the ground of the imputation of this righteousness that any sinner is justified before God ; by reason whereof God declares him righteous, receives him into His favour, and

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accounts him worthy of eternal Hfe. — Paton J. Cloag, D.D. [13234] There was a twofold manifestation of righteousness in the cross of Christ : (i) A manifestation of the righteousness of God the Father, in requiring a satisfaction to His justice, and in inflicting the punishment due to sin (Rom. iii. 25,261. 121 A work of riLjhteuuiness by God the Son — His vicarious righteousness as the Redeemer of His people when He " became obedient unto death, eventhe death of the cross,"aiid thus became " the end of the law for righteousness." But these two-Gods righteousness which was declared, and Christ's righteousness which was wrought out, although they may be distinguished, cannot be separated from oneanolliur ; for they were indissolubly joined to the same propitiation. — Ibid. [13235] When we use the word imputatipn; when we speak of our sins being imputed to Christ, and of His righteousness being imputed

to us, we do not mean that there is, or can be, any actual transferrence ; as if Christ, by the imputation of our sins, became personally sinful ; or we, by the imputation of His righteousness, became personally righteous. o ; the sins are still ours, "but He endures the penalty on account of them ; the righteousness is still His, but we, on account of it, receive the blessing. . . . We may dispute about the propriety of the words impute and imputation, but to deny what is thus intended to be expressed by them is to subvert the gospel, and to sweep away the sinner's only foundation of hope. — Ralph Wardlaw, LL.D. [13236] The same word, which in Scripture is in some places translated imputed, is in other places rendered reckoned, accounted, laid to one's charge, put to one's account ; all these signifying nearly the same thing. To impute is to reckon, or to account ; and, therefore, to impute good or evil unto one is to reckon it to him, or to put it to his account — to judge, or esteem that he possesses it, and to deal with him accordingly. The word is used with reference both to what was originally ours, and to what was not formerly ours, but only became ours by virtue of such imputation. Thus Shimci beseeches David not to impute iniquity unto him, nor to remember what he did perversely against him (2 Sam. xix. 19). He acknowledges his guilt — that it was his own, only he deprecates its imputation — he entreats that it may not be laid to his cliarge, and that he may not be punished on account of it. .So, also, we have an

example, in the case of Phineas, of God's imputing righteousness to one, who before such imputation possessed it (Psa. cvi. 30, 31). In both these cases the term signifies dealing with men according to their personal character and real deserts. Rut the word is also applied to what is not ours antecedently to the imput.ition ; and this is its meaning in all cases of substitution or suretiship, or when men are dealt with not on

account of their own merits or demerits, but on account of the merits or demerits of others (Philemon 18, 19). So in like manner a debt is imputed to a surety, and the surety's payment to the debtor ; and the virtues and vices of men are often imputed to their children. — Paton J. Gloag, D.D. [13237] All doctrinal statements are liable to abuse ; but then, as Bishop Butler has remarked, " A doctrine having been a shelter for enthusiasm, or made to serve the purpose of superstition, is no proof of the falsity of it ; truth or right being somewhat real in itself, and so not to be judged of by its liableness to abuse, or by its supposed distance from, or nearness to, error" (Butler's "Sermons," p. 131). Ithasbeen well remarked that the root of this erroneous view of the imputation of Christ's righteousness lies in the notion that God requires good works from us, not for our sakes, but for His own. " If this be true, then, of course it is a matter of indifference who does the good works, whether

it be Christ or His followers. If a man wants a map for his own use he buys it in the shop, and is indifi'erent whether it was executed by this person or that. If a master in a school wants to teach his boys how to draw a map, then, if a boy brings forward as his own work what is really the work of another, the master, instead of rewarding, will punish such a boy. ow, it should never be forgotten that our heavenly Father wants to teach us how to do good works, and that He requires a virtuous life from us, not really for His sake, but for our own. The doctrine of the imputed righteousness of Christ gave birth lo the Roman Catholic doctrine about works of supererogation, and very naturally ; for if God can act upon one fiction, of course He can act upon another, and regard the works of good people as if they were the works of the wicked. The speechless guest, at the marriage-supper, did not point to the porgeous robe of the King's Son." (Webster's " otes of Lectures on the ew Testament," pp. 155. 6). [13238] The sinner from the very circumstance of his being a sinner cannot give for himself such an obedience as God exacts, and still less can he give it for a fellow-sinner. or can any other creature of God provide such a righteousness lor him — for e\ery creature is required, as for himself, to fulhl vhe universal law of God ; and after he has loved the Lord with all his heart, and discharged every commanded duty, he has not acquired any merit ol supererogation which may be carried over to

the account of another. ot only so, but it might seem that God Himself were precluded from providing anything to suit the transgressor, and that His inability arose from His very greatness. The righteousness required of man is obedience, and the only righteousness which can be of any use to him must part.ike of tne nature of obedience. But God, as Cjod, the author of the law, the governor of the world,

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cannot give obedience. Herein, we repeat, was the difficulty in tlie way of the restoration of a fallen being. Incapable of redeeming himself, no creature can possibly have any supertluous righteousness to impute to him ; and it might seem as if God Himself could not provide what man requires. It is when we consider it in its f tness to solve this difficulty that we discover the manifold wisdom of the "mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh." In order to provide such an obedience, one of the persons of the ever-existing and ever-blessed Godhead

associates Himself with humanity, and becomes "obedient even unto death," fulfilling the law in its precepts, and submitting to its penalty. How completely does the remedy meet the evil, considered as afifectmg the government of God ! This great truth is set forth in Scripture in very expressive language, in which man is represented as justified by the righteousness of God, that is, in the righteousness which God has provided, and the deliverer is spoken of as "the Lord our righteousness." — McCosh, D.D. [13239] The idea that the personal righteousness of Christ is t.- of the first importance to bear in mind, that when the sacred writers make use of earthly things to shadow forth the heavenly, they so do, not on the ground that the earthly is in all parti'.ulars the image of the heavenly — for that it never is — but on the ground of some point of resemblance which is in itself sufficiently marked to warrant the comparison. It is so in this instance. Our Lord is not merely human, but Divine. On this ground His suffering and His righteousness have a value that could not otherwise belong to them. They avail for others, not merely for Himself. Faith in His righteousness includes the seeds of an approval of that righteousness, and of an ultimate conformity to it ; and the effect of this faith in it is to give to the believer the legal benefit of it as though it were his own. The

point of resemblance here between the earthly and the heavenly is not that the justified believer is really just, as the justified man in a court of law is supposed to be, but that the eftect of his relation by faith to the righteousness of Christ is all to him that the absence of conviction is known to be in the other case. Here the identity is complete. ot a full identity ; foi while the one party is supposed to have been innocent, the other is known to have been an offender ; but an identity of result. To the believer, the righteousness of Christ is all in this respect that it would be if it were his own What more natural than that a righteousness thus imputed to himi reckoned to him, viewed as though it w'ere his own, should be spoken of in moments of impassioned thankful^ ness as though it lucre really his 1 In the face of law and penalty, it is to him all that it could be even then. So, in his view, the majesty of

right in relation to the Divine nature and government is saved, consistently with his pardon, with his justification, and with his restoration to the image and presence of his Maker. And why should this faith be incredible among us ? If by the disobedience of one many have been made sinners, why by the obedience of one may not many be made righteous? If by the offence of one judgment has come upon all men to condemnation, why through the righteousness of one rnay not the free gift come upon all men to justification of life ? The great

scheme of spiritual restoration, embracing the incarnation, the atonement, and the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit, is in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, or it is not. If it be there, then enough is there to warrant a strong impression that we owe those Scriptures to a supernatural inspiration and a supernatural guardianship. If it be not there, and if an elementary sentimental theism is all that should be deduced from those writings, then we say that the manner in which those writers have acquitted themselves as meaning no more than that, is so marvellously inapt as to be fatal to their authority altogether. Our Bible must mean more, much more than that, or it can matter little to us what it may mean. On this ground mere theism will find no permanent halting-place. It must retrace its steps towards orthodoxy, or go further, and become mere naturalism. — British Quarterly Review. [13240] The innate sense of Divine justice, which all men possess, demands that the sinner should receive his due, that the stroke he has given to the law should recoil upon himself. The deeper his sense of guilt, the less can he be satisfied with mere pardon, and the more does he demand punishment, for by punishment he is justified. Whence do we derive his intimate persuasion of God's justice? ot from without ; because men, as empirically guided, regard freedom from suffering as the highest good ; it must therefore be implanted in our nature by God Himself. The holiness of God, which reveals itself to the sinner by the connection

between sufiering and transgression, has, therefore, a witness for itself in every human breast. Hence, on the one hand, the proclamation of pardon and reconciliation could not satisfy the conscience of the sinner, unless his guilt had been atoned for by punishment ; and, on the other hand, Divine love could not offer its blessing to the sinner unless holiness was revealed together with love. It was therefore necessary that sufiering commensurate with the apostasy of man should be endured, which men would impute to themselves as their own. Such was the sufiering, inward and outward, of the Redeemer. Two things were necessary : I. That those sufferings should correspond to the greatness of the sin of mankind ; 2. That the sinner could rightfully impute them to himself. — Tholuck. [13241] My soul, be the surety of all such as

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trust in the cross, which is indeed a scandal to the unbelievers, but to us is salvation and life eternal ! — St. Ignatius. [13242] I have lived to see that this world is made up of perturbations ; and I have been long, both preparing to leave it, and gathering comfort for the dreadful hour of making my account with God which I now apprehend to be near. And, though I have, by His grace, loved Him in my youth, and feared Him in mine age, and laboured to have a conscience void of offence to Him and to all men : yet, if thou, O Lord, be extreme to mark what I have done amiss, who can abide it .' And, therefore, where I have failed, Lord, show mercy to me : for I plead not my righteousness, but the forgiveness of my unrighteousness, for His merits who died to purchase a pardon for penitent sinners. — Hooker. VL Its Instrumental Cause. I Faith, productive of good works, and a holy life. (l) " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, atid thou shatt be saved" {Acts xvi. 31 ). [13243] The anxious follower after righteousness is not disappointed by an impracticable code, nor mocked by an unintelligible revelation; the word is near him, therefore accessible ;

plain and simple, and therefore apprehensible ; and, we may fairly add, deals with definite historical fact, and therefore certain : so that his salvation is not contingent on an amount of performance which is beyond him, and therefore maccessible ; irrational, and therefore inapprehensible ; undefined, and therefore involved in uncertainty. — Alford. [13244] We cannot save ourselves, but neither will God save us unless we turn to Him to be saved. We must catch at the salvation which He holcjs out to us, just as a drowning man catches at the rope which is thrown to him from the ship's side ; and when we have once grasped the hand or the rope which is held out to us, we are safe; as safe as if we were already in the ship, or on shore. "Ye are saved." This leaching out, tlien, of faith, in answer to God's stretching out His hand to save us, is the second step which is necessary to be taken in the matter of our salvation. The first step had to be taken by God Himself, and it is we ourselves who have to take the second : " By grace are ye saved through faith." This grace is God's free gift to us ; this faith is ours. — Rev. ileiiry Harris, B.I). [13245] The faith by which we are justified is not a mere assent to the doctrines of the gospel, v.'hich leaves the heart unmoved and unatfcttcd by a sense of tlie evil and danger of sin and the desire of salvation, although it sup[)obes this assent ; nor is it that more lively and cordial assent to, and belief in, the doctrine of the

gospel, touching our sinful and lost "onditinn,

which is wrought in the heart by the Spirit o( God, and from which springeth repentance, although this must precede it ; nor is it only the assent of the mind to the method by which God justifies the ungodly by faith in the sacrifice of His Son, although this is an element of it ; but it is a hearty concurrence of the will and affections with this plan of salvation, which implies a renunciation of every other refuge, and an actual trust in the Saviour, and personal apprehension of His merit ; such a belief of the gospel by the power of the Spirit of God as leads us to come to Christ, to receive Christ, to trust Christ, and to commit the keeping of our souls into His hands, in humble confidence of His ability and willingness to save us. This is that qualifying, but not meritorious, condition to which the promise of God annexes justification ; that without which justification would not take place ; and in this sense it is that we are justified by faith, not by the merit of faith, but by faith instrumentally as this condition ; for its connection with the benefit arises from the merits of Christ and the promise of God. — Edwards. [13246] Faith is the condition, not the evidence, of justification. Faith brought to Christ the lame, the blind, and the dying ; and " Go in peace " were the Saviour's gracious words ; " thy faith hath made thee whole." But the evidence

of the cure thus wrought was not the trusting hope which led them to Him, but the buoyant step, the eye kindling into meaning, and the frame invigorated with the glow and pulse of health. — Bp. Jackson. [13247] Faith in Jesus Christ is the preparation for, and condition of, justification: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ," says St. Paul, "and thou shalt be saved." Faith is here set before us as the foundation of all gospel righteousness ; we must, ere we can become members of Christ's Church, rely upon His word and teaching, and thus faith is necessarily the first step to the kingdom of God. He that cometh unto God must believe "that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." Whatever might be the prejudices of education, or of a corrupt state of heart and life, which prevented the Jew or heathen from embracing the Christian religion, it was only through faith they could be overcome ; and such faith, then, besides a mere intellectual assent, must also have been a persuasion of heart which enabled him to submit unreservedly to the teaching and requirements of the gospel — the obedience of faith. Faith thus implied a preparation of heart, the most diuicult though indispensable condition ere the sinner could come to Christ. The healing by our Lord of bodily disease typified tlie healing of the soul. " Believe ye that I am able to do this? — according to your faith, be it unto you" (Matt. ix. 28, 29). And St. I'aul, looking on the cripple at Lystra, saw that he had " faith to be healed " (Acts xlv. 9). Hence

we find that although justification is always

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CHRIST! A DOGMATICS. 4S1 [restoration of the normal relations between god and man.

represented as a free gift, not to be purchased by man's dcservings, yet that faith is the indispensable condition for our receiving it. It would be impossible to imagine how this Divine gift coukl be otherwise bestowed or received. It was faith only which could open a sinner's eyes to perceive his need of the blessings of redemption, which could enable him to feel his fallen and lost condition by nature, and realize the greatness of a Saviour's love, and could also teach him the need of a change of heart and life, his only means of showing forth gratitude for the mercies of redemption, and his love to Him who has thus loved him, and given Himself for his salvation. Hence repentance is also brought before us as a condition of justification. — Blunfs Uocirinal and Historical Theology. [13248] The righteousness rests not upon persons possessing a spasmodic and temporary,

but a present and abiding, faith. — C. . [13249] It is a childish cavil our adversaries use, exclaiming that we require nothing in Christians but faith, because we say faith alone justifies. Whereas, by this speech, we never meant to exclude hope or charity from being always joined, and inseparable mates with faith, in the man justified ; or works from being added, and necessary duties required of every justified man ; but to show that faith is the only hand which putteth on Christ unto justification, and Christ the only garment which being put on hides the imperfections of our works, makes us blameless in the sight of God, before whom otherwise the weakness of our faith were sufficient to shut us out of heaven. — Hooker. [13250] Justification is not contingent upon the fact of the transformation of the sinner, as to his immediate actions, into a holy and righteous man ; it has its foundation in this — that God now outwardly declares the man righteous without anything new being implanted within the man himself. It consists in this, that the individual is through Christ placed in the true fundamental relation to God, and therefore can be looked upon by God as just. Thus, as Christ is objectively the pure and holy centre of the human race, in whom the Father determines beforehand the future blessedness of mankind, faith is the holy centre within the individual in which the Father determines beforehand his future blessedness in particular (Rom. viii. i). For faith is like the grain of

mustard seed, a small, insignificant, but fructifying seed corn, which contains within it the fulness of a whole future. In His gracious contemplation God beholds in the seed corn the future fruit of blessedness ; in the pure will, the realized ideal of freedom. — Dr. Martensen. [13251] It has been said with truth regarding the evangelical doctrine, that although it is rejected by the Romish Church, it nevertheless lives within her pale as a hidden esoteric tradition, and is practically embraced by thousands VOL. IV. 32

in place of the outward tradition, which in theory is maintained. ot only have the great te:ichers of the Middle Age, an Anselm and a Bernard, not only have the host of witnesses who are called the forerunners of the Reformation, given their testimony for this doctrine, but the history of the pastorate, the cure of souls within the Romish Church, abundantly proves that the evangelical doctrine alone can give real comfort to troubled and helpless consciences. Thus it brought peace to Luther, when, as a monk, and experiencing great struggles of conscience, he was referred to Romans iii. by an old Augustinian brother, in proof that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. The evangelical truth is also implied in the old custom of the Romish Church, clearly symbolical, of holding a crucifix

before the dying. For what else could this custom mean, except that the man now in the solemn hour of death must rely, not upon his own merits, not upon the merits of the saints, but solely upon the crucified Christ, as the only Mediator? This crucifix it was that Pius VI I., the noblest and most severely tried Pope of modern Church history, pressed to his breast in his dying moments, while with strong words he refused the name " most holy Father," which some one addressed to him. " What 1 " he exclaimed, " most holy Father ! I am a poor sinner." — Ibid. [13252] The exclusive instrumentality and peculiar prerogative which is ascribed to faith in connection with our justification is sufficiently established by showing that (i) the only ground of our acceptance with God is the finished work or vicarious righteousness of Christ ; and (2) that the only grace whereby we rely or rest upon that ground is faith considered as a cordial belief of the truth concerning Christ, and a confiding trust in Him for our personal salvation. — y. Buchanan, D.D. {condensed). [13253] In the office of justifying the believer faith admits no fellowship — none of his acts or qualities, none of his gifts or graces, none of his virtues or deservings of whatever kind — whether concomitants of faith or consequents of it — share with it in this its office ; but by faith, and faith only, we possess that efficacious interest in

Christ's sufferings, and that availing title to the fruits of His obedience, which shield us from the curse of the law, and secure to us its blessings and its rewards. — Bp. O'Brien. [13254] If you were permitted to purchase eternal salvation, what would you not give for it ! And now you may obtain it by faith and love ; there is nothing can hinder you from acquiring it — neither poverty, nor misery, nor old age, nor any state of life. Believe, therefore, in one God, who is God and Man, and receive eternal salvation for a recompense. — St. Clemeiil oj Alexandria.

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[13255] Oh, how unlike the complex works of man, Heaven s easy, artless, unincumber'd plan 1 o meretricious graces to beguile. o clust'ring ornaments to clog the pile :

From ostentation as from weakness free, It stands like the cerulean arch we see, Majestic in its own simplicity. Inscrib'd above the portal, from afar Conspicuous as the brightness of a star, Legible only by the light they give. Stand the soul-quick'ning words — " Believe and live." — Cotuper. (2) " As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also " {James ii. 26). [13256] There are many whose eyes are so wide open to the mistake of attempting to become their own saviours, that they fall unawares into a mistake in the opposite direction. They see most clearly how hopeless it is to seek to win heaven by their own exertions ; they fully realize the fact that it is God which works in them both to will and to do of His own good pleasure ; but they see no further. And so they come to the conclusion that they have nothing to do but to sit still until God comes and saves them. But as for working out their own salvation, and working at it with fear and trembling, such a notion never once crosses their minds, or disturbs the easy repose in which they are lying. — Rev. Henry Harris, B.D. [13257] " ot the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified" (Rom. ii. 13). Is the master satisfied with the servants who are well instructed in their duties, but who neglect their performance ? Does society smile approvingly upon persons

who are thoroughly versed in all the rules of etiquette, and yet conduct themselves worse than the uninitiated ? Would a sovereign extend his hand graciously to that law officer whose duty was to codify the law, and who, although he might descant upon its value and excellence, habitually disregarded its letter and spirit in his own daily life? And how preposterous of the Jews, then, to imagine, because they had entrusted to them the Divine law, had been taught it from their youth, heard it read every Sabbath day in their synagogues, gloried in its possession, that therefore they should be accounted righteous although they had failed to keep the commandments of the Lord their God 1 — C. . [13258] The Scriptures expressly declare that good works are required as a condition for our continuance in a state of justification, and the attainment of eternal life. Good works are necessarily the fruits of a true and living faith. . . . Our Lord's declaration is most emphatic : " Every tree that bringcth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire" (Matt. vii. ig). The man who heareth His sayings and doeth them is compared to one who built his house upon a rock, against which the floods

and storms beat in vain ; but he who heareth His sayings and doeth them not is compared to a man who, without a foundation, built his house on the sand, which was overthrown, and

great was the fall thereof (Matt. vii. 24-27). And from His account of the Day of Judgment we know that they who have done certain good works — cited in illustration of Christian duties generally — will go into life everlasting ; and they who have left them . undone will be cast into everlasting fire (Matt. xxv. 31-46). . . . Justification by works, either as preserving us in a state of acceptance with God, or as the title to an eternal reward, has been supposed to imply, in an unscriptural sense, the meritorious acts of good works, as if the faithful Christian had thus a strict claim or title to eternal happiness ; but this inference is a mistaken one. The Christian is only entitled to future happiness on account of God's promises ; for we know that He is faithful who hath promised. The term " merit" applied to good works is unobjectionable if rightly understood. . . . They can only be done through grace and faith in Christ ; and God accounts the fruits of His gifts of grace as being our own merit or deserving. . . . Thus justification by works . . . neither teaches us to rely upon them in disparagement of Divine grace, nor as claiming a reward from God. — Blunts Doctrinal and Historical Theology. [13259] St. Paul speaks (in Romans ii. 7) of ' patient continuance in well-doing^' literally " good work," and it refers to the Christian career as a life-long work. A chef d'a:uvre is only produced by a painter after years of labour and pains. It is made up of a number of little strokes of the brush, which in themselves seem of small account. If the artist after a while

were to grow weary of his task, and careless in the execution of his glorious conception, the picture would be a failure, notwithstanding all the diligence previously bestowed on his undertaking. ow, a Christian life is made up of a number of small duties and acts of kindness rather than of extraordinary exploits ; and these must be quietly attended to unto the end if he is to be "a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the Master's use, and prepar.-d unto every good work" (2 Tim. ii. 21) — C. . [13260] God made us, and not we ourselves; He put us together just as a workman puts a piece of machinery together, piece by piece, and we have no more ground for boasting or miking a merit of what we do, than a clock has ground for boasting of being able to point to the time, or to strike the hours. We are simply, then, a piece of workmanship, designed and put together by God. Still, a piece of machinery is designed for some set purpose or other, and so are we ; we have been made and made over again, " created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath btf jic ordained that we should walk in them." Yes, not only has God made us to do a particular kind of work, but, in addition

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to this, He has got the very works themselves ready beforehand which we are to do ; the works which we are to do are all of God's own inaking, just as we ourselves are, who are to do them. And so, from first to last, the whole process is entirely God's, and we have nothing to do wilh making any part of it; it is all God's. — Rev. Henry Hams, B.D. [13261] With regard to the commonly alleged distinction between the bcins saved for, or on account of, our works, and the being saved accordingly to t!;em. " It is one thing," observes Gregory, " to be rewarded seiundiim, or according to our works ; and another thing to be rewarded propter, or on account of them. In using the word secundum we mean to denote the c]uality or character of the works, not to imply how much they deserve. For no works or endeavours of man can enter into comparison with their glorious recompense in heaven." This last position is true ; but X.he propter opera may not be the less a very proper expression, unless it Ije understood to signify, which it does not signify, something of equivalence, or something which excludes bounty or grace. Wesley states the case as follows : "As to merit itself, of which we have been so dreadfully afraid, we are rewarded according to our works ; yea because of

our works. How does this differ from for the sake of our works.' How difi'ers this from secundum mertta operum ? which is no more than as our works deserve. Can you split this hair? I doubt I cannot." — Rev. John Petirose, M.A. [13262] Having shown a child the operation of grafting, and pointing at the crab-tree newly grafted, " My dear child," would I say, " though hitherto this tree has produced nothing but crabs, yet, by the skill of the gardener, who has just fixed in it that good little branch, it is now made an apple-tree ; I justify and warrant it such." (Here is an emblem of our first justitication by faith !) " In three or four years, if we live, we will come again and see it : if it thrives and bears fruit, well ; we shall then, by that mark, justify it a second time ; we shall declare that it is a good apple-tree indeed, and fit to be transplanted from this wild nursery into a delightful orchard. But if we find that the old crab-stock, instead of nourishing the graft, spends all its sap in producing wild shoots and sour crabs ; or, if it is a ' tree whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead' (dead in the graft and in the stock), ' plucked up by the root,' or quite cankered, far from declaring it a good tree, we shall pass sentence of condemnation upon it, and say, ' Cut it down ; why cumbereth it the ground ? For every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.'" Here is an emblem of our second justification by works, or of the condemnation that will infallibly overtake those Laodicean professors and wretched apostates, whose faith is not shown by works,

where there is time and opportunity. — Fletcher. [13263] All writers worth attending to rank

works of usefulness and charity as among the eflfects of Christian faith. Query, Are all writers equally and sufiiciently careful to rank them also among the means of nursing up, and establishing, the Christian character ? These works, if proceeding from a good, though it may yet be an imperfect principle (as in the case of the young ruler spoken of in Luke xviii.), are a part of the education of faith, as well as among the fruits of that faith when formed or created, and tend at once to secure the health of the soul, and strengthen its energy. — Rev. John Penrose, HI. A. (3) " Without holiness no tnan shall see the Lord." [13264] Remember, a holy calling never saved any man without a holy heart ; if our tongues only be sanctified, our whole man must be damned. — Plavel. [13265] Without holiness, there can be no such heaven as the ew Testament reveals. There may be scenery of surpassing grandeur — mountains, woods, rivers, and skies most charming ; but they do not make a heaven, else a heaven might be found in Wales or Cumberland. There may be a capital full of palaces

and temples ; but they do not make a heaven, else a heaven might have been found in Delhi. There may be buildings of marble and precious stones ; but they do not make a heaven, else a heaven might have been in Rome or V'enice. There may be health and ease and luxury and festivities ; but they do not make a heaven, else one would have been met with in Belshazzar's halls. There may be education, philosophy, poetry, literature, art ; but that will not make a heaven, else the Greeks would have had one in Athens, in the grove and in the porch. Holiness is that without which no heaven could exist. — J. Stoughton. [13266] How many persons put off the evil hour, when they think that of necessity they will be constrained to surrender their hearts to God ! There is a sort of inward feeling that the time must come, but the later it comes the better. Let us live on as long as ever we can. pleasing ourselves, following our own natural inclinations, running after our own desires, taking the law of our life into our own hand ; and, when we cannot do this any longer, when Divine Justice confronts us, when we see the sword drawn, when we find ourselves trembling on the brink of doom, when heart and flesh are failing us, when the earth is rolling away from under our feet, then, in the hour of our emergency, we will turn round and cr>' to God to save our souls from impending ruin. — Rev. W. Hay M. H. Aitketi. [13267] What is called salvation is not, as

some virtually represent, a sort of magical metamorphosis of state, having its chief significance in safety already secured and a title to something better hereat'ter ; but emancipation from the tyranny of sin, or the formation of a

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character in purity and benevolence like God's. All beyond this, or what necessarily flows from it, is for the most part the invention of divines, sanctioned neither by reason nor Scripture. A man is saved just so far as he is made holy, and no farther ; and enters the future world with prospects of well-being exactly in proportion to the extent of spiritual renovation or moral excellence with which he leaves the present ; nor is it easy to conceive of a more noxious perversion of Christianity than the theory which depicts its most prominent characteristic as a thing done for us nearly two thousand years ago, instead of a thing to be done in us every day and moment of our lives. Rightly viewed, the utterance were most true, that there is no other heaven or hell, here or hereafter, but what is created by a man's

own nature, or as much an outgrowth from it as the efflorescence of a plant from its germs. — W. B. Clulow. [13268] The life of Jesus was absolutely perfect, and the everlasting Father gives this attestation to it, and Simon Peter and James and John heard Him say, " This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased : hear ye Him." Let that life speak ; let that perfect life which is in continual obedience to the perfect will of the perfect God — let that life speak, " hear ye Himl" hear His unwavering obedience, hear His filial love, hear His constant self-denial, hear His renunciation of the world, hear His spotless purity : let this life speak, and tell what God's ideal of perfection is ; it has spoken, and it speaks still.— i^^t/. W. Hay M. H. Aitken. [13269] The condition of justification under the law is perfect obedience. If we obey the law perfectly, we satisfy its requirements, and can appeal to it for justification ; if we disobey, we are convicted by the law as transgressors. The reward is promised only to those who continue in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them ; these it justifies, but those who disobey it condemns (Rom. x. 5, ii. 13). This is essential to the very nature of law, and is true of every law. A law may promise rewards to those who obey, but it certainly denounces punishment against those who disobey. It would destroy itself were it delivered in these terms : You are commanded to obey, but you will be forgiven if you trans-

gress. And hence when the self-righteous lawyer in the Gospel asked our Saviour on what conditions eternal life is bestowed, our Lord replied, " Keep the commandments." — Paton J. Gloag, D.D. [13270] While this scheme of justification strips man of all pretensions to merit, and gives the whole glory of his salvation to his Maker, it furnishes the most efficacious means, and the most absolute assurance of his future obedience, his perpetual improvement in holiness, and his certain advancement toward the best character which he will ever be capable of sustaining. The obedience springing from faith is voluntary, filiaJ, and lovely ; whilst all other obedience is

mercenary, and of no moral worth. — T. Dwight LL.D. [ " Be ye holy, even as I am holy," is an evei binding injunction, and no inward faith can be genuine which does not realize the necessity oJ its outward manifestation. — A. M. A. IV.] VII. Its Relation to Sanctification. [13271] Speaking of the contest between the Reformers and their opponents, whether the word "justification" meant a change in God or a change in man ; an accounting just on God's part, or a becoming just on man's, we say, " May not the solution be, that the idea of justi-

fication, like the idea of reconciliation, is a reciprocal idea, involving both sides of one and the same truth .' For what is this truth? That in the gospel there is revealed a rij;hteousness of God — that is, a Divine gift of righteousness, a righteousness not of man's makmg, but of God's giving (Rom. i. 17). And what is the essential meaning of this word 'righteousness' (SiKaioavvji) ? It is a right relation, either between man and man (as used by Aristotle), or between God and man (as used by St. Paul). Man had no power to put himself into this ' right relation ' to God : Christ did it. It was the gift of God. Christ's propitiation established a ' right relation ' between God and man ; and this is what St. Paul means by dtKnoijvt'ri Btov. The man who by God's grace is restored to this right relation to God is said to be ia-anufcif, justified. And God's act in restoring man to this right relation is termed ficaiiufftc, justification. If this be a true account of the word 'justification,' then we perceive at once the clear distinction between justification and sanctification. Justification is that establishment of a right relation between God and man, which was effected once for all by Christ's death, and which may be apprehended once for all by faith. Sanctification is that growth in holiness through the influence of the Holy Spirit, which must surely, though it may be slowly, follow justification."— £/. A'. T. [13272] The Papal system, while it recognizes the great facts of the mediatorial scheme, as lying at the foundation of the economy of mercy

and salvation, confounds justification with sanctification, by making it to result from grace infused, instead of referring it entirely to the work and sacrifice of Christ appropriated by faith. Thus it sets aside the emphatic statement of St. Paul : " To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justificth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." The theology of Rome, also, presents to us a complete and perfect scheme of sacramental salvation, and teaches that all sins committed after baptism can only be remitted through sacramental confession and absolution ; while the gospel of Christ lays open the mercy-seat of God as accessible to every burdened spirit, and holds forth to it the promise of conscious ac

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ceptance upon its personal trust in the crucified one. — Lcndon Q'^.irterly Review. [13273] I. They differ in their nature ; justification is a change upon our condition with respect to law ; sanctification is a change upon

our moral character. 2. In their yniVr, justification precedes sanctification. 3. Justification is at once perfect : the believer's sins are pardoned, he is freed from condemnation, he receives a title to eternal life. Sanctification is imperfect, a work begun and in progress. — PatonJ. Gloag, D.D., 1856. [13274] It may serve to extricate some minds from confusion if we give an axiomatic statement of the nature and relation of the two blessings in question. Justification and sanctification agree in the following points: they are both essential to our salvation from the state into which we are fallen, and from the dangers to which we are exposed. Both are sovereign favours, bestowed on us by the God of salvation. Both come to us through the redemption that is in Christ. In both the operation of the Holy Spirit applies the work of Christ. Both are designed to honour the law and government and grace of God. Both are, therefore, enjoyed by all believers, and by believers only. But the two blessings differ in various ways. Justification is specially related to the rectitude of God's government ; sanctification relates to the holiness of God's nature. Justification is an act ; sanctification is a process. Justification is the sentence of the Father as mo.'-al Governor on the throne of grace ; sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit in the temple of the heart. Justification changes our state ; sanctification is a change of our nature or character. In justification we are pronounced righteous ; by sanctification we are made holy. Justification is the

acceptance of our persons into God's lavour ; sanctification is the renewal of our hearts into God'simage. Justification, therefore, isaforensic term, expressive of God's jurisdiction over us ; sanctification is catharistic, expressing God's moral influence over us. In justification the guilt of sin is remitted ; in sanctification its defilement is cleansed. Justification gives a title to heaven ; sanctification a fitness for it. Justification is by union to Christ as the law Fulfiller ; sanctification by union to Him as the Purifier. Justification comes by uniting us to Christ as our legal Head ; sanctification by uniting us to Him as 'our vital Head. Justification is by faith only on our part ; sanctification is by many means, chiefly the Word and prayer, but also by ordinances and afflictions, under the influence of the Spirit. Justification is complete as soon as we believe ; sanctification then commences ainid great imperfections. Justification may be referred to a known definite time ; sanclit'ication is spread over the whole of life. In justification there is no difference among believers ; in sanctification there are great varieties. Justification comes first as the root ; sanctification lo.Iuws as the fruit. Justification,

therefore, may be known by sanctification. Justification pronouncing our title to the enjoyment of heaven ; sanctification is given to fulfil the sentence. Many more points of distinction might be shown ; but these may suffice to assist such as wish to pursue the subject to greater

lengths. — Dr. Bamett. [13275] The evidence of man's justification is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the heart, discernible (as alone the presence of the invisible Sanclificr can be discerned) by repentance, faith, and love, and growth in holiness. And if we would have a reasonable hope that our sins are blotted out in the Saviour's blood, the sentence against us cancelled, and the light of God's countenance beaming upon us in love, we must read the blessed truth in our growing hatred of sin, our increasing conformity to the example of Christ, and our strengthening habits of devotion, self-denial, purity, humility, and charity. Sanctification, as it always accompanies, becomes the outward manifestation of our justification ; God's seal on those who are His. — Bp. Jacksoti. [13276] Justification is a forensic or judicial act, by which the sinner is pronounced just on the ground of a righteousness which is not subjectively his, and which therefore does not constitute his character. Samtification is an efficient or e.xecutive work, in which God, by the power of His Spirit, renovates the corrupted nature of man, and restores him to his own image in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. — Dr. Hodge. [13277] The error of the Romish Church is to confound justification and sanctification. So the Council of Trent declares, that "justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the

sanctification of the inner man ; and that ihe only formal cause of justification is the righteousness of God, not that whereby He is just, but what by which He makes us just ;" that is, inherently so. That justification and sanctification go together, we have seen ; but this is not what is meant by the Council. Their doctrine is, that man is made just or holy, and then justified. The answer to this is that God "justifieth the ungodly;" and the Scriptures plainly mean by justification, not sanctification, but simply the remission of sin. — R. Watson. VIII. Question as to the Time of Justification. [13278] As to the time of justification, divines are not agreed. Some have distinguished it into decretive, virtual, and actual, (i) Decretive is God's eternal purpose to justify sinners in time by Jesus Christ. (2) Virtual justification has a reference to the satisfaction made by Christ. (3) Actual is when we are enabled to believe in Christ, and by faith are united to Him. Others say that it is eternal, because H;s purpose respecting it was from everlasting ;

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and that, as the Almighty viewed His people in Christ, they were, consequently, justified in His sight. But the principle on which the advocates for this doctrine have proceeded is most absurd. They have confounded the design with the execution ; for if this distinction be not kept up, the utmost perplexity will follow the consideration of every subject which relates to the decrees of God ; nor shall we be able to form any clear ideas of His moral government whatever. To say, as one does, that the eternal will of God to justify men is the justification of them, is not to the purpose ; for, upon the same ground, we might as well say that the eternal will of God to convert and glorify this people is the real conversion and glorification of them. That it was eternally determined that there should be a people who should believe in Christ, and that His righteousness should be imputed to them, is not to be disputed ; but to say that these things were really done from eternity (which we must say if we believe eternal justification), this would be absurd. It is more consistent to believe that God from eternity laid the plan of justification ; that this plan was executed by the life and death of Christ ; and that the blessing is only manifested, received, and enjoyed, when we are regenerated, so that

no rnan can say, or has any reason to conclude, he is justified until he believes in Christ. — Edwards. IX. The Accordance between the Teaching of St. Paul and the Early Fathers. [13279] The teaching of the fathers was in exact accordance with the doctrine of Paul. The most illustrious of them have left behind the clearest and fullest testimony on the subject. " God gave His only Son," says Justin Martyr, "a ransom for us — the Holy One for the transgressors, the innocent for the wicked ; the righteous for the unrighteous. . . . For what else could cover our sins but His righteousness ? In whom could we transgressors and ungodly be justified but in the Son of God ? O sweet exchange ! O unsearchable contrivance ! that the transgressions of many should be hidden in one righteous Person, and the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors ! '' (Epist. ad. Diog.) To the same effect, in his commentary on 2 Cor. v. 21, Chrysostom : '" U hat word, what speech is this ? What mind can comprehend or express it ? For he saith He made Him who was righteous to be made a sinner that He might make sinners righteous. ay, this is not what he says, but something greater. He does not say He made Him a sinner, but sin ; that we might be made, not righteous, but righteousness, and that the righteousness of God" (cap. v. Hom. ii.) These testimonies might be multiplied to

almost any extent. (See Sincer's "Thesaurus.") — RezK Robert Frew, D.D. £13280] " His faith was accounted for right-

eousness." He speaketh this because, without the works of the law to every sinner, that is, t» every Gentile that believeth in Christ, his fiiith is counted to him for righteousness, as it was to Abraham. How, therefore, can the Jews think to be justified by the works of the law, and yet as Abraham was justified, when they see that Abraham w.is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith onlyi' — St. Ambrose. X. The Teaching of St. Paul and St. James Reconciled. [132S1J The true key to the difficult passage in the Apostle James's Epistle Ichai). ii. 14-261, and the true theory of reconciliation between Paul and James seems to lie in the ditTerent point of view from which the two apostles regard the subject. Paul is dealing in his Epistles with those who insisted upon justification by works, James with such as dispensed with works altogether . . . and clung to a dead inoperative faith. ... It is true he asserts that " Abraham was justified by works," and that a " man is justified by works and not by faith only." But the meaning obviously is . . . that Abraham, and all of like faith with him, are justified by a I'aiih which is productive oi

good works. . . . They both treat of one and the same thing, viz., gospel justification, but with a dift'erent object in view, and both together teach us that while justification is by faith alone, the faith which justifies abideth not alone, but is followed by all acts of holy obedience. — Rev. Robert Frew, D.D. [13282] The Apostle (St. Paul) by justification by faith meant no more than that either we are justified in an evangelical way, or more particularly by faith intended a practical belief, including evangelical obedience ; and seeing, on the other hand, St. James, in affirming " that we are justified by works and not by faith only ; " by works means no more than evangelical obedience, in opposition to a naked and an empty faith ; these two, so far from C|uarrelling, mutually embrace each other, and both, in the main, pursue the same design ; and indeed if any derangement seem between them, it is most reasonable that St. Paul should be expounded by St. James, not only because his propdrtions are so express and positive and not justly liable to ambiguity, but because he wrote some coiiipeli.nt time ailer the other; and consequently as he perfectly understood his meaning, so he was capable to countermine those ill principles which some men had built upon St. Paul's assertions. For it is evident from sever.al passages in St. Paul's Epistles that even then many began to mistake his doctrine, and from his assertions about justification by f.iith, and not by works, to infer propositions that might serve the purpose of a bad life (see Rom. iii. 8,

vi. i). . . . Against these men it is beyond all question plain that St. James levels his Epistle to batter down the growing doctrines of libertinism and profaneness ; to show the insufifi-

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ciency of a naked faith, and an empty profession of religion, that it is not enough to recommend us to the Divine acceptance, and to justify us in the sight of heaven, barely to believe the gospel, unless we really obey and practise it ; that a faith destitute of this evangelical obedience is fruitless and unprotitable to salvation ; that it is by these works that faith must appear to be vital and sincere. ... St. James's meaning, in short, is nothing else than that good works, or evangelical obedience, is, according to the Divine appointment, the condition of the gospel covenant, without which it is in vain for any to hope for that pardon which Christ hath purchased, and the favour of God, which is necessary for eternal Wit.— Dr. Cowe. [13283] The justification of which Paul

speaks is that of a sinner before God. James speaks of the justification nf a professed believer before men. Paul therefore says his justification is by faith, without works ; James says that his justification is by works, which are to prove that faith exists. Paul treats only of justification at the tribunal of Him that can see our faith ; James speaks of a tribunal at which our faith cannot be seen, unless we show it by works. Paul's justification is before the Omniscient, by a principle invisible to men, which therefore must produce works to justify us befire the Church and the world ; James treats of this last justification by those very works which are to prove we had the living faith.— ZJr. Bennci. [132S4] The one declares that nothing renders us acceptable to God but faith in the Lord Jesus Christ ; the other, that such a faith, w^hen true and genuine, is not solitary, but accompanied with every good work. The one speaks of the justification of our persons ; this is by faith only : the other, of the justification of our profession ; and this is by faith also, but not alone, for it works by love, and produces obedience. — J. ewton, 1725-1807. [13285] Both St. Paul and St. James treat of the same truth, but in opposite aspects. St. Paul is treating of God's dealing in the justification of a sinner ; St. James, of God's dealings with a believer justified. St. Paul speaks of the first step in the believer's life ; St. James, of the subsequent steps. St. Paul deals with the ground of justification ; St. James, with

the evidence. St. Paul writes of faith as the life of communion, which is inconceivable without fruit ; St. James, of faith as an intellectual assent, which may exist without any influence on the lil'e. St. Paul is writing with a view to the Judaizing zealots who would make works a ground of justification ; St. James, with a view to antinomian professors, who would disparage the necessity for good works. St. Paul argues from the internal to the external ; St. Ja'mcs, from the external to the internal. St. Paul, from the centre to the circumference ; St. James, from the circumference to the centre.— Rev. G. S. Hoii'cs, B.A.

[132S6] Whatever the apostle asserts of works must be applicable alike to all conditions and stages of the evangelical state, from Rahab to Abraham ; for he adduces examples from each of them. It is not thus that the apostles should be harmonized. It is clear, I think, that St. James is so far from denying that faith only justifies that he avowedly takes it for granted — for he says expressly, at the very moment that he adduces the w^orks of Abraham as proofs of his faith, and as perfecting it, "and the Scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it — that is, his faith — was imputed to him for righteousness," and this, to the very terms used, is St. Paul's conclusion. He is contrasting what certain insincere brethren called faith — the barren belief, without any life in it, such as is the faith of devils — with faith

really and truly so. The apostle knows nothing of the Jiih-s informis and the Jides formata^ which is a scholastic figment of which Scripture has not a trace — he compares real faith with what hypocrites called by the same name, but which was not faith but something else ; and he is describing the manner in which the sincerity of their profession may be tested : " Yea, a man may say. Thou hast faith, and I have works — show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works.'' — Canon Garbctt, 1S42. [132S7] It may be urged, indeed, that St. James refers to one instance of faith manifesting itself in obedience, which St. Paul passes over, alleging it as a proof that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only. But this only makes St. Paul's choice of the instances he has chosen, and his silence as to the others, the more marked. St. Paul had one object in view, and he chose those instances which bore upon his object. St. James had a different object, and he chose those which bore upon his. The instances which St. Paul chose were precisely such as served to show that we are justified by faith without works, so far as the ground of our acceptance with God is concerned ; those which St. James chose were precisely such as served to show that, though we are justified by faith^ yet it is not by a faith which is barren and unproductive, but which shows itself, when time and opportunity are given, in actual righteousness. —C. A. Hcurtley, B.D., 1845.

XI. The Articles of the Church of England on Justification. [132S8] The nth Article of the Church of England declares that justification by faith only is "a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort." The 12th Article speaks of good works as " the necessary fruits of true faith,'' but expressly adds regarding them that "they manifestly cannot combine with it in the work of our justification ; for, springing from it, they follow a/Ur/us/ificalion." The homily to which reference is made in the nth Article is most emphatic in its statement of the truth : " St. Paul declareth

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nothing upon the behalf of man concerning his justification, but only a true and lively faith. And yet that faith doth not shut out repentance, hope, love, dread, and the fear of God in every man that is justified ; but it shutteth them out from the office of justifying. So that, although they be all present in him that is justified, they justify

not altogether." — Rev. Robert Frew, D.D. [13289] This I ith Article of our faith is most appropriately followed by another which avowedly treats "of good works" (the 12th), and whose teaching is to this effect : " Albeit that good works, which are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification, cannot put away our sins, and endure the severity of God's judgment ; yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively faith, insomuch that by them a luely faith may be as evidently known as a tree discerned by the fruit." It is hardly necessary to remark on the above plain statements that they are in exact accordance with, indeed the very echo of the inspired will of God, and point out to us the precise place, in the scheme of redemption, which good works occupy — related as they are to our faith, if it be genuine, as its fruit is to the living and wholesome tree. Precisely the same is the teaching of another of our .Articles, the 17th, often misunderstood, but, like the rest which accompany it, speaking the very language and breathing the spirit of Holy Scripture. In this the salvation of all who believe is traced, as the Word of God traces it, to "the everlasting purpose of God," " to deliver from curse and damnation those whom He hath chosen in Christ," not, be it observed, intruding into unrevealed depths, such as that involved in the doctrine of reprobation,

to which some, as we believe unscripturally, urge such consideiations, yet resolving all into the undeserved and sovereign " grace of God which bringeth salvation.'' But if the line of thought in this statement be pursued, it will be found to issue in the same practical assertion of the necessity of holiness as that laid down in the Articles already quoted, thus : " Wherefore they which He endued with so excellent a benefit of God He called according to God's purpose by His Spirit working in due season ; they through grace obey the calling ; they be justified freely ; they be made the sons of God Ijy adoption ; they be made like the image of His only begotten Son Jesus Christ ; they walk religiously in good works, and at length, by God's mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity." — Rev. Win. Macllwaine, A.M. [13290] Every Churchman will acknowledge Bishop Bull to be a.tiani7>i et venerabile noiten. Yet, when he maintains that sanctification precedes justification, I cannot understand how such a view is reconcilable with that taken by the Church of England, inasmuch as her Articles directly reverse the order asserted by

the Bishop, and make justification precede sanctification. According to the 13th Article, works done before the grace of Christ and the inspiratiDn of His Spirit are not pleasant to God ; while, on

the contrary, good works, which are the fruits of faith and follow after justification, are pleasing and acceptable to God through Christ. ow, agreeably to the tenor of these definitions, if sanctification precede justification, then the congeries of holy dispositions and holy works, which are comprehended under the term sanctification, cannot be pleasant to God ; because, in that case, sanctification is a complex act done before the grace of Christ and the inspiration of His Spirit. But, on the other hand, if sanctification succeed justification, then the arrangement will perfectly harmonize with the arrangement proposed by the Anglican Church ; because, in that arrangement, good works, which are the fruits of faith, and which follow after justification, are pleasing and acceptable to God through Christ. — Faber. [13291] Save on the ground of the expiatory sacrifice and perfect righteousness of Christ our Saviour both God and man, we assuredly can prefer no claim to everlasting felicity ; but still, since, on moral grounds, it is impossible for the natural man to enter into heaven, because heaven itself would be no heaven to those who had not been sanctified by the Spirit, there must also, for that purpose, in addition to a well established claim, be, what the apostle calls, a nieetncss to partake of the inheritance of the saints in light. These two, the right and the qualification, must be ever conjoined in

practice and ever disjoined in office. When the Church of England denies to the inherent righteousness of sanctification the office of justifying, she no more undervalues it in its proper place, and no more decries a holy and religious life as a requisite qualification for heaven, than a man could be said to decry and undervalue an article of raiment as a matter quite unessential, because he strenuously, and perhaps not unreasonably, denied to it the office of nourishing. It is truly marvellous what difficulty some persons seem to have in understanding this very plain and very simple matter. — Ibid. XII. Importance of the Doctrine. [13292] Justification is a capital article of that faith which was once delivered to the saints. Far from being a mere speculative point, it spreads its vital influence through the whole body of theology, runs through all Christian experience, and operates in e\ery part of practical godliness. Such is its grand importance, that a mistake about it has a malignant efficacy, and is attended with a long train of disastrous consequences. or can this appear strange when it is considered that the doctrine of justification is no other than the way of a sinner's acceptance with God. Being of such

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christian dogmatics. 489 [restoration of the normal relations between god and man.

peculiar moment, it is inseparably connected with many other evan.^elical truths, the liarmony and beauty of which we cannot behold while this is misunderstood. It is, if anything may be so called, an essential and fundamental truth of Christianity ; and as our very salvation depends on it through eternity, it deserves and demands our most serious consideration. — Encyclopcedia of Religious Knowledge. XIII. HOMILETICAL REMARKS. [13293] The right knowledge of this doctrine is a source of abiding joy ; it likewise animates love, zeal, gratitude, and all the noblest powers of the soul, and produces a habit of cheerful and successful obedience to the whole will of God. But it may be, and too often is, misunderstood and abused. If you receive it by Divine teaching, it will fdl you with those fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God (Phil. i. 11). But if you learn it only from men and books, if you are content with the notion of it in your head, instead of the powerful experience of it in your heart, it will have a contrary eft'ect. Such a lifeless form, even of the truth itself, will probably make you heady and high-minded,

censorious of others, trifling in your spirit, and unsettled in your conduct. Oh ! be afraid of resembling the foolish virgins (Matt. xxv. 1-12), of having the lamp of your profession expire in darkness for want of the oil of grace ; lest, when the bridegroom cometh, you should find

the door shut against you. — J. ewton, 17251807. [13294] Practical workers among men find this doctrine "most wholesome." It bears the brunt of rough contact with sin and misery. It lives and works in the atmosphere of the lane, the hovel, and the dungeon, as well as that of the quiet study and the curtained drawingroom. Whatever evidence of its truth it may have or may lack, it has at all events the evidence of being proved to work well. Whatever tests it may stand or fail under, it stands the test of trial and experience. o doubt the doctrine may be abused. Self-deceit and hypocrisy may use it as a shelter. Soft and easy livers may satisfy their conscience with the plea that, though doing no work, they are justified by faith. Men-pleasing preachers may gain credit for orthodox declaration of the doctrine, while crying " Peace, peace, where there is no peace." But as long as there are passions which require the force of enthusiasm to curb them — as long as there are wretched lives which want good news to cheer them — as long as there are guilty consciences which need a message of forgive-

ness to give them hope — as long as there are low selfish tendencies which require some heavenly influence to elevate them — so long we cannot do without that plain enunciation of Christ's gospel which is contained in the doctrine of "justification by faith." — F. R. Wynne. [For Act of God the Father in the Bestowal of the Son, see Division B , viii.]

490

PART IV.

RESTORATIO OF THE ORMAL RELATIOS BETWEE GOD AD MA {Continued), DIVISIO D. THE WORK AD OFFICE OF GOD THE SO I REDEMPTIO. [i] The Holy Incarnation.

SYLLABUS. rAss I. Definition and Significance of the Incarnation... _ .^ u> » .491 IL Manner of the Miraculous Conception ^ ... ._ 494 in. The Indissoluble Union between the Divine and the Human aturb ... .« 497 IV. The Appropriateness of Time as Regards the Divine ativity ... ... ... 504 V. The Power of its Manifestation 505 VI. Its Grand Purpose and Design - 506 VII. Its Representativeness „ ._ ._ m^ 507 VIII. Its Relations » .- ... 507 IX. Its ecessity to Human ature „ 508 X. Its Demonstrations... _ 510 XI. Its Benefits - .- ... 512 XII. Place ok the Doctrine in the Christian Scheme 513 XIII. Apologetic Value and Importance of the Doctrine 513 XIV. Question raised on the Subject : Was the Incarnation ecessary Apart from

the Existence of Sin? „ ... 514 XV. False or Preiended Incarnations of Heathen Religions ... 518 XVI. HouiLETiCAL Remarks « ... ... ... 518

491

RESTORATIO OF THE ORMAL RELATIOS BETWEE GOD AD MA (^Continued). DIVISIO D. THE WORK AD OFFICE OF GOD THE SO I REDEMPTIO.

THE HOL Y ICARATIO. I. Definition and Significance of the Incarnation. I The assumption of human nature by the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.

[13295] The word expresses in a short form the fact stated in John i. 14, Verbum euro /actum est, and is doubtless founded on the form of that statement. Its use can be traced back as far as the writings of Irenceus (a.d. iSo), and to that still earlier summary of the creed which he embodies in them. . . . The icene Creed and the writings of the fathers gave the term a permanent place in Latin theology and in Divine service, and it is also found in all the Western forms of the Litany. In the earliest English ^^ incarnatus est'' was translated '• wearth geJiiESchamod," or " iflcsschamod" but the Litany obsecration, " by the mystery of Thy Holy Incarnation," and the present form of the word in the icene Creed, .were introduced a few years before the English Prayer Book was set forth, and the word was freely used in the time of Hooker. — Blunt's Doctrinal and Historical Theology. [13296] The classical te.xt of John i. 14 defines generally the Incarnation : " The Word was made flesh." Our Lord assumed human nature. He who was God entered to the uttermost into human conditions. He who was in the beginning, who was with God, and was God, was made of a woman, and partook of flesh and blood. The Divine person of the Son became man — entered into union with humanity — and possessed a body that was not a mere form or appearance, but real, veritable, corporeal. The Divine and human natures, however, though united, were not blended, but remained properly

and permanently distinct. Each nature retained its own attributes and characteristics, and in their unity constituted one person. The union was absolute and real, and not temporary or nominal ; and it was not the man Christ Jesus who slept,

or suffered, or hungered, or died, but the Godman. His Deity remained as pure and unmodified as if it had never condescended to the human estate, and His humanity remained as genuine and unchanged as if no superior nature had been in connection with it. — John Baird. D.D. [13297] The Eternal Word made flesh (John i. 14). ot the nature of angels. How could angels suffer, die, or have taken our place in fulfilling the moral law? ot the nature of man as originally created. ot the nature of man as now born by ordinary generation, with a sinful nature. ot the glorified humanity, as now on the throne, for ever exempted from all frailty and infirmity. But a perfect manhood. Christ was perfect man, " the likeness of sinful flesh, yet without sin ; and was perfect man without ceasing to be God" (Rom. viii. 2 ; Heb. iv. 15). Christ became Immanuel, possessing the twofold nature in one person. Christ took not a human personality, but human nature. — Rev. G. S. Bo'wes, B.A. [13298] It is very important to understand rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the controversies of the early Church four principal words were employed to express the truth. True. Christ took a real human body, not one in appearance only, as some taught. He did not assume one for a time, as the angels sometimes did. Perfect. Christ possessed both natures, perfect Divinity and perfect Humanity, in one person. Distinct. He possessed the two natures, but without mingling or confounding the substance. Indivisible. The two natures Christ took are never to be divided. — Ibid. [13299] Human nature having been assumed by Christ, it is to be understood that it was assumed entire. The body of Christ was not a phantom as the Gnostics and the Docetas maintained, but a true body, like the ordinary bodies of men. His soul was not identical with the Divine Word as was believed by the Apollinarians, but a " reasonable soul," capable of willing, thinking, and actuating as are the ordinary souls of men. either, again, did our

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Lord's human nature come down ready formed from heaven, as was the opinion of the Valentinians, but was formed of the substance of His mother, of " human flesh subsisting." — Blunfs Doctrinal and Historical Theology. [13300] The Incarnate Word was "perfect man" as well as "perfect God." He was capable of enduring in His body all sufferings of which human bodies are capable, and in His soul all emotions which can be felt by human souls. Hunger, thirst, fatigue, pain, weeping, were all within the range of His possible and actual experience in the body, as sorrow, pity, love, and joy were among the experiences of His soul. It was only where the defects of our human nature are, those that are specially associated with personal imperfection and sin, that a line of distinction came to be drawn between Christ and mankind in general. He assumed the capacity for bodily pain and for death, but not for disease ; He assumed capacity for mental suffering, but not for sin. His conception was perfectly immaculate, because He was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and as He thus took human nature without any taint of original sin, so that human nature continued utterly sinless, in perfect union and communion with God. — Ibid. [13301] Majesty took upon itself humility ; strength, weakness ; eternity, mortality, without impairing the properties of each nature and

substance that unite in one person. In order to pay the debt due by man, the inviolable nature (of God) united itself with our frail nature in order that, according to the requirements of our case, one and the same Mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, might be mortal according to one side of His being, and immortal according to the other. The true God was, accordingly, bom in the full and perfect nature of a real man, complete in the attributes of both His own nature and of ours, &c. For He that is truly God is also truly man ; nor is this union merely apparent, the lowliness of humanity and the highness of Deity communicating themselves to each other. For as God is not changed by compassion, so the humanity is not cruslied by the dignity conferred upon it. For each nature does, in connection with the other, what is peculiar to itself, i.e., the Word does what is the Word's, while the flesh carries out what belongs to the flesh. — Letter of Leo the Great to Flavian (Synod of Chalcedon). [13302] "He took not on Him the nature of angels, but He took on Him the seed of Abraham." He " took "—He did not inherit or receive — a body. It is not the language that describes the ordinary birth of a common man. How strange it would sound if we were to speak of our children as if they had had a thought or volition respecting their nature, and as if they were pleased to take on them such and such a body when they were born 1 It is impossible not to see in this language that it marks an i^^ential and prominent difference between

Christ's entrance into this life and that of ordinary men. It describes voluntary action. It was an act contemplated beforehand. It implies not only pre-existence, but power, dignity, and condescension. But the language clearly indicates a choice exercised by one raised higher than all merely created beings. " He took not on Him the nature of angels, but He took on Him the seed of Abraham." That is. He is more than man. He is more than an angel. He refused, when turning in Hjs mind the course he should pursue, to take on Him the nature of angels, but concluded, for a good and sufficient reason, to assume even a lower place, and to become a man. Is He less than God that is more than man and more than angel ? — H. Ward Beecher. ['3303] Before the world was, there was that in the mind of God which we may call the humanity of His Divinity. It is called in Scripture the Word, the Son, the form of God. It is in virtue of this that we have a right to attribute to Him our own feelings ; it is in virtue of this that Scripture speaks of His wisdom. His justice. His love. Love in God is what love is in man ; justice in God is what justice is in man ; creative power in God is what creative power is in man ; indignation in God is that which indignation is in man, barring only this, that the one is emotional, but the other is calm and pure and everlastingly still. It is through

this humanity in the mind of God, if I may dare so to speak of Deity, that a revelation became possible to man. It was the Word that was made flesh ; it was the Word that manifested itself to man. It is in virtue of the connection between God and man that God made man in His own image ; that through a long line of prophets the human truth of God could be made known to man, till it came forth developed most entirely and at large in the incarnation of the Redeemer. — F. IV. Robertson, M.A. [13304] He is Immanuel, God with us — the Word made flesh — God manifest in the flesh — the express image of His person — the Life that was manifested — the glass in which we look to behold the glory of the Lord — the fulness of God revealed bodily — the power of God — the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the f.ice of Jesus Christ — the image of the invisible God. In all these, and in a very great number of similar instances, language is used in reference to Christ which indicates an opinion that His advent is the appearing of God ; His deepest reality, that He expresses the fulness of the life of God. or does it satisfy this language at all to conceive that Christ is a good man, or a perfect man, and that so He is an illustration or image of God. Such a construction might be given to a single expression of the kind, for we use occasionally an almost violent figure. But this is cool, ordinary, undeclamatory language, and the same idea is turned round and round, appears and reappears in different shapes, and becomes, in fact, the hinge of the gospel— tho

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CHRISTIA DOGMATICS. 493 [restoration of the normal relations between gC-D and man.

central light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, shining unto men. It should also be added that probably a very great share of the difficulties that compass this subject were originally created by overlooking, or making no sufficient account of, the very class of representations here referred to ; for we throw away all the solvents of the Incarnation and the Trinity that are given us, and then complain of our difficulties. — H. Bushnetl, U.D. [13305] Had the Father become incarnate, then, being the Father by nature, and becoming a Son by incarnation, He would have been both Father and Son, which would have been altogether incongruous ; and there would, moreover, have been two Sons in the Trinity. For a like reason the Holy Ghost would not become mcarnate, for then, becoming a Son by incarnation. He would have been both Son and Holy Ghost ; and in this case too there would have been two Sons in the Trinity. Hence to become incar-

nate was suitable to the Son alone. — Marcus Dods, D.D. [13306] He who was "God God," yea, "very God of very God, was for us men made manT Incarnation, then, was more than the mere union of the Divine and human natures, that the God might act sometimes, and at other times the man. Such a thought is estorianism, very thinly veiled. Incarnation was the Divine Being entering into the human condition, and dwelling among us men, the individual, indivisible Christ. And all His actings were those of an Individual — the Christ of God. Let us next inquire what the human condition is. St. Paul (i Thess. v. 23) describes it as threefold, " Spirit, soul (or mind), and body." Into this condition, then, in all its entireness, our blessed Lord entered. He took this human body, in conformity with all its laws, and subject to all its requirements. o one can for a moment suppose that He ate and drank and slept merely to conform Himself to the habitudes of His disciples. These disciples knew that He was really hungry when they " prayed Him, saying. Master, eat." He showed on the same occasion the reality of thirst in saying to the woman of Samaria, " Give Me to drink." And again, we recognize the reality of weariness, for "Jesus being weary with His journey, sat " while He thus spake " upon the well" (John iv. 6, 7, 31). The human mind or "soul" has also its invariable laws. It grows, and is developed in its powers and faculties, as truth and wisdom

are poured into it by a fostering Creator. And so it was with our Lord and Saviour. "Jesus increased," writes St. Luke (ii. 52), "in wisdom and stature."— Wm. Tail, D.D. [13307] The body of Jesus was created a fit dwelling for His soul. ... It was formed also to suffer exquisitely, in order to accomplish the great work of our redemption. Hence its sensibilities were quickened and refined, and all its capabilities of feeling rendered delicate, and active, and rapid, and acute, with the power of

communicating thrills of an intensity which we could hardly comprehend. It was in these respects like no other human body that ever was. If we could have seen it as it really was in itself, we should have been both amazed and terrified to see a vessel of such heavenly fragility moving about among the coarse forms and in the jarring complexities of common earthly life. either must we forget that it was formed also to bear, without breaking, impetuous torrents of glory. That little infant frame, white as a snowdrop on the lap of winter, light almost as a snowflake on the chill night air, smooth as the cushioned drift of snow which the wind has lightly strewn outside the walls of Bethlehem, is at this moment holding within itself, as if it were of adamantine rock, the fires of the beatific light, the stupendous ocean of the mighty vision, the gigantic play of eternal things that come and go, and live within its soul. A Person,

omnipotent and infinite, sits within those white walls of fleshly marble, and they do not even vibrate with the marvellous indwelling. — F. W. Faber, D.D. [13308] Such is the incarnation of the Son of God ; such is the event that astounds the angels who have no part in it ; while men, its subjects, can hear it with less interest than the fable of a romance. In all other suppositions, having regard to Christ's connection with human sin, there is but outward humiliation, a contact with degradation which still leaves the internal nature unaltered. But the Lord of heaven and earth blended our nature with His own ; He took the manhood into God. He bound us up with Himself as one indivisible being ; He shared not only our state, but our nature and essence ; He took from us a human nature that He might give us a Divine. And remember, further, that this mystery of the God and man is a mystery for everlasting. As there ever has been, and ever will be, the eternal Son of God, so will there ever remain the eternal Son of man. This blessed union is incapable of dissolution ; our immortality is suspended on its continuance ; we could not have life eternal unless God were to be man eternal. The firstfruits will remain with the rest of the harvest in glory. Yes ; for evermore shall the ransomed of Zion behold their own bright model in heaven, and grow more Divine as they behold. He will still, as man and God, be the link that connects them with the Father ; this poor humanity for which He suffered so bitterly He

loves too deeply to part with it. It is said that mothers love with most tenderness the child for whom they have suffered most ; the agonies of the Eternal endured in our behalf have attached Him for ever to our world and our nature. That nature He retains for ever. From it, quickened by the divinity, proceed mysterious influences (those which He calls the gift of His body and blood) to His militant Church below ; with it He pleads before the Father, when through the Cross He would gain forgiveness for our repented sins and infirmities ; in it He

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will rule for ever, dispensing the terms of His judgment and the treasures of His love. — Wm. Archer Butler, M.A. II. Manner of the Miraculous Conception. I Reality of the miracle.

(l) Conceived by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary. ['3309] The narrative of our Lord's conception and birth is given by two of the four Evangelists, St. Matthew and St. Luke. The simple language of the first is, " ow the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise : When as His mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child by the Holy Ghost " (Matt. i. 18). And a few verses further on, this is said to be the fulfilment of God's Word, spoken by the Prophet Isaiah. ..." Behold a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which, being interpreted, is God with us" (Ibid. ii. 23): this, being ushered in by the statement of the holy angel to Joseph, "for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost "(Ibid. ii. 28). . . . To the somewhat more detailed account of St. Luke (i. 2) it must be added that St. Matthew expressly declares Joseph " knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son " (Matt. i. 25}. L'pnn these Statements the Church founds the article of the creed which declares that Jesus Christ was " conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary," and upon these statements, combined with others, rests the doctrine that God the Son became Incarnate, and was made man. — Blunt's Doctrinal and Historical Theology. [13310] His coming into the world was after the manner of other men, but His conception

and generation were e.xtraordinary. [13311] The incarnation of Christ was supernatural ; conceived by the Holy Ghost. He was made under the law (Gal. iv. 4), so as to be able to fulfil its demands and endure its curse. The Lord Jesus took our nature in its form of humiliation and lowliness, weakness, and infirmity. — Kev. G. S. Bowes, B.A. [133 1 2] It was meet that He who was to introduce here on earth a new birth should Himself be born by a new mode. It was not fit that the Son of God should be born of the seed of man, for He would then have been entirely a son of man. He would not have been the Son of God at all, nor would He have been greater than Solomon or Jonah. Ebion would then be justified. The Divine germ was to be substituted for the human seed. — Tertullian. ['33'3] The title "Second Adam," which in Scripture is applied to our Lord, implies not only His headship as regards the Church, but a peculiarity of origin as regards Himself As tiie G^'-t A'l-'m came into existence by a direct

exercise of miraculous power, while his descendants are propagated by a natural 'aw, so we naturally expect something analogou. '.«i the case of the second Adam. But this was not only appropriate ; it was necessan,-. For if the eflfects of sin were to be reversed in the new

spiritual creation, it is evident that He who was to be the first link of the series must Himself be free from the common taint ; and this could not be the case, except by a miracle, had He come into the world in the ordinary way. That which is born of the flesh is, and must remain, flesh (John iii. 6). It was necessary, therefore, that as regards the person of the Redeemer an interruption should take place of the law of nature, and that though born of woman He should Himself inherit no original taint of sin. For a human being to come into the world without sin requires that his birth should be, in whatever sense, supernatural. — Litton. [13314] As Christ was made of the substance of the \'irgin, so was He not made of the substance of the Holy Ghost, whose essence cannot at all be made. And because the Holy Ghost did not beget Him by any communication of His essence, therefore He is not the Father of Him, though He were conceived of the Holy Ghost. And if at any time I have said Christ was begotten by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, if the ancients speak as if He generated the Son, it is not to be understood as if the Spirit did perform any proper act of generation, such as is the foundation of paternity. — Pearson. ['33I5] It is maintained that in this incarnation there is no conversion of one nature into the other, nor any confusion between them. There is no confusion or mixture of the two natures, for otherwise a third something would result, which would be neither God nor man.

The affections and infirmities of our nature could not belong to such a being. Moreover, the Godhead being indivisible in substance, a confusion of substance must intermix the Father also. Further, the Divine cannot be converted into the human nature, for the uncreated Godhead cannot be created or made. or can the human nature be converted into the Divine, as the Eutychians and other monophysites taught. —T. P. Boultbee, D.D. [13316] It is declared that His flesh was generated by the immediate act of the Holy Ghost, and therefore that if that which was generated was fallen and sinful, then the Holy Ghost was the doer of this sinful act, the generator of this sinful thing. ow witluiut stopping at present to show that this is nothing but an aggravated form of manicha^ism, I would remark that it is in direct opposition to the very letter of the text, which declares that what was generated was a " holy thing." ow what was generated was the humanity of our Lord ; which is not called a person, which it was not, but a thing. And the declaration refers not to what would be the future character of that humanity,

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as founded upon the acts of our Lord's life, but to his character as generated. — Afarcus Dods, D.D. ['33 '7] Peculiar in nature, it is not surprising Christ is described as peculiar in generation. The incarnation necessarily presupposes a manner of entrance into human life special and unusual. It would have been indefensible apart from an extraordinary conception, for His derivation must correspond with His superior personality. Ordinary 'generation and an incarnation are conditions that cannot combine, for the Incarnate One must be of God and the subject of a unique creative act. The historical account satisfies all requirements on the matter, and strikingly elucidates what to us would have been a grave problem to solve. Christ was conceived of the Holy Ghost and born of the /irgin Mary : having been thus conceived, He A-as sinless, and having been thus born. He was human. It is common on the part of the rationalistic school to treat this account as an invention, but far fewer difficulties attend its acceptance as true than its rejection as false. It is a connected, plausible, harmonious story ; dignified, chaste, and in completest accord with the life that follows. It cannot be alleged that such a beginning is discrepant with the personality the Gospels depict. Besides, if an invention, it was a dexterous and unparalleled one,

and having nothing of the clearly fabulous character of mythological legends. To class it with the accounts given us of the pagan gods is to betray an incapacity for discriminating between the frivolous and the grave, the puerile and the sublime. — yolin Baird, D.D. [13318] His participation of our humiliation ihat we might partake of His exaltation held a certain middle course, even in the nativity of His flesh ; so that we should be born in sinful flesh, but He in the likeness of sinful flesh ; that we should be born not only of flesh and blood, but also of the will of man, and of the will of the flesh ; but He only of flesh and blood, and not of the will of man, or of the will of the flesh, but of God. We therefore are born unto death, on account of sin ; but He, on account of us, was born unto death without sin. And as His humiliation in which He descended to us was not, in all respects, equalled to our humiliation in which He here found us, even so our exaltation, in which we ascend to Him, will not be equalled to His exaltation, in which we shall there find Him. We shall be made sons of God by His grace; but He was always by nature the Son of God. We, when converted, shall be united to God as inferiors ; He, never needing conversion, remains equal with God. We are made partakers of eternal life ; He is eternal life. He alone therefore, even when made man, still remaining God, never had any sin, nor took sinful flesh, though He took it of the sinful flesh of His mother. For what flesh He took of her, that truly He either purified

that it might be assumed, or He purified it in

the assumption. Wherefore He created whom He might choose, and chose, from whom He might be created, a virgin mother, not conceiving by the law of sinful flesh, that is, by the motion of carnal concupiscence, but by a pious faith deserving to have the holy seed formed in her. — .5"/. Augustine. [13319] Of all the ways and titles of Sonship, doubtless the most wondrous is that which made Christ at once the Son of God and the Son of man. The eternal generation of the Word of God is too wholly beyond our comprehension to be matter of real amazement. It is a fact in a sphere of being that utterly overpasses our conjectures. All colours are alike to the blind, and all suppositions as to the substantial nature and essence of God are, apart from revelation, equally possible or impossible to us. On the other hand, the resurrection, marvellous as it is, is easily conceivable when once the deity of Him who rose is granted. But the incarnation of God, the conjunction of Divine and human, is just sufficiently within our capacity (for we do know one member of the connexion) to let us feel how infinitely it also transcends it. It is the mystery of mysteries, the wonder of heaven and earth, each alike astonished at the union of both, the one everlasting miracle of Divine power and love. In such a subject as this, what can one say

which is not unworthy of it ? It were vain to try amplification or ornament of such things as these. This matter is far vaster than our vastest conception, infinitely grander than our loftiest ; yet overpoweringly awful as it is, how familiarity still reconciles us to hearing of it without awe ! — Win. Archer Butler, M.A. 2 Objections urged against the miracle. (i) That the facts alleged were within the knowledge of very few persons. [13320] It was undoubtedly the case that few persons had any personal knowledge respecting the miraculous conception of Christ. The first person to whom it was known would, of course, be the Blessed Virgin herself, who was to be the instrumental medium of the incarnation ; and the second, so far as we are informed by Holy Scripture, was her subsequent husband and protector, Joseph. It cannot be reasonably supposed that the parents of the Blessed Virgin were unacquainted with the supernatural character of their daughter's conception ; and the fact seems to have been communicated to Elisabeth by Divine revelation, perhaps at the moment of her cousin Mary's visit to her. But that this conception before her marriage to Joseph was not generally known to her relatives and acquaintances seems to be proved by the intention which he had formed of annulling their betrothal in some private manner by which he could spare her from shame. 1 1 appears,therefore, to be a probable conclusion that the cir-

cumstances of our Lord's incarnation were all of such a character as to lead those to whom the Divine secret was not confided, to the con-

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elusion, " Is not this the son of Joseph?" But the very fact that circumstances were so ordered as to make such an opinion possible shows that the revelation of the truth was not intended to be made, at that time, to the world at large. It was part of God's providence that the Blessed Virgin should pass through the world as the wife of Joseph, and not as a virgin mother, and that the mystery of tlie incarnation should be concealed from all but a few until after the resurrection of Christ. — Blunt's Doctrinal and Historical Theology. [13321] The primitive Church believed that this reticence had reference to the contest between Christ, while in His unglorified human nature, and the great adversary whom He had come to defeat. So St. Ignatius says, " The

virginity of Mary was hidden from the prince of this world, as was also her offspring." It may have been that as our Lord did not gird Himself for the warfare until the Temptation, it was fitting that Satan should not know of His miraculous entry into the world. But it must also be remembered that the force, so to speak, of our Lord's miraculous conception and birth received its complement in His ministry. The Son of God became Incarnate that He might accomplish the work of redemption, which work was not completed until He had ascended in His human nature to heaven. o object, as far as can be seen, would have been gained by a general disclosure of the mystery of His conception before His work had been completed ; and certainly, when the Jews would not believe the possibility of His descent from heaven, even though their minds were prepared for such a fact by the record of ancient theophanies and angelic visits, it is not probable that they would have believed an outspoken declaration of Christ's true origin. Consequently it would be contrary to reason, under the circumstances, to expect that our Lord's miraculous conception would have been known to any number of persons during the time of His ministry ; and the absence of any attempt in the Gospels to show that it was so known is evidence that the evajigelists and apostles rested upon Divine revelation as the true proof of the fact. — Ibid. [13322] It is perfectly true that in the Synoptic Gospels there is no indication that anybody knew the peculiar way in which our Lord was

born. I believe it was entirely unknown to the nation at large — unknown to the twelve — unknown to His own family circle — unknown (I think) to all save His virgin mother and her husband Joseph. Do you ask why such secrecy ? Why, just suppose it had been noised abroad through the little town of azareth that the betrothed wife of just and devout Joseph had become a mother before her marriage, and that he, instead of immediately giving her a bill of divorcement, had taken her to wife as if nothing wrong had happened : where would the reputation of either of them have been at azareth? And if in His later years a breath of

suspicion had arisen as to the legitimacy of His birth, or indeed as to anything peculiar about it, who does not see how important an element this would form in the public mind for determining whether His claims were to be recognized and welcomed, or rejected with contempt ? Yet so far was this from being the case, that when at length He did come to azareth, their only wonder was how the carpenter's son, whom they had known from childhood, should be what His teaching seemed to show that He was. But His own family, you may say — how should they not have known it ? Well, it was scarcely a subject for family communication ; nor, had they known it, could they be expected to keep it quite to themselves. Indeed, the statement in the Fourth Gospel, that "neither did His brethren believe in Him," and this not long

before His death, is scarcely to be understood at all if they were cognisant of the manner of His birth. I believe, therefore, that in the high wisdom that presided over every step in this matchless life, it was provided that for a considerable time only His virgin mother and His supposed father should know how " unto us a Child was born, unto us a Son was given, whose name should be called Wonderful, the Mighty God." — David Thomas, D.D. [13323] It was divinely intended that men's convictions of the sinlessness of our Lord should in the first instance be grounded, not on the manner of His birth, but on the patent facts of His life, His teaching, and His works; and that when at length they came to learn in what manner He came into the world, they should see in this merely the proper explanation, the all-sufficient key, to what would otherwise have defied explanation — showing the high, the unique sense in which He was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and (what could be said of no other man) separate from sinners," yet partaker of their nature. ow the Gospels are just a record of those facts of His life which prove Him to be this. ot that they were written to ; the Synoptic Gospels bear not the slightest evidence of their having been written to establish this or any other doctrinal position. They are not preaching histories, but an unvarnished relation of facts; and hence it is, I have not the least doubt, that in narrating the facts of His public life, just as they occurred, they never go back upon His miraculous conception as furnishing

the original basis for such a life. — Ibid. [13324] The Fourth Gospel must be judged of on a diflerent principle ; for so usually does it comment on the incidents which it records, and the dialogues and discourses which it relates, that it has been called, in express contrast with the othex three, the reflective Gospel. Why then, it may be asked, is there no allusion to the niiniculous conception even there? In answer to this, let it be observed, that the ablest and best critics of even the extreme wing of the negative school, as well as the orthodox, are satisfied that the three Synoptic Gospels

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were not only in possession of the writer of the Fourth Gospel, but served as its foundation. Hilgenfield, no less than Hengstenberg ; Baur, no less tlian Luthaidt ; Keim, no less than Godet — all admit this. If so, then the Apostle John, whom I assume to be the fourth Evangelist, had no need to depend on the Virgin as to the manner in which " the Word was made

ficsh." Who can doubt, then, that — since it is incredible that he should have had any doubt on the fact — the absence of any express allusion to it was intentional ? The object of his Gospel is transparently different from that of the three others. Theirs was to let the facts speak for themselves ; his was to show how the glory of the only begotten of the Father had been unveiled in the flesh. And confining himself for this purpose to what he had himself witnessed, he might have taken for the motto of his Gospel what he says of his First Epistle : "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you." —/6ta. (2) T/iai the miraculous conception is incredible, because beyond the bounds of possibility. [13325] To say that it would be contrary to experience is only to allege what every theologian at once admits, that one instance, and one only, of such a miraculous conception has ever occurred. To say that it would be impossible is also to beg the question. o rational physiologist who believed an act of creation possible would allege that such an occurrence was beyond the power of the Creator to effect ; and to call this exceptional and solitary instance of parthenogenesis an impossibility would be as absurd as to deny the possibility of any genesis of human nature. — Blunfs Doctrinal and Historical Theology. [13326] The exclamation of contemporary

Jews, "Is not this the carpenter's son.'"' has been taken up by modern unbelievers on much less rational grounds. Against such a theory we have what the Jews of Christ's day had not — the statement of the Gospel (bearing on its face the stamp of sinful truthfulness), and the continuous tradition of the Christian world. The Talmud and some modern Jewish accounts of Christ adopt the idea which arose in the mind of Joseph before the truth was revealed to him. It does not appear that any such reproach was cast upon the honour of our Lord's mother by contemporaries, not even by the generation which said of our Lord Himself, " He hath a devil." Yet those who invented the blasphemy are dependent upon the Gospel, and that alone, for any account whatever of Christ's conception and birth, and might with more reason deny the whole than add to it this wicked invention. — Ibid. [13327] Driven from arguing against His sayings, and harassed with the evidence of His character, the final and philosophical ground is assumed that an incarnation is impossible. VOL. IV.

This is essentially the anti-supernatural position. Whatever involves the contact or action of God in relation to the world or men is pronounced impossible. Hence providence, inspiration, miracles, are no more credible or possible than

an incarnation. But (l) this is a settlement of a grave question apart from and independent of a consideration of facts. Sweeping negatives are easily framed. It is easy to pronounce the revolution of the earth impossible, and there is much in our feelings and consciousness to favour it ; but what of the fact of night and day ? And it is easy to pronounce the incarnation impossible ; but what of the stupendous, impressive, indestructible fact of Jesus Christ ? (2) The incarnation is no more impossible than the creation. It is easier to conceive God becoming man than a world produced from nothing. If we are entitled to describe anything as impossible, it is surely creation ; yet how is the world to be accounted for? It is strange philosophy to accept the greater and reject the less. (3) This is a formula without warrant. Given appropriate moral conditions, from' whence can the impossibility arise.' If God be void of personality — a mere diffused immensity — we can understand the impossibility ; but, granting His essential, self-existing Being, it is proceeding further than our knowledge justifies eternally to restrict Him to a specific mode. It seems reasonable to argue that, if it were impossible God could become man, it were equally impossible He could make man in His own image. — John Baird, D.D. III. The Indissoluble Union between THE Divine and the Human ature. I Its deduced proofs.

(i) From the unique grandeur of Christ's personal claims. [13328] He claims as the Son a real selfconscious pre-existence before man, and even before the world, consequently also before time, for time was created with the world. " Before Abraham was," He says, " I am," significantly using the past in the one, and the present in the other case, to mark the difference between man's temporal and His own eternal mode of existence ; and in His intercessory prayer He asks to be clothed again with the glory which He had with the Father before the foundation of the world. He assumes Divine names and attributes. As far as consistent with His state of humiliation, He demands and receives Divine honours. He freely and repeatedly exercises the prerogative of pardoning sin in His own name, which the unbelieving Scribes and Pharisees, with a logic whose force is irresistible on their premises, looked upon as blasphemous presumption. He familiarly classes Himself with the infinite majesty of Jehovah in one common plural, and boldly declares, " He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father ; " "I and My Father are one." He co-ordinates Himself

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in the baptismal formula, with the Divine Father and Divine Spirit, and allows Himself to be called by Thomas, in the name of all the apostles, '" My Lord and my God." These are the most astounding and transcendent pretensions ever set up by any being. He, the humblest and lowliest of men, makes them repeatedly and uniformly to the last, in the face of the whole world, even in the darkest hour of suffering. He makes them not in swelling, pompous, ostentatious language, which almost necessarily springs from false pretensions ; but in a natural, spontaneous style, with perfect ease, freedom, and composure, as a native prince would speak of the attributes and scenes of royalty at his father's court. He never falters or doubts, never apologizes for them, never enters into an explanation. He sets them forth as self-evident truths, which need only to be stated to challenge the belief and submission of mankind. ow, suppose for a moment a purely human teacher, however good and great — suppose a Moses or Elijah, a John the Baptist, an Apostle Paul or John, not to speak of any father, schoolman, or reformer — to say, " 1 am the Light of the world ; " "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life;" "I and My Father are one ;" and to call upon all men,

" Come unto Me ;" "Follow Me,'' that you may find "life" and " peace" which you cannot find anywhere else ; would it not create a universal feeling of pity or indignation ? o human being on earth could set up the least of these pretensions without being set down at once as a madman or a blasphemer. 15ut from the mouth of Christ these colossal pretensions excite neither pity nor indignation, nor even the least feeling of incongruity or impropriety. We read and hear them over and over again without surprise. They seem perfectly natural and well sustained by a most extraordinary life, and the most extraordinary works. There is no room here for the least suspicion of vanity, pride, or self-deception. For eighteen hundred years these claims have been acknowledged by millions of people of all nations and tongues, of all classes and conditions, of the most learned and mighty, as well as the most ignorant and humble, with an instinctive sense of the perfect agreement of what Christ claimed to be with what He really was — both God and man. — Prof. Schaff. [13329] This model man who held no compromise with evil, who frowned away dissimulation from His presence, of whose inimitable morals Rosseau, no fricnc'. of His, said that if the life and death of Socrates were those of an angel, the life and death of Jesus were those of a God ; this model man professed all His life to be Divine, received Divine honours without rebuking the offerers, insisted upon His profession of Divinity so strongly that the Jews

stoned Him for blasphemy, never f.iilcd to say that He was one with the Father, and that He should, by and by, come again in the clouds of heaven. Oh, Jesus Christ cannot simply be a

good and a benevolent man. There are only two alternatives possible : He is an impostor or a God.— /?r. Morlcy Punshon. [13330] A threefold impression is made upon every serious and unprejudiced reader of the ew Testament concerning Jesus Christ, to wit, that He is a real man, that He sustains a unique relation to the Dejtj, and that this relation grows out of the very substance of His being. Wherever, whenever, on wliatsocver occasion, under whatsoever circumstances Jesus meets us. He makes the impression on us that we are in the presence of a real man, who has all the attributes and wants of humanity— who thinks, wills, resolves, has emotions, grieves, rejoices, sleeps, travels, grows fatigued, needs rest, eats and drinks, not for a show, but to satisfy His real wants, &c. But this real man assumes a relation to the Deity which no created being can claim without blasphemy, s.tyingthat He is of one substance ((V) with God ; that He was with God in heaven before He came down on earth ; that He wishes to return thither after the accomplishment of His mission — representing Himself as an ambassador of God, that He acts in God's name and stead, whose doctrine is not His own, but God's, who performs His

miracles in the power of God, &c. — Prof. John A. Re It bell. ['333'] His most intimate and highly-gifted followers and disciples have both confirmed and enlarged these declarations of their Master. John tells us expressly that his Master had existed from all eternity in a capacity to which self-consciousness and personality belong, and that He in the course of time had become something that He was not always — namely, man. In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was toward (n-pofj God {tov Qtov), and the Logos was God (etoc) — John i. I ; and verse 14 : "And the Logos became flesh." early the same is affirmed by the Apostle Paul, who says (Phil. ii. 6, 7): " Who, existing in the form of God, considered it not robbery to continue in this God-like state of existence, but emptied Himself, having assumed the servant form, and having become in the likeness of men.'' Declarations to this effect abound in the ew Testament, but these two will suffice. Moreover, not only the highest honours that can be paid by an intelligent creature to another, but even supreme worship is paid to Him by His disciples. He places Himself on a level with the Father and the Holy Ghost in baptism ; He is joined with them in invoking the Divine blessing ; He is represented as being entrusted with the government of the world. — Ibid. [13332] The clear revelation of our Lord's humanity surrounds with the greater significance

the higher claims He made, and the superhuman character He displayed, just as the dark background of the piclurc imparls more definite form to the bright figure painted on it. The problem of our Lord's language arises from His unhesi-

•3332— '33391

■tating, simultaneous, thoughtful description of Himself as Son of man and Son of God. Our interpretation of these titles must be consistent ; and if the one signifies true man, the other must signify true God. In the line of these titles we find a twofold type of utterance. He that said, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death" (Mark xiv. 34), said also, " 1 am the light of the world" (John viii. 12). He that asked the woman of Samaria, " Give me to drink " (John iv. 7), declared, " If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee. Give me to drink; thou wouldcst have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water" (John iv. 10). He that said, " The Son of man hath not where to lay His head " (Matt. viii. 20), also said, " I give unto them eternal life : and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of My hand" (John x. 28). His utterances are inexplicable apart from His oneness with God and His brotherhood with man. A sense of the Divine and human never seems absent from Him. His greatness He distinctly

avows. He spoke as one enjoying the closest personal relationship with God. His sayings rc\cal the consciousness of an Incarnate One. — yoliii Bairti, D.D. (2) From the incomparable superiority of Christ, as Man, to otiicr men. ['3333] The great men whom we have heard and have honoured sink into pigmies if you but compare them to Christ. A moment before, towering above the average of humanity like mountain peaks, now they shrink and wane into mole-hills before the great presence of the mighty Christ. . . . Who are all those grand heroes of past ages, at whose mention our blood thrills — who are all the great and good who have stood up and suffered for the truth 'i Are they Christs, or what ? They are no more to be compared to Him than the petty rushlight's flame to the broad zone of light that streams from the great sun. Christ leads, they follow. He commands, they obey. He stands among them, they kneel in humblest adoration. — Hepviorth. [13334] In Him is centred all of good and exalted in our nature. Whatever may be the unlooked-for phenomena of the future, Jesus will never be surpassed. His worship will grow young for ever. All ages will say, that among the sons of men none has ever been greater than Jesus. — Renan.' [13335] The life and sayings of Jesus place

the Prophet of azareth in the very first rank of the men of sub'ime genius, of whom our species can boast. When this pre-eminent genius is combined with the qualities of probably the greatest moral Reformer and Martyr to that mission who ever existed upon earth, religion cannot be said to have made a bad choice in pitching on thi^ man as the ideal representative and guide of humanity ; nor even now would it be easy, even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract

CHRISTIA DOGMATICS. 499 [restoration of the normal relations between cod and man. into the concrete, than to endeavour so to live that Christ would approve our life. — jfohn Stuart Arm. [These last two admissions are enhanced in value, as coming from the lips of sceptics.]

[13336] The portrait which is given us in the sacred writings of the Lord Jesus is such as no human being could have invented — it must have been copied from an original. We might say of a man that he was without sin, and without error, and the very image of Divine holiness ; but we could not pourtray such an image with-

out some features being introduced by our limited, erring, sinful minds, which would betray their origin. Here, however, we have a perfect, a detailed, and lively picture, in all possible situations, amidst all changes of inner and outer life, and in the most striking contrasts. And in every feature, in every slightest turn, this form commands our admiration, and makes us bow down before it. — Luthardt. [13337] There shines forth from the Gospels the reflected splendour of a sublimity proceeding from the person of Jesus Christ, of so Divine a kind as only the Divine could ever have manifested upon ^2iX\!si.— Goethe. [13338] The theory of an incarnation is that which the Christian Church has always held best to explain the facts of the life of Christ. On perusing the Gospels we feel we are in contact with a life, purer, higher, greater than ours ; a life of noble beneficence and mighty deeds ; a life which exceeds human dimensions, and surpasses ordinary human conditions. Who then was He whose biography the Gospels furnish 1 To what is His superiority of character and fulness of power to be traced ? What view of His person do the facts of His life suggest and support ? How is the mystery of His consciousness of God to be solved t His vivid conception of the Father ? It is a simple question of induction : given so many particulars, what is the general principle you conclude? Apply the Baconian method to the Gospels as is done to the phenomena of nature, and what doctrine

respecting Christ do you frame ? What is the theory which gathers the whole facts of the case into unity — which is so comprehensive as to cover every incident and aspect of His life — which does full and adequate justice to His superhuman birth. His wondrous miracles, His heavenly teaching. His lofty claims. His matchless character ? Accepting the Gospels as we have them, there is but one conclusion to which we can come, and that is, that Christ was a Divine Person in human form : in other words, that there was an incarnation.— 7t;//« fSaird, D.D. [13339] The qualities of His character, likewise, clearly surpass the normal human type. o age or civilization has produced a personality equal to His. Had He been no more than an ordinary member of the race. He would long ere this have had His rivals in moral excellence.

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But whether we search among patriarchs, pro-

phets, or apostles, or the poets or philosophers of Greece, or the illustrious for worth in more recent times, we find none whom we can regard as Christ's equals or superiors. His holiness was without an alloy. He appears clothed with humility, majesty, compassion, unselfishness, gentleness, charity. We see in Him all that is purest and loveliest — a heart that was never soured with envy, a brow that never frowned with malice. He lived a perfect and faultless life, and is the ideal pattern for men, whatever their nationality or stage of culture. All great characters in the past have had their individual weaknesses, but Christ had none. o blemish, no indiscretion, no aberration, no hasty word, no unworthy action, no mean servility can we charge against Him. He is peerless among the sons of men — towering high above the human family. — I6zd. [13340] The evidence of history, and the laws of the human mind, pronounce the impossibility of any mere man — especially in the circumstances in which He was placed — rising to that wealth of wisdom and that moral perfection which belonged to Him, An incarnation of Divinity, in this unparalleled instance, is alone sufficient — and it is perfectly sufficient — to account for a combination of spiritual phenomena with outward conditions, never realized except in Jesus of azareth. He must have been Divine as well as human, the One Incarnation for all time, God in man. — Youncr. (3) From the unmistakable evidence of His

wondrous life and actions. ['334'] It is observed that in che whole narrative of our Saviour's life no passage is related of Him low or weak, but it is immediately seconded, and as it were corrected by another high and miraculous. o sooner was Christ humbled to a manger, but the contempt of the place was took off with the glory of the attendance, in the ministration of angels. His submission to that mean and coarse ceremony of circumcision was ennobled with the public attestation of .Simeon concerning Him ; His fasting and temptation attended with another service of angels ; His ba|)tism with a glorious recognition by a voice from heaven. When He seemed to show weakness in seeking fruit upon that fig-tree that had none. He manifested His power by cursing it to deadncss with a word. When He seemed to be overpowered at His attachments, He then exerted His mightiness in causing His armed adversaries to fall backwards, and healing Malchus's ear with a touch. When He underwent the lash and violent infamy of crucifixion and death, then did the universal frame of nature give testimony to His divinity ; the temple rending, the sun darkening, and the earth quaking, the whole creation seemed to sympathize with His passion. And when afterwards He seemed to be in the very kingdom and dominions of death, by descending into the grave He quickly con-

futed the dishonour of that by an astonishing resurrection, and, by an argument ex abundanti, proved the divinity of His person over and over, in an equally miraculous ascension. — A'. South, D.D., 1633-1716. [13343] In every part of our Lord's humiliation there is an emission of some beams of His Godhead, that wheneveuHe is seen to be true man, He might be known to be true God also. Is Christ hungry .'' There was a fast of forty days' continuance preceding, to show how, as God, He could sustain His human nature. The verity of His human nature is seen, because He submitted to all our sinless infirmities. The power of His Divine nature was manifested, because it enabled Him to continue forty days and nights without eating or drinking anything, the utmost that an ordinary man can fast being but nine days usually. Thus His divinity and humanity are expressed in most or all of His actions (John i. 14). There was a veil of flesh, yet the glory of His Divine nature was seen, and might be seen, by all that had an eye and heart to see it. He lay in the manger at Bethlehem, but a star appeared to conduct the wise men to Him ; and angels proclaimed His birth to the shepherds (Luke ii. 13, 14). He grew up from a child, at the ordinary rate of other children ; but when He was but twelve years old He disputed with the doctors (Luke ii. 42). He submitted to baptism, but then owned by a voice from heaven to be God's beloved Son. He was deceived in the fig-tree when an hungered, which shows the infirmity of human

ignorance; but suddenly blasted it, and manifested the glory of a Divine power (Matt. x.\i. 19). Here tempted by Satan, but ministered unto and attended upon by a multitude of glorious angels (Matt. iv. 11); finally crucified through weakness, but living by the power of God (2 Cor. xiii. 4). He hung dying on the cross ; but then the rocks were rent, the graves opened, and the sun darkened. All along you may have these intermixtures. — T. Manton, D.D., 16201677[13343] "How human our Saviour was!" This love, this tender pity, this caring for our transitory joys and sorrows, are Divine — Divine far more than human ; and only human because they were first Divine. — Schonberg Cotta Series. (4) From His demands and influence upon the soul. [13344] If Christ be not Divine,every impulse of the Christian world falls to a lower octave, and light and love and hope alike decline. — David Living. [13345] My God ! I will not receive Thee merely through grammars, technical discussions, and " various readings." I will receive Thee because when Thou dost come into my heart I know that all the heaven that I can contain is already within me when Thou art near. My Lord, and niv God \— Joseph Parker, D.D.

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christ/ an dogmatics. 501 Trestoration of the normal relations between god and man.

[•3346] Alexander, Cicsar, Charlemagne, and myself founded great empires, but upon what did the creations of our genius depend ? Upon force. Jesus aloncfounded His empireupon love, and to this da\- millions would die for Him. . . . If once the Divine character of Christ is admitted. Christian doctrine exhibits the precision and clearness of algebra, so that we are struck with admiration at its scientific connection and unity. The nature of Christ is, I grant it, from one end to another, a web of mysteries ; but this mysteriousness does but correspond to the difficulties which all existence contains : let it be rejected, and the whole world is an enigma ; let it be accepted, and we possess a wonderful explanation of the history of man. The gospel possesses a secret virtue, a something which works powerfully, a warmth which both influences the understanding and penetrates the heart. . . . The soul, charmed, ... is no longer its own possession ; God possesses it entirely ; it is He who directs its thoughts and faculties ; it is His. What a proof of the divinity of Jesus ! — apoleon Bonaparte.

['3347] Although the above noble words of apoleon are here inserted to show the influence of Christ upon the soul of man, we can scarcelyhelpfancying thespeakerasone who, had he lived at the time, might have been amongst the number referred to by his Lord as follows : "This people . . . honoureth Me with their lips ; but their heart is far from Me" (Matt. xv. 8). It becomes us all who would contemplate the matchless features of our blessed Lord, and frame sweet sounding eulogies upon the Divine character, to look well to ourselves, unless we are willing to merit the contempt due to those who kiss while they betray. — A. M. A. VV. [13348] Here the bare simple fact of such union between God and man, as is exhibited to us in the person of Jesus, is one profoundly significant to sinful man. In it he feels that a grasp of help and love is laid upon his heart. It commands his whole being, and he trembles at its touch. It wields over him that fulness of influence which is found only where rebuke of the past is mingled with help for the future. It awakens in him the slumbering but inextmguishahle reminiscences of the lost past of the race, but at the same time thrills him with the vision of a new possible destiny. — Rev. Robt. Larimer, M.A. [13349] My kind, now vested with the eternal glory. Of God made flesh, glorious to me became.

Henceforth those crowns which shine in mortal story, It seemed a grief to wear, madness to claim. To be a man, now seemed man's noblest aim ; His noblest task, to serve one, even the least, Of those who fight God's fight, and share His kingly feast. — Aubrey de Vere.

(5) From His influence upon the world. [13350] Fifty-five generations have passed away, and there is no name which exercises such an influence in the world to-day as the name of Him who was lifted up on the cross. It is associated with the most advanced civilization ; with the best and most enduring literature ; with the noblest forms of art ; with the broadest systems of education ; with the most gigantic enterprises of commerce ; with the purest and most extended institutions of philanthropy ; with the most refined and healthful social progress ; and, in fine, with every element of dignity, prosperity, and power among the nations of the earth. — Ebenezer P. Rogers. [13351] At this distance of time we can plainly see that no other birth since the beginnings of history has involved such important consequences to the human race. We Chris-

tians have had nearly nineteen centuries in which to form comparisons and to arrive at conclusions. We have had time to take the measure of the great statesmen, soldiers, poets, teachers, who have been foremost among mankind. Who of them all has left behind him a work which can compare with that achieved by Jesus Christ 1 As the first apoleon once asked, What was the empire of Alexander or of Caesar, or his own at its best, when compared to that of Jesus Christ ? Theirs were transient : Christ's is lasting. Theirs had soon reached a limit : Christ's is ever extending. Theirs were based on force : Christ's is based on convictions. Who, again, of the great men of letters has swayed the world like Jesus Christ .'' Doubtless these men too have an empire. Who can dispute the influence at this hour of Plato, of Shakespeare, of ewton ? But it is an influence which dififers in kind from that of Jesus Christ. It interests the intellect, while He enchains the will. ay, compare Him with the great teachers of false religions — with Sakya-Muni who preceded, or with Mahomet who followed Him, in human history. I do not forget the statistics of Buddhism, or the undeniable activities of Islam, in certain portions of the Eastern world, but these religions — this is the broad fact before us — • these religions are the religions of races with no real future. Christianity is still the creed of the nations which, year by year, are more and more controlling the destinies of the human race. And, if it be urged that large portions of these very nations. Christian by profession, are now abjuring Christianity, it may be replied

that such apostasy, partial it may be admitted now, is, in the long run, impossible. Man cannot dispense with religion, and, when man has once come into contact with the highest type of religion, he has thereby exhausted the religious capacities of his nature. The absolute religion makes any after it impossible for free and sincere minds. The present eftbrts to replace Christianity by an imaginary religion of the future distilled out of all the positive religions of the world is doomed to a failure only less complete than the attempt to replace it by mere

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negations. There are not wanting signs of a rebound towards the faith. There are no signs whatever of a rising rehgious force capable of superseding it. Yes, all that is best, all that is most full of hope in the civilized world dates from the birthday of Jesus Christ. Doubtless we owe some good and precious things which • rank high in the order of nature to the old pagan days. We owe philosophy to Greece. We owe

law and well-ordered life to Rome. But the idea of progress which, however it may have been misapplied, is perhaps the most fertile and enerj;etic in modern public life — this is the creation of the Christian creed. It springs from those high hopes of the future, whetlier of individuals or of the race which Christ has taught His disciples to entertain as a matter of loyalty to Himself. And the institutions which make life tolerable for the suffering classes— that is to say, for the great majority of human beings, such as hospitals— these date, one and all of them, from the appearance of Jesus Christ, from the promulgation of those prmciples which He proclaimed to man with sovereign authority. — Canon Liddon. [13352] The incarnation is supernatural ; not magical, however ; not fantastic or visionary ; not something to be gazed at as a transient prodigy in the world's history. It is the supernatural linking itself to the onward flow of the world's life, and becoming thenceforward itself the ground and principle of the entire organism, now poised at last on its true centre. — J. cvin, D.D. [■3353] The incarnation has changed the character of history, and will continue to change It ; and notwithstanding many serious drawbacks and grave hindrances, the world will progress, till by degrees the face of the earth will be made like the face of heaven. Yes, assuredly, the impulse of history is upward. God is with men bearing them aloft to the skies. He is a

living energy, an irresistible abiding presence in modern society. It was not enough to give the world an impulse two millenniums ago and then leave it. The path of progress is steep and rugged ; the impulse, therefore, would soon e.xpend its force, and mankind would again rush along the downward road to ruin. There must be a continuous outflow of moral force from Him to us. Let us then put ourselves in the proper attitude "to receive of His fulness and grace for grace." — C. J. Jones. (6) From the strict accordance of the prophetic testimonies of the Old Testament with the historical witness of the A'ew. [13354] There is much in the Old Testament which, interpreted by the light of gospel history and apostolic exposition, shows that the great Deliverer of the future, whom the whole world in one form or other expected, and for whom the Jews looked as their Messiah, was spoken of in the language of inspiration as Divine. .Such texts as declare Him to be the Son of God are

instances of this language, the meaning of which could not be perfectly known until revealed by the event to which it referred ; but, being revealed, now assumes the nature of direct evidence. — Blunt' s Doctrinal and Historical Theology. [•3355! So thoroughly intermingled with the

whole texture of the .ew Testament Scripture is the Godhead of the Saviour, that no criticism which does not destroy tjie book can altogether extinguish its testimony. AVe have seen a copy of the Gospels and Epistles which was warranted free from all trace of the Trinity, but it was not the Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. We beheld it and we received instruction. It did not want beauty ; for the parables and the Sermon on the Mount and many a touching passage still were there. But neither would a garden want beauty if the grass plots and green bushes still remained, thoui;h you had carefully culled out every blossoming flower. The humanity of Jesus still is beautiful, even when the Godhead is forgotten or denied. Or rather, it looked like a coronation tapestry, with all the golden threads torn out, or an exquisite Mosaic from which some unscrupulous linger had abstracted the gems and left only the common stones ; you not only missed the glory of the whole, but in the fractures of the piece, and the coarse plaster with which the gaps were supplied, you saw how rude was the process by which its jewels had been wrenched away. It was a casket without the pearl. It was a shrine without the Shekinah. And yet, after all, it was not sufficiently expurgated ; for after reading it the thought would recur how much easier to fabricate a Gnostic Testament exempt from all trace c^f our Lord's humanity than a Unitarian Testament ignoring His divinity. — James Hamilton, D.D. (7) From the circumstances attending the birth

of Christ. [13356] When I have been contemplating this subject (the Socinian hypothesis) it has always appeared to me very strange that such a magnificent apparatus should be instituted by heaven to usher into the world one who was nothing more than a man ! Angels after angels wing their flight to Bethlehem to indicate the birth of a man ! Gabriel, one of the most exalted of the heavenly spirits, is dis])atclied from the throne of God to announce the birth of a man ! The Holy (Ihost should come ujjon her, and the power of the Most High should overshadow the virgin, to convey into her uterus nothing but what was human ! Another celestial envoy is delegated to Joseph to bid him not hesitate in taking Mary to wife, for that which was conceived in her was, indeed, of the Holy Ghost, but was nothing more than man t A most magnificent heavenly choir, consisting of a multitude of angels, cheering the midnight hours wuh repeating, "tllory to God in the Highest I Good-will towards men ! " deputed to our world, antl chanting these rapturous strains to celebrate

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chkrstian dogmatics. 503 [restoration of the normal relations between god and man.

the birth of a man ! Is it not something incongruous and disparate that heaven slionld display all this splendid scenery, and lavish all this pomp and pageantry to introduce into our uorld a mere ordinary coumion man, distinguished in no one natural endowment from any other of the species? But supposing the Being introduced with all this tV/a/, to be the same who was in the beginning with God, and had glory with the Father before the world was, is not the decoration and magnificence with which heaven dressed the stage, on which this Divine messenger would shortly appear, highly pertinent and honourable ? and is it not with the greatest propriety that multitudes of the heavenly host, on this great occasion, the greatest that ever occurred in the annals of this world, should conjoin with harmonious voices and accordant hearts in applauding and solemnizing a condescension and benevolence illustrious and great beyond all example ? — Harivood. 1 Oppositions in ancient and modern times to the truth of the union, in Christ's person, of the Divine and human nature. [13357] From the very first. Christians have rendered Divine honour to Jesus Christ. Even in the ew Testament they are designated as those "who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus." And Pliny, in his epistle to the Emperor Trajan, speaks of the hymns which the Christians

sang in their assemblies, to Christ as to God. This fact, if » r knew nothing else of the teaching of the apojti lie Church concerning the person of Jesus, would be a sufficient testimony to the Divine honour which was rendered to Him. Very early, however, do we meet with a twofold opposition to Church doctrine, a Jewish and a heathen one. Jewish error saw in Jesus only the very greatest of the prophets, His superhuman greatness being lost in His real humanity. Heathen error saw in Jesus a superhuman Being, who had descended to this earth from higher spheres, but it resolved His historical reality into mere appearance. In the former, history prevails to the disparagement of idea ; in the latter, idea to that of history. The Church beheld in Jesus Christ the union of the two, of history and idea, of the Divine and human. How, indeed, the two could coalesce into a perfect unity, remained a problem to reason, which never \vill be able to rise to the full measure of the fact. But how far are we also from so attaining to the fulness of the fact as to leave nothing unknown even in inquiries concerning natural life, so soon as they penetrate beyond the mere surface ! The faith and confession of the Church, moreover, are independent of the attempts of human reason to comprehend and fathom the mystery of the person of Jesus Christ. And in this faith the various churches are unanimous. Dogmatic differencesconcerning this question are but of slight moment compared to the unanimity of faith. Christians of all churches bow the knee at the name of Jesus; . . . and, . . . though modern infidelity multiplies

fine expressions and high-flown sentences to

escape that one simple confession, that the person of Jesus is a miracle, and that the essence of His history is supernatural as long as the Gospels exist, so long will they be the sufficient refutation of such blasphemies against Him. — Ltithardt. [13358] As a " proof-text," I John iv. 3 would be alleged in support of the truth that our Lord was really man ; but that it should have been necessary for the apostle to assert His humanity with suclx vehemence is an absolute demonstration that the Church had been taught to regard Him as being infinitely more than man. In our times the philosophical difficulties of the incarnation are often solved by the denial of the superhuman dignity of our Lord ; but this was impossible in the first century. His superhuman dignity had so filled the imagination of the Church, that the solution was sought in the denial of His humanity. — R. \V. Dale, D.D. [13359] Although the greatest possible freedom from all preconceived notions must claim that the divinity proper of Jesus is distinctly taught by some writers of the ew Testament, and is perfectly consistent with the teachings of all, although they do not expressly teach it ; yet there have been at all times those within the bosom of the Christian Church who denied the divinity of the Saviour, from the Ebionites

in Judaea down to the Unitarians of the nineteenth century. But it may be said here, also, in perfect consistency with truth and charity, that the rigid monotheism of these parties is also the result of a priori reasoning. Their deistical notions forbid them to conceive of any change whatever in the Deity, and there is consequently no trinity of persons, and still less an incarnation of one of these three persons. Unitarian notions are certainly not the result of the teachings of the ew Testament. In the Old Testament the incarnation proper of Jehovah, or of a Divine hypostasis, was not taught as something to l>e looked for ; incommunicability, as well as immutability, being some of the chief Divine attributes. We find, accordingly, that when Jesus claimed really Divine Sonship, He gave great oflence to the Jews, and even His Jewish followers were only gradually raised to the belief in His divinity, while many of them never rose to this height. The heathen, likewise, had no idea of a real incarnation, as the gods of the multitude were not really Divine ; and the Absolute of the philosopher was still more unapproachable to creatures than the Jehovah of the Jews. The idea of the incarnation is of specifically Christian origin, and, in order to apprehend it, it is absolutely necessary to submit to the Spirit of Christ, and to receive instruction from this source exclusively. — Prof. John A. Rcubelt. [13360] It is one of the most important and sacred duties of modern theology to overcome, in keeping with the uniform impression of true

humanity and personal oneness produced by

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the person of Christ as dehneated in the ew Testament, the contradictory dualism beyond which the Church doctrine of the God-man has so far failed to advance, and that in such a manner that the substance of the Catholic dogma be preserved, and all exploded errors be avoided.—/?/-. Delitzsch. IV. The Appropriateness of Time as REGARDS THE DiVIE ATIVITY. t In consideration of contemporary expectancy. [13361] The Scripture assures us that the birth of Christ was in the "fulness of time" (Gal. iv. 4), and the wisdom of God is evidently displayed as to the time when, as well as the end for which, He came. It was at a time when

the world stood in need of such a Saviour. . . . About the time of Christ's appearance (says Dr. Robertson) there prevailed a general opinion that the Almighty would send forth some eminent messenger to communicate a more perfect discovery of His will to mankind. The dignity of Christ, the virtues of His character, the glory of His kingdom, and the signs of His coming, were described by the ancient prophets with the utmost perspicuity. Guided by the sure word of prophecy, the Jews of that age concluded the period pre-determined by God to be then completed, and that the promised Messiah would suddenly appear (Luke ii. 25-38). or were these expectations peculiar to the Jews. By their dispersion among so many nations, by their conversation with the learned men among the heathen, and the translation of their inspired writings into a language almost universal, the principles of their religion were spread all over the East ; and it became the common belief that a Prince would arise at that time in Judaea who would change the face of the world, and extend His empire from one end of the earth to the other. ow, had Clirist been manifested at a more early period the world would not have been prepared to meet Him with the same fondness and zeal ; had His appearance been put off for any considerable time men's expectations would have begun to languish, and the warmth of desire, from a delay of gratification, might have cooled and died iway. — Edwards. [13362] It is interesting to observe that all

nations known in history have ever expected a liberator, a Person mysterious. Divine, and one who, according to the ancient oracles, should bring them salvation, and reconcile them with the Eternal. Prideaux, in his work on the Jews, observes that " the necessity of a mediator between God and man was from the conmiencement a prevailing opinion among all people." In proportion as the glorious realization approached, an extraordinary light diffused itself over the world, like the bright beamings of Jacob's star. Cicero caught some of its beams, and in his Republic announced a law eternal and universal, the law of all nations and all

times ; a single and common master, who should be God even, and whose reign was about to commence. Virgil, recalling the ancient oracles, celebrated the return of the Virgin, the birth of prevailing order, and the descent of the Son of God from heaven. To his eye a grand epoch speedily advanced ; all the vestiges of crime were elfaced, and earth was for ever delivered from fear. The Divine infant, who should reign over the peaceful world, will receive for first presents the simple fruits, of earth, and the serpent will expire near His cradle. The universal tradition, moreover, was, that this celestial envoy would be man and God combined, and that He would come to achieve the salvation of the world. " He will save us," said Plato, " by teaching us the true doctrine." " Shepherd, prince, universal teacher, and sovereign truth,"

said Confucius, " He will possess all power in heaven and upon the earth." This lively anticipation of a mighty liberator and restorer, vanquisher of demons and embodiment of supreme good, was doubtless permitted to prevent the nations from falling into complete ignorance and despair. It never ceased to prevail, in a manner more or less distinct, through all the pagan world, from a period long anterior to Moses, to the auspicious night when the Magi, guided by a supernatural meteor, came from the East seeking the Star destined to elevate Israel and overthrow idolatry. Who is this Saviour — the desire of all nations — the true Messiah, sent of God ? We have but one response, and shall never need another — Jesus Christ, who was all that the nations expected Him to be, all that the prophets declared He would be, the true Son of God, begotten from eternity. His Wisdom and His Word, incarnate and Divine. — E. L. Magoon. 1 In consideration of the state of the world, political, moral, and religious. [13363] The birth of Christ was in the fulness of time, if we consider the then political state of the world. The world, in the most early ages, was divided into small independent states, differing from each other in language, manners, laws, and religion. The shock of so many opposite interests, the interfering of so many contrary views, occasioned the most violent convulsions and disorders ; perpetual discord subsisted between these rival slates, and hostility and

bloodshed never ceased. Commerce had not hitherto united mankind and opened the communication of one nation with another ; voyages into remote countries were very rare ; men moved in a narrow circle, little acquainted with anything beyond the limits of their own small territory. At last the Roman ambition undertook the arduous enterprise of conquering the world. They trod down the kingdoms — according to Daniel's prophetic description, by their exceeding strength they devoured the whole earth (Dan. vii. 7-23). However, by enslaving the world they civilized it, and while they oppressed mankind they united them together ; the same laws were everywhere established, and

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the same languages understood ; men approached nearer to one another in sentiments and manners, and the intercourse between the most distant corners of the earth was rendered secure and agreeable. Satiated with victory, the first emperors abandoned all thoughts of new conquests ; peace, an unknown blessing, was en-

joyed throughout that vast empire. . . . The disciples of Christ, thus favoured by the union and peace of the Roman Empire, executed their commission with great advantage. The success and rapidity with which they diffused the knowledge of His advent over the world are astonishing. ations were now accessible which formerly had been unknown. Under this situation, into which the providence of God had brought the world, the joyful sound in a few years reached those remote corners of the earth into which it could not otherwise have penetrated for many ages. Thus the Roman ambition and bravery paved the way, and prepared the world for the reception of the Christian doctrine. — Edwards. [13364] If we consider the state of the world with regard to morals, it evidently appears that the coming of Christ was at the most appropriate time. The Romans, by subduing the world, lost their own liberty. Many vices, engendered or nourished by prosperity, delivered them over to the vilest race of tyrants that ever afflicted or disgraced human nature. The colours are not too strong which the apostle employs in drawing the character of that age (Eph. iv. 17, igi. In this time of universal corruption did the wisdom of God manifest the Christian revelation to the world. What the wisdom of men could do for the encouragement of virtue in a corrupt world had been tried during several ages, and all human devices were found by experience to be of very small avail, so that no juncture could be more proper for publishing a religion, which,

independent of human laws and institutions, explains the principles of morals with admirable perspicuity, and enforces the practice of them by most persuasive arguments. — Ibid. [13365] The moral life of the world slanted downward throughout the ages ; and at the time Jesus Christ was born, it had reached the lowest possible stage of degradation. In Palestine religion was a whited sepulchre, full of filthiness and dead men's bones ; there was neither life nor warmth nor beauty left, nothing but dead men's bones. And among the heathen the moral sense was well-nigh obliterated, morality had been swamped in vice and irreligion. Read the concludmg paragraph in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans ; can you conceive a darker picture ? can the most impure imagination add one shade to its darkness, or one feature to its horrors ? Sins are mentioned, foul, gross, horrible, which happily have been stamped out of modern life. The course of the world was downward. But there is a line of demarcation sharply drawn across history j a new era was born differing widely from all

previous eras ; modern civilization is not willing to go back more than one thousand eight hundred and eighty-four years to find its fountain-head ; wc make but little more count of the years before the Incarnation than of the years before the Flood ; they form no part of the real progress of the race. In tlie first

century of our era something happened which stopped the downward headlong career, and changed the entire drift of history. — J. C. Jones. [13366] The Jews seem to have been deeply tinctured with superstition. Delighted with the ceremonial prescriptions of the law, they utterly neglected the moral. While the Pharisees undermined religion on the one hand by their vain traditions and wretched interpretations of the law, the Sadducees denied the immortality of the soul, and overturned the doctrine of future rewards and punishments, so that between them the knowledge and power of true religion were entirely destroyed. But the deplorable situation of the heathen world called still more loudly for an immediate interposal of the Divine hand. The characters of their heathen deities were infamous, and their religious worship consisted frequently in the vilest and most shameful rites. According to the apostle's observation, they " were in all things too superstitious." Stately temples, expensive sacrifices, pompous ceremonies, magnificent festivals, with all the other circumstances of show and splendour, were the objects which false religion presented to its votaries ; but just notions of God, obedience to His moral laws, purity of heart, and sanctity of life, were not once mentioned as ingredients in religious service. Rome adopted the gods of almost every nation whom she had conquered, and opened her temples to the grossest superstition of the most barbarous people. Her foolish heart

being darkened, she changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man (Rom. i. 21, 23). o period, therefore, can be mentioned when instructions would have been more seasonable and necessary ; and no wonder that those who were looking for salvation should joyfully exclaim, " Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His people." — Edwards. V. The Power of its Manifestation. I Original, stupendous, influential, and abiding. [13367] The world had never seen the like of it before. The Greek idea of an incarnation of the Deity was a mere conceit, without any complete embodiment of form in their own minds, and resting upon no authoritative enunciation. Even the enlightened Jewish mind was altogether unprepared for any such manifestation ; and, in point of fact, shut its eye to it when it appeared. " He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." "The world knew

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Him not." Tne world did not expect such an incarnation of tlie Deity ; and when the grand fact was announced, it took men completely by surprise. We need not wonder, however, at the growth and extent of human astonishment in regard to the doctrine itself ; the fact is, that the history of the race presents to our own gaze a series of such astonishments — a state of things wiiich is going on still. The Almighty is ever original in His methods of procedure. He has authenticated His own originality : " For My thoughts are not your thoughts ; neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord." He is ever making advances on the genius of man. He is ever developing new methods of procedure. He is constantly taking man by surprise. Keen philosophic insight observes a thousand novelties in nature — in Providence — in redemption — and in the government of the world. ;\len are ever discovering something new, makmg fresh manifestations in the world of nature, or art, or philosophy ; but all such manifestations are eclipsed by the world-encircling splendour of the incarnation of the .Son of God ! It is the fact of facts. It is the climax of wonderfulness and originality. Oh ! matter of astonishment is this for angels, and a subject of eternal interest to man. This, then, is the grand originality : " The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." This is "the mystery of

godliness." — John Tesseyman. [13368] There are manifestations in the world of art. The genius of a Raffaelle, an Angelo, or a ewton sparkles with brightness. The manifestations of poetic fire in a Homer or a Milton are wonderful indeed. There are bright coruscations of splendour in the rising and setting sun. ature constantly travails in birth, and brings forth new forms of loveliness and beauty. This is the advent of Him who is the origin of all human greatness. He is brighter than the sun — purer and fairer than the stars. It is the Lord of creation —the " King of kings, and Lord of lords." This is the grandest manifestation : (l) Because it is a manifestation of infinite wisdom ; (2) Of Divine compassion ; (3) Of the righteousness of God in the salvation of the lost ; (4) Of the moral glory of the Godhead ; (5) A manifestation of great mercy to meet the helplessness of human misery. — Ibid. [13369] How powerful is the influence of the sun in giving life, health, and beauty, to the objects of nature ! How powerful is the action of the moon upon the ocean waters I How powerful the attraction of the planets ! We may note also the powerfulness of human eloquence in swaying the popular assembly, and in bringing men over to the same opinion as that we ourselves entertain. But here we have a manifestation of power which out-reaches all other. It is a Divine power. It is a glorious

power. It is an infinite power. It is a righteous power. It is a power regulated by wisdom, and elaborated by mercy. It is moral in its nature.

It has to do with human hearts. The power of the incarnation, in connection with the death and resurrection of Christ, is destined to put into the world a new spiritual life, and will attract the human race to the cross, in order that, ultimately, it may be uplifted to the throne ! Of material manifestations, the temple of Diana, the temple of Jerusalem, the elaborate magnificences of Babylon and Persia, of Greece and Rome, have passed away. Of the manifestations of genius, the sfatues of Phidias, the pictures of Angelo, and the sublime eftusions of Homer, are destined to pass away. The stupendous facts of history grow misty with ages ; and all things of human origin are floating down the stream of time, and will, by and by, be carried into the great ocean beyond, and be lost to human sight. But the fact of the text is destined to live, and will survive all works of art, and all facts of mere human history. It is an eternal fact. Time cannot cause it to be forgotten ; the lapse of ages cannot consign it to the gulf of oblivion. — Ibid. VI. Its Grand Purpose and Design. » I To restore to human nature at large the

capacity for union with God. [13370] Christ, as Mediator between two, puts on man that He may lead him to the Father. Christ willed to become what man is, in order that man may have power to become what Christ is. The Jews also knew that Christ should come. Continually, by the voice of the prophets, were the tidings of Him renewed to them. — ^t. Cyprian. ['337'] A chief consequence of the fall of man was that it necessitated the propagation in all men of the likeness of their fallen forefather, instead of that of the image of God ; and up to the time of the incarnation no remedy had been found by which this continuous force of the fall could be counteracted. Thus the relation between God and man had become ch.Tnged, not only in Adam, but in all his posterity. Human nature was not as God had created it, but as sin had changed it ; and original sin was a constant bar between it and union with God. Christ coming into the world with human nature received from the substance of a virgin, was never brought under the influence of those circumstances by which original sin is propagated, and He, therefore, represented human nature in its original relation to God — i.e., as it existed before the Fall. . . . Man in soul, and man in body, but He was man unfallen. ... In His one individual person, the Holy Jesus had brought back human nature to its original starting-jjoint, to the moral place and condition in which its

Creator had originally set it. He was the representative of manhood in such perfection as man had never attained to since men had been born of women. The image of God was to be traced out perfectly in this " Holy Thing," and

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hence He was a second perfect man, a " Second Adam," possessed of such a nature as the first had when "God saw everything that He liad made, and behold it was very good." It was this exceptional and original purity which qualified Christ to become an ottering for the sin of the world. — Blunt's Doctrinal and Historical Theolo^. [13372] The taking on Himself of our flesh by the Eternal Word was no makeshift to meet a mighty, yet still a particular emergent, need ; a need which, conceding the liberty of man's will and that it was possible for him to have continued in his first state of obedience, might never have occurred. It was not a mere result and reparation of the Fall, such

an act as, except for that, would never have been ; but lay bedded at a far deeper depth in the counsels of God for the glory of His Son, and the exaltation of that race formed in His image and His likeness. For against those who regard the incarnation as an arbitrary, or as merely an historic, event, and not an ideal one as well, we may well urge this weighty consideration, that the Son of God did not in and after His ascension strip off this human nature again ; He did not regard His humanity as a robe, to be worn for a while and then laid aside ; the convenient form of His manifestation, so long as Hie was conversing with men upon earth, but the fitness of which had with that conversation passed away. So far from this, we know on the contrary that He assumed our nature for ever, married it to Himself, glorified it with His own glory, carried it as the form of His eternal subsistence into the world of angels, before the presence of His Father. Had there been anything accidental here, had the assumption of our nature been an afterthought (1 speak as a man), this marriage of the Son of God with that nature could scarcely be conceived. He could hardly have so taken it — taken it, that is, for ever — unless it had possessed an ideal as well as an historic fitness ; unless pre-established harmonies had existed, such harmonies as only a Divine intention could have brought about between the one and the other. — Abp. Trench. ['3373] Every unfulfilled aspiration of humanity in the past ; all partial representation of

perfect character ; all sacrifices, nay, even those of idolatry, point to the fulfilment of what we want, the answer to every longing — the type of perfect humanity, the Lord Jesus Christ. — F. W, Robertson.

[13374] He is God as well as man in one mysterious Person, and thus He is qualified not only to represent the human race, but to do so in such a manner as to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to restore man to his original intercourse with God. — British Quarterly Review, 1867.

VII. Its RliPRESETATlVEESS. [13375] If the contemplation 3f the universe presses upon us the question, What is man ? and gives no answer to the question in which we can without difficulty acquiesce, no answer which reconciles the conflicting evidence of his greatness and his insignificance, or which gives an intelligible theory ol the- dis;inction between his relation to God and that of other creatures, then we find in the birth of Christ the very answer we need. The Word, who was with God and was God, became flesh : the Son of God became the Son of man. Then men are precious in the eyes of God : the race of man IS glorified in the manhood of Christ : and each

individual man may rejoice when he remembers that he is clothed in flesh, which God Himself condescended to assume. — Bp. Harvey Goodwin, 1855. [13376] The relation of Christ to mankind, which qualities Him to be their representative in the great work of redemption, we consider to be His assumption of our nature. He became bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, and blood of our blood. " As the children were partakers of flesh and blood. He Himself took part of the same." He became our kinsman, our brother, our elder brother. He not only became a man, but the man, and therefore had a more intimate relation to the human race than any other member of the great family. He is the pattern man, in whom the complete idea of humanity is projected into time and space. Hence " His individuality is related to that of every other human being as the centre of the circle to every point of the periphery." We often speak of representative men — men who pre-eminently exhibit the mental and moral characteristics of the nations to which they belong. History records the names of many such representative personages. Christ upon far higher and truer grounds is the representative of all mankind, for He possessed our nature in its most comprehensive and consummate form. He was neither Greek nor Jew, barbarian, Scythian, bond, or free ; but He was humanity in its most unrestricted, enlarged, and ideal manifestation. " He was the chief among ten thousand, the altogether lovely." So that, on the

ground of His humanity alone, none else could have been chosen with equal propriety to be the new head of the human race. — British Quarterly Review, 1867. VIII. Its Relations. I To the creation. [13377] It is the glory of the world, that He who formed it dwelt on it : of the air, that He breathed in it ; of the sun, that it shone on Him ; of the ground, that it bare Him ; of the sea, that He walked on it ; of the elements, that they nourished Him ; of the waters, that they refreshed Him ; of us men, that He lived and died among us ; yea, that He lived and

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died for us ; that He assumed our flesh ind blood, and carried it to the highest heavens, where it shines as the eternal ornament and wonder of the creation of God. It gives also a lustre to Providence. It is the chief event that

adorns the records of time, and enlivens the history of the universe. It is the glory of the various great lines of Providence, that they point at this as their centre ; that they prepared the way for its coming ; that, after its coming, they are subservient to the ends of it, though in a way indeed to us at present mysterious and unsearchable. Thus we know that they either fulfil the promises of the crucified Jesus or His threatenings, and show either the happiness of receiving Him or the misery of rejecting Him. — Maclaurin. • To the atonement. [13378] As the union of the Divine and human nature took place at the incarnation of our Lord, we may regard that event as the principal part of our redemption. When the Word was made flesh, the separation between God and man was at an end, although the sufferings that followed were required to complete the reconciliation between them. The atonement then began at the incarnation. — Abp. Thomson. [13379] The Christian scheme of salvation through incarnate God is the world's centre of gravity, towards which everything tends ; its own centre of gravity is the cross ; for it is not "Christ" simply, but "Christ crucified," whom we preach. ot the Person constituted by pure birth of Mary is the power of God unto salvation, but that Person as offered, slain, and raised again. Modern thought is strong, because

it recognizes the incarnation, taken largely, as the grandest of all facts ; but it is weak, because it fails to see the necessary issue of the Advent in the work of the cross. It has no eyes for the sublime condition of righteousness in order to salvation. Had the mere out -putting of spiritual power upon us sufficed to raise us from sin, there need have come no Person from the bosom of God, and there need have been no crucifixion. The very fact that our Divine helper came in human form showed that there was a man's work to be done before God's help could be extended. Work of some kind required to be done in human nature on the behalf of human souls ; and for the doing of that He was born.— y. Oswald Dykes, D.D. [13380] We fasten, first of all, upon the fact — a fact which is learned equally from each of the three cases of legal redemption — that none but a kinsman could fill the office of Goel or Redeemer. It was not enough that an individual might be ready to come forward on behalf of the impoverished Israelite. Had he the right of the closest kinsmanship ? If not, the law altogether refused to allow the interposition ; its fundamental principle, in all such cases, appearing to have been that kinsmanship was indis-

pensable to the constitution of a redeemer. And who sees not that in laying down and adhering to such a principle as this, the law taught impressively the lesson that He who should arise,

the Goe! of a lost world, must be bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh? It would have been nothing that rank upon rank of celestial intelligence should rush eagerly forwards, and compassionating the ruined estate of our race, offer to devote their magnificent energies to improving its condition. "Were they the kinsmen of the lost ? Could they make out relationship ? Could they prove that there existed between themselves and the fallen any of that alliance which results from community of nature? Then an angel, not being a kinsman, could not be a redeemer. one but a man could be the Goel of man — such was the truth which the law emphatically taught, yhen refusing, in any case, to concede to a stranger the right of redemption. —Henry Melvill, bId. 3 To the resurrection. [13381] What is the spiritual principle or power which actualizes or renders into living fact the promise of the incarnation? Is it presented to us in any symbolic form, so that by adding it to the symbol of the incarnation we may obtain a complete view of the symbolic gospel, both as to its form and its begetting cause ? Such we have in the resurrection of Jesus. It is this fact which has made the promise of the incarnation a spiritual reality, and brought it as a living experience within the reach of men. The resurrection of Jesus completes the revelation which begins with the incarnation of God in Him ; and it is, further, the fact which realizes for men all the promise

of the incarnation. It is the form, which the spiritual power that turns the promise of the incarnation into spiritual reality, must assume in order to produce this efiect. The truth for man, shadowed forth in the incarnation of God, were a dream but for the resurrection of Jesus, which has made it a reality. The resurrection of Jesus is the actualizing and interpretive principle of the incarnation. — Rev. Robert Loritner, M.A. IX. Its ecessity to Human ature. [13382] We should have been simply terrified if, when the curtains of heaven were withdrawn for the advent of the Deity, the Divine .Son had come forth from the mysterious solitude of eternity clothed with that ineffable glory and dazzling radiance which no mortal eye can look upon. Guilty men would have fled affrighted at such an apparition, and desired nothing so greatly as that the rocks and hills might cover and hide them away from His sight. But He came not in the unclouded splendour of divinity. He voluntarily laid aside such glories as would have terrified those He came to seek and to save, even at the cost of making Himself of no reputation. He appeared imdngst men as a man, participating in man's estate, enduring the

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ills which are the common lot of all, an inheritor of our woes, tempted as we are tempted, hungering as we hunger, thirsting as we thirst, weary as we are weary, stooping so very low that He was born in a manger and died upon a cross. Thus He convinces us of His solicitude for us; thus He displays His wonderful yearning love towards us; and tlius He presents Himself — His divinity robed under, not concealed, but shining luminously through the veil of His humanity — in such a guise that we may look upon Him, and looking, love, and loving, follow. — H. M. J. [13383] If we really and truly have a Father, we must be able to clasp His feet in our penitence, and to lean on His breast in our weary sorrowfulness. If He be God, we must see exhibitions of what we believe to be Divine. If He be glorious, we must see His glory. It must shine in something or in some persons whom we can apprehend, or else we can never have knowledge of the glory of God. Where does that glor)- shine .' Paul says, " The light of the knowledge of the glory oJ God is in the face of Jesus Christ." — Deems.

[13384] In order to salvation, i.e., in order to his highest excellency and bliss, man must be conformed morally to God. Such conformity can be wrought in the soul only by sympathy with God, or the feeling of His conscious personal presence applying itself directly to the soul. Such sympathy can be created only by God's revelation of Himself, (i) By a person, and (2) by a human person, i.e., one which, while representing truly the Divine nature, is exhibited also as living, acting, speaking, feeling, suffering under human limitations and conditions.— T. M. Post, D.D. [13385] The great mass of mankind must have images. The strong tendency of the multitude in all ages and nations to idolatry can be explained on no other principle. The first inhabitants of Greece, there is every reason to believe, worshipped one invisible deity. But the necessity of having something more definite to adore produced, in a few centuries, the innumerable crowds of gods and goddesses. In like manner, the ancient Persians thought it impious to exhibit the Creator under a human form. Yet even these transferred to the sun the worship which speculatively they considered due only to the supreme mind. The history of the Jews is the record of a continual struggle between pure theism, supported by the most terrible sanctions, and the strangely fascinating desire of having some visible and tangible object of adoration. Perhaps none of the secondary causes which Gibbon has assigned for the rapidity with which Christianity spread over

the world, while Judaism scarcely ever acquired a proselyte, operated more powerfully than this feeling. God, the uncreated, the incomprehensible, the invisible, attracted few worshippers ; a philosopher might adore so noble a conception, but the crowd turned away in disgust from

words which created no 'mage to their mindsIt was before the Deity, embodied in a huniarv form, walking among men, partaking of their infirmities, leaning on their bosoms, weeping over their graves, slumbering in the manger, bleeding on the cross, that the prejudices of the synagogue, and the doubts of the academy, and the pride of the portico, and the fasces of the lictors, and the swords of thirty legions were humbled in the dust. — Macatclny. [13386] Any presentation of God as a Spirit, which leads men to look upon Him as a being vague and indefinite, of whom men can form no true conception, is a false presentation. Any presentation of God as an official personage, who sits, as it is sometimes said, in the chair of state— as a mere governor of the universe — is a false presentation. God governs the universe, but He is not a mere governor. I may control men by my personal influence, but I am not captain. I am not elected to anything. I do not act under any written law or constitution. So far as I control them, 1 do it by the play of my mind on theirs. I touch their interests, their sympathies, their enthusiasm.

God governs the universe, not by His laws, so called, but by Himself — by the direct throb of His soul. And, I repeat, any view of God which presents Him merely as an official personage, or in any way that leaves ovA personality, )\^z.x\, sympathy, soul, is false ! There is nothing that can enter into the conception of man which is so sweet and glorious as the conduct and nature of God when viewed in the light of the higher ranges of human experience. I never bless God so much as when I think that He came into the world to search for me and save me ; and this fact never comes to me as a living reality that I do not long to stand, with all the intelligences of the universe, and say, " Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof, and to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing." I can worship such an One ! A throne I cannot worship, unless it be a throne on which a heart sits. A soul I can worship ; a head I cannot ; a hand I cannot ; a sceptre I cannot ; but a heart I can. Before a heart I can bow down, and feel that in bowing down I am for ever and for ever lifted up. — H. Ward Beecher. [13387] Consider how men are touched and moved. Mere words have but comparatively little influence over us. Inferences, deductions, the whole train of logic may pass through our minds without once reaching the heart. We may be convinced that there is a God, and that He is wMse and good, by arguments drawn from

the facts of nature and from the human story ; and yet no one of these arguments shall kindle any flame of love in us, or elicit any response of reverence and affection. It is by actions, and actions which we can see and comprehend, that we are really kindled and moved. The cry of a child or the sigh of a woman touches

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us far more profoundly than the most cogent demonstration or the most eloquent harangue. The sight of an heroic deed fires and engrosses us as no mere description of even far greater heroism would do. So that, if we are to be moved by God, if we are to be kindled into a love for Him by which our evil lusts may be expelled, God must show Himself to us. If the world is to be kindled into love for Him, and this love is to become its ruling affection. He must come and dwell in the world. He must be seen, and heard, and handled. He must do, under our very eyes, deeds of heroic love and self-sacrifice which we can never forget, never

cease to honour and admire. He has come, He has dwelt among us, lived with us, died for us. God was in Christ, to meet our need, to reveal His kindness and love toward us and toward all men. The infirmity of our nature required His advent ; the goodness oiHis nature prompted His advent. We needed Him, and He came. Men saw Him, and were conquered. — British Quarterly Review.

X. Its Demonstrations. I The love of God in Christ. [l 3388] The incarnation bridges over the abyss which opens in our thought between earth and heaven ; it brings the Ahiiighty, the all-wise, illimitable Being, down to the minds and hearts of His reasonable creatures. The Word made flesh is God condescending to our finite capacities ; and this condescension has issued in a clear strong sense of the being and attributes of God, such as is not found beyond the bounds of Christendom. The last prayer of Jesus, that His redeemed might know the only true God, has been answered in history. . . . How profound, how varied, how fertile, is the idea of God — of His nature and of His attributes — in St. John, in St. Paul, in St. Gregory azianzen, in St. Augustine ! How energetic is this idea — how totally is it removed from the character of an impotent speculation ! How does this keen, strong sense of God's present and majestic

life leave its mark upon manners, literatures, codes of law, national institutions, national characters ! llovv utterly docs its range of vniigy transcend any mere employment of the iitellect 1 How does it, again and again, bend wills, and soften hearts, and change the current and drift of lives, and transfigure the souls of men ! And why is this ? It is because the incarnation rivets the apprehension of God on the thoughts and hearts of the Cliurch, so that within tlie Church theistic truth l)ids defiance to those influences which tend perpetually to sap or to volatilize it elsewhere. Instead of presenting us with some fugitive abstraction inaccessible to the intellect and disappointing to the heart, tlie incarnation points to Jesus. Jesus is the Almighty, restraining 11 is illimitable powers; Jesus is the Incomprehensible, voluntarily submitting to bonds ; Jesus is Providence, clothed in our own flesh and blood; Jesus is

the Infinite Christ, tending us with the kindly looks and tender handling of a human love ; Jesus is the Eternal Wisdom, speaking out of the depths of infinite thought in a human language; Jesus is God making Himself, if I may dare so to speak, our tangible possession ; He is God brought " very nigh to us, in our mouth, and in our heart ;" we behold Him, we touch Him, we cling to Him, and, lo ! we are partakers of the nature, of Deity (2 Pet. i. 4) through our actual membership in His body, in His flesh, and in His bones (Eph. v. 30) ; we

dwell, if we will, evermore in Him, and He in us. — Canon Liddon. [13389] Let us consider that the nativity of our Lord is a grand instance, a pregnant evidence, a rich earnest of Almighty God's very great aliection and benignity toward mankind ; for " in this," saith St. John, " the love of God was manifested, that God sent His only begotten Son into the world ;" and, " through the tender mercy of our God," sang old Zacharias, " the day-spring from on high hath visited us." This indeed is the peculiar experiment, wherein that most Divine attribute did show and signalize itself The power of God doth brightly shine in the creation, the wisdom of God may clearly be discerned in the government of things ; but the incarnation of God is that work, is that dispensation of grace, wherein the Divine goodness doth most conspicuously display itself How indeed possibly could God have demonstrated a greater excess of kindness towards us than by thus, for our sake and good, sending His dearest Son out of His bosom into this sordid and servile estate, subjecting Him to all the infirmities of our frail nature, exposing Him to the worst inconveniences of our low condition ? what expressions can signify, what comparisons can set out the stupendous vastness of this kindness ? If we should imagine that a great prince should put his only son, a son most lovely, and worthily most beloved, into rags, should dismiss him from his court, should yield him up into the hardest slavery, merely to the intent that he thereby might redeem from captivity the meanest

and b.asest of his subjects, how faint a resemblance would this be of that immense goodness, of that incomparable mercy, which in this instance the King of all the world hath declared toward us His poor vassals, Mis indeed unworthy rebels ! — Barrow. 2 The dignity of man in Christ. [13390] Man must be intrinsically of greater value than all that went before to prepare the way for him. This will serve to explain the intense interest of the angels in man, and their joy in his redemption. He is greater than they. They are complete only in him. He is destined to be their lord. " Know ye not that ye shall judge angels ? " The angels are, in many accidents, superior to man in his earthly estate. But this superiority is temporary. " Thou madest him a little while inferior to the angels." Men, taken up into the Christ and glorified,

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shall rank above all other created intelligences.

To look to angels as mediators, interposed to join man with God, and to worship them, degrades man. To think of angels and of the physical universe as dwarfing man is robbing humanity of its prerogative and worth. The incarnation signifies that man has an inherent dignity that no hugeness of the physical universe and no grandeur of angels can equal. He has no superior, save God. He should bow the knee to none but God. — C. P.Jenniiij^s. ['339'] The incarnation, as a great fact, discovers the communicableness, if I may use such a word, of the relation of fatherhood and sonship, as it exists in the Godhead. It proves that it is a relation which may be communicated to a creature, and shared in by a creature. The incarnation demonstrates, by a plain palpable proof, that this relation is not like an incommunicable property or attribute of Deity, but is something in or about Deity, in which others besides the Divine persons may participate and have fellowship. For in fact the incarnation shows this relation actually communicated to humanity, and shared in by humanity, in the person of the man Christ Jesus. — R. Candlish, D.D. [13392] Human nature is, at this moment, the most glorious of created natures, taken, in its assumption by the Son, into a nearness of union with the Godhead, which none other enjoys ; and where our Head is, there all His true members shall in due time be. As the man Christ Jesus passed through all suffering into glory,

even so His people exposed to dangers which others never knew, and made triumphant through His Spirit dwelling in them, rise to honours with which others can never be crowned ; and, living monuments of all those Divine perfections which were displayed in their redemption, living records of the glory of God, they will awaken among the hosts of heaven a song which, throughout eternity, will be ever new. — Marcus Dods, D.D. [13393] Christ is man at His climax. Scepticism gives up in all serious circles the claim that the founder of Christianity was a mythological personage. The mythical theory has been so completely exploded by the discussions of the last quarter of a century that we now are all agreed, so far as we are in earnest, that one human personality has appeared without sin, or, at least, without any such facts in His career that we are able to prove sin against the character. That is the stupendous outcome of modem criticism, and if the world of thought could be united in the admission of the sinlessness of Christ, immense ethical conclusions would at once become the property of all intellectual circles ; for this sinless character exhibits man at his climax, and it must be that, if we are to have peace at all with our own natures, from which we never can escape while we continue to exist, we must have peace with that

ideal of character which was sinless. — Joseph

Cook, D.D. [13394] The work of Christianity is, first, to establish the common dignity of men as men, and to place on a sure basis all purely human virtues ; and next, to connect the life of men with its source and consummation and bring it into fellowship with God. Both these results are grounded on the historic facts of the gospel. — Canon IVestcoll. [13395] O'i'' Lord's nativity doth infer a great honour and a high preferment to us : no-wise, indeed, could mankind be so dignified, or our nature so advancecl, as hereby. o wisdom can devise a way beyond this, whereby God should honour His most special favourites, or promote them to a nearness unto Himself. For hence we become allied to God, in a most strait affinity, His eternal Son being made our brother ; hence, as touching the blood-royal of heaven, we do in dignity o'er-top all the creation ; so that what the Psalmist uttered concerning man is verified in the most comprehensive sense, " Thou hast crowned Him with glory and honour, and hast set Him over the works of Thy hands ; thou hast put all things in subjection under His feet." For now the Son of man, being also the Son of God, is the Head of all principality and power, is the Lord of all things, is the sovereign Prince of all the world ; is placed far above all principality,and power,and might,and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. That is a peculiar honour to which the highest angels

cannot pretend ; for " He took not the nature of angels, but He took the seed of Abraham;" whence those noble creatures are become in a uiannet inferior to poor us ; and, according to just obligation, willingly to adore our nature ; for, "when God brought His first-begotten Son into the world. He said, Let all the angels of Gud worship Him." Is not indeed our flesh become the true Shekinah, the everlasting place of the supreme Majesty, " wherein the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth bodily ; " as the most holy shrine of the divinity ; as the orb of inaccessible light ; as more than all this, if more could be expressed, or if we could expound that text, " The Word was made flesh, and dwelt in us.''" May not our soul worthily claim the highest respect, all whose faculties, being endued with unmeasurable participations of the Holy Spirit, have been tuned to a perfect harmony with the all-wise understanding and the most pure will of God ? — Barrow. [13396] By this union with Deity there has been conferred upon our whole race the greatest honour of which created substance is susceptible. For that manhood should thus have been taken into Godhead shows that there was between them such compatibility and accordance as stamps the lower nature with that truth which belongs to the very essence of the higher. It has sometimes been disputed whether the de-

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cisions of reason and the decrees of conscience have any proper authority, or have only such semblance of reality as belongs to our transitory state. That they should have been present in Him in whom they were matured, purified, exalted, and should thus have harmonized with those perfect lines of truth which radiate from the throne of God, is the best evidence of their reality. For had God been pleased to employ the organs of some inferior animal, as is once recorded in Holy Writ, for the expression of His will, such nature had not been susceptible of that personal union with Him which is set forth in the incarnation of Christ. But that man was found susceptible of it — that his faculties required to be exalted, not destroyed — shows that the traces of that image in which he was created had not been obliterated from his soul. — Archibald IVilberforce. [13397] We are ever to remember that in Jesus Christ our nature was intimately united with divinity the most exalted, and that in the triumphant Redeemer humanity is already enthroned in heaven. He came to unfold to mankind their capacities of greatness, to impart generous conceptions and reveal the splendid

destiny that awaited them, to awaken aspirations after a nobler character and a higher being, to kindle in their bosoms a love for all the virtues embodied in Himself,and throw wide open before them the gates which invite to life without a pang, and glory without a cloud. — E. L. Magoon. XI. Its Benefits. ['3398] Before the incarnation there was a great gulf fixed between God and man. Man could think about God ; he could pray to God ; he could practise a certain measure of obedience to God's will ; but, in his best moments, man was conscious of his utter separateness from God as the perfect moral Being. He was conscious of sin, and this consciousness meant nothing less than separation from the All-holy. The incarnation of Jesus Christ was a bridge across the chasm which thus had parted earth and heaven. On the one hand, and from everlasting, Jesus Christ was of one substance with the Father, very and eternal God. On the other. He was made very man, of the substance of the Virgin Mary, His mother. As the collect says. He took man's nature upon Him. When He had already existed for an eternity, He folded around Him, He made His own, a created form, a human body and a human soul, to be for ever united to His eternal Godhead. Through this, His human nature. He acts on God's behalf upon mankind. Through this, His human nature. He pleads for man before the majesty of God, and thus there is "one Mediator between God and man, the man

Christ Jesus." It is as man that He mediates between the Creator and the creature, between linners and the All-holy ; but His Godhead lecures to His mediation its commanding power. a He were not human we at this moment should

be unrepresented in heaven, where He ever liveth to make intercession for us. If He were not Divine it would be impossible to say why His death upon the cross should have infinite merit, or why the body of Christ, which was given for us, should now in the Holy Sacrament preserve our bodies and our souls unto everlasting life. At one and the same moment He is, as Mediator, in the bosom of the Godhead and in the closest contaqt with the souls of His redeemed ; and this is a result of His entrance in a created form into our human world as the everlasting Son, yet, withal, as the child of Mary. That this is the deepest meaning of Christmas and of the birth of Christ is implied in the name assigned in prophecy to the Virgin's Son — the sublime, the glorious name, Emmanuel. From the day of the nativity God was seen to be with men, not simply as heretofore, as the omnipresent, but under new and more intimate conditions. From the day of the nativity there was a change in the relations between earth and heaven. To be one with Christ was to be one with God, and this union with God through Christ is the secret and basis of the new kingdom of souls which Christ has founded, and in which He reigns. Who shall

describe the wealth of spiritual and moral power which dates from the appearance of the Incarnate Son in this our human world as our wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption? Here and there we see, as by glimpses through the clouds, some streaks of the glory of this, the invisible kingdom of souls ; but only most assuredly in another life shall we understand at all approximately what it has meant— what it means — for millions of our race. — Cation Liddon. [13399] Through this doctrine only has the Godhead been revealed to us under that nobler character, in which we have learned to recognize Him. For it is this truth which has made that mighty alteration in the opinions of men, on which our noblest intellectual attainments are dependent. It is the incarnation of Christ our Lord which has raised us as well above the carnal anthropology of the Greeks, as above the grotesque speculations of the Brahmins. This principle it is which has so blended justice, mercy, and truth, with the omnipotence, omniscience, and eternity of God, as to enable man to respond to the best aspirations of his nature. — Archibald W ilberforce. [13400] All the work of our redemption was in a manner achieved, when our Saviour did appear; His incarnation was the great step toward it ; as being an act of the humblest obedience and of the highest merit that could anywise be performed, for satisfying the justice of God, and winning His favour toward us: His

taking up life may well seem more meritorious than His laying it down, and the chief passion which Me could ever undergo. His death was a passion, great as death could be; His life also was a continual passion, or exercise of huge

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patience ; but His birth seemeth to be the greatest and strangest passion of all, involving the lowest submission and the deepest sutiering. What nobler sacrifice could there be than God's offering Himself up to mortality, to infirmity, to slavery? What obedience can be thought of comparable to that which He did express when He said, " Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. I came down, not that I might do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me.?"— Barrow. [13401] To superficial reason, the incarnation has seemed a thing incredible. To faith it seems more reasonable that God, having vouchsafed to make intelligent creatures capable of His love, should not keep them apart from

Himself, to adore only and admire and love Him from without, but that He united them to Himself by the closest union which was possible between the creature and the Cre.itor, and, having taken the manhood into God, "gathered together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth, in Him in whom we also have obtained an inheritance." — Pusey. [13402] The consequence to man of all direct and impersonal modes of theanthropic union is, the loss of a truly human consciousness, without the compensation of a Divine one gained, a blank of all conscious life. But in the personal and mediatorial method, the spiritual consciousness of man is intensified and elevated, and the very spirit and tone of the relation is that of perfect filiality. He who founded this relation between God and man, and threw it open to man, filled it all while He was manifested on earth, with the light of perfect human sonship to God. o confession of sin ever fell from the lips of the man Christ Jesus. o spot defiled His obedience. Ere He was incarnate. He hailed with rapture the prospect of it, as the opportunity of rendering that perfect obedience in the flesh which should effect the redemption of men, crying, "A body hast thou prepared me." " I delight to do Thy will, O my God."— Rev. Robert Loriincr, M.A. xn. Place of the Doctrine in the Christian Scheme.

[13403] We are not left to speculate what is the fundamental truth of faith — the article of a standing or falling Christianity. According to the Apostle John, it is that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh (i John iv. 2, 3), and whosoever confesses it is of God. Other truths may be vital, but this is the most vital of all. It is the one fact from which all the distinctive doctrines of Christianity spring. Christianity is the whole, and the incarnation is the centre. Or it may be compared to tlie root, and the attaching doctrines to the stem and branches. Destroy the root, and the tree decays ; take away the incarnation, and Christianity is gone. He that stumbles here, stumbles at the threshold of ihe faith.— 7o/i« Baird, D.D. VOL. IV. 34

[13404] A great deal of the philosophical speculation of the present day is a simple ignoring of the great cardinal doctrines of Scripture, and notably that which is the subject of the present article. Priests and infidels are enemies of coordinate standing in regard to the subject under consideration. The former have buried it beneath a load of superstitions ; the latter have relegated it to the limbo of a discarded theology, regarding it as an unreasonable demand upon the mental powers, as an ignorant conceit, and a most mischievous credulity. But the doctrine has maintained itself through all the ages, notwithstanding the superstitions of some, and the

scepticism of others ; and it still abides. It is the great central doctrine of Scripture, around which all the rest revolve in obedient order. It is the great manifestation. — John Tesseyman. [13405] It has sometimes been asked why our Lord's atonement is not inserted in the Creed in such e.\press words as is His incarnation. The reason is, that our Lord's atonement may be admitted in words, although those who use them attach no Christian sense to the doctrine which they acknowledge ; whereas if the doctrine of our Lord's incarnation is once truly accepted, His mediation follows as its necessary result. So that the Church was guided by Divine wisdom, to make this article of our Lord's real nature the criterion of her belief, the " Articulus stantis aut cadentis ecclesias :" it holds a leading place in the profession which in all ages has been required at baptism ; and the early believers gave a token of their reverence when, on declaring that He " was made man," they were wont, with one consent, to bow the knee and worship. — R. J. IVilberforce. XIII. Apologetic Value and Importance OF the Doctrine. [13406] The apologetic value of the doctrine of the incarnation should not be altogether ignored in the consideration of the relations which that dogma sustains to some of the topics of the present day. To make this statement, however, is to expose oneself to the cavil of the small thinker with a list of fallacies in his

head, who will say, " Oh, you reason in a circle ; you prove the incarnation by the Bible, and then the Bible by the incarnation." Well suppose we do ! Suppose that by one set of arguments and evidences it is shown that the Bible is a supernatural book, and, being such, that a sound e.xegesis shuts us up to belief in the divinity of our Lord ; and suppose, again, that the divinity of Christ regarded as a unity, hypotheses will explain the structural unity of the Old and ew Testaments, and leave no room for doubt that the Old Testament and also the ew were constructed with reference to a plan of such magnitude that a supernatural authorship is the only satisfactory explanation — what harm is done? What serious violation of the laws of correct thinking has been committed ? And it is precisely this double course which is open to the

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student of the Bible. As a dogmatician, he may, and he very properly will, say, " The Bible teaches the divinity of Christ," and proceed to maintain his position by citing the arguments

and the proof-texts with which we are all familiar ; but as an apologist, he will pursue a different course. Applying to Scripture the argument of design, he will say that it was constructed upon a plan which must have existed in a single mind before it was executed in the progressive publication of the separate books of the Bible. The incarnation is a hypothesis which gives unity to the Bible, which reveals the fact that through the volume from Genesis to Revelation " the same increasing purpose runs." The students of the "higher criticism" are not given to an undue appreciation of the organic character of Scripture. They are too busy with a microscopic study of the tissues to see the symmetry of the entire organism. It must be left to other specialists who have exceptional training to reply to them who deny the Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy, or who believe in two Isaiahs, and dispute the unity of the Book of the Prophecies of Zechariah. Here is a fact which must strike the eye of even a common observer. The Old Testament is a congruous body of doctrine culminating in Christ ; the ew Testament is a coherent body of doctrine crystallizing around the person of Christ. What is the incarnation but the synthesis of the teaching of the Old Testament? and what is the ew Testament but an unfolding of the ideas which are wrapped up in the doctrine of the incarnation ? How did this happen? The doctrine of the incarnation is not a patch put into the web of the Old Testament by human hands ; if it had been, it would have been so palpable that no

one would ever have denied that the Bible contains it. But it is woven so delicately into the structure of the sacred books, that though you see the Incarnate Christ as the central figure of the Bible, it requires patient study and profound thought to see how this idea runs through and gives unity to the whole. And now we ask, How did it happen ? Our representative thinkers of the most advanced infidelity will not ask us to believe that organisms grow by chance. We are indebted to them for their concessions to the old theistic proof, even though they impute to an unconscious intelligence working in the organism what we more rationally account for by believing in a personal God. We may believe that the Bible is not a Divine Book when we believe that a blind intelligence forms the eye, and adapts the uses of the eye to its environment, and, working throughout nature, has unconsciously built up what we call the cosmos. When we can accept this Calvinism without Christ, the theory of an unconscious impersonal Intelligence, this doctrine of predestination without a purposing mind, this fatalistic pantheism as a theorj' of the universe, we may consent to deny the supernatural origin of the Bible. But the reasons which lead us to believe that God made the world should lead us

just as well to the conclusion that God made the Bible. There is design in history, and free intelligences are blind weavers of the great web of human destiny ; but we must believe that

these intelligences are controlled by the directing mind of God, or there is no explanation of the plan which history reveals. We may believe that the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of Prophecy, and that the prophet was a blind worker in the development of a plan to which so many workers contributed ; but behind the prophet we must place the inspiration of the prophet, and superior to the prophet, the Spirit who shaped his visions, and whose word was on his tongue. — Rev. Professor Patton. [13407] Everywhere it is the Churches that have fast hold on the truth of the incarnation which are able to maintain some glow in their vital fire. It is a firm grasp of this truth which has been the strength of the leaders who have stirred those great revivals of the stagnant life of Christendom, which form new eras in the development of the masses of the people, from the Cistercian revival under Bernard, the Mendicant revival under Francis, through Luther and Wesley, to the Eglise Libre of the Canton de Vaud. While the Churches that forsake it are conscious of a coldness, a duhiess, a want of vital heat and propagating power, which is profoundly significant, and is full of a solemn warning to those who dream that the life of a Christian man, or of a Christian Church, can be permanently nourished on any poorer bread than the gospel of Emmanuel, God with us. — J. Baldwin Bi-own, B.A. [13408] Relinquish the fact of the incarnation of God in Jesus, and what solid foundation is

left man for cherishing the bold thought of his Christian sonship — a thought which in natural and ethical grandeur immeasurably transcends the undefined thought of Hebrew seers and pagan poets and philosophers ? Granting that the idea of the relationship was in the possession of both parties, yet the thought that " they also were the offspring of God " was with the latter as the inference at best of a crude because naturalistic theory of the union between God and man ; while, in the case of the former, it was so occasional in its use, coining from the lips of psalmist and prophet, only as the expression of a rare impassionedness or tenderness, that the thought of Divine Fatherhood and human sonship cannot be regarded as a definite article of Old Testament theology. — Rev. Robert Lorifiier, M.A. XIV. Question raised on the Subject : Was the Incarnation necessary apart from the Existence of Sin? I The question as treated by the schoolmen. [13409] It was quite customary in this country, not very long ago, to pronounce indiscriminate censures on the schoolmen, and to

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christ/ an dogmatics. 515 [restoration of the normal relations between god and man.

hold them up to derision. The question, " How many angels could stand on the point of a needle ? " which is the example given by Dr. Thomas Drown of the frivolousness of their inquiries, must appear to every person acquainted with their writings to be as unfair a representation of them as the paring of a nail would be of the marvellous structure of the human body, or as a splinter of stone would be of the architecture of a great building. Many of the speculations of the schoolmen were of a high character, and such as could only have been undertaken by intellects of the first order, in vigour, in acuteness, and in capacity, for continuous and prolonged exertion. . . . But never was there a better example of " sound knowledge putrefying; and turning into a number of subtle, idle, and vermicular C|uestions" than in the discussions of the schoolmen upon one of the greatest of all theological questions — the incarnation of the Son of God. The beauty and grandeur of this august subject were completely dissipated by its being subjected to every possible form of inquiry, . . . and it will easily be conceived that many of these questions were frivolous, and some of them by no means free of irreverence. The most famous of all the questions started by the schoolmen respecting

the incarnation was this, " Utrum si Adam non pecasset, Filius Dei, Incarnatus fuisset.?" . . . In the opinion of Thomas Aquinas, it is most likely that Christ would not have become incarnate if Adam had not sinned ; but even if the fall had not taken place, an incarnation would still have been among \.\\^ possibilia. The same opinion, in some cases accompanied with individual explanations, was generally held by his followers. On the other hand, Albert the Great, Abelard, Alexander of Hales, Richard De St. Victor, Ruprecht of Deutch, and the Monk Francis Caracolus, according to Dorner, held that the incarnation was necessary apart from the existence of sin. To these might have been added Scotus, Suarez, Galatinus, and other eminent scholastics. The same opinion was also held by John Wessel. — British and Foreign Evangelical Review, 1866. 3 The question as viewed by the fathers and Reformers. [13410] This question was little, if indeed it was at all, formally agitated by the fathers. According to Dorner, Irenaeus, one of the great teachers of the early Church, maintained that the incarnation would have taken place though Adam had not sinned. That Irenteus did not hold this opinion very consistently or explicitly is evident from the following quotation made by Dorner in a footnote, and from the obviously false translation which he would force upon the words, in order to coerce them into harmony with his favourite theory. " The passage "

(cap. xiv. 10), says he, "'Si non haberet caro salvari, nequaquam verbum Dei caro factum esset,' is only apparently inconsistent therewith ; for the first words may signify, if it had not been possible to restore humanity to its arche-

typal form, it would have lacked the capability of being assumed by the Logos " (Dorner, doc ii. vol. i. 368, footnote). This is surely too much. Partiality, when carried thus far, is not only discreditable, it is weak and pitiable, and all the more so when it is done by a learned and powerful mind. It is utterly impossible to translate the above sentence so as to bring out of its words anything having the least resemblance to the meaning put on them by Dorner. The words, " Si caro non habuit salvari," are a form of expression belonging to the postAugustan era. Precisely the same form of expression is used by Tertullian. He says, "Etiaro Filius Dei mori habuit," even the Son of r.od required to die. And, translated in the same manner, the words of Irenasus express, in the strongest way, the very opposite of the sentiment which Dorner has endeavoured to bring out of them under torture. " If flesh had not required to be saved, the Son of God by no means would have become flesh." In the same volume, page 365, Dorner has incorrectly quoted the words of Augustine. He remarks, "Augustine indeed says also : ' Si homo non pecasset Filius Dei non esset Incarnatus.' " As authority for this quotation he gives " De Trinitate," xiii.

10. o such words, however, are to be found in that place. The same sentiment, however, is thus expressed in that place: "isi tamen infirmatus esset, medicum necessarum non habert." Augustine has expressed the same opinion still more strongly in various passages. " Quare venit in mundum peccatores salves facere. Alia causa non fuit quare veniret in mundum" (Augustine's Works, vol. x.). — Ibid. [13411] Among the Reformers, the subject obtained some notice, not as a separate question, but in connection with the great doctrine of justification by faith. Osiander held a theory in regard to justification analogous to one which has recently been propounded in regard to adoption. He maintained that believers are justified, not by the imputation of Christ's mediatorial righteousness, but by the imputation of his own proper, personal, essential, and eternal righteousness as the Son of God (Dorner, 11. ii. 107, et seq.). Calvin has devoted the greater portion of a chapter of the Institutes to the consideration of this opinion. He rebukes the unscriptural and presumptuous nature of the speculation with the unbending sternness of a judge, and refutes it with masterly ease, in his usual manner, by the simplicity of scriptural evidence, linked into a chain which can neither be cut nor broken. Calvin very strongly repudiates the idea that Christ would have become incarnate if Adam had not sinned. He even goes so far as to call it " a presuming with

impious audacity to invent a new Christ." Bellarmine holds that if Adam had not sinned, Christ would probably not have come ; while Petavius emphatically asserts that he certainly would not. This question continued to occupy a place, though an obscure one, in the systematic theology of the seventeenth century, as

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may be seen in Turretine and others. The celebrated Malebranche, whom Sir William Hamilton has recognized as being perhaps the greatest writer that France ever produced, maintained as a philosophical opinion, and it was evidently one of his most favourite opinions, that the incarnation was necessary in order to render the world a perfect work, one every way worthy of the infinite perfection of its Creator. It does not appear that this question ever

created much attention within the Protestant Church, till recently, when it has taken its place among those hybrid speculations, semi-philosophical, semi-theological, for which Germany has long been famous. — Ibid. 3 The question as viewed by Dr. Martensen. [13412] We accept the essentially Christian belief that the Son of God would have been made man, and would have come into the world, even if sin had not come into the world — the belief, that when God created man after His own image, He created him in the image of His Son, in the image of the Son who was to become incarnate, so that even at the creation of man the image of Christ was present to the mind of the Creator, and was the prototype according to which man was created. — Martensen. 4 Dr. Candlish's theory on sonship. [13413] The theor}' in question, that intelligent beings are not the sons of God by creation, and only become so by pariicipation in the eternal Sonship of the second person of the Trinity "as it exists in the Godhead,"if we give way to hypothetical reasoning, seems to require as its proper theological complement this other doctrine, that the incarnation would have been necessary in order to sonship being obtained, even althoUjjh Adam had nev cr sinned. We are fully alive to the high talent, the amazing mental dexterity, and the loftiness of moral

and spiritual tone displayed by the author of that theory. And we feel perfectly assured that Dr. Candlish's own opinions on this and on all the other questions that have arisen out of the publication of his work, considered as separate questions, are perfectly and indubitably sound. But the personal opinions of an individual are one thing, and the principles or consequences involved in his theory arc another, and they are often contradictory the one to the other. And with all deference to the distinguished author, if we could allow ourself to reason hypothetically, we would maintain that if the sonship of the intelligent creation entered into God's idea of universe, and if all sonship be based on the incarnation, then, upon the supposition that Adam had never sinned, it is not easy to conceive how the sonship of the intelligent creation, whieh entered irilo God's eternal counsel as part of the plan of the universe, could have been carried out except by the incarnation. As will be afterwards seen, however, we consider all speculations, founded on the supposition of a

world differently constituted from the present, to be radically vicious, and that all consequences drawn from such premises are presumptuous, and utterly useless for any purpose whatever, whether theoretical or practical. We, therefore, frankly admit that Dr. Candlish is perfectly warranted in refusing the supposition that -Adam had never sinned. In that case his theory must be tried by its relation to the actual world, and

not by its bearing on the fortunes of one which never had, and never will "have, any existence. In that case, too, his theory could not be charged with the consequence that the incarnation would have taken place though Adam had never sinned. — British and Foreign Evangelical Review. 5 General consideration of the matter. (i) Statement 0/ the guestion. [13414] The real question is whether the incarnation properly, grimarily, formally, and permanently belongs to creation or to redemption. It is not denied, on the one side, that it had to do with redemption, but it is maintained that its primary end has respect to creation, so much so that it would have taken place for creational interests, though no redemption had been required. On the other side, it is not denied that redemption has to do with creation. On the contrary, it is not barely admitted, but insisted on, that creation will be alfected thereby to its remotest bounds and to all eternity. It is, however, maintaineS that the primary, direct, and formal endof theincarnation was the redemption of our lost world, and that all its effects upon the universe arose out of the facts of its being undertaken and accomplished for the purpose of redemption. ... It is believed that the early Church — the Church of the icene and Chalcedonian creeds, and the Church in every period since — have beenoccnpied too exclusively in examining the mode of the union between

our Lord's two natures, while they have almost entirely neglected to consider the contents or import of that union, on its God-ward side, as these were exhibited in the actions of His life on earth. They have done well in discussing the incarnation by which our Redeemer became man ; but we know of nothing that has been written systematically, or scientifically, to show what we are taught by the history of our Redeemer considered as God manifested in the flesh. This, however, is not the matter witli which we have presently to do. It is admitted that our Redeemer is the representative of God as really as He is the representative of man, and that He ought to be studied as the wisdom of God, by whom His nature and counsels are manifested, as well as the substitute of man, by whom atonement for sin was once for ail accomplished. The real and only question presently in dispute is. Whether His re|)rcsentation both of Ciod and man, in His stale of incarnation, arose out of the fact that sin existed, or, whether it would have taken place had sin been alto gether unknown .' — Ibid.

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CHR/STr.iy DOCilATlCS. 517 [restokation of the normal relations between god and man.

(2) Its nature as an impossible \ priori subject of liisciission. [13415] Men are richly endowed with the faculty of knowing what is and what ought to be, but they are left altogether destitute of the power to determine what any one thing would have been if the universe had been formed on a plan radically different from that on which it is presently constructed. There is no such thing as pure (J priori knowledge. What we have proudly called by that name has all its origin in the senses ; and it is the great merit of Dr. M'Cosh that he has systematically shown what others may have hinted at, that the intuitions of the mind, however absolute and universal in their affirmations, are all called forth by particulars. All our acquisitions in knowledge are founded on, and grow out of, what we knew before. Is it not, then, presumptuous to attempt to determine by our own reasoning what would have taken place if the fall, that fundamental fact of human history, if the existence of sin, that fundamental fact in the history of the universe, had been otherwise.' Is not the very supposition of a universe being formed on a theory diametrically opposed to that on which it has been constructed almost tantamount, so far as our limited faculties can judge, to the supposition of another God .''... o supernatural doctrine can be established by A priori reasoning. To attempt to do so is to adopt a method of investigation which is far more

dangerous in itself than any of its results, however bad, because it puts man's reasoning in the place of God's infallible testimony, and it only requires to be carried out consistently in order to unsettle and deprave and overthrow everything Christian. This, we think, is the radical vice of the whole circle of German thought in modem times, and above which none, even of its best men, have been able wholly to elevate themselves. one of their productions are framed on the inductive method, which is the only method by which we can arrive at the knowledge of things, whether it he the "things which are seen or the things which are unseen." —Ibid. (3) The appeal to Scripture, reason, and revelation for its solution. [13416] When a doctrine has been established on scriptural foundations it is quite competent for Reason to come forward as the handmaid of Revelation, and present the analogies to the doctrine which are to be found in nature or in the structure and operations of the human mind. In the first instance, however, every Christian doctrine ought to be taken from the Scriptures, and from these alone. To attempt to frame a Christian doctrine by h priori reasoning is speculative forgery. It is issuing human coin with a professedly Divine stamp thereon. ot less condemnable is that mongrel method, so often to be met with, of proving a point by the alternate use of reason and Scrif)ture, the result of which is neither human nor

Divine, but alloyed coin, in which the gold of

heaven is often in a less proportion than the terrestrial brass. This linsey-woolsey doctrine, which is neither philosophy nor divinity, should be prohibited not only in the church of God, but in the schools of philosophy. It is a hybrid method of speculation, which, however imposing it may seem, like all other hybrids, will generate nothing. Whenever pure speculation is laid, either as the basis of doctrine, or is allowed to go side by side with Scripture in its establishment, theology invariably loses her independence. She becomes a handmaid instead of a mistress. In that case, too, the dominant philosophy invariably gives the tone and fashion to religious thought. This has been seen in a very remarkable manner in Germany, in which for more than a century theological systems have been found ebbing or flowing, waxing or waning, according to the state of the philosophical heavens. As Lord Bacon said, with reference to the false methods in natural science which prevailed before his own day, so may it be said respecting this vicious method of theologizing, that it makes the science of divinity "vertiginous, or in a state of perpetual rotation." — Ibid. [13417] While admitting that all speculative difficulties must be met on speculative ground, we submit that, from the nature of the subject,

the question whether our Lord would have become incarnate, if there had been no sin, must be determined solely by an appeal to Scripture. If it can be shown from Scripture to be an undisputable fact that our Lord was announced from the beginning as a Saviour and Deliverer ; if it can be shown that this is implied in all the titles given to His person, and in all the prefigurations and predictions of His work ; if it can be shown that when on earth the Bible never speaks of Him otherwise than as a Saviour, and everywhere points to His death as the sole end for which He came into the world ; if it can be shown that His whole exaltation state in heaven is based upon, grows out of, and is the reward of. His "becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross ; " if it can be shown that, speculatively considered. His death in the stead of His people gives a far fuller view of the Divine nature, and contributes more to the moral perfection of the universe than an incarnation without an atonement could possibly have done ; if it can be shown that from eternity He was ordained to become incarnate in order to make atonement — being "the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world," and that to eternity He will be regarded as "the Lamb that was slain ;" and in fine, if no trace, either in the past eternity or the coming eternity, either in the Church on earth or the Church in heaven, among men or among angels, is to be found of an incarnation irrespective of the atonement, then such an incarnation is not that of the Son of God — it is not that of the Bible — it is not that of God's eternal counsel — it is not

that of the Church of God — it is not even entitled to be called a speculation, for it is desti-

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CHRIST! Alf DOGMATICS. [restoration of the normal relations between god and man.

tute of all foundation in the unchangeable laws of human thought. It is a pure imagination, and, from the sacredness of the subject to which it refers, we dare not call it a devout one. To adopt it would be in effect to be guilty of idolatry, for it would be to make an image of the incarnation, and worship it instead of the reality. —Ibid. XV. False or Pretended Incarnations OF Heathen Religions. t The mythologies of most nations afford traces, although faint, of the idea of incarnation, and may be regarded as so many gropings for the truth. [1341S] .Sin has so isolated man from God,

that he feels there is no hope of his restoration except " the gods come down in the likeness of men." This idea confronts us from all parts of the world, whether in the avatars of the Hindij, the election and worship of the Lama of Thibet, the metamorphoses of the Greek and Roman mythologies, or the wilder worship of the aborigines of America. The earlier Christian apologists attributed these caricatures of the true incarnation to Satan, and alleged that "he invented these fables by imitating the truth." eander makes the profound suggestion that "at the bottom of these myths is the earnest desire, inseparable from man's spirit, for participation in the Divine nature as its true life — its anxious longing to pass the gulf which separates the God-derived soul from its original — its wish, even though unconscious, to secure that union with God which alone can renew human nature, and which Christianity shows us as a living reality. or can we be astonished to find the facts of Christianity thus anticipated in poetic forms (embodying in imaginative creations the innate yet indistinct cravings of the spirit) in the mythical elements of the old religions, when we remember that human nature itself, and all the forms of its development, as well as the whole course of human history, were intended by God to find their full accomplishment in Christ." The want that thus expresses itself in these fabled avatars lies at the foundation of idolatry. The unsatisfied nature of man demands that his Deity should be near him — should dwell with him. It first leads him to represent the Deity by the work of his own

hands, and then to worship it. Or we may look upon these avatars as so many faint and distant irradiations of the holy light that shone upon the Garden through the first promise given to man. On the contrary, Kitto denies " that there is in Eastern mythology any incarnation in any sense approaching that of the Christian, and that least of all is there any where it has been most insisted on" ("Daily IJible Illust." on John i. 14). Cocker, in his late work (" Christianity and Greek Philosophy," . Y., 1870, 8vo, p. 512), advances the theory that the idea of "a pure spiritual essence, without form and without emotion, pervading all and transcending all, is too vague and abstract to yield us comfort," and

that therefore the need of an incarnation " became consciously or unconsciously ' the desire of nations ' " by " the education of the race " and " by the dispensation of philosophy. . . . The idea of an incarnation was not unfamiliar to human thought, it was no new or strange idea to the heathen mind. The numberless metamorphoses of Grecian mythology, the incarnations of Brahma, the avatars of Vishnu, and the human form of Krishna, had naturalized the thought." (See Young, " Christ of History," and Dorner, " Lehre v. der Person Chrisii.") — Rev. J. K. Johnston. [13419] The various avatars of Vishnu and the life of Buildha upon earth do not throw all beliefs in the incarnation of Deity into the

region of superstition or mythology, but show that the human race has yearned unceasingly in the midst of its sins and delusions, after some such relation to the source of wisdom, power, righteousness, and love ; and has indeed striven to find the point and the circumstance where God and man may be regarded not as two, but as one. If these desires and modes of appreciating the relation subsisting between God and the world were confined to Eastern paganisms and defunct faiths of a dateless past, there would be more colour for the charge vamped up in their name against the religion of Christ ; but if, on the contrary, there is enough to show that the restless desire after a manifestation of God in the flesh, belongs to all nations and ages, to the nineteenth century as well as to the first, to modem Europe as well as to ancient Egypt ; if Hegelianism and Positivism still perpetuate the struggle after the same reality ; if, further, a steady inspection of our own hearts reveals the existence of the same eager inquiry, then the life and mastery of Christ acquire new and portentous importance, and are even in their most fundamental element the answer to our own earnest search. — British Quarterly Review. XVI. HoMiLETicAL Remarks. I The obvious connection in which the incarnation stands to much of the irreligious thought of the present day. [13420] It can hardly have escaped the notice of most of us that there is a peculiar tone of

serious, disheartened scepticism in a great deal of the literature of the day. The witty lecturer who passes through the land as a peddler of the small wares of infidelity would not be admired by those who have a right to be considered as the thoughtful advocates of anti-religious opinion. The writers of this school seem, many of them, to live under a leaden sky ; and with all their infidelity, they show that they are not at rest. It is not easy for a man to make a complete surrender of his moral nature. You may tell the Posit ivist that hiscreed would overthrow morality, and that it makes religion impossible. But he will not carry his principles to their logical conclusion. He tries to keep his religion after he has denied his God. He has cut the brightest

13420]

chkistian dogmatics. 519 [restoration of the normal relations between god and man. ,

flowers from the tree of life, and he waters tliein in the vain hope that they will continue to flourish upon the dead stick of atheism, around which he has twined them. His heart is human still, though he repress its instincts. Like the Jews, who crucified the Saviour and then cast

lots for His garments, he has stolen from the wardrobe of Christianity the only drapery which saves his doctrine from indecency. What he teaches as a substitute for the gospel is taught by the gospel itself in the only form in which it can ever be worthy of a moment's consideration. If he would worship an ideal liumii>tity he must take Christ as the object of worship ; if lie would find comfort in the idea of an immortality of perpetuated influence he must associate it with a personal immortality as well ; if he would see a typical illustration of true " altruism " he must believe in the self-sacrificing act of our Lord's atonement. But infidelity must go forward or go back. It must go back to Christ or on to despair. And when a man has discarded

the eternal hope in Christ it is not strange that he should ask if life is worth living. Paul said long ago if in this life alone we have hope in Christ we are of all men most miserable. When a man has no hope of reward and no fear of penalty in a future life it is not strange that he should see in the limb of a tree or the water of a neiL;hboiiring stream the way to speedy peace. It is the loud voice of Christianity alone that can say with effect, " Do thyself no harm." Christ or Pessimism ; the gospel of hope or the gospel of despair ; salvation or suicide — these are the alternatives placed before us in sharp antithesis by the course of current thought. ever was there more significance in the Saviour's searching question,

" Will ye also go away ? " ever more than to-day was there need of weighing well the meaning of the profound answer of His disciple, " Lord, to whom shall we go but unto Thee ' Thou only hast the words of eternal life."

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