GIFT OF,
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i
SYSTEM
OF
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY
BY
HENRY B. SMITH, D.D., LL.D.
U
EDITED BY
WILLIAM S. KARR, D.D.
Professor of Theology in Hartford Theological Seminary.
FOURTH EDITION, REVISED
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
THOMAS S. HASTINGS, D.D., LL.D.
NEW YOKE:
A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON,
1892.
COPYRIGHT, 1884,
Bv ELIZABETH L. SMITH.
COPYRIGHT, 1890,
BY ELIZABETH L. SMITH.
PUBLISHERS' PREFACE TO FOURTH EDITION.
THIS volume, so ably edited by the late PROF. WM. S. KARR,
D. D., has taken its place as a standard work on theology, not
only among Presbyterians, but in the Church .at large. The
influence of its distinguished author is still widely felt, and his
power as a theological authority is evidenced by his writings
being quoted on loth sides in recent discussions.
This new edition of Prof. Smith's Theology will be prefaced
by an introduction by his pupil and life-long friend, the REV.
DR. THOMAS S. HASTINGS, President of Union Theological Sem-
inary. The Rev. Henry Goodwin Smith has kindly undertaken
a revision of the foot-notes, the correction of some typographical
errors in the earlier editions, and the preparation of a Scriptural
Index, not in former editions.
By a special arrangement with Prof. Smith's family, this new
edition will be issued at the very low price of Two Dollars.
A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON.
April, 1890.
371540
INTRODUCTION
THIS work was prepared for the press by the late PROF. WILLIAM
S. KARR, D. D., of the Hartford Theological Seminary, by the careful
and laborious comparison of the MSS. of Dr. Smith with such notes
as could be obtained, and with a stenographic report of the Lect-
ures. It was a difficult task, for the performance of which Dr.
Karr deserves the hearty thanks of Dr. Smith's pupils and friends.
The power of this distinguished teacher is traditional in the
minds and hearts of his former pupils. They with one voice testify
that their teacher stimulated and guided their thinking as no other
professor has ever done. He had a quiet, magnetic power, which
reached and stirred all who listened to the outpouring of his mar-
vellous learning and followed those keen analyses and masterly
generalizations which seemed so natural to him as to cause him no
effort.
It was exceedingly difficult to take satisfactory notes of his Lect-
ures. One needed to get every word; for his style was not the
mere dress, but, as Carlyle would say, it was " the skin of Jus
tfwught." No other words than his own would exactly fit his
thought; and so, work as intensely as we could, we failed to secure
all we desired for preservation and use.
Professor Smith had never finished his Lectures; he was always
adding or omitting; trying new statements; presenting clearer
views. No true teacher ever finishes his Lectures until he is near-
ing the end of his career. But the end of Professor Smith's career
came too soon and too suddenly for him to leave us the full legacy
of his matured instructions.
Yet this volume has a great deal of Dr. Smith's peculiar power.
Vi INTRODUCTION.
and will be read with profound interest by those who so knew him
that they can remember him in their reading of the book.
In one regard this system of theology is unique, and so deserves,
and is likely to secure, increasing attention. It is the only Christo-
centric system which our American scholarship has given us. This
method had long been in his mind. On his twenty-first birthday
he wrote to a friend, (S My object is to make and harmonize a sys-
tem which shall make Christ the central point of all important re-
ligious truth and doctrine."
In his Inaugural Address, which produced a very deep impres-
sion at the time of its delivery (May 6, 1855), Dr. Smith said: " To
Christ as mediator all parts of theology equally refer. He is both
God and man, and also the Redeemer. The logical antecedents of
His mediation are, therefore, the doctrine respecting God, the doc-
trine respecting man, the Fall and consequent need of Redemption,
as also that Triune constitution of the Godhead, which alone, so far
:is we can conceive, makes Redemption by an Incarnation to be
possible. Thus we have the first division of the theological system,
the Antecedents of Redemption, which is also first in both theologi-
cal and historical order. Its second and central portion can only
be found in the Person and "Work of Christ, his one Person uniting
humanity with divinity, in the integrity of both natures, adapting
Him to his one superhuman work, as Prophet, Priest, and King,
making such satisfaction for sin, that God can be just and justify
every one that believeth- and this second division of the system
follows the first in both the logical and historical order, giving the
peculiar office of the Second Person of the Godhead, the Purchase
of Redemption, the Christology of theology, and in like manner the
same mediatorial idea passes over into the third and last division of
the system, which treats, in proper logical and historical order, of the
application of the redemption that is in Christ, to the Individual, to
the Church and to the History and final Supremacy of the King-dom
of God, both in time and eternity.'
This interesting and attractive outline Professor Smith followed
INTRODUCTION. vii
and filled out in his teachings, as may be seen in this volume. To
him " Christian theology is that exposition of the Christian faith, in
which all its members are referred to the mediatorial principle as
their centre of unity and bond of cohesion. To have Christ, to
have the whole of Christ, to have a whole Christ, is the soul of
our Puritan theology; the rest is foundation, defence or scaffold-
ing."
As a theologian, Professor Smith was both conservative and pro-
gressive; conservative in order to be truly progressive; progressive
in order to be truly conservative. With a thorough philosophical
training, and a very rare breadth of learning, he united a deep rev-
erence for the Scriptures which was always apparent and impres-
sive. He held to the old truths with tenacity, but believed that
clearer and more consistent statements of those truths may be
given, as we know more of the substance and of the Spirit of the
Scriptures. In an important sense he believed in the saying that '-'A
statement of religion is possible which makes all scepticism absurd."
Near the end of his life he wrote, cc What Eeformed Theology has
got to do is to Christologize predestination and decrees, regenera-
tion and sanctification, the doctrine of the Church, and the whole
of Eschatology." In his Inaugural Address he quoted Ullmann's
words: "Not fixedness nor revolution, but evolution and reform, is
the motto for our times." He said, "The theologian is to be c deep
in tlie books of God,* as the naturalist in the book of nature; both
are to divest themselves of fancy and to become interpreters. The
Science of Nature has advanced apace because its eminent explorers
have studied that kingdom with an humble and reverential spirit.
And one of the reasons, is it not so? why theology has been less
fruitful, is that we study ethics and not divinity, our own wills, and
not the will of God, and expect in Psychology to find the kingdom
f God. But the registry of God's wisdom is in His own revelation."
To the writer it is r, privilege to acknowledge his debt of grati-
tude to this truly great teacher; a debt which has been deeply felt
for more than thirty years, and which has prompted him to say of-
INTRODUCTION.
ten through these years, " No other teacher has so stimulated my
intellectual and spiritual life as has Henry B. Smith. "
One regrets that not all the readers of this volume can read it in
the light of the vivid memories of the Lecture Koom where Profes-
sor Smith wielded such a masterful influence. We are grateful for
this new edition of his Theology and for this opportunity to pay a
personal tribute to his revered memory.
THOMAS S. HASTINGS.
UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY,
April 9th, 1890.
PREFACE TO FIKST EDITION.
IN preparing this work use has been made of a
phonographic report of the larger part of Professor
Smith's lectures as they were given in the year 1857.
of several full sets of notes taken by students in other
years, of the whole of Professor Smith's sketches and
outlines of his lectures as left in manuscript, and of a
number of his unpublished sermons. 1 The result is that
the following exhibition of his views in theology is much
fuller than that which he was able to impart to any one
class during the years of lecturing to successive classes
The order of topics given in Chap. YI. of The Intro-
duction to Christian Theology is observed in this volume
with some few deviations. The author did not always
keep with strictness to the order which he had prescribed
to himself. But all the main features of the system pre-
sented in The Introduction are preserved here.
Following the two books already published, 2 this vol-
ume completes the author's statements on all the chief
questions in theology, and as care has been taken to
give not only his thought but his precise language in
1 Selections from the sermons are inserted, for the most part, in the Second
Division and at the beginning of the Third.
2 The Apologetics and The Introduction to Christian Theology.
x PREFACE.
all cases where this was practicable, it is hoped thai
the work will not be found wanting in any of the char-
acteristics which distinguish his productions. The foot-
notes are made up from materials found in Professoi
Smith's papers. In a few instances the editor has given
his own impressions as to the author's views, and has
added references to his published works.
The two sons of Professor Smith have rendered val-
uable assistance in carrying the book through the press,
and the Index has been prepared by Mrs. Smith, who
has thus added to her most attractive memoir of her
husband a summary of his chief work.
W. S. K.
HARTFOBD THEOLOGICAL SEMINABT,
March, 1884.
CONTENTS.
DIVISION FIRST.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION.
PART I.
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE RESPECTING GOD.
BOOK I THE DIVINE NATUKE AND ATTRIBUTES.
CHAP. I. THE DIVINE NATURE.
1. Can God be known ? 3
2. Can God be defined? 7
3. The Mode in which we gain our explicit Conception of the Deity. 7
* 4. Anthropomorphism and Anthropopathism 9
5. Scriptural Designations of the Divine Nature . . 10
6. Theological Definitions of the Divine Nature . . . .11
CHAP. II. THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES.
1. The Idea of the Divine Attributes 12
2. Classification of the Attributes 15
CHAP. III. THE ATTRIBUTES or GOD AS PURE ESSENCE OR BEING.
1. Self-existence 16
2. Unlimited by Space or Time 17
3. Eternity of God 17
4. The Divine Immensity and Omnipresence 20
5. The Divine Spirituality. The Divine Simplicity ... 21
6. The Divine Unity 21
CHAP. IV. ATTRIBUTES OF GOD AS THE SUPREME REASON AND UNDERSTANDING.
1. Proof that God is the most perfect Intelligence .... 23
2. Definition of Omniscience . .23
3. The Objects of the Divine Knowledge 24
4. Of Scientia Media 25
5. The Divine Prescience or Foreknowledge 26
6. The Divine Reason 28
CHAP. V. ATTRIBUTES OP THE DIVINE WILL.
1. Idea of the Divine Will 29
2. The Distinction of the Divine Will as to its' Objects ... 30
3. Other Distinctions as to the Mode of Manifestation of the Di-
vine Will 31
CHAP. VI. THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD 32
CHAP. VII. THE DIVINE HOLINESS ... r 34
Xii CONTENTS.
CJIAP VIIL THE DIVINE LOVE.
1. Definitions of Divine Love .... ... 37
| 2. Proofs of the Divine Love 37
. 3. Divisions of the Divine Love as to its Objects . . .38
4. Other Modifications of the Divine Love . .... 38
5. The Divine Benevolence &
6. Sources of Proof of the Divine Benevolence .... 40
7. Objections to the Divine Benevolence from the Existence of Evil 40
CHAP. IX. THE DIVINE VERACITY . .43
CHAP. X. THE DIVINE JUSTICE.
1. General Idea of the Justice of God ,44
2. Proofs of the Divine Justice 45
3. Distinctions in respect to the Divine Justice . . . .45
4. Why does God as a Moral Governor exercise Punitive Justice ? . 46
BOOK II. THE TBINITY, OE GOD AS KNOWN IN THE WORK OF
EEDEMPTION.
Preliminary Eemarks 48
CHAP. I. THE MANIFESTED TRINITY.
1. That God is One 50
2. That the Father is Divine and a Distinct Person ... 51
3. That the Son is Divine and a Distinct Person from the Father . 53
4. Objections to the Proof of the Divinity of Christ on the Ground
of the Arian Hypothesis 63
5. That the Holy Spirit is Divine and a Distinct Person from the
Father and the Son 65
6. The Father, Son, and Spirit, are classed together, separately
from all other Beings, as Divine 71
7. Eesult of the Biblical Evidence in respect to the Divinity of the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit 72
CBAP. II. THE ESSENTIAL TRINITY.
1. That the Distinctions of the Godhead are represented in the
Scriptures as internal 73
2. Eemarks on Sabellianism 77
3. That these Distinctions in the Godhead are appropriately desig-
nated as Personal Distinctions 79
4. The Ecclesiastical Statements as to the distinctive Characteris-
tics of the Persons 80
5. Is the Term Son used in the Scriptures in reference to Christ's
immanent Eelation to the Father? . . . - . . .83
6. How are we to conceive this Eelation as an internal one in the
Godhead? 87
PART II.
CHRISTIAN COSMOLOGY.
CHA.P. I. CBEATOE AND CREATION.
1. The Scripture represents God as the Creator of the World . . 92
2. The Scripture represents the Son of God as the Medium by
Whom the World was brought into oeing .... 92
CONTENTS. Xlll
3. God Created freely and not by necessity 92
4. Creation is not from any previously extant substance ... 92
5. The Relation of God as Creator to what He has created . . 95
6. The Scripture represents Creation as a plan and not as a De-
velopment 95
CHAP. II. Or THE CBEATED UNIVEBSE AS SET FOETH IN SCBIPTUBE . . 96
CHAP. III. OP THE DIFFEKENT OEDEBS OF CBEATED BEINGS ... 98
CHAP. IV. THE PBESEBVATION OF CEEATION.
1. Sources of Proof of the Doctrine . .102
2. The Purport of the Doctrine 102
3. Theory of continued Creation 103
4. A Modification of the Theory of continued Creation . . .104
5. The Mechanical Theory of Preservation 105
CHAP. V. DIVINE PEOVJDENCE.
1. General Statements in respect to this Doctrine . . 106
2. Proof of the Doctrine of Providence 108
3. Distinction as to general and particular Providence . . .110
4. Modes of the Divine Providence Ill
CHAP. VI. THE DECEEES OF GOD 114
1. Preliminary Statements 115
2. Of the Terms used to denote the Doctrine 117
3. Characteristics of the Divine Decree or Decrees . . . .117
4. Proof of the Doctrine of Decrees 120
5. Objections to the Doctrine of the Divine Decrees . . 122
CHAP. VII. THE END OF GOD IN CEEATION 126
1. Meaning and Statement of the Question 127
2. Conditions of the Solution of the Problem if possible . . 129
3. Statement of the Theories 130
4. The Scriptural Argument 131
5. The Supreme End of Creation is the Declarative Glory of God . 132
6. Arguments in Favor of this Position 136
7. Consideration of Objections 138
8. The Happiness Theory 140
9. The Connection between the View of the End of God in Crea-
tion and the Theory of the Nature of Virtue .... 142
10. Some historical Statements as to Theories of God's End in
Creation 143
CHAP. VEIL THE THEODICY. THE QUESTION OF THE BEST SYSTEM . . 146
1. Is Sin the necessary Means of the greatest Good? . . 147
2. Does the Nature of Free Agency account for Sin? . . . 149
3. We cannot State all the Reasons for the Permission of Sin . 153
PART III. .
CHRISTIAN ANTHROPOLOGY. THE DOCTRINE RE-
SPECTING MAN.
CHAP. L WHAT is MAN AS A MOBAL BEING? 161
1. Of Man in his most General Relations 161
2. What constitutes the Individuality of each Man? . . .163
3. Of the Union of Body and Soul in Man ..... 169
XIV CONTENTS.
4. Of the Origin of Souls (after the Creation of the first Soul) . . 166
5. OfPersonality 170
6. The primary Facts involved in all Personal Agency . . . 170
7. The Powers and Faculties of the Soul 173
8. Of the original Tendencies of Man's Soul 176
9. Of Conscience 178
10. Of Man's highest Spiritual Capacities 190
CHAP. II. WHAT is THE LAW OF GOD: WHAT DOES IT REQUIRE? . . 191
1. Some general Statements as to the Characteristics of the Law . 11-2
2. The two fundamental Objects or Ends of the Law of God . . 194
CHAP. III. THE HIGHEST GOOD 195
CHAP. IV. THE FORMAL THEORIES OF THE NATURE OF VIRTUE.
1. Virtue is acting according to the Fitness of Things . . . 198
2. Virtue is that which promotes the great End of our Being . . 199
3. Virtue is Acting in conformity with the Relations of Things . 199
4. Acting in conformity to the Will of God 200
5. Kant's Theory 203
6. Dr. Hickok's Theory 203
CHAP. V. THE HAPPINESS THEORIES 205
1. The Selfish Scheme. The Ethics of Paley 206
2. Virtue consists in the Tendency to the greatest Happiness. . 207
3. Subjective Happiness or Self-Love Scheme 210
4. General Remarks on all the Happiness Theories . . . .213
CHAP. VI. THE HOLT LOVE THEORIES 214
CHAP. VII. SOME HINTS AS TO A THEORY OF THE NATURE OF VIRTUE.
1. Preliminary Statements. . . 218
2. The Scriptural View of the Nature of True Virtue . . .220
3. Statement of the Principle of True Virtue in the abstract . . 222
4, Arguments for the Definition 225
5. Some Objections to the Theory .227
6. Statement of the general Principle of all Virtue in the concrete . 229
CHAP. VIII. OF MAN'S PERSONAL RELATIONS TO THE LAW OF GOD . . 232
CHAP. IX. OF THE SEAT OF MORAL CHARACTER. THE WILL . . . 236
1. Of the Idea of the Will 237
2. Of the Power of the Will 238
3. Of Self-Determination 239
4. Modes of the Will's Action 240
5. Of the Liberty or Freedom of the Will 242
6. Of the Will and Motives 245
CHAP. X. OF LIBERTY AND NECESSITY 250
CHAP. XI. OF THE PRIMEVAL MORAL STATE OF MAN 252
1. The Scriptures teach that there was a primitive State of Innocence 253
2. This original State is described in general Terms as the Divine
Image in Man ... 253
3. Yet this primitive State was not one of confirmed Holiness but
mutable . 255
4. On the different Interpretations of the " Divine Image " . . 255
CHAP. XII. THE DESTINATION OF MAN IF HE HAD CONTINUED IN OBEDIENCE.
THE COVENANT OF LIFE OR 01 WORKS 258
CONTENTS.
PART IV.
CHRISTIAN HAMARTOLOGY. THE DOCTRINE
RESPECTING SIN.
CHAP. I. THE FALL HISTOKICALLY VIEWED.
1. The Temptation. Is it Historical ? 2GC
2. The Features of the Temptation 261
CHAP. II. THE PENALTY. THE DEATH THREATENED FOB DISOBEDIENCE 264
1. As to Spiritual Death 265
2. Temporal Death 266
3. Eternal Death 271
CHAP. HI. THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE FALL TO THE HUMAN KACE . . 273
1. Sin as known by Experience. ....... 274
2. The universal Sinfulness of Man as testified to in Scripture . 275
3. This universal Depravity is set forth in the Scriptures as total,
i. e., as affecting the whole Man 276
4. This depraved State is native to Man 277
CHAP. IV. ORIGINAL SIN 283
1. General Statements 286
2. The Facts of the Case, in respect to Original Sin, as given in
Scripture 291
* 3. The Facts of the Case as to Original Sin, as argued from Experi-
ence, and on other than Scriptural Grounds 297
CHAT. V. THE COUNTER KEPRESENTATION AS TO SIN AND ITS PUNISHMENT
IN SCRIPTURE AND EXPERIENCE 302
CHAP. VI. THE THEORIES PROPOSED FOR THE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM.
1. The Theory of Immediate Imputation 304
2. The Theory of Direct Divine Efficiency, in the way of a Constitution 308
3. The Hypothesis of Physical Depravity 309
4. The Pelagian and Unitarian View 312
5. The Hypothesis of Pre-existence 313
CHAP. VII. OF SO-CALLED MEDIATE IMPUTATION 314
CHAP. VIII. OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN . . . 323
CHAP. IX. OF THE BONDAGE OF SIN, ITS POWEB OVER THE HUMAN WILL . 326
1. Preliminary Definitions 327
2. The Power to the Contrary 329
3. The positive Statements as to the Relation of Natural Ability
and Moral Inability . . 331
Xvi CONTENTS.
DIVISION SECOND.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. THE PEES ON
AND WORK OF CHRIST.
PART I.
OF THE INCARNATION IN ITS GENERAL
NATURE AND OBJECTS.
CHAP. I. WHAT is PRESUPPOSED IN THE INCARNATION.
1. Of the Incarnation in Relation to Sin 343
2. Such a Constitution of the Divine Nature as made an Incarnation
possible 359
CHAP. II. THE INCARNATION PRIMARILY FACT AND NOT DOCTRINE . . 353
CHAP. III. THE FACT OP THE INCARNATION IN RELATION TO MAN'S MORAL
WANTS.
1. It presents us with the Life of a perfect Man as a Model for
Imitation, and so meets Need 354
2. The Relation of the Incarnation to Human Wants is seen in its
giving to Man the most direct Access to, and Communion
with, God 358
3. Incarnation in order to Redemption 300
CHAP. IV. How FAE MAY AN INCARNATION BE SAID TO BE NECESSARY ON THE
PART OF GOD? 362
CHAP. V. THE INCARNATION IN HISTORY 369
CHAP. YL OF THE INCARNATION AS CONNECTED WITH THE WHOLE OF THE
THEOLOGICAL SYSTEM, AND AS VIEWED BY DIFFERENT PARTIES . 369
CHAP. VII. OF THE INCARNATION ON PHILOSOPHICAL GROUNDS . . . 373
1. As to the Philosophy of Christianity 373
2. In the Incarnation we have the Means of adjusting the conflict
between Christianity and Philosophy 374
Ckdp. VIII. COMPARISON OF THE INCARNATION WITH SOME OTHEB FACTS AS
GIVING THE CENTRAL IDEAS OF THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM. . . 377
CHAP. IX. OF THE INCARNATION AS THE UNFOLDING OF THE POSSIBILITIES
OF HUMAN NATURE. THE SECOND ADAM , 379
PART II.
OF THE PERSON OF THE MEDIATOR. THE SON OF GOD
MANIFEST IN THE FLESH. THE GOD-MAN.
CHAP I. ~~THE SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS RESPECTING THE PERSON OF THE
GOD-MAN 3gg
1. The general Impression of the Declarations of Scripture on this
Point 386
2. The Proof from Scripture of Christ's Divinity .... 337
CONTENTS. XV11
3. The Miraculous Conception 389
4. In the Miraculous Conception the Logos assumed a true and
complete Humanity 392
5. In the Scriptures both the Divine and Human Natures of Christ
are often brought under one View 393
6. The various Modes in which what is said of Christ in the Script-
ures is to be interpreted in respect to his Person and Natures 393
7. According to the Scriptures, Christ was one Person, and his Per-
sonality was from his Divine Nature 394
8. Summary and Conclusions from Scripture Testimony as to the
Two Natures and One Person 395
CHAP. II. THE EAELY HEEETICAL OPINIONS AS TO THE PEESON OP CHEIST. 396
CHAP. III. LATEB DOCTEINAL DIFFEEENCES BEOUGHT UP IN THE CONTEO-
VEESIES OF THE KEFOEMATION 397
CHAP. IV. THE OBJECTIONS AND DIFFICULTIES UEGED AGAINST THE Doc-
TEINE OF THE PEESON OF CHEIST 399
CHAP. V. THE ENTIRE RESULT AS TO THE PEESON OF OUB LOSD. . . 421
PART III.
THE WORK OF THE MEDIATOR.
CHAP. I. PEELIMINAET STATEMENTS.
1. The General Object of Christ's Coming 430
2. Munus Triplex. Christ's Offices as Prophet, Priest, and King . 431
CHAP. II. OF CHEIST'S WOEK AS THE ONLY TEUE PEIEST. OF ATONEMENT
AND THE NECESSITY FOB ATONEMENT 437
CHAP. III. OF THE LEADING SCEIPTUEAL REPBESENTATION OF THE ATONING
WOEK OF CHEIST THAT IT is A SACEIFICE 442
1. The System of Sacrifices prevalent in the Pagan World . . 443
2. In the Old Testament we find the same essential Elements as in
the heathen Sacrifices 445
3. Another Argument for the same Position is derived from the
Old Testament Prophecies of Christ 447
4. The New Testament Descriptions of the Sufferings and Death of
Christ repeat the same Ideas, give us in more strict Form
of Assertion the same Elements , 448
5. Consideration of Objections i53
CHAP. IV. ANALYSIS OF THE SCEIPTUBAL STATEMENTS AS TO CHEIST'S SUF-
FEEINGS AND DEATH 461
CHAP. V. THE THEOEY OF THE ATONEMENT . . . . . 464
1. Theories which define the Atonement ultimately by its Influence
on Man, in bringing to a New Life 464
2. Theories which put the Essence of the Atonement in Satisfaction
to Distributive Justice 466
3. Theories which assert that the Atonement consists in the Satis-
faction of General Justice 469
4. The Atonement, while it indirectly satisfies Distributive Justice,
does not consist in this: it consists in satisfying the demands
of Public Justice 470
XVlii CONTENTS.
CHAP. VI. THE EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT.
1. Statement of the Question . 478
2. Proof of General Atonement 479
3. Objections to General Atonement 480
CHAP VII. THE INTERCESSION OF CHRIST . . . .481
DIVISION THIRD.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
iNinODUCTORY REMARKS 491
PART I.
THE UNION BETWEEN CHRIST AND THE INDIVIDUAL
BELIEVER, AS EFFECTED BY THE HO^Y SPIRIT.
BOOK I. PREDESTINATION, ELECTION, THE EFFECTUAL CALL.
CHAP. I. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS 502
CHAP. II. ELECTION AND REPROBATION.
1. Statement of the Scriptural Doctrine of Election . . .605
2. Reprobation 508
3. Objections to the Doctrine of Predestination .... 509
CHAP, m. THE GOSPEL CALL.
1. Of the External Call ......... 515
2. The Internal Call 516
3. Under this General Statement, some Questions and Difficulties
are raised 516
BOOK II. OF JUSTIFICATION.
CHAP. I. PBF.TJTVTTNARY CONSIDERATIONS 522
CHAP. II. OF THE TERM AND IDEA: JUSTIFY JUSTIFICATION; THE GENERAL
AND SCRIPTURAL SENSE 526
CHAP. III. JUSTIFICATION INVOLVES A RIGHTEOUSNESS AS ITS GROUND . . 528
CHAP. IV. PERSONAL RIGHTEOUSNESS 528
CHAP. V. THE GROUND OF JUSTIFICATION 529
1. Statements of Scripture as to the Ground of Justification . . 530
2. How Christ can be the Ground of our Justification ... . 531
3. In what Way does what Christ has done avail to the Believer
through this Union, for his Justification as a Right-
eousness? 538
CHAP. VI. THE INSTRUMENTAL CAUSE OF JUSTIFICATION.
1. Faith, and Faith alone 539
2. The Idea of Faith . ,540
^. 3. Some questions in regard to Faith . . . . -541
CONTENTS. XIX
4. Is Man responsible for his Belief i. e., for his Unbelief? . . 543
5. Why is the High Office assigned to Faith of being the Instru-
mental Cause of Justification ? 544
CHAP. VIE. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE ROMAN CATHOUC AND PROTESTANT
VIEWS OF JUSTIFICATION 54ft
CHAP. Vin. HISTORICAL STATEMENTS RESPECTING THE DIFFEBENT THEORIES OF
JUSTIFICATION 548
CHAI. IX. OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION ... 551
BOOK IIL-REGENERATION AND REPENTANCE.
CHAP. I. INTRODUCTORY STATEMENTS.
1. The Doctrine as held in some of the different Systems . . 553
2. Of the Terms employed 557
3. Connection of the Doctrine of Regeneration with other Truths . 559
CHAP. II. THE NECESSITY OF REGENERATION , 560
CHAP. in. THE SUBJECTIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF REGENERATION . . . 560
CHAP. IV. THE AUTHOR OF REGENERATION 563
CHAP. V. How DOES THE SPHOT REGENERATE THE SOUL? .... 564
CHAP, VI. THE MEANS OF REGENERATION.
1. External Providential Means 566
2. Acts of the Sinner as among the Means 566
3. Of the Truth as a means of Regeneration 568
CHAP. VII. THE EXHORTATION: MAKE TO YOURSELF A NEW HEART. . . 569
CHAP. VHI. THE CONSCIOUS PROCESSES OF THE SOUL IN REGENERATION . . 570
CHAP. IX. REPENTANCE 572
1. Some general Statements of the Protestant View . . . . 573
2. Repentance should be immediate 574
3. Some special Works and Signs of Repentance .... 574
BOOK IV. SANCTIFICATION AND PERFECTION.
CHAP. I. SANCTIFICATION.
1. The nature of Sanctification according to the Scriptures . . 575
2. The Difference between Justification, Regeneration, and Sancti-
fication 576
3. Of Good Works and Sanctification 576
4. The Means of Sanctification 577
CHAP. II. PERFECTIONISM 579
1. The older Theories 580
2. The modern View of Perfectionism 581
("HAP. m. PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS 85
1. Arguments in favor of the Doctrine 586
2. Explanations of the Doctrine 586
3. Objections to the Doctrine 587
PART II.
THE UNION BETWEEN CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH.
1. Of the fundamental and germinant Idea of the Church of the
Lord Jesus Christ ... 590
2. Of the Nature of the Church as seen in the Light of this radical
and central Idea 59]
XX CONTENTS.
PART III.
THE CONSUMMATION OF THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION
IN TIME AND ETERNITY. THE ESCHATOLOGY.
CHAP. I. OP DEATH AND IMMOKTALITY.
1. Death 698
2. Of Immortality 598
3. Annihilation 600
4. Objections to Immortality 601
CHAP. II. OF THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 602
1. Historic Facts as to the Doctrine 603
2. PROPOSITION. There is no sufficient Scriptural warrant for such
an Intermediate State as described 604
3. Of Purgatory 606
4. The Sleep of Souls 606
CHAP, m. THE SECOND ADVENT 608
CHAP. IV. RESURRECTION OF THE BODY 610
CHAP. V. THE LAST JUDGMENT 612
CHAP. VI. THE AWARDS OF THE LAST DAY 613
1. The Scriptural Testimony as to Endless Punishment . . . 614
2. Objections to the Doctrine of Endless Punishment . . .617
3. Of the Restitution of aU Things 618
4. Position and Relations of the Doctrine of Future Punishment . 620
6. The Award of Eternal Blessedness to the Righteous . . . 620
DIVISION FIRST.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION.
PART I.
THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE RESPECTING GOD.
BOOK I., THE DIVINE NATURE AND ATTRIBUTES; BOOK //., THE TRINITY.]
BOOK I.
THE DIVINE NATURE AND ATTRIBUTES.
CHAPTER I.
THE DIVINE NATURE.
IN Natural Theology 1 we have considered the Being of
God as the infinite, absolute, personal Spirit, the ground and
cause of all that exists. We are now to consider more fully,
adding the Scriptural proof, the Divine Nature.
1. Can God be knoivn?
The difficulty on this point as it has been discussed, is
this: God is an infinite and absolute being; man, on the other
hand, is a limited and finite being, of course limited in his
power of knowledge. How then can this finite and limited
being know the infinite and absolute being? The terms are
incommensurable. The whole diameter of being lies between
the Creator and the creature. There appears to be no common
measure. On the other hand, if God cannot be known, all
our idea of Him would be simply equal to zero. It would be
an abstract notion without any life. Consequently, both in
philosophy and in theology, in heathenism and in Christian-
ity, we have a variety of speculations and statements, ranging
from utter skepticism to the height of faith, from the assertion
of the absolute impossibility of knowledge to the claim of
absolute knowledge.
1 [See "Apologetics," p. 85, aud "Introduction to Christian Theology," p. 84.]
4 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
CLASSIFICATION OF THESE DIFFERENT POSITIONS.
1. The philosophical positions. These are chiefly four:
(a.) Many philosophers and schools of philosophy take the
position that God in himself cannot be known at all. This
is illustrated in Plato's well-known saying (Tiraaeus): "that
to find the center and father of all is difficult, and if found it
is impossible to talk to all about Him, for He is the highest
good, having no essence or existence, but ranging beyond all
essence and existence in his worth and power." So Philo
says: "God is without any qualities, and we can only ascribe
to Him pure being without attributes." This is everywhere
the tone of thought in the New Platonic School. Among
modern philosophers, Kant teaches that it is impossible for
the intellect, "the pure reason," to know God. What we
come at under the guidance of reason is a series of contradic-
tions, and what we can know about God is attained not by
the pure, but by the practical, reason, by the urgency of our
moral wants. Yet these very statements imply some degree
of knowledge * that He is, if not what He is.
(6.) The same position is held by many skeptical philoso-
phers, with whom it takes the form of a denial of all piety
and of all religion. The highest speculative minds, however,
while denying that God can be properly "known," have as-
serted that our moral nature aspires to Him.
(c.) God can be known fully and really, but only in the
way of mystic contemplation, not in any proper knowledge
through the intellect, but only in a knowledge through feel-
ing and devotion. This is an opinion of the ancient school
of mystics and also of the modern school.
(d.) Counter to all these is the position that God can be
absolutely known by the intellect. This is the pantheistic
theory, especially as advocated by Spinoza and Hegel. We
can know God purely and completely because we are a part
of Him. To have the idea of Him is to know Him, and we
could not know Him unless we were a part of Him.
2. Positions held in the Church. We have the same general
1 [See "Apologetics, "p. 35.]
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 5
positions as before, modified by the acceptance of the Christian
revelation.
(a.) There are those who assert that God can be fully
known as we know logic and mathematics. Thus the Arians,
in their discussions on the Trinity, claimed that God could be
known, and so fully known as to justify the assertion that there
could not be any pluri-personality in Him, that He must exist
as a single, individual mind.
(b.) Others have asserted that God is utterly incompre-
hensible in himself, that He is above all names. No term
can name Him. If we give a name we cannot affix to it
any definite conception.
(c.) There is also the position that in this life and with the
mere understanding God cannot be known, and that He cannot
be known by the wicked, those who are alienated from Him by
wicked works; but that He may be known so far as He is re-
vealed in Christ, and through this revelation we may attain to
a knowledge of Him sufficient for our devotion and direction,
but not sufficient to fill up the idea of God. 1
3. The Scriptural assertions and statements. Exodus xxxiii. :
the scene in which God appears to Moses. " Show me thy
glory," etc. The sense of this gives a key to the whole Scrip-
tural revelation of God. We cannot know God face to face, but
we can track Him (Exodus xxxiii. 23) by his revelations.
He cannot be known fully by man : Job xi. 7 ; Matt. xi. 25 ;
Rom. xi. 34; 1 Tim. vi. 16. These Scriptural representations
show us that there is in God that which is to the human intel-
lect incomprehensible and unfathomable.
On the other hand we have statements which show that
some knowledge can be had by man: Matt. v. 8; xi. 27; 1 Cor.
xiii. 12 ; Rev. xxii. 4. Particularly do the Scriptures assert that
God is known in Christ, as in John xvii. 26. The word name
here, as frequently, stands for the nature of God.
1 See, in Cudworth's "Intel. Syst.," an admirable discussion of the atheistic
positions. Also, Berkeley's "Minute Philosopher." "The Divine Analogy,'
by Bishop Brown, an opponent of Berkeley, inclines to the position that we
must have a revelation in ordei 1 to gain any knowledge 6f Gocl.
6 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
From these passages of Scripture and from the nature of the
case the following results may be obtained
(a.) There is a great difference between the assertion that
we can know God without a revelation of Him and that we can
know Him through the illuminating influence upon the soul of
the Divine Spirit. The finite cannot of itself attain to the in-
finite. If the finite and the infinite were all and there were no
communication between them, the finite could not know the in-
finite. It is only as the infinite being reveals himself that the
finite can know the infinite at all. Otherwise the terms are
incommensurable.
(&.) It likewise results that God, in his interior essence,
cannot be known or fathomed by man. We can know that
He is; we cannot know fully what He is. We can know
that there must be an infinite Being, the source and ground
of all else ; we can know that He must be unlimited in all his
attributes, but all that is included in his attributes we can-
not comprehend, still less can we grasp the essence on which
they are based.
(c.) It results, that God, in his moral nature, cannot be
fully known by the wicked, because they are opposed to Him,
and only the loving can know love.
(d.) It also results, that God, in his moral nature, may be
known by the pure and holy, in proportion to their holiness,
their sanctification. In his light we see light ; in proportion as
we become conformed to his image we know Him. This posi-
tion is strikingly illustrated in Christian experience in all ages,
in an Augustine and Edwards sometimes to such an extent that
an enrapturing sense and vision of Deity fills the soul.
(e.) It results, that God, in all his fulness of wisdom, love,
and grace, is known and can be known only through Christ,
only as we know Christ. He is "the Way" of knowledge as
well as of redemption. Through Him we attain intellectual
views of God as well as knowledge of the divine mercy. So
that in one sense we go through Christdogy to Theology, in the
way of knowing.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 7
2. Can God le defined?
If by definition we mean a complete view, so that the sub-
ject can be properly grasped, so that we can understand, and,
so to speak, exhaust it, we must all say that we cannot give a
definition of Deity. In this sense to define God would be to
circumscribe Hirn. But the word definition is used in other
senses. There are two chief senses in which we may answer
the question in the affirmative. (1) An enumeration of the
essential attributes or predicates of any being, substance, or
thing. (2) The logical definition, which consists in giving the
genus and differentia of any subject. In both these cases, \ve
may attain at least to a proximate apprehension of what God is.
We can enumerate the essential attributes as in the definition
of the Shorter Catechism. Or, we can use the other method,
the generic idea being spirit, and the differentia an enumeration
of the attributes of spirit by which He is distinguished from
other spiritual beings. God is a spirit, who is infinite, abso-
lute, and perfect in all his attributes. In either of these senses
we may be said to give a definition of Deity.
3. The Mode in which ive gain our explicit Conception of
Deity.
There are here two chief modes found in systems of theology.
(1) It is said that we can form an explicit conception of God,
simply by an analogy of human nature. (2) The general Cal-
vinistic position is that we form our explicit conception of Deity
fiom the analysis of the idea of a perfect being.
Some Statements on loth these Points.
1. Is it true that all we can know of the divine nature is
from the analogy of human nature? 1 It is sometimes said that
our whole idea of God is derived, not from the human spirit,
but from the analogy of the human spirit's operations; that we
take the human mind which we know by consciousness, and
then simply extend the powers and operations of which we are
conscious and thus form our idea of God; that this is the way
1 This position has been discussed and defended by Dr. E. Beechor in "Bib. Sac.'
8 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
ill which the idea of God comes up in the human mind; in
short, that God is an infinite man in our conception of Him
In regard to this,
(a.) Man is made in the divine image, according to the Scrip-
tural representations, as to his essence, his spiritual being, yet
he is put under the limitations of time and space. He is made
in the divine image morally and also in his spiritual nature and
capabilities.
(6.) We cannot help transferring to God the essential attri-
butes of spirit as we find them in ourselves. This is a neces-
sity of the mind as soon as we come to think about God. We
know these attributes first consciously from our own spirits.
Yet,
(c.) We do this and can do it and are warranted in doing it
only under one condition, that of conceiving these attributes
in God as perfect, as unlimited, saying that they are freed from
all possible limitations of time and space by which we are con-
fined. It is only on this condition of extending every attri-
bute to infinity that we can make the transfer. Consequently,
besides the analogy of a human spirit, we must have the idea of an in-
finite and perfect being, in order that we may make the transfer.
The analogy would be false and fatal unless in making it we
everywhere extended to infinity and absoluteness every attri-
bute. That we have this idea of God as "native" to us is
shown in Natural Theology. 1
(d.) So God is not only like man but He is absolutely differ-
ent from man, because He is an infinite and perfect Being, and
in forming our conception of Deity we have to take these char-
acteristics and add them to the analogy.
2. The other mode of gaming our explicit conception of
Deity, the analysis of the idea of a perfect Being. The older
theology says there are three ways in which we do this: the
way of Negation, of Causality, and of Eminence. By the way
of Negation is meant, removing all imperfection, denying to
God any limits or imperfections. By the way of Causality is
meant, that what is found in the manifestation or revelation in
. 76.]
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 9
the creation, we ascribe to God as the cause, and we ascribe to
Him those attributes which are needed to produce the effec ts in
creation. By the way of Eminence is meant, that we ascribe
to God in an eminent sense whatever of excellence is in the
creature. He has the necessary attributes of spirit, but in an
eminent degree. Each of these three ways is to be applied to
all the attributes.
4. Anthropomorphism and Anthropopathism. Ascribing to
God the form or the passions of man.
This has been done not only by heathen, but by some who
have had a light of divine revelation, as the Alexandrian Jewa
in the time of Philo; Tertullian, in the reaction from the purely
ideal speculations of his time; Swedenborg, who says that God
exists or is in the form of a man. The tendency of all rude
nations is to imagine God as having some definite form and as
having passions kindred to human infirmity.
Eemarks.
1. All idolatry wherever found comes from the impulse to
make an image of God and worship Him as such. The image is
first made in the mind, and then carved in wood or stone. The
idolatry begins in the soul, it is expressed externally and thus
we have polytheism. This is one extreme, that of superstition.
The image is made and worshiped and does not lead to any-
thing beyond.
2. The other extreme is the thought of God as wholly out
of relation with what is human and finite, an abstract deity.
This is irreligion. This is the essence of the Deistic conception,
of God. He is supposed to be so distant that we cannot be
brought into any relation with Him. Any feeling in Him, it
is said, would be an imperfection. The constant tendency of
the highly speculative, cold intellect is to this view a God
without feeling.
3. In the Christian system there is an intermediate view.
It sets forth that man was made in the divine image, and hence
10 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
there must be some analogy between God and man, hence there
may be symbols, and in our souls we may find something of
God. 1 In the doctrine of the Incarnation, we have the contra-
dictions between these two extremes, idolatry and deism, solved
in a higher light. God comes in the form of man, and thus we
are justified in attributing to Him human sympathy and love.
The Christian faith is thus intermediate between heathenism
and deism, in the sense that it exhibits in perfection that which
these have felt after, God's nearness to man and his infinite
majesty.
5. Scriptural designations of the Divine Nature.
In the Scriptures we have a great variety of divine names.'
They are divided as essential, attributive, and names of the
modes in which God works, (a.) The essential names are
Jehovah and Elohim. Jehovah is put in the front rank, it was
to the Jew the ineffable name. The word is from the Hebrew
verb "to be," it designates the pure being of God. Elohirn
has a more general sense. The relation in which these words
fetand to each other has been very much discussed. It appears
to be proved that in the main Elohim is used of God in his
most general characteristics and relations, while Jehovah sets
Him forth as the covenant God, the God of his people, the God
who manifests himself. This usage can undoubtedly be traced
in many parts of the Scriptures. Another discussion was started
some years ago in a work entitled Yah-veh, which urges that
the name, as restored to this, its proper form, does not signify
the covenant Deity and the pure being of God, but rather
" He who is to be," as referring to the future manifestation of
Deity in the Pexson of Christ. The objections are: that even
if the word have the future form, it would not necessarily have
a future sense. " Jacob " has the future form, but it means, he
supplants, and not, he will supplant. Still further, there is an
1 Thus in the Old Testament we have representations of God derived from
human emotions, as when it is said, " God was angry," "It repented Him of what
He had done." So too the form of God is represented as passing before Moses.
2 See Hsvernick's "Introd. to Old Testament," and Hengstenberg's "Au-
thenticity." etc.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 11
mappropriateness in representing God as revealing himself as
on^ who is to be, merely. The proper revelation in the first
stadium would be that of God himself. (6.) The attributive
designations of God are those which describe Him- by certain
attributes, as The Almighty, etc. (c.) Those which designate
Him in relation to his works are such as The Most High, The
King, The Lord of Hosts, The Father of all.
6. Theological Definitions of the Divine Nature.
The definition of God in the Shorter Catechism is one of the
best, considered as a definition from enumeration of the essential
attributes. It includes the attributes and the qualities of those
attributes. First, He is a Spirit, then, infinite, eternal, and un-
changeable, and then these attributes cover all the essential
qualities of being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness,
and truth. The highest definition in Pagan antiquity is that
of Plato: " God is the eternal mind, the cause of good in nature."
Calvin's definition, (and Luther's, nearly the same): "God is an
infinite and spiritual essence." This is representative of a class.
In the 16th century the Pantheistic discussion had not sprung
up. It would do very well then to describe Deity as an infinite
and spiritual essence, but it would not do now. In order to
save Theism, besides such abstract statements, we must intro-
duce terms which include the personality of God. Another
definition very orthodox in its time is that of Wolff: " God is
a self-existent being in whom is the ground of the reality of the
world. " This, if given now, would at once be called pantheis-
tic. In most of the modern definitions the personality is insisted
upon. Hase's is a good specimen: "God is the absolute per-
sonality who out of free love is the cause of the universe."
Hegel's: "God is the absolute spirit," in the mouth of a Chris-
tain would mean, a self-conscious spirit, but with Hegel it meant
a spirit without consciousness until it becomes conscious in the
reason and thoughts of mankind.
A definition intended to combine the different attributes and
to ward off Pantheism: "God is a Spirit, absolute, personal, and
holy, infinite and eternal in his being and attributes, the ground
12 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
I and cause of the universe." In this definition the following
points may be noted: (1) Spirit, which gives the generic idea,
in contrast with what is material; (2) Absolute, free from re-
strictions, not dependent on anything, complete in himself; (3)
I Personal, to emphasize that characteristic as essential to Deity,
(4) Holiness, that holiness which is the sum of his moral perfec-
tions, is essential to Him; (5) Infinite and eternal, i. e., his being
and attributes are not to be limited by any restraints of time and
space; (6) The ground and cause of the universe. The reason
of adding this phrase is the fact that as we know God we know
Him in part through the universe, ascribing to Him as the cause
\ whatever is found in the universe as an effect.
CHAPTER II.
THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES.
1. The Idea of the Divine Attributes.
In a large sense an attribute may be said to be any concep-
tion which is necessary to the explicit idea of God, any distinc-
tive conception which cannot be resolved into any other. We
start from the position that there is a divine substance, or es-
sence; and an attribute, in distinction from the substance, is any
necessary predicate that can be applied to this essence. The
term attribute covers all the generic statements that we can
make about God, in respect both to what He is and to his mode
of working. Thus the unity of God, though inhering in the
essence, is said to be an attribute. God's spirituality is also said
to be an attribute, although spirituality belongs to his very es-
sence or nature. Some of the definitions of attribute found in
systems of divinity show that it is used in as broad a sense as
this, e. </., " Attribute is a quality by which anything is distin-
guished from any other thing;" "The attributes are the single
elements (momenta) of the idea of God " (Hahn). In other words
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION 13
attributes are defined as the modes under which we are obliged
to conceive of the divine essence, making the attributes simply
subjective. Schleiermacher, carrying this to the extreme, says:
"The attributes are simply individual relations of the divine
perfections, which we conceive of in the fluctuations or changes
of our pious feelings." Hegel in common with all pantheists
says that the attributes of God are simply our subjective concep-
tions of God. There is in the divine nature nothing correspond-
ing to them. This suggests the question, the most important one
in respect to the attributes, whether there is a real distinction
of the attributes in God himself or whether the differences are
nominal, related merely to our conceptions. Here comes up the
old controversy between the Realists and the Nominalists. The
Realist said that in. the divine nature there were proper distinc-
tions, and the Nominalist that these were merely subjective
names for Deity. In respect to this question we remark :
1. The divine attributes do not imply any real distinction
in God in this sense, that God is a being composed or made up
of distinct attributes. There is no distinction in the sense of
composition of parts to make a whole. This can be applied only
to a material organization.
2. What we call the attributes expresses our necessary
conceptions of God, our analysis of the idea of God, of the most
perfect being, and they are the necessary analysis of this idea.
This analysis may be imperfect owing to our finiteness. It may
include altogether too little; at the same time, it is a necessary
analysis. We cannot do otherwise than make it. Otherwise
the idea of God is a blank. To hold that the ideas exist merely
subjectively in our minds would annul the very idea of a per-
sonal God. We cannot conceive of God except as active.
3. The attributes express real distinctions in God so far as
this: that no one of them can be resolved into any other, and
also so far as this, that all of them cannot be resolved into one
idea or one fact about God, except the fact or idea that God
is the most perfect being. Take the attributes of love and
of omnipotence; you cannot resolve love into power, or power
into love. You cannot deduce one from the other. So you
14 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
cannot resolve immensity into justice or derive justice from
immensity.
4. The attributes describe in part what is essential to God
in pure being or existence, and in part what belongs to Him as
an active being. Yet,
5. It should ever be held fast that all the attributes are to
be taken simply as modes of the being and action of one simple,
perfect, spiritual essence. The essence and attributes are not
separable. The attributes express the essence, the essence is
the ground of the attributes. It is one simple spiritual essence
in these different modes.
6. The attributes of God must differ from those of man at
least so far as this: In man the faculties or powers act imper-
fectly, owing to the human finiteness ; in God the activity of all
the attributes must always concur, there must be a perfect har-
mony of working of all the attributes. Schleiermacher makes
an objection to the whole doctrine of the Divine Attributes on
this ground, that these imply limitation, and if so they cannot
belong to God, and therefore cannot express anything real in
God. As to this we say: (a.) What is meant by the attributes
is this: certain modes of being or activity of an infinite being.
But an infinite being may be infinite in a variety of modes. There
is nothing in the nature of infinitude which contradicts the idea
that it may be in a variety of modes, and express itself in a va-
riety of ways, and if we say the attribute is a simple mode of
being or acting, there is nothing in the nature of infinitude which
prevents it. Even Spinoza said that of the infinite substance
there were two modes, thought and extension, and one of his
propositions is that there may be many others even in an in-
finite variety. There may be an infinitude of power and also of
love, and one does not limit the other, because each of them is
infinite. (&.) The view of Schleiermacher involves essentially
the position that an infinite substance cannot act under finite
modes, because it would be limited. This however is contrary
even to the pantheistic theory, which claims that the one infinite
substance does act or express itself under finite modes and a
variety of them. An infinite being need not always act for an
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 15
infinite object or end. It may express itself in the finite. Space
and time, for example, are boundless, but there is also a limited
space and a limited time, and these do not exclude the infinitude
of space and time. Then that which is infinite may exist in
finite modes; therefore it may be true in respect to God that He
can act under finite modes, (c.) The position of Schleiermacher
amounts to this, that in God there cannot be any distinctions at
all, or, in other words, we cannot say anything about God. In
respect to Him we cannot have a subject and a predicate to-
gether. God is a mere It, blank, vacancy, ultimately zero.
With a similar statement Hegel starts, viz., that being and noth-
ing are the same, i. e., being is wholly without distinctions, so
that we can say anything about it, and therefore it is the same
as nothing.
Concluding definition of a divine attribute : Any simple con-
ception necessary to our analysis of the idea of God, whether in
his mode of being or acting.
2. Classification of the Attributes.
Various classifications have been proposed. One of the most
current is the distinction of the natural and moral attributes:
the natural, meaning the attributes of God in reference to and
in contrast with nature ; the moral, the attributes of God as our
moral governor. (It is not meant, as sometimes interpreted,
that the moral attributes are not native to God.) Sometimes
the distinction is into moral and metaphysical attributes, the
term metaphysical meaning, beyond the sphere of the physical
Another famous distinction is, the immanent and the transeunt,
the former relating to God as He is in himself, internal, quies-
cent; the latter, as He is revealed in nature, the attributes in
which his energies pass over into the external world. Another
distinction is into negative and positive: negative, by which cer-
tain limitations are denied; positive, by which certain perfec-
tions are expressed. Another: communicable and Incommunicable:
those which can be and those which cannot be imparted.
All these modes are liable to the objection that we have to
bring in the same attributes under both divisions. Every attri-
16 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
bute can be both negative and positive, every one must be both
immanent and transeunt, every one must partake of the quali-
ties of natural and moral. Accordingly, there have been vari-
ous attempts to depart from this merely formal mode and to
describe or classify the attributes more from the analogy of
man; e. g., Hase and Hahn have a fourfold classification: attri-
butes expressive of the divine essence, those pertaining to the
divine understanding, to the divine feeling, the divine will.
Undoubtedly there is a degree of truth in this. 1
It is proposed to consider the divine attributes here under
the following general scheme: (1) Of God, as an infinite and
spiritual essence, or as pure being, not considered as in action ;
(2) The attributes of God as the supreme reason or understand-
ing ; (3) The attributes of God as moral, as holy.
CHAPTER III.
THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD AS PURE ESSENCE OR BEING.
Strictly speaking, perhaps these would not be attributes, but
they are generally classed as such. They might have been
considered under the head of the divine nature, because they
are different aspects of the divine substance.
1. Self-existence.*
This is expressed in barbarous Latin as " aseitas" and also
in the phrase "causa sui" "cause of himself." We could not
* Dr. Breckinridge has a peculiar classification, fivefold: The primary, essen-
tial, natural, moral, and consummate. In this arrangement it is difficult to see
where a distinction can be made between the primary, the essential, and the
natural. What is primary must be essential, what is essential must be primary,
and what is natural must be both essential and primary. The consummate attri-
butes express merely the harmony of the attributes, they are not distinct attributes,
but modes in which these exist: fulness of life, majesty, all-sufficiency, and omnip-
otence. Omnipotence is certainly a primary, natural, essential attribute.
2 See Sam. Clarke's " Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God " foi
ui ingenious argument upon this.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 17
now say this in our sense of the word "cause," which implies a
priority in time of the cause to the effect. But in the old clas-
sical sense it meant also the ground of being, that God has the
ground of his being in himself. In other words, God is himself
an absolute being, self-existent and complete in and of himself,
not dependent on any other being. The proof of this attribute
is not deduction, but an analysis of the idea of being. When we
come to reflect upon being, as in Clark's demonstration: "Some-
thing is, something must always have been, and if something has
always been, it must have been self-existent," we find that we are
employing, not demonstration or deduction, but analysis. This
idea of self-existence is expressed in the word "Jehovah," in
the assertion that " the Father hath life in himself" (John v.
26), in the declaration that God is independent of all other
beings (Isaiah xl.); Ps. cxiv. is also a description of the same.
2. Unlimited by Space or Time.
God is unconditioned and unlimited by space or time. This
is defining God in contrast with the finite. The infinitude of
God has in it two elements. We define it negatively by deny-
ing that the attributes of the finite apply to it, and positively by
describing God's being and modes of being. The limitations
of the finite being comprehended in the two particulars of time
and space, the infinitude of God may be resolved into two points,
which are defined and described as two attributes, eternity and
immensity.
By the very necessity of our thinking we are obliged to
conceive of all that is finite under the limitations of space and
time. We cannot define anything except in reference to space
and time.
3. Eternity of God.
1. The eternity is a necessary inference from the necessary
existence. It implies, on the one hand, a negation of the limits
of time, and positively, a mode of the being of God in relation
to time. One of the old definitions of eternity is : the attribute
by which God is freed from all the successions of time and
18 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
contains in himself the ground or reason of time. Another
definition 1 is: God is the eternal Now. It is paradoxical, but
that heightens its force. He is present in all time, as though
all time were to Him a now. As far as his knowledge of time
goes, it is as if past, present, and future time were before Him.
Eternity has been defined by the Scholastics as unicum instans,
semper presens et subsistens.
2. The popular definitions. God exists in the past, present,
and future, and this is eternity. Or, that attribute by which
God neither begins nor ceases to be. The phrase, God existing
in past, present, and future, must be understood with some re-
strictions. God cannot exist in time. If He could, or did, He
would be limited by time. The expression is popular, not
scientific. The Scripture passages which describe God's eternity
are more in the popular than in the scientific sense. Job xxxvi.
26, "The number of his years cannot be searched out;" 2 Pet.
iii. 8; Isa. xli. 4; Ps. xc. ; Eom. i. 20.
3. Of the relation of Time and Eternity to each other. Time
is, properly speaking, according to the common definition, du-
ration measured by succession. The idea of succession is
necessary to the time. It is a continuance measured by dis
crete parts. Eternity, as used in contrast with this, has a two
fold sense. It is sometimes used as equivalent to the whole of
time, past, present, and future time constituting eternity; and
secondly, in the most appropriate and strict sense, it is that which
cannot be measured by time, which is not included in time or
limited by it; it is the contrast with successions of time, and
God as eternal is not in time, but, to use the old phrase, is the
" Lord of time," considered as a series of successions. In the
origin of our ideas, chronologically the order is time first, but
logically eternity is first. Time presupposes the eternity. If it
did not, we never could come at it through time, because no
succession that we could conceive could make up eternity. It
is the same impossibility as deducing the infinite from the
finite.
4. In the attribute of eternity is involved the notion of im-
1 Given by Boethius.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 19
mutability The two are closely connected in the Scriptures,
as respects immutability of being and of the divine purposes.
God's relations to man change, his own being never changes.
5. The metaphysical difficulty involved in the doctrine of
eternity as applied to God. This arises from the idea of putting
the successions of time in the divine mind. If they exist in God,
then they have always existed. And as these successions are
finite, the finite has always existed. This difficulty is to be re-
moved, so far as we can, by the form of statement that the suc-
cessions of time are not in God but dependent on God. Time
as succession begins with the created universe, when there are
beings to whom the succession applies. The successions of time
are not in God, although they are present to Him in eternal
knowledge. Yet it is granted that there is a difficulty here
which we cannot perfectly master. 1
6. Other points which are raised as to the attribute of eternity.
(a.) As to the Scriptural representation that God repents.
Hos. xi. 8; Ex. xxxii. 14; Ps. cvi. 45. How are these declara-
tions of God's repentance reconcilable with his immutability in
his eternity ? We are to consider that the changes here spoken
of are not changes in Him, but in his relation to men. He
repents and always meant to. The purpose is immutable. It
involves no change in Him.
(6.) A difficulty arises in connection with Christology. If Go I
is immutable, how could He become incarnate? The answe:
must be found in the position that in the Incarnation there it
not a change in the divine nature, but in the divine mode of
manifestation. The humanity is assumed by the divinity. The
assumption does not change the divinity, which remains. It
simply manifests itself in a human form. God can reveal
himself in finite forms, and from eternity determines thus to do.
1 There is a remarkable passage in the Principia, which illustrates Newton'a
metaphysical genius: " God is eternal, infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, L e., He
endures from eternity to eternity and is present from the infinite to the infinite.
He is not duration and space, but He endures and is present; I e., duration and
space in their finite measures are not God, although God ever endures and is
everywhere present, and by existing always and everywhere He constitutes, He
makes duration and soace."
20 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
4. The Divine Immensity and Omnipresence.
By the divine immensity is meant the attribute of Gcd in
relation and in contrast with finite and limited space, as eternity
is the attribute in relation to successions of time. The attri-
bute in relation to space is expressed by two words, and has
thus an advantage over the phraseology which expresses eter-
nity. The two are, immensity and omnipresence. In the attri-
bute relating to successions in time, we have no word corres-
ponding to omnipresence. The immensity of God may be
thus defined: the attribute which expresses (gives the point
of view) that God is not limited or circumscribed by space, but
that on the contrary all finite space is dependent on Him. It
has both a negative and positive side: negative, denying all
limitations of space; and positive, asserting that God is above
space.
This attribute brings God into distinct contrast with all that
is material. Matter is in space and is space-filling. Finite
spirits have no ubiquity. To every finite spirit there is implied
a here, which also implies that there is a there where it is not.
But God by his ubiquity is everywhere, and yet in a certain sense
also he is nowhere, in the sense of not being limited. The mode
of the divine omnipresence is a question of debate.
1. God is present everywhere in working, in efficiency. There
is an operative omnipresence of Deity. He acts in and through
all space, He acts with and through every substance and thing.
2. On the other hand, God has also a substantial omnipresence,
a presence of his substance or essence everywhere. In what this
substantial omnipresence consists it is impossible for us to con-
ceive. The necessity of asserting it comes from the fact that
if we do not, we carry in our idea the thought that God is
somewhere and works everywhere else, and that is limiting
Him at once. The divine spirit must be everywhere in working,
and therefore everywhere in essence, but hoiv we know not. It
is not a difficulty respecting God alone. The case is so in a
measure with ourselves. Where we work we are present, but
how we are present we know not. We cannot define ourselves
with any relation to space whatever^ as we can an atom. The
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 21
Biblical representations are in the form of description : Job xi. 7 ,
Ps. cxxxix. ; Isa. Ixvi. 1 ; Jer. xxiii. 23 ; 1 Kings viii. 27. 1
5. The Divine Spirituality, including the Divine Simplicity.
These are also enumerated as the attributes of God, although
they are but abstract statements for the concrete spirit in its
mode of being. The divine spirituality is defined as negative
and positive : negatively, materiality is excluded ; positively, God
is asserted to be essentially spirit or life. He is described in
Scripture as the living God, as having life in himself, the most
perfect life, efficiency, and power. Involved in the divine spirit-
uality is the divine simplicity, the point of view under which God,
as He is not allied to matter, so is not susceptible of division, not
composite, not capable of being decomposed. Thus God is set
forth in the Scriptures in contrast with idols, no graven image
can be made to express Him : He is invisible, eternal, spiritual.
6. The Divine Unity.
The idea of unity is a simple idea. As applied to God, how-
ever, it is not used as it often is in regard to finite things. As
applied to these, unity is equivalent to one of a class, as, one
man, an individual in comparison with other men, an individual
copy of a class. This is not the sense of the doctrine of the
unity of God. He is not one of a class. The synonymous word
here is not one but only. God is the only God. There is only one
infinite, eternal, personal being. God is one in all that concerns
absolute divinity. There is but one God.
1. The Scriptural argument for the unity of God. It is at the
basis of the whole Scriptures. In the Old Testament, Exod.
xx. 3; Deut. iv. 35, vi. 4; Ps. cxxxv. In the New Testament,
Mark xii. 29; John xvii. 3; 1 Cor. viii. 4; Eph. iv. 6; 1 Tim. i.
17, ii. 5; Rom. xvi. 27.'
1 In Christian literature some of the most magnificent descriptions of Deity are
those of his immensity, as the hymn of Abelard: " Super cuncta, subter cuncta,"etc.
8 Some German writers have endeavored to make out that the Scriptures con-
tain the vestiges of Polytheism, as, e. g., in the word Elohim. Again, in represent-
ing God as the God of the heavens, the God of hosts, some find traces of star wor-
ship. But star worship is forbidden in the early Scriptures. There is nothing in
the Scriptures which has any reference to idolatry except in the way of opposition.
* CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
2 The significance of these representations that God is one.
It is implied that God is the absolute personality, the absolute
causality, the absolute independent being; that He is thus in
contrast with idols, that He is the only being to whom these
characteristics belong. Deus solus unicus. These Scriptural rep-
resentations are still further opposed to two main errors, Poly-
theism and Pantheism. The opposition to polytheism is manifest.
As against pantheism, the Scripture represents God as a living,
personal, conscious being, one in contrast with any mere abstract
idea, such as the generic reason or life, as a being having self-con-
sciousness, blessed in himself. All his attributes are in constant
life, activity, and energy.
3. Our rational idea of God cannot carry us any further than
this, as to the divinity: that God is the absolute personality and
causality, and that He is the only being to whom these terms can
be applied. Eeason does not decide what modifications there may
be in the mode of existence of the divine being, as compared with
that of creatures. There may be in God modifications of personality
and of the attributes, which may make Him unlike the creature.
What the Scriptures demand, and our moral nature demands, is
one sole being, the object of worship. Scripture and reason both
reject the idea of two absolute beings, or two infinite beings.
There could not be such. Further than this, however, our reason
does not take us.
4. The sense of the divine unity cannot be supposed to bt
exclusive of the divinity of Christ, as the Unitarians suppose,
for the following reasons: (a.) Because the assertion of the unity
was primarily directed in the Old Testament against idolatry,
the worshiping of any beings less than God. (6.) Because the
sacred writers use such language about Christ as would involve
idolatry, if it were understood that the unity of the Godhead ex-
cluded the divinity of Christ, (c.) The Scriptures would be in
contradiction to themselves, if they were interpreted as exclud-
ing the divinity of Christ. 1 "In the very exclusion of number
from the Godhead, we may find the real significance of the unity
1 In "Bibl. Sacr." 1846, p. 770, there is a very good statement on this point,
from Twesten.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 23
of God. By denying to Him all number, we ascribe to Him ab-
solute unity. But this unity is still an immanent attribute of
the divine nature." Its meaning is, that the nature of God is
not capable of reduplication, is not to be regarded as a generic
union, which includes under itself many or several individuals.
Unitarians make a great assumption when they call themselves
Unitarians, as if they defended the divine unity. The divine
unity which many of them maintain is not the Scriptural view;
it is the unity of an individual being; God is represented as a
single individual, as one compared and contrasted with other
individual beings. But this is neither a natural nor a Scriptural
view of God. He is the Supreme Intelligence, the one Supreme
Personality and Causality, but not one as an individual in the
sense in which one man is an individual. If this could be es-
tablished, the essential Godhead would be destroyed. It is a con-
ception essentially anthropomorphic.
CHAPTER IV,
ATTRIBUTES OF GOD AS THE SUPREME REASON AND UNDERSTANDING.
1. Proof that God is the most perfect Intelligence.
This is proved: (1) By the idea of the most perfect being
(2) From the intelligence shown in the world, the course of hu-
man history, and also, indirectly, by inference from our own in-
telligence. " He that made the eye, shall He not see ? " (3) The
Scriptures assert the divine Intelligence and its perfection, set-
ting forth the omniscience and the wisdom of God: Job xii. 13;
Ps. cxxxix. ; Luke xvi. 15; Rom. xi. 33; xvi. 27. (4) The divine
government proves the divine intelligence The only basis of
certainty in God's government is that He knows what is to
occur.
2. Definition of Omniscience.
Calvin's is one of the best: "That attribute whereby God
knows himself and all other things in one eternal and most
24 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
simple act." This includes what is omitted in many definitions,
the knowledge which God has of himself. The characteristics
of the divine knowledge are well given by Dr. Pye Smith: "It
is (a.) Intuitive: all that God knows He knows by immediate
view as we know things by direct inspection; (6.) Simultaneous:
all that occurs in all times is in the divine knowledge at once;
(c.) Exact; (d.) Infallible." The difference between the divine
knowledge and ours is thus summed up in most theological
statements: We acquire knowledge, but God knows immedi-
ately ; we acquire in succession, but God knows simultaneously ;
we have a knowledge of only a part of time, God has a knowl-
edge of all time; our knowledge is indistinct, God's is clear;
ours is fallible, God's is infallible.
3. The objects of the Divine Knowledge.
The divine knowledge is further divided in regard to the
objects in the divine mind. (1) God knows himself, and in
himself all other things, so far as they come from Him. This
is the internal knowledge. (2) God truly knows all things as
they actually come to be, as past, present, and future. He
knows them under their real relations. This knowledge is not
conditioned by those relations, but He knows them in those re-
lations. He makes those relations. (3) God knows the essences
of things, and here is a point where the divine knowledge sur-
passes any that man can have. Man comes to the barrier
when he comes to the essence, but he knows there must be an
essence, and it must be an object of knowledge. From our
knowing that essences are and our ignorance of what they are,
there must be some Being who knows more than we do. This
proves that there must be an omniscience. (4) God knows
what is possible as well as what is actual. He knows the pos-
sibilities of things. In making any human being, He knows
how that being might possibly act. He knows how the individ-
ual will act under certain circumstances. He adopts a certain
action into his plan and this secures a certain occurrence, but
He knows also what is possible. This is opposed to the panthe-
istic view as given by Schleiermacher: "God knows only what
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 25
is certain, what comes by necessity from his own. being, his
own nature, and not what is possible." But if God knows only
what is and not what is possible, his knowledge must be infe-
rior in some respects to that of man, because man can conceive
of that which is possible.
4. Of Sdentia Media.
The authentic definition of this is, the hypothetical knowl-
edge of the conditional future. Make an analysis of this phrase.
A conditional future is a future which is dependent on certain
conditions or contingencies. A knowledge of a conditional fu-
ture would imply a certain knowledge of that future with its
conditions and contingencies; that though it was contingent
there was a certain knowledge of it; but a hypothetical knowl-
edge means that the knowledge is still subject to some doubt.
E. (7., God creates a certain man and places him in certain cir-
cumstances. What he does is dependent upon conditions, upon
his surroundings and upon his will. A contingent event is one
dependent on will. God knows what the man will do under
the circumstances. But the theory of sdentia media suggests
that God's knowledge is not certain but hypothetical. E. </.,
a man comes to a place where four roads meet. God knows
that the man will be there and that four routes will be open to
him, knows that he may take either, knows what will happen
to him if he takes this, what if he takes that, but does not cer-
tainly know which he will take. For each -of the contingencies
God provides and meets with his own action in government
whatever the man may do; He exhausts and provides for all
the possibilities of the man's action, but does not know precisely
what that action will be. This is the most ingenious theory on
the Arminian basis. It aims to leave an uncertainty in respect
to human volition and at the same time to secure a certainty of
divine arrangement. 1 The form in which the theory is stated
above is the one in which it is objectionable. In another form
1 The theory of sdentia media was first propounded by Fonseca, a Portuguese
Jesuit, in the 16th century, and was further developed by Molina, a Spanish
Jesuit, in the 16th century. It was opposed by the Dominicans, by the Jansenists,
and by the Protestants generally.
26 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
it is gi.ven simply as the knowledge of a conditional future, 1 i. e >
God knows all that a creature can do, then determines as to
what the creature will do, and thus forms his plan. The divine
wisdom knows all that is possible, arid among all possible things
chooses that which it deems best. This is undoubtedly correct
arid is in harmony with Calvinistic views. But the other view,
that God simply provides for all contingencies, confounds two
things: the knowledge of all possibilities, which is true; and the
assumption that God does not know which of the possibilities
will become actual. Against this form of the theory the two
objections are: (a.) It makes the divine acts dependent on
man's choice or will; (b.) It annuls the certainty of future
knowledge, and if the future knowledge is uncertain, the knowl-
edge is imperfect, there is no omniscience.
5. The Divine Prescience or Foreknowledge.
This is commonly divided into knowledge of future necessary
things, of future conditional things, and of future contingent
things. The future necessary things are those which are in the
course of nature connected by physical sequence. The future con-
ditional things are those which will be, under certain conditions.
The future contingent things are usually denned as events depen-
dent on free will. The divine foreknowledge was doubted as early
as the time of Cicero, who says: " If the acts of man are foreseen,
then there is a certain order to them, an order of causation,
and if there is an order of causation, then fate is the result."
Socinus took the ground that there may be some things which
God cannot be said to know in any way. Kothe says that God
in creating man free, necessarily relinquished his knowledge of
future actions. Dr. Adam Clark and Methodists generally de-
fine omniscience as the power to know all things. They deny
that God does know all future events, but this is because He
does not choose to know. As omnipotence is the power to do
all things, so omniscience is the power to know all things, but
this does not imply that all things are actually known. But
omniscience, if omniscience at all, must be complete in itself.
1 In this form it is carefully stated by Knapp.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 2t
it must be the knowledge of all things. Unless God have
knowledge of future contingent events, we cannot say that
Pie is omniscient, and in order that there may be any cer-
tainty in the divine government, God must know what is to
occur in the future.
There are two chief sources of objection to this doctrine, viz.,
that it is inconsistent with free agency, and that we cannot
know how God can know future contingent events. Answer
to the first objection: The difficulty is only with those who deny
that liberty and certainty can be reconciled. If these are con
sistent, then God may know how free agents will act. So the
question runs over into the other, whether certainty and free
agency are inconsistent and contradictory ideas. Even in respect
to man, our knowing an event as certain does not prevent its be-
ing free. We can predict how some men will act under certain
circumstances. If those who know a good deal about man may
predict with more certainty, He who knows all about man may
know with all certainty. If a tolerable knowledge of certainty
with us is consistent with free will, who may say that a total
knowledge may not be consistent with free will ? The answer
to the second objection, that omniscience as implying the
knowledge of future contingent events, or events dependent
on free will, is inconsistent with free agency, is to be considered
more fully in connection with the subject of divine decrees. It
may be said here: (a.) that the objection seems to rest on the
assumption that God in respect to knowledge has a past, present,
and future, so that the limitations of time in respect to knowl-
edge apply to Him. This would assume that the whole veil of
futurity lies before God as before us. But there cannot be any-
thing future to the divine knowledge any more than there can
to the divine being. (6.) God may know events in their causes.
If He knows all the causes, then He may know all the events.
This is a way in which God may know the possible future. Of
course we here include in the cause, free will. God who made
it may know how it will act under certain circumstances, and
may adopt that action into his plan, (c.) God also knows the
essences of things, and thus has a source of knowledge to us in-
^8 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
scrutable, so that although we may not be able to conceive how
God knows, yet He may know.
6. The Divine Reason.
Not only is God's intelligence or understanding omniscient,
knowing all things, but in God is also the primal reason. In
God is the source of the ideas and knowledge of all intelligences.
In the divine mind are the archetypes of all truth. Others have
truth only by gift and derivation. The ideas of all things are
ultimately in the divine mind, are eternal. That is the old
Patristic view and is the sense and heart of the Kealism of the
Middle Ages. The Pantheistic view says that the ideas accord-
ing to which all things are fashioned are extant in the universe;
the Theistic view says that they are only in the divine mind.
The ideas of space, time, goodness, etc., exist only in the divine
mind. This was the sense of the Logos in the ancient schools,
the ideas in the divine mind according to which the world was
fashioned. In the school of Philo, Logos means the same as
Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs. In Prov. viii. 22 seq. Wisdom
is personified.
Proof of the divine wisdom: (a.) The wisdom of God is
asserted in Scripture: Job xii. 6; Proverbs iii. 19; Isa. xl. 13,
etc. (6.) Besides, it is proved a priori from the divine omnis-
cience. It is impossible to conceive that an omniscient and
omnipotent and holy God could be other than wise. There is
no conceivable reason for God's being other than in perfect and
eternal accordance with wisdom, (c.) Also there are collateral
proofs from the history and order of nature, the whole plan and
history of the world, the divine moral government, and especi-
ally from the scheme of redemption, where we have the highest
wisdom manifest.
Definition of Wisdom: That attribute of God whereby He
produces the best possible results with the best possible means.
That is wisdom everywhere, and in God it is superlative. The
best possible results would of course bring into view the great
end of God in creating the universe. Taking that end into view,
considering that as decided, wisdom may be defined in another
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 29
form, bringing out the divine attributes which concur in it, viz.,
the divine intelligence and love. Then God's wisdom is seen in
his using the best means to secure the supremacy of holiness in
the universe. Intelligence and love both concur. Wisdom ia
not merely an attribute of the intellect, but also of the heart.
CHAPTER V.
ATTRIBUTES OF THE DIVINE WILL.
1. Idea of the Divine Will
In some of the discussions in Theology, difficulty is occa-
sioned by the different meanings of the term Will. In respect
to God it is used in at least four different senses, viz., (1) As
the faculty of self-determination, choice, power of determining
self to any given course of action. (2) As significant of what
God desires should be, not as expressive of a power but of a
desire. This by the Scholastics was called " Velleity." (3) What
God determines shall be, what God adopts as a part of his plan.
(4) That which expresses the whole moral nature of God, the
equivalent to which would be the divine holiness or the divine
love, considered as the supreme moral attributes. These differ-
ent senses are important in the discussion of two main points:
(a.) as to the doctrine of decrees, (&.) as to the doctrine of
virtue.
Definitions of the Divine Will Gerhard: "The will is the
essence of God. It is God willing, Deus volens" Calvin: "The
will of God is that attribute whereby God tends to the good rec-
ognized by his intellect." The most general idea of will is
that power by which one prefers and acts out his preferencea
It includes both of these conceptions, both immanent and exec-
utive acts. Freedom ought also to be defined so as to include
these two conceptions; "doing as one pleases" should not be
understood as confining freedom to the executive act; there ia
30 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
freedom in the being pleased as well as in the doing. The divine
will may be defined in a comprehensive sense as that capacity
of the divine Being whereby He chooses and acts for the highest
good. That combines the two senses of will, and states that they
have ultimate respect to the highest good. The divine will as
thus defined involves radically three notions: (a.) Freedom,
(5.) Power, arid (c.) Moral preference. The divine will as in-
volving freedom is the absolute freedom of God, as involving
power is the divine omnipotence, and as preferring what is best
is the divine holiness.
2. The Distinction of the Divine Will as to its Objects.
1. There is an internal activity of the divine will which we
must conceive of as in God himself under the three points of view
named, (a.) As freedom. It is the essential freedom of God,
the attribute by which He is the author of all his acts. It in-
volves the notion of the highest freedom and the highest moral
necessity. (6.) As omnipotence. It must be conceived as hav-
ing an internal sphere, and there it is the perpetual and self-sus-
taining energy of Deity, (c.) In the sense of preference. Here
also it has an internal sphere. It is the immanent preference
for the highest good.
2. External relation of the divine will. Here it is viewed
as omnipotence, (a.) As power over possibilities. It is that
characteristic whereby what God wills He might not, and
what He does not will He might. It lies in his own pleasure
to do or to refrain from doing. He might or He might not
produce what He does produce in the world. (6.) Divine om-
nipotence as actually exerted in the creation and preservation
of the universe, (c.) The divine holiness in relation to the cre-
ation. This is seen in God's willing and bringing about the
highest good, which is the glory of God in the best possible
moral system.
NOTE. The divine will can never be considered as arbitrary
The true sense of the expression that He does as He pleases is,
that He is independent of the will of His creatures, though hav-
ing the highest and best reasons for what He does.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 31
3. Other Distinctions as to the Mode of Manifestation of the
Divine Will
1. The decretive and preceptive will of God. The decretive
is that which has reference to the divine decrees, what God
purposes shall take place. The preceptive is that which God
commands his creatures to do. These are often confounded by
Armiriians. God commands all his creatures to be holy. He
permits sin. The permission is a part of the divine decree, but
God does not enjoin or desire what He thus permits. Exam-
ple of the decretive will, Isa. xlvi. 11; of the preceptive, the
Decalogue.
2. The permissive and efficient will of God. This is the dis-
tinction made all through the history of Calvinistic theology
down to the time of the Hopkinsian school in New England.
God permits the morally evil and effects the good. In respect
to sin, He for wise reasons simply determines not to prevent it.
all things considered. The efficient will of God has respect to
what God directly produces through his own agency. The im-
portance of this distinction is, that we cannot logically or
rationally or morally conceive that God would directly produce
by his positive efficiency what He forbids. Accordingly we
must employ some milder term than efficiency with respect to
the relation of God to moral evil, and the term selected is per-
mission. This may not be the best, but it is well to retain it
until we get a better.
3. The secret and revealed will of God. This relates to what
God keeps in his own counsel, and to what He has communi-
cated: Deut xxix. 29; Rom xi. 33. The same distinction is
signified in somewhat barbarous Latin by the two phrases,
"voluntas signi" and "voluntas placiti" This distinction used
to be much insisted on in the discussion of the divine decrees:
1 Tim. ii. 4; 2 Pet. iii. 9. It was said to be the revealed will
of God that all should be saved, the secret will or actual de-
termination in the matter, that some should be. A better point
of view for this is found in the distinction between what God
desires, in itself considered, and what He determines to bring to
pass on the whole. In itself considered, He desires the happiness
32 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
of every creature, but on the whole, He may not determine to
bring this to pass.
4. Other distinctions have been made, but they are not of
much service, (a.) The antecedent and consequent will of
God. The antecedent, God desires the salvation of all. The
consequent, He determines to save some. Here will is used in
the two senses of general benevolence and purpose, (b.) Abso-
lute and conditional. What God wills without conditions and
what is dependent on moral character. He wills sanctification
through the truth, but He wills the renewal of the soul without
antecedent repentance and faith, because the renewal is in the
repentance and faith, (c.) The efficacious and inefficacious.
That producing by efficiency, and that which does not act
directly.
CHAPTER VI.
THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD.
This is the attribute of the divine will as power or efficiency.
1. The idea of Power. It is a simple idea in our minds, of
force exerted. The origin of it is probably the exercise of our
own power of willing or choosing. We get it not so much from
external nature, as from the putting forth of energy in our own
acts and from the resistance which we encounter.
2. Omnipotence is that attribute by which God is the abso-
lute and highest causality; the absolute, i. e., complete in
himself, the highest, i. e., above all other causes. In popular
definition omnipotence is said to be that attribute by which God
can do whatever He pleases. But this is not a sufficient state-
ment, because it limits the omnipotence to the doing, whereas
it is a capacity of doing as well as an actual doing. Philosoph-
ical limitation is given to it in another way, that God can do
whatever is possible or whatever is an object of power.
3. Proof of the divine omnipotence.
(a.) Rational proof from God's very nature. We cannot con-
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 33
ceivo it otherwise than that an infinite and eternal being should
be all-powerful.
(I.) From the order and existence of the created universe.
The act of. creation involves an omnipotent energy, if anything
does.
(c.) Biblical proof. This is various and manifold. Gen.
x vii. 1 ; Job ix. 12 ; Ps. cxv. 3 ; Jer. xxxii. 17 ; Rom.i. 20 ; Eph. i. 19 ;
Rev. xix. G.
4 Limits of Omnipotence. This phraseology is hardly strict.
The limitations are simply those which arise from the divine
nature or the nature of things, and are not any proper limitations
of divine power. They relate to points which do not involve
power, as, e. g., that which is contradictory cannot be established;
in other words, it cannot be an object of power. So God cannot
change mathematical relations or make right to be wrong. This
simply means that God's power cannot be conceived as mani-
fested except in harmony with and as expressive of his perfect
nature. It is not viewed as limited by anything outside of
himself. The limitation comes from the perfection of his being.
Here comes up the question whether God can sin. So far as
the real act is concerned, the answer must be No. It is incon-
sistent with his nature. It would destroy his divinity, that
holiness or purity which makes the essence of his divinity. If
He could sin He would not be God. The question however is
discussed on another point, as to the bare, abstract, metaphysical
possibility. Has God power enough to sin if He had a mind
to ? Then the question is absurd. Nobody would contest it. 1
Another question is whether God can destroy himself. This
involves a self-contradiction, the inconceivability of a self-anni-
hilation, in which self both asserts and destroys its energy.
5. Schleiermacher's definition of Omnipotence. He says it
is not properly understood as God's power to do what He pleases,
but rather that God is the cause of all that is. Also, that there
The question has been brought up in connection with " ability." When it is
said that a man continuing in his sin can repent but will not, it is said that a
parallel case is, God has the power to sin but will not. This certainly does not
open much help to the sinful man, for if he should not repent until God sins he
^vould never repent.
3 i CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
is no causality in God other than what is manifested. Tlure is
no power of doing but simply a doing. There is no reserved
causality in God. The reply is: this is contrary to the very
idea of rational, intelligent, andindependent being. If God is such
a being, his power cannot be limited by what is produced. The
hypothesis rests on an essentially pantheistic notion of what God
is; that He is simply a substance pouring itself out, and that
all that exists is simply an emanation from Him, simply an evo-
lution of his nature.
6. Objects ofthe divine omnipotence.
These are: (a.) Himself, God is self- sustaining, (b.) The
works of creation, bringing these into being and upholding them.
(c.) The moral world, omnipotence being directly exerted here
in miracles and in the renewal of the soul, while in the ordinary
course of nature it is exerted through second causes, making
itself thus a regulated, ordinated omnipotence. 1
CHAPTER VII.
THE DIVINE HOLINESS.
This is the attribute of the Divine Will considered as the
immanent preference for the highest moral good or for that
which is in itself righteous. This is the positive aspect of the
attribute Negatively, it excludes all moral imperfection and
all moral impurity, not only from the Godhead, but as far as
may be from the sphere of God's government. The divine holi-
ness, taken in its fullest extent, is applied in a threefold way:
(1) As designating the internal operation of Deity; (2) As
expressed in the law of God which is holy, just, and good.
The law expresses God's holiness in the form of injunction
upon others. (3) It has a sphere in demanding moral con-
formity on the part of others. " Be ye holy, for I am holy."
1 The question whether God could prevent all sin will come up in its proper
place.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 35
As God is holy, so must all moral beings allied with Him be
holy. Holiness is sometimes used as equivalent to justice and
contrasted with benevolence, holiness having respect to right-
eousness and benevolence having respect to happiness. But it
is better not to use it in so restricted a sense, but rather to
employ it to express the sum of God's moral perfections, his
internal preference for the highest moral good. 1
The definitions of the moral attributes of God depend upon
the ethical theory which one adopts. Those who take the Utili-
tarian or Happiness view define all these as having respect to
happiness. The same is true when holiness is taken to be the
chief good, all the moral attributes being then defined as hav-
ing ultimate respect to holiness. The various definitions and
statements of these attributes form a wilderness. The difficulty
arises largely from the fact that theologians are not agreed as
to what attribute shall be viewed as the highest in God. In
our view, holiness is the best term to use for this, and we frame
our definitions iu accordance with this usage.
In pagan antiquity the idea of holiness was external. It was
simply the separation of the sacred from the profane, and this
was largely the idea at the beginning of the spiritual educa*-
tion of the Jews. In no other religion than that of the Old
and New Testaments is holiness considered as a distinct moral
attribute. There holiness is made supreme in God and made
to be binding upon men, and in no system of nature is this the
case. Objectors sometimes say that all the precepts of the
Bible can be found in pagan creeds, but there is no such pre-
cept as "Be ye holy, for I am holy."- Neither is there any
proof of love being the supreme virtue in any pagan system.
Questions sometimes raised in respect to the Divine Holiness,
(1) It is said, we are holy, because conformed to a law; as God
is holy, He must be conformed to a law, and therefore there is
a law above God. Reply: There is no need of supposing a
law to which God is subject. God is himself the reality of the
law. There is 110 law above Him. The law is the expression
1 There is one definition of love which would correspond with this, as we shall
hereafter remark.
36 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
of the divine moral excellence, and holiness is the moral ex-
cellence itself. The definition of holiness as conformity to a
law is inaccurate. Even our own holiness is not found in our
accordance with a law. That describes holiness, but does not
define it. Holiness is not holy because it is conformed to the
law, but because it is the best moral state possible. (2) An-
other point of debate is raised in the statement: God is holy,
and in that choice is involved, it is a state of the divine will:
then He might not have chosen ; and hence, He might not have
been holy. To this we say: (a.) It is a bare, abstract possibility,
purely metaphysical. (&.) The state of God as holy is sponta-
neously such or eternally so, by a moral necessity. It is not
holy because God first chose to be holy, and then became so.
Such a choice is utterly inapplicable to Deity, involving a time
when God was not holy. The holiness is the immanent moral
state. Wherever there is holiness there is a choice, but holi-
ness is not the product of a choice. A holy state cannot be
produced in a creature as a creature moves an arm. Holiness,
repentance, faith, love are the choices themselves. So in God
holiness was not the result of a choice, but an eternal choice.
('3) Another question raised is, Whether God's will as holy i
the source of right. Eemarks: (a.) Taking God's will as the
source of being to all his creatures, He gives them all, and
gives them undoubtedly, the idea of right and of moral law;
God's will is the source of right in that sense. (6.) Taking
God's will as expressing God's moral pleasure or holiness,
that will may be said to be the rule and standard of right, be-
cause it is supreme moral excellence to which we should be
conformed, (c.) Taking the question to be whether God's
will creates right and wrong, so that it can make right to
be wrong and wrong to be right, it becomes absurd, (d.) Yet,
things morally indifferent may be so commanded that they
become right or wrong under the circumstances or relations;
not that their nature is changed, but for wise reasons God has
chosen thus to command. All external acts are in different in
themselves and are made right or wrong only by the motive
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 37
CHAPTER VIII.
THE DIVINE LOVE.
1. Definitions of Divine Love.
These vary like those of the divine holiness, benevolence,
etc. The divine love is taken most truly as equivalent to the
divine holiness, in the sense that love is viewed as the sub-
jective feeling, while holiness is the proper term for that as
descriptive of its moral character or excellence. " God is love."
Love is the interior state. Holiness is its characteristic. Love
is the internal affection. Holiness is the purity of that affection.
The best definition is, Love is the attribute by which God
delights in and seeks to communicate all good, especially moral
good: and as correlative to this, it is implied that God is averse
to and must overrule and punish all moral evil. Punishment
has a ground in love. If I love moral excellence, I must hate
and oppose that which is opposed to moral excellence.
The question arises whether the divine love can be exhausted
or fully met within the sphere of the Godhead itself. Love seeks
an object to fasten upon. If we say, the object of the divine
love is the creature, then until the creature existed, God's love
was simply a craving. Accordingly some from the attribute
of the divine love deduce the doctrine of the Trinity. Love
seeks an object. Divine love is infinite. It seeks an infinite
object. Therefore there must be in the Godhead a distinction
of persons. Taking this as a demonstration of the Trinity, it in
imperfect, but as an illustration it is good.
2. Proofs of the Divine Love.
1. From Creation. In the order of creation, love shines
through all the hosts of animated beings.
2. From Redemption especially. 1 John iii. 1; iii. 16.
3. The Scriptures abound in descriptions of the divine love,
besides those which are given in connection with the plan of
redemption. 1 John iv. 16; Matt. v. 45: Rom. v. 8; Luke vi. 35
38 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
3. Divisions of the Divine Love as to its Objects.
The divine love has two main objects, the primary, God
himself, the secondary, the creature. In the supreme love of
God to himself, egoism is excluded by the nature of God. In
loving himself most, God loves the embodiment of all that is
supreme in excellence. 1 The divine love viewed as having re-
spect to its secondary object, the creature, has two main forms:
the love of benevolence and of complacency. The love of be-
nevolence is that disposition of God or that form or modification
of the divine love which leads God to desire to communicate
happiness to all his sentient creatures, which leads Him to de-
light in all their happiness. The love of complacency is that
element^in the divine love which leads God to communicate and
delight in the holiness of his creatures. The love of benevolence
may be considered as having respect to happiness, the love of com-
placency to holiness; but both make up the divine love, both
together and not one alone. Complacency is taking pleasure in
something. Benevolence is disposition to do good to any one.
4 Other modifications of the Divine Love.
Mercy and pity. These describe love as exercised towards
the wretched, seeking their happiness. Mercy is sometimes
used in reference to our needs as sinners. Luke i. 72 ; here, the
term mercy is equivalent to grace, which is the divine love
towards the undeserving and sinful.
Patience and long-suffering. Eom. ix. 22, ii. 4; 1 Pet. iii. 20.
Lenity of God, his goodness in mitigating punishment.
Rom xi. 22.
5. The Divine Benevolence.
If the divine love as benevolence, or as exercised towards the
creature, be taken as the highest moral attribute, it is not properly
defined as the communication of happiness apart from holiness.
If it be taken as a modification of the highest attribute, it may
bear that restricted sense. It has been said that Edwards con-
1 It is not best perhaps to make this prominent in preaching, lest it should
be misunderstood; self-love in God being the highest excellence and in the crea
ture the ground of all sin.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 39
sidered benevolence to be the highest moral attribute, made the
divine holiness to consist in benevolence and then made the
benevolence to have ultimate respect to happiness. But this is
not the real view of Edwards. 1 If benevolence be defined as
having ultimate respect to happiness, and at the same time be
made the highest moral attribute, the following objections lie
against the position: (1) The theory presupposes that happiness
is the highest good, which is yet to be proved. In the present
stage of our inquiries we certainly cannot take this for granted.
Rather we must assert that happiness is not the highest good,
that holiness is; that being the highest good it involves of course
a state of happiness as its accompaniment, but the essence of
the highest good is holiness. 2
2. If happiness be the ultimatum of benevolence, that to
which it tends, it is difficult to reconcile with this the existence
of so much misery in the world. Misery may be defended in
relation to sin, and if holiness is the greatest object to be
achieved; but if happiness is the greatest good, it is difficult to
see how this can be made consistent with the actual amount
and kinds of misery. It is said in reply, "Not all happiness but
the highest happiness is the object;" but then what is the
highest happiness? If it is happiness essentially then the same
difficulty lies against the position ; if the " highest happiness " is
something more than happiness and includes another element,
then that is the thing to be found out. What is that element
in the highest happiness which makes it the greatest good ;
whereas other forms of happiness are not? Now there is hap-
piness or pleasure in sin and there is happiness in virtue, but
the difference of happiness is not what makes the difference
between sin and virtue, because it would then be simply a dif-
ference of degree. Then there must be in the highest happiness
an element which is not in the lower, which gives the moral
There are but one or two passages in his treatise which would possibly bear
that interpretation and they are not in formal parts of the work. The younger
Edwards no doubt made benevolence to have ultimate respect to happiness. The
assertion that the elder Edwards did so has been made so positively that it would
be well for every one interested in the subject to read his treatise with this ques-
tion in view.
2 Happiness is but its glitter.
40 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
character; but that element cannot be the happiness, because
that is what it has in common with sin. It must be a proper
moral element
6. Sources of Proof of the Divine Benevolence.
(1) From the idea of a perfect being. There is no conceiva-
ble motive for such a one to be otherwise. (2) From the whole
testimony and revelation of God set forth in the Scriptures.
(3) From the sentient creation, the millions of sources of happi-
ness found in nature and in man; from the fact that all the func-
tions of animal life and of man in their proper and normal use are
accompanied by happiness, and that there is nothing in nature
to show a malevolent intent (Paley, Nat. Theol.). (4) From
man's whole nature, intellectual, moral, social. (5) From the pur-
pose and plan of Kedemption. Here is the revelation of the
highest benevolence.
7. Objections to the Divine Benevolencefrom the existence of Evil.
Evil is of two kinds, natural and moral. Natural evil is pain
from physical causes, moral evil is sin and its consequent suffering.
1. In respect to natural evil. Natural suffering, i. e., the suf-
fering from physical causes, cannot be shown to be inconsistent
with benevolence. It is often warning, it is in different ways
subservient to the good of the organism. Much of pain is a
means of good in the discipline of the powers of individuals.
Pain is not the worst thing in the world. Benevolence may in-
flict pain and may constitute beings so that they shall suffer
pain. A nervous system is given, having high susceptibility to
pleasure, and the liability to pain is incidental, often becoming
a means of protection. We doubtless exaggerate in regard to
the amount and degree of pain which the animal creation en-
dures. In man the moral anticipation and the moral effects are
peculiar and are the worst elements of pain. As to death, which
is the great article of physical evil, as far as that is limited to the
merely animal world, it is consistent with benevolence, taking
benevolence to have respect only to the greatest amount of hap-
piness. A succession of animals gives a greater amount of hap-
piness than one animal in continued existence.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 41
2. Moral evil. That suffering which is the consequent or
punishment of sin is not inconsistent with benevolence. It is
demanded by benevolence. Sin, as the worst thing in the world,
must be punished by the next worst, which is pain. Sin is the
worst thing, and the only way in which a stigma can be attache* 1
to it is to affix the next worst thing to it. Just as happiness in
a just administration is connected with virtue as its immediate
concomitant, so should suffering be with sin. Such suffering, as
it is connected with transgression, has four relations: (a.) It is
the direct expression of the desert of sin. (6.) It is for the highest
good, the end of public justice to sustain the law and the law-
giver, (c.) Suffering for sin in a state of probation may be a
means of reformation to the sinner. (<i.) In a state of probation
it may be a means of discipline to higher holiness, to those who
are already partly sanctified.
3. The real problem or difficulty remains, the existence of sin
itself. All forms of physical evil can be shown to be consistent
with benevolence. But if God might have prevented sin in a
moral system, how is it consistent with benevolence for Him to
allow it? There are several theories on this point.
The first theory. Sin is not an intrinsic evil, but an imper
feet state of development. Sin is a necessary result of the finite.
It is the imperfect action of the finite, a transition stage only,
which is to issue in the highest good. It is a negation, i. e., the
sin of any act is what that act falls short of being. It might have
been by so much better. A moral being might love God with all
his heart, but he only loves his fellow men. He falls short of ex-
panding his love to its full measure, and his sin is that deficiency.
All finite beings must sin, and therefore the divine benevolence
might allow sin. If a finite world was to be created, sin
must be allowed. This is the general view of Leibnitz and his
school. Objections to this theory: (a.) It is in conflict with our
inherent sense of sin as a moral evil. The disobedience of the
divine law is not a partial obedience of that law. Sin is a vio-
lation of that which is holy and binding upon us. It is not a
negation, it is the strongest affirmation of self. (b.) Sin is not
merely the choice of a less good, but such a choice as implies
42 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
the refusal of a greater good. If sin were simply the choice of
a less good, the whole animal creation would be sinners, because
they choose lower good, and they would be sinners in propor-
tion to their weakness as animals. Sin in act is the choice of
the less, knowing the greater, (c.) This theory does not show
how the existence of sin is consistent with benevolence, but
merely shows how the existence of relative imperfection is con-
sistent with benevolence. No one doubts this, and if there are
different orders of being, there must be relative imperfections
somewhere. It may be consistent with benevolence to inflict
pain for the sake of a greater good in the process of education,
to stimulate an imperfect being to the proper development of his
powers. In order to teach an animal to do something, we in-
flict pain. And it is benevolence on the whole to do that, if
the teaching be worth anything; but that does not show how
it is benevolent to make a man morally corrupt for the good of
others. (<) Kelative imperfection is necessary, but sin is not,
and therefore the theory cannot hold.
The second tJieory. This is the position that sin is the nec-
essary means of the greatest good, though in itself the great-
est of evils. This has been attributed to several New England
divines of the older Hopkinsian school. It is the result of the
divine efficiency scheme. Those who hold it are careful to say
that they do not mean that sin is in itself a good or that it is
a direct means of good, but that it is overruled to the greater
display of the divine goodness. Sin is the necessary means of
the greatest good, and therefore it is consistent with benevo-
lence, because benevolence has respect to the highest good.
This comes up for discussion afterward in another connection. 1
We mention here only some of the ambiguities in the state-
ment. What is meant by the greatest good ? Is it happiness
or holiness, or happiness in holiness? What the purport of
the position is, depends very much upon the answer to this
question. Then what does the term necessary mean? It is used
in different senses. It may stand for a metaphysical necessity,
so that sin is the necessary stage in the progress toward the
greatest good, and in this sense the theory would be the same
1 Page 147.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 43
as the first. Or, necessary may mean that the highest good
cannot be obtained without this, that it is a necessary condition
the sense of the word may be that the end of the moral system
?ould not be attained without sin, that God could not manifest
his glory perfectly except by means of, or on occasion of, sin.
The third theory. That sin is in the best system because
it is the necessary incident to moral agency. God could not
create free agents and prevent all sin in the system. The ne-
cessity comes here, not from the relation of sin to the highest
good, but from its relation to freedom. Freedom is such a
power that it can be exerted in sinning despite omnipotence.
God could not prevent all sin in a moral system from the na-
ture of free agency. Prevention of all sin under the circum-
stances is not an object of omnipotence, any more than altering
the relation of the three angles of a triangle to two right angles.
We defer the discussion of this theory also. 1
The fourth statement The relation of the existence of sin to
the divine benevolence is beyond our comprehension. There is
clear proof, on the one hand, of the benevolence and even of the
grace of God, and on the other, of the existence of sin. We
must take the two as matters of fact, and not allow the exist-
ence of sin to override the divine benevolence. To solve the
problem we would need omniscience. 2
CHAPTER IX.
THE DIVINE VERACITY.
This is not, strictly speaking, an attribute, but a modification
of the attributes of holiness and wisdom. Yet it is often treated
as an attribute. Veracity is equivalent to the truthfulness of
God, the certainty that He will be true in declaring what He
is and what He will do. Truth generally is the conformity of
declaration or representation to the reality.
1 Page 149.
2 Miiller says, that if we could understand sin it would not be sin, for that
would imply its rationality, whereas it is irrational.
44 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Proof of the Divine Veracity.
1. There is no cause or motive for error in the Supreme
Being.
2. Scriptural Proof: Exod. xxxiv.6; Num. xxiii. 19; I&:a. xxv. 1.
The Scriptural usage of Truth, as applied to God, implies three
things: (1) That God is the truth, metaphysically, as to his
nature. God is that which as God He must be: 1 John v. 20;
John xvii. 3. (2) That God is the source and center of all
truth. (3) In the sense of the divine veracity or truthfulness.
On this point two or three questions are raised: (a.) Whether
God is sincere in his invitations to sinners who will be lost.
The invitations are actually made on practicable conditions, and
there is no obstacle to their acceptance but man's depravity.
(b.) Whether it is consistent with the divine veracity to threaten
those who may not ultimately be punished. All such threaten-
ings are to be taken as penalties attached to the violation of law,
and if anything can take the place of the execution of penalties,
there is nothing inconsistent with veracity in such substitution.
The great end to be answered by the, penalty of the law is reached
in the atonement. The end of the law and of the penalty is
not the penalty itself or suffering. If suffering were the great
end, then God could not be true and take away the suffering.
But the great end is holiness, and the suffering is merely in
order to that, (c.) Whether it is consistent with the divine
truthfulness to say that God repents, etc. This has already
been considered.
CHAPTER X.
THE DIVINE JUSTICE.
1. General Idea of the Justice of God.
The word justice is one of the disputed terms in the theories
ot the atonement and of justification. It is used in both a gen-
eral and a specific sense; in the general sense as equivalent to
holiness; in a specific sense, as in distributive justice, for example,
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 45
where it means, technically, dealing with each according to hia
deserts. Justice is not benevolence, though benevolence may
require it. Benevolence, used in a partial sense, refers to happi-
ness; and justice, used in a partial sense, refers to desert. It is
best to carry both up into a higher attribute, public justice, holi-
ness or love. Still, public justice and love differ in this, that
love expresses the attribute of God, and public justice its mani-
festation in a moral government. Holy love induces God to in-
stitute a moral system, by which He may show his highest glory
and secure the highest good of his creatures. Justice is his
mode of administering that system by his moral law, so as to
secure its ends, by treating each according to his deserts, yet
each in relation to the great ends of the system. We might
show by citations from many authors, that this is the established
meaning of distributive justice.
2. Proofs of the Divine Justice.
1. God as perfect must be just. We cannot conceive other
wise of a moral Governor.
2. The divine justice may be deduced from the other attri
butes, wisdom, holiness, and love.
3. History abounds in evidences of the divine justice.
4. The Scriptures recognize and assert that God is just
2 Chron. xix. 7; Job viii. 3, xxxvii. 23; Rom. iii. 2G.
3. Distinctions in respect to the Divine Justice.
1. Legislative, by which is meant, God's holiness in giving
a law with sanctions. Its requirements are holy, its sanctions
are rewards and punishments.
2. Executive or judicial justice, as seen in God's administer-
ing moral government according to moral law, by positive re-
wards and punishments. There must be in it rewards and
punishments in order to distinguish a moral government from
a physical, and law from advice. By these God shows his ap-
proval of holiness and disapproval of sin, and only thus secures
the end of a moral government. This is sometimes called vin-
dicatory justice.
46 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
4. Why does God as a Moral Governor exercise punitive
Justice ?
There are four theories: (1) Because sin is essentially ill-de-
serving. (2) To reform. (3) To deter. (4) From the interests
of general justice.
The first theory. Sin is punished because it is essentially ill-
deserving, (a.) Sin is the worst thing possible, and as such re-
quires to be attended by evil, the next worst thing. (6.) Con-
science asserts the desert of punishment. In him who sins there
is a sense of guilt which is met only by punishment, (c.) Our
judgments about others attest the same, our indignation, for
example, at great injustice or cruelty. The moral emotion is
instantaneous, the mind pronounces that the evil act deserves
punishment, (d.) God as a moral governor must manifest his
hatred of sin as the opposite of his own holiness, and to do this
He must punish.
The second theory. That the end of punishment is to reform.
This is the position of Pelagians, Socinians, and Universalists.
It views the punishment in relation to the culprit. There is
no doubt that punishment has incidentally this effect. But
this cannot be the sole end, for if it were, (a.) It would be op-
posed to the moral convictions of the culprit himself. He feels
that punishment is right even though it does not reform him.
(&.) If this be the end, the end is not answered, there are many
cases where punishment does not reform, (c.) Punishment could
not answer the end of reforming unless it was also felt to be right.
The third theory. That the chief end of punishment is to
deter others. This views the punishment in relation to other
culprits. Deterring others is also an incidental end of punish-
ment, but is not the chief end, for, (a.) It is against our moral
convictions as to justice that we should be punished simply to
keep others from doing wrong when we do not deserve pun-
ishment ourselves. (b.) If this is the only end of punishment,
it is not attained. Unless the first theory be true, the second
and third lose their force.
The fourth theory. That punishment is required by what is
called general justice or regard for the general good. This is
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 47
ambiguous. It is false or true according to the explanation of
it. There are three explanations of it. (1) The public good
is taken to be happiness. (2) The general good is taken to be
more specific to reform the criminal and to deter others. As
thus understood the position comes to be that of the second and
third theories. (3) The public good is understood as equiva-
lent to holiness, and thus punishment is necessary as the ex-
pression of, and to promote, holiness.
If the public good is taken in the first sense, happiness is
made the great end of the divine system, which falls to be con-
sidered by and by. If it be said it is the highest happiness
which is intended, there is then the doubt as to what the highest
happiness means. If the happiness is such as is found only in
holiness, another form of the theory is presented. The third
form above is the true statement, viz., punishment is required
by public justice, as the expression of, and to promote, holiness.
Punishment is needful to express the displeasure of a holy God
against sin as ill-deserving, and also to preserve the love of
holiness and hatred of sin in others, (a.) This unites the two
views of the inherent ill-desert of sin and the final ends of the
whole system. Sin is punished because it is ill-deserving and
also to promote the great end of the system, or holiness, (b.)
This view does not make the punishment of sin to be the great
end of the system, but holiness, the maintenance of the suprem-
acy of righteousness. According to the reasoning of some in
respect to the first theory, it would seem that the great end of
the system was reached by punishment, but really punishment
is inflicted in order that holiness may be maintained, (c.) This
view will of course allow that punishment may in any case be re-
mitted, if the end can be gained in some other way. Whereas,
taking the first view in its strictness, that sin is punished because
it is essentially ill-deserving and for that sole reason, then it fol-
lows that sin must be punished at any rate, and then there can
be no atonement, or else it must be a commercial atonement,
a quid pro quo, an exact equivalent to the same amount of
punishment.
48 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
BOOK II.
THE TRINITY, OR GOD AS KNOWN IN TEE WORK OP
REDEMPTION.
" J Ev rpiddt rj SEohoyia rs^eia stiri'." ATHANASIUS.
," Ubi amor, ibi Triniias." AUGUSTINE.
PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
1. The specific character of the Christian doctrine respecting
God is, that He has become known to man in connection with
the work of Redemption, as Father, Son, and Spirit; so that
all our knowledge of God may be reduced to the formula:
God = Father, Son, and Spirit.
2. The center and source of our knowledge respecting the
Trinity is to be found in the Person of Christ, and in his revela-
tion of God to man. His person is set forth as distinct from that
of the Father : He also sends the Spirit.
3. The primary Scriptural aspect of the doctrine of the
Trinity is not speculative but practical. In the Scriptures it is
a great truth, underlying the whole Christian revelation : God
as Father, the source of Redemption ; God as Son, achieving Re-
demption; God as the Holy Spirit, applying the Redemption to
man. It is not a barren, abstract truth, but vital, interwoven
with the whole Christian economy. This holds true, whatever
difficulties may be found in the formal statement of the doctrine.
The doctrine has always been vital in Christendom, the source
of the life and power of Christianity. We find God in the plan,
God in the work, God in the carrying into execution of the
economy of Redemption. The whole revelation of God ad extra,
the divine economy ad extra, is in this Trinitarian plan.
Nothing can be further from the truth than the representa-
tion of the Trinity as a mere abstract doctrine about the interior
of God, with no vitality. 1
4 The doctrine of the unity of God, taken in the sense that
God is a single person, like a human person, having a single,
circumscribed personality, is no more natural, and no more
1 See Dr. Bushnell, in New Englancler, 1854.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 49
rational in itself, than the doctrine of the Trinity. God is the
only being; there is only one such being that is the truth, and
the whole of the truth on this point. But it is in itself really no
easier to conceive of God as one person, single I, than as three
persons, and no more rational. It is anthropomorphic as truly
as some popular misrepresentations of the Trinity are said to be
tritheistic.
5. The doctrine of the Trinity being one respecting the in-
terior economy, as well as the mode of revelation, of the Godhead,
we must naturally expect that it will be mysterious, in the sense
that we cannot grasp it, conceive of it definitely, as we do of
things and beings finite and limited. It is a mystery, not an
absurdity; an absurdity is a statement v^hich involves what is
self-contradictory to conception. It is a mystery, not an enig-
ma; for an enigma is something that puzzles the ingenuity, of
which there is supposed, however, to be a definite slution. A
mystery is somewhat, which is partly intelligible and partly
unintelligible intelligible in many of its relations and modes
of manifestation, unintelligible in its interior nature. Athana-
sius hence well says, "this doctrine is not an enigma, but a
divine mystery." We may know that it is, but not what it is.
A mystery, again, is, in the Scriptural usage, some revealed fact
respecting God and the divine agency, which we can compre-
hend so far as it is revealed which we can believe on sufficient
testimony, but which we cannot grasp with the understanding.
The doctrine does not assert that God is one and three in
the same sense, "which one consideration," says Dr. South,
" well weighed, will blunt the edge of all assaults against this
article." How far we may even find something rational in it,
we shall consider.
6. For the Trinity there is a strong preliminary argument in
the fact that in some form it has always been confessed by the
Christian Church, and that all that has opposed it has been
thrown off. When it has been abandoned, other chief articles,
as the atonement, regeneration, etc., have almost always fol-
lowed it, by a logical necessity; as when one draws the wire
from a necklace of gems, the gems all fall asunder. It is also
50 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
true that it has been the subject of many prolonged controversies
and various modes of statement. But the great result of these
has been to bring out the doctrine in its various aspects, and
especially as interwoven with the scheme of Redemption.
7. The leading formula of the doctrine was adopted to guard
against three errors: Tritheism, Sabellianism, Arianism.
Outline of the Course on the Trinity.
PROP. L The Scriptures represent God as one, yet they ascribe Divinity to
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
PROP. II. The Distinctions of the Godhead set forth here are not confined to
the revelation of God, but are internal.
PROP. III. The existence of such personal distinctions in the Godhead is not
contrary to reason, though it involves a mystery.
PBOP. IV. The history of theology and of philosophy tends to confirm the
Christian faith in the Trinity.
CHAPTER I.
THE MANIFESTED TRINITY.
First Proposition. While representing God as one, the
Scriptures also ascribe divinity to the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit.
Course of the Argument.
L That God is one unity is ascribed to God.
n. That the Father is divine.
HL That the Son is divine.
IV. That the Holy Spirit is divine.
V. That the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are classed together, separately from
all other beings. The Trinitarian texts.
1. That God is one.
See discussion of the Divine Unity.
Scripture Proof:
Exodus xx. 3. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me.'*
Deut. iv. 35. " Unto thee it was shewed, that thou mightest
know that the Lord He is God; there is none else beside Him."
Deut vi. 4 "Hear, Israel: The Lord our God is one
Lord."
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 51
Mark xii. 29. " And Jesus answered him, The first of all
the commandments is, Hear, Israel: The Lord our God is one
Lord."
1 Cor. viii. 4. "We know that an idol is nothing in the
world, and that there is none other God but one." (Referring
to Deut. iv. 39. " Know therefore this day, and consider it in
thine heart, that the Lord He is God in heaven above, and upon
the earth beneath: there is none else.")
Eph. iv. 6. " One God and Father of all, who is above all,
and through all, and in you all."
1 Tim. i. 17. "The only [wise] God."
2. That the FatJier is divine and a distinct Person.
This is not contested.
(a.) The word Father is used in the Scriptures in a two-
fold sense and relation in respect to the Godhead : sometimes aa
equivalent to God, sometimes of the first person in the Trinity.
Of passages where the word is used as equivalent to God,
and not implying personal distinctions, there may be mentioned:
In the Lord's prayer: " Our Father which art in heaven."
Deut. xxxii. 6. "Is not He thy father that hath bought
thee?"
Isa. Ixiii. 16. " Doubtless thou art our Father, though Abra-
ham be ignorant of us Thou, O Lord, art our Father,
our Redeemer."
Ps. ciii. 13. " Like as a father pitieth his children."
(b.) Passages in which the word is applied to God in con-
trast with Christ, (yet not with direct respect to their personal
relations to each other as Father and Son, even in the revelation).
1 Cor. viii. 6. " To us there is but one God, the Father, of
whom are all things, and we in Him ; and one Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom are all things, and we by Him." This is spoken of
Christ, not in his internal, but, so to speak, external relation to
the Father, (a statement of course not inconsistent with the divin-
ity of Christ). The word Father here means not the whole
Godhead, but the unrevealed.
Gal. i. 3, 4. " Grace be to you, and peace, from God the
52 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself foi
our sins, .... according to the will of God and our Father.'
(The latter expression is a Hebraism, and for the relative).
John xvii. 3. " That they might know thee the only true
God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."
Eph. iv. 5, 6. " One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God
and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in
you all."
(c.) There are other passages where the word is used as de-
noting a special relation to Christ as Son, to Christ in his office
of Redeemer.
Eom. xv. 6. "That ye may with one mind and one mouth
glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."
2 Cor. xi. 31. "The God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, which is blessed for evermore, knoweth that 1 lie not."
Eph. i. 3. " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in hea-
venly places in Christ."
John v. 18. The complaint of the Jews because Christ had
" said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with
God."
John v. 23. Christ's declaration of the design of God, " that
all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father."
(d.) A class of passages may also be referred to, in which a
still more intimate relation seems to be implied, (not now to
discuss what relation, but deferring the question until the Sonship
is considered).
John xvii. 1. "Father, the hour is come: glorify thy Son,
that thy Son also may glorify thee."
John x. 30. " I and my Father are one."
NOTE. That form of the Sabellian hypothesis, which makes the Father one
of the modes of manifestation of the hidden God, ' has no countenance in Scrip-
ture. It is inconceivable. There is no Father manifested; it is God the Father
Father being the perfect equivalent of God.
1 This view says that the hidden, unrevealed, God and the Logos are from
eternity, but that the Father, Son, and Spirit are modes of manifestation of that
hidden God.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 53
John x. 15. "As the Father knoweth me, and I know the
Father."
3. That the Son is divine and a distinct Person from the Father.
The argument for this is cumulative, derived from a variety
of independent assertions of the Scriptures.
(A.) Christ was pre-existent. He existed as a distinct per-
sonal being before He came into the world. "Manhood was
not his original character."
(a.) The following passages have special force, being Christ's
own testimony:
John iii. 13. " No man hath ascended up to heaven but He
that came down from heaven, even the Son of man," etc.
John vi. 38. " I came down from heaven, not to do my own
will."
John vi. 62. " What and if ye shall see the Son of man as-
cend up where He was before V "
John xvii. 5. " Glorify thou me with thine own self with
the glory which I had with thee before the world was."
John viii. 58. " Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abra-
ham was, I am." (Socinus would interpret this, Before Abraham
can be Abraham, 1 must be Messiah, i. e., in the decree of God.
The Jews interpreted the verse before differently, saying, "Thou
art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham ? ")
(b.) Another class of passages embraces such as these:
1 Cor. xv. 47. "The second man is [the Lord] from heaven. '
Gal. iv. 4. " When the fulness of the time was come, God
sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law "
Col. i. 17. He is before all things and by Him all things
consist."
John i. 1, and 3. " In the beginning was the Word." " All
things were made by Him."
(c.) There is a class of texts which imply a change in Christ's
condition, through his Incarnation.
John i. 14. " The Word was made flesh."
Phil. ii. 6, 7. " Who being in the form of God made
54 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
himself of no reputation." (The expression " form of God " proves
pre-existence. "Form of God" could not be used for mere
endowments.)
(.) Christ was not merely pre-existent (and superangelie,
Heb. i. 4, 5, 6; Rev. v. 11), but He was the first of all beings ex*
cepting the Father.
John iii. 31. " He that cometh from above is above all."
Col. i. 15. " Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-
born of every creature."
Col. i. 18. " Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the
dead; that in all things He might have the pre-eminence."
Rev. i. 5. " The prince of the kings of the earth."
Rev. iii. 14. " The beginning of the creation of God."
Matt. xi. 27. " All things are delivered unto me of my Father."
Matt, xxviii. 18. " All power is given unto me in heaven
and in earth."
John x. 15. "As the Father knoweth me, and I know the
Father."
Col. i. 15, 17. " Who is the image of the invisible God." " And
He is before all things." These and many similar passages show
that Christ is the first being in the universe, next the Father.
((7.) Christ was not only pre-existent, superangelie, next the
Father, but also the Creator of the universe. 1
John i. 3. "All things were made by Him," dt avrov tyerero
Heb. i. 10. "Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the
foundation of'the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine
hands."
Col. i. 16. " For by Him (kv avr&) were all things created
(kKTi<5$ri) all things were created by Him and for Him "
(rd TtOLVToc dt avrovxai /? avrov exrttiraa).
As to the force of this argument we remark:
1. Creation is an act of omnipotence; it is inconceivable that
"The Christian Cosmos: the Son of God the Revealed Creator," by E. W.
Grinfield, London, 1857, is full and good on the Biblical teaching, the Testimony
of the Church, and the Bearings of the Doctrine.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 55
it should be delegated; if anything implies omnipotence, crea-
tion does.
2. Creation is expressly attributed to God, hence Christ is
God.
Gen. i. 1. " In the beginning God created."
Isa. xliv. 24. " I am the Lord that maketh all things."
Heb. iii. 4. " For every house is builded by some man, but
He that built all things is God."
3. It is no objection that in John i. 3, di avrov is used (in
Col. i. 16, it is er avrcp), for in Kom. xi. 36, of God the Father
it is said "all things" di avrov \ and of Him also in Heb. ii. 10,
dt ov, '* through whom are all things."
4. Nor can an objection be drawn from the passages which
ascribe instrumentality to the Son in creation.
Heb. i. 2. "By whom also He made the worlds."
This is not inconsistent with proper divinity: we infer that
only through a divine being could such a work be accomplished
for Christ is elsewhere described as divine.
Christ is not only pre-existent, superangelic, next the
Father, Creator, but other incommunicable divine attributes
(or those we must conceive of as such) are ascribed to Him.
These attributes are not merely such as imply the perfection
of any being after his kind, but those which imply divinity. 1
(a.) Omnipotence.
Is. ix. 6. " His name shall be called the mighty God."
Phil. iii. 21. "The working whereby He is able to subdue
oven all things unto himself." (See also 1 Cor. xv. 26. "The
last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.")
Heb. i. 3. "Upholding all things by the word of his power. w
Rev. i. 8. " I am .... the Almighty."
(b.) Omnipresence.
Heb. i. 3, see above. (Ubiquity.)
Matt, xxviii. 20. " Lo, I am with you alway."
(c.) Eternity.
John i. 1. " In the beginning was the Word."
' The argument is: having divine attributes, He must be divine.
56 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Rev. i. 8. " I am Alpha and Omega."
17. " I am the first and the last."
18. " I am He that liveth."
Rev. xxii. 13. " I am Alpha and Omega."
Compare Is. xliv. 6. "I am the first and the last: and beside
me there is no God."
(d.) Omniscience.
As to Christ's superhuman knowledge:
Compare Luke ii. 47: "And all that heard Him were aston-
ished at his understanding and answers," with Isa. xl. 2: "And
the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom
and understanding."
John ii. 24. "He knew all men" "what was in man."
Matt. xi. 27. "Neither knoweth any man the Father save
the Son."
John xxi. 17. " Lord, tliou knowest all things."
Rev. ii. 23. "I am He which searcheth the reins and hearts."
(Compare Jer. xvii. 10. "I the Lord search the heart, I try the
reins." Acts i. 24. "Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts
of all men.")
Two confirmatory grounds of argument as to Christ's posses-
sion of divine attributes.
1. From his working of miracles in a peculiar way: (a.) As
proof of his messiahship, and Messiah is divine; (&.) In his own
name and for his own glory different from the disciples, who
wrought in the name of Christ, and by power received from Him.
2. The last judgment is to be conducted by Christ, which
implies a divine position and authority together with the attri-
bute of omniscience. 1
(E.) Christ is not merely pre-existent, above all, Creator, pos-
sessor of divine attributes, but the divine name is applied to
Him as to no other being in the Scriptures, excepting the Fa-
ther, and in a way which implies supreme divinity.
1 In the Christ. Exam., Nov. '57,. the judgment is resolved into the idea of
retribution as centering in Christ. The older Unitarians did n3t allow that the
Scriptures taught these things of Christ, but the younger allow them and say
they are metaphorical.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 57
The passages in which Christ is called God:
Ps. xlv. 8; Ps. cii. 24, 25, compared with Heb. i. 8, 10; Acts
xx. 28; Rom. ix. 5; Eph. v. 5; 2 Thess. i. 12; Titus ii. 13; 2 Pet.
i 1 ; John i. 1 ; 1 John v. 20.
A general objection to the whole argument under this head
is that there are cases where the name " God " is applied to in-
feriors. As Exod. vii. 1, "Jehovah said to Moses, See, I have
made thee a god (Elohim) to Pharaoh"; Ps. Ixxxii. 6, "I have
said ye are gods, and all of you children of the Most High"
(Elohim used of magistrates).
But, in these cases the context decides. Besides the term is
Elohim (the appellation rather than the most proper name of
God), while " Jehovah " is expressly applied to Christ.
(a.) The first class of passages, showing the direct use of the
name, God.
(The consideration of John i. 1 is postponed.)
1 John v. 20. "This is the true God and eternal life." The
passage has immediate reference to Christ. " The eternal life,"
in John's usage, relates to Christ, and the reference here is the
same for the true God as for the eternal life.
Rom. ix. 5. " Whose are the fathers, and of whom as con-
cerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for-
ever." All the MSS. and ancient versions have it thus: in the
latter part of the last century, it was proposed to alter to:
"Who is over all: God be blessed forever." But (1) this was
never heard of until so late; (2) in the Greek, in all regular dox-
ologies, "blessed" comes first; (3) we might, by punctuation,
alter any other passage just as well.
Heb. i. 8, 9. " But unto the Son He saith, Thy throne, God,
is for ever and ever . . . therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed
thee." (Cf. Ps. xlv. 6, 7.) Some render: "God is thy throne,"
but against usage and destroying the argument, for it supposes
" the throne " to be used as a support, which is not warranted.
" Thy God " brings to view the relation of'the Son to the Father,
either as official or internal.
John xx. 28. "Thomas said ... My Lord and my God." Not
"mere excitement of feeling/'
58 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Acts xx. 28. " The church of God which He hath purchased
with his own blood."
John i. 18. For "the only begotten Son" it is most probable
" the only begotten God " should be read.
1 Pet. iii. 15. "Sanctify the Lord Christ" (instead of "the
Lord God") "in your hearts." Cf. Is. viii. 13, "Sanctify the
Lord of hosts himself."
(6.) The second class of passages: those in which the name
of the supreme deity in the Old Testament is ascribed to Christ
in the New Testament.
Is. vi. 1. " In the year that King Uzziah died I saw also the
Lord .... high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple."
John xii. 37-41. " These things said Esaias, when (because)
he saw his glory, ({. e., Christ's, see verse 37, and seq.,) and
spake of Him."
Ps. cii. 25. "Of old hast thou ("My God," [Eli] verse 24,)
laid the foundation of the earth : and the heavens are the work
of thy hands."
Heb. i. 10. "And, thou, Lord (verse 8, "unto the Son He
saith") "in the beginning hast laid," etc.
Is. vii. 14. "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,
and shall call his name Immanuel " (El).
Matt. i. 21. "And she shall bring forth a son, and thou
shalt call his name JESUS ; for He shall save his people from
their sins."
Is. ix. 6. " For unto us a child is* born .... and his name
shall be called .... the mighty God" (El).
That the New Testament ascribes the whole of what is
said in Is. ix. 1-7 to Christ is seen by comparing Is. ix. 1, 2,
with Matt. iv. 16, Eph. v. 8, 14; Is. ix. 6, first clause, with Luke
ii. 11, second clause with John iii. 16, last clause with Eph. ii. 14,
and the expression "the mighty God" with Titus [ii. 13:
"Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of
the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ."
Is. xl. 3. "The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
Prepare ye the way of the Lord" (Jehovah).
John i. 23. " He said, I am the voice of one crying in the
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 59
wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the
prophet Esaias." (Cf. John iii. 28, and Mai. iii. 1. "The
Lord whom ye seek.")
(c ) The third class of passages: those in which there is
an indirect use of the name of God, or of expressions which
imply entire divinity. These heighten the incidental effect
of the argument.
Phil. ii. 6-8. "Who, being in the form (j*op<py) of God."
The form of God (uopcpr), in distinction from 6x.fina, or the
outward and changing) means, the real nature, the divine
attributes, the aggregate of the "distinctive qualities," so
from Aristotle down; dp-nay jj,6s is not " robbery" (which would
directly affirm Christ's divinity), but = ro ap7tayjua= "a prize"
("spoil") i. e., a treasure to be seized. Still it implies di-
vinity, for (Lightfoot, Comm. on Phil., 1868,) "How could it
be a sign of humility in our Lord not to assert his equality
with God, if He were not divine ? " l
Heb. i. 3. " Who being the brightness of his glory and
the express image of his person."
John v. 18. "Because he had not only broken the Sabbath,
but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal
with God."
(It is objected that verse 19 reads: "The Son can do noth-
ing of himself, but what He seeth the Father do:" but the mean-
ing is, Not apart from or independently of God, but in perfect
concurrence with and "subordination" to Him).
John x. 33. "For a good work we stone thee not; but
for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest
thyself God."
John xix. 7. "We have a law, and by our law he ought
to die, because he made himself the Son of God."
Upon the three passages last cited this remark is to be
i So Dorner (Jahrb. f. d. Theol.): "Though in and of himself having the
divine form, he yet did not look at equality with God (such as his whole person
was destined for or to) [with a view to] robbery (as to be gained by violence)
but He humbled himself," ete.
60 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
made-. "If Jesus was not God, he was guilty of blaspnemy,
and the Jews were right in seeking to put Him to death."
(d.) There are passages, implying Christ's entire community
of action and purpose with God, which are best explained by
the Saviour's divinity.
John v. 19. "The Son can do nothing of himself." (See
above. )
John xvii. 10. "And all mine are thine, and thine are
mine."
John v. 17. "My Father worketh hitherto and I work."
John x. 30. " I and my Father are one."
(e.) There are passages such as those which follow, in which
the term "God" is, on the basis of the previous citations, most
naturally applied to Christ.
Eph. v. 5. " Nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath
any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God " (where
" even of God " is most natural).
Tit. ii. 13. "The glorious appearing of the great God and
our Saviour (there should be a comma after Saviour, "ap-
pearing of our great God and Saviour",) Jesus Christ."
2 Pet. i. 1. "Through the righteousness of God and (even)
our Saviour (Saviour,) Jesus Christ."
2 Tim. iv. 1. "I charge thee therefore before God, and
the Lord Jesus Christ" (before God even Christ Jesus).
Luke i. 16. " And many of the children of Israel shall He
turn to the Lord their God." (Proof; verse 17, "And he
shall go before Sim")
Col. ii. 9. "For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the
Godhead bodily."
(F.) Christ is exhibited in the Scriptures not merely as
pre-existent, above all, Creator, possessor of divine attributes,
and bearer of the divine names, but also as the object of re-
ligious worship.
The force of this additional argument is seen from a com-
parison of passages.
Worship is to be paid only to God : the Son is worshiped.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 61
Matt. iv. 10. "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and
Him only shalt thou serve."
Heb. i. 6. "Let all the angels of God worship Him."
Exod. jx. 3. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
John v. 23. " That all men should honor the Son, even as
they honor the Father."
Is. xlv. 5. " No God beside me."
Heb. i. 8. "Thy throne, God, is for ever and ever."
Is. xliv. 8. "Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no
God."
John i. 1. "The Word was God."
Eesult of such comparisons, ( Water land ): (1) From divine
worship all beings are to be excluded excepting God; (2) Christ
not being excluded, must be God.
Other passages:
Heb. i. 6. " Let all the angels of God worship Him." The
word for "worship" is Ttpo6Kvvrj6dTGa6a.v\ but it is the same as
in Matt. iv. 10, "Thou shalt worship (rfpodnvy^ei^) the Lord
thy God." (In Ps. xcvii. 7, to which Heb. i. 6 probably refers,
the command " worship Him all ye gods " [ElohimJ is pre-
ceded by the denunciation : " Confounded be all they that serve
graven images, that boast themselves of idols.")
Phil. ii. 10. "That at the name of Jesus every knee should
bow .... and every tongue confess," etc. Here He is wor-
shiped by the adoring universe.
2 Tim. iv. 18. "To whom be glory for ever and ever."
2 Pet. iii. 18. " To Him be glory both now and for ever."
Rev. v. 13. " And every creature heard I saying,
Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto Him that
sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever."
The apostles and primitive martyrs worshiped Christ.
Luke xxiv. 51, 52. " He was parted from them, and carried
up into heaven, And they worshiped Him."
Acts vii. 59, 60. "And they stoned Stephen, calling upon
[the Lord], and saying, Lord Jesus receive my spirit
Lord, lay not this sin to their charge."
2 Cor. xii. 8. " For this thing I besought the Lord thrice
(52 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
that it might depart from me." Who "the Lord" is, is seen in
the next verse: "Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in
my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."
1 Thess. iii. 11, 12. "Now God himself and our Father, and
our Lord Jesus (Christ), direct our way unto you. And the
Lord make you to increase and abound," etc.
Here there is distinction between Christ and the Father, yet
Christ is equally with the Father the object of the prayer.
2 Thess. ii. 16, 17. "Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself"
(reverse order from that in the passage just cited, Christ being
named first) "and God, even our Father, which hath loved
us, comfort your hearts and stablish you in every good
word and work."
Confirmatory passages :
1 Cor. i. 2. " With all that in every place call upon the
name (rors iTtiuaXovusrois TO ovojiioi', compare 1 Peter i. 17, "and
if ye call on the Father," et Ttarepa eittxakEitiSE) of Jesus Christ
our Lord, both theirs and ours."
This shows that " calling upon" Christ was the trait of
Christians everywhere.
John xiv. 14 "If ye shall ask anything in my name I will
do it."
When, now, we compare with such declarations and state-
ments of fact, passages such as, Isaiah xlv. 22 : " Look unto me
and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and
there is none else;" and as, Jeremiah xvii. 5: "Thus saith
the Lord, cursed be the man that trusteth in man and that
maketh flesh his arm," and see here, how praise and glory
and honor, etc., are given to Christ, then we meet this di-
lemma: Either the Scriptures are self-contradictory or Christ
is divine: Either the Scriptures recognize more gods than one,
or Christ is divine: Either God gives his glory to another, 01
Christ is truly divine. The only way of saving the unity of
God, consistent with the Scriptures, is by admitting the divinity
of Christ.
(The objection that the name "God" is given to other beings
than the Supreme Deity has already been considered. It is
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 63
needful to add only: (a.) It is never given to any other as it is
to Christ, (b.) The argument for his divinity is not drawn from
the name alone, but in connection with divine attributes and
works which are ascribed to Him, and in the greatest variety
of terms.)
(6r.) The argument is confirmed by the fact, that Christ is
the Kedeemer and Saviour: we are to look to Him directly, be-
lieve Him, trust in Him wholly for our highest spiritual needs.
There is always war here with Christian experience, on the
part of those who refuse the divinity of Christ. Such love and
trust as arise in Christian experience can be rendered only to a
divine being. Christian experience is in harmony only with the
doctrine of Christ's divinity.
Thus the proposition is established. The Son is (1) divine
and (2) a distinct person from the Father. (The word Son is
used here as a general term: for the whole of Christ; his Sonship
as such not having been yet considered.)
4. Objections to the proof of the Divinity of Christ on the
ground of the Arian hypothesis.
The Arian hypothesis grants the pre-existence of Christ, but
asserts that God the Father created Him (that He is a product
of the divine will), and communicated to Him omnipotence,
omniscience, holiness, etc., made Him an object of worship, and
allowed Him to be called God and the Son of God.
The general position in regard to this hypothesis is: Pas-
sages which imply inferiority can be explained in harmony with
the passages which express divinity but not the converse.
The passages which are cited in support of the Arian hy-
pothesis are those in which the inferiority and subordination of
the Son are asserted.
Thus (a) works are ascribed to the Father which are not to
the Son.
1 Cor. i. 21. " Now He which stablisheth us with you in
Christ, and hath anointed us, is God.
Gal. i. 1. " An apostle by Jesus Christ, and God the
Father, who raised Him from the dead."
64 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Acts v. 30. " The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom
ye slew."
But compare:
John ii. 19. "Jesus answered, destroy this temple,
and in three days I will raise it up."
The Father has, as Father, special works: He sends the Son,
for example ; but those works do not necessarily imply greater
power than, e. g., creation, which is ascribed to the Son.
(&.) Omniscience, it is said, is not in Christ.
Matt. xxiv. 36. " But of that day and hour knoweth no man,
no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only."
Mark xiii. 32. "Not the angels neither the Son, but
the Father."
There are two ways of understanding this: 1
1. Though the Son as Logos knows, as incarnate, He does not:
2. The Logos, as incarnate, parts with the exercise of his
divine powers.
(c.) It is said, that the worship paid to Christ is mere invo-
cation.
See above, under the passages cited.
(d.) Jesus prays to God, as subordinate and doing his will.
Matt. xxvi. 39; Mark xiv, 36; Luke xxiii. 46; John xii. 27.
This, however, is in his official relation. It is not inconsistent
with his divinity. For prayer is the inmost communion of the
soul with God. Christ as incarnate must commune with the
Father.
(e.) HP calls God his God, and in so doing places himself on
common ground with his disciples.
John xvii. 3. "That they might know thee, the only true
God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."
But compare 1 John v. 20. "This is the true God and eter-
nal life."
To make out the Arian view, John xvii. 3 must be held to
mean: know thee the only true God in contrast with me, not
God. But the contrast is with idols.
1 This is considered more fully in connection with the doctrine of the Person
of Christ.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 65
John xx. 17. "Touch me not ... I ascend to my Father and
your Father, to my God and your God."
The sense probably is, "Do not thus lay hold of me as if you
feared to lose me. I go to my Father who is also your Father,
to my God who is also your God." This same remark applies to
Eph. i. 17, "The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
glory;" 1 Cor. xi. 3, "The head of Christ is God;" 1 Cor. xv. 28,
"The Son shall be subject to Him that put all things under
Him."
(/.) It is said that there are passages in which the absolute
inferiority and derivation of Christ are asserted.
John xiv. 28. " My Father is greater than I." The Father
has a greater office than the Son, by the very nature of the relation.
John v. 26. " Even so hath He given to the Son to have life
in himself." Observe: to have life in himself, not to direct the
quickening energies which abide in the Father. The resurrection
is to be the result of the exertion of the Son's own power, which
as Son He has by gift and covenant of the Father, in himself.
Col. i. 15. " The first born of every creature. For by Him
(sr avt(S) were all things created, (exrioSi}) that are in heaven
and that are in earth." Evidently, here, Christ is placed, in
antagonism with the creation, on the side of God. Moreover,
the first born (rtpGororoxos) not created, the apostle calls Him.
See also Heb. i. 8 (from Ps. xlv. 7): "But unto the Son (=first
born) he saith, thy throne, GOD, is for ever and ever." Also
Kev. i. 5 : " And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness,
and the first begotten of the dead," in connection with verse 8,
or 11, " I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last;" or vs. 17,
" I am the first and the last" (compared with Isa. xli. 4, xliv. 6,
xlviii. 12), or verse 18, where Christ says He is from eternity,
the ever-living.
5. That the Holy Spirit is divine and a distinct Person from
the Father and the Son.
(a.) General usage of the terms which designate the Holy
Spirit.
" Holy Spirit " and " Spirit of God " are sometimes used in
66 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
<
an impersonal sense, as denoting a general divine influence or
mode of operation.
But we may distinguish (as has been well stated by Ebrard),
three distinct modes or relations in which He is spoken of,
(1) In the Old Testament, God gives his Spirit to the prophets,
or the Spirit speaks in or to them. (2) In the New Testament,
converting, regenerating influence is ascribed to Him; He leads
to Christ and applies Christ's woi?k, 1 Cor. xii. 3 : " No man speak-
ing by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed : and that no man
can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." Kom.
viii, 14: " For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are
the Sons of God." John iii. 5: "Except a man be born of water
and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."
Luke xi. 13: "How much more shall your heavenly Father
give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him ? " (3) He exerts a
special miraculous agency. Acts ii. : the Pentecost. (Fulfil-
ment of the promise, John xiv. 16, 26.) (Cf. John xvi. 7: ''For
if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you.") The
Apostles were "filled with the Holy Ghost." In 1 Cor. xii.
and xiv., the charismata, the extraordinary and also the per-
manent gifts for the Church, are ascribed to the Holy Spirit.
The extraordinary are also mentioned in Acts iv. 8: "Then
Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of
the people and elders of Israel," etc. (Compare Luke xxi. 14:
"Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what
ye shall answer" .... ["when brought before kings and rulers
for my name's sake;"] . . . ."for I will give you a mouth and
wisdom.")
Hence, says Ebrard, the work of the Spirit is (1) prophetic,
(2) regenerating, (3) Church-building, and this (a.) as founding
the Church with miraculous accompaniments or (b.) sustaining
it with permanent gifts.
That these all are from one and the same Spirit, is seen from
the comparison of Joel ii. 28-32 with Acts ii. 16, and from the ex-
plicit declaration of the Apostle Peter.
In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit is also the source of
converting grace.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 67
A difficulty may seem to be presented by John xiv. 16, 26.
" He shall give you another Comforter." " But the Comforter
.... whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach
you all things."
But these are to be understood as promising a special mode
of the Holy Spirit's operation, for a new stage in the divine
economy of redemption.
(6.) The Holy Spirit is divine.
This is generally conceded. He is called the Spirit of the
Father, of the Son, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, the Spirit
of life.
1 Cor. iii. 16. " Know ye not that ye are the temple of God,
and that the Spirit of God d welleth in you ? " The temple of
God, by reason of the indwelling of the Spirit of God: the asser-
tion implies the absolute divine holiness of the Spirit, at least.
To the same effect is 1 Cor. vi. 19.
Acts v. 3, 4 "Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie unto
the Holy Ghost? .... thou hast not lied unto men but unto God."
The offence was not against the Spirit of God as dwelling in the
heart but as objective, the Spirit which rules in the Church.
Hence, as present and ruling in the whole Church, He is divine.
The Holy Spirit has the attributes of absolute truth and wis-
dom. What God says the Holy Spirit says and interchangeably.
Acts xxviii. 25. " Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the
prophet unto our fathers," and
Isa. vi. 8. "Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying," etc.
Heb. x. 15. " Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to
us : for after that He had said before, This is the covenant that
I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord/* and
Jer. xxxi. 33. " But this shall be the covenant saith
the Lord." Also xxx. 1.
The regenerating power and influence of the Holy Spirit are
such as could not be exercised by any created energy.
His action within the divine nature is inconsistent with any
supposition save his divinity.
1 Cor. ii. 10, 11. "For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea
the deep things of God."
68 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
(c.) The Holy Spirit is distinct from the Father and the Son,
and is personal: is not the mere activity of God.
Matt, xxviii. 19. " Baptizing them in (ets) the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Neither a
creature nor a mode of agency could be so spoken of.
2 Cor. xiii. 14. "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with
you all." The Holy Spirit must be as distinguishable from the
Father as from the Son.
The same fact was symbolized at Christ's baptism (Matt,
iii. 16, Mark i. 10), Luke iii. 22. "And the Holy Ghost descended
in bodily shape, like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from
heaven," etc. Here the symbol of the Spirit is distinguished
from the voice of the Father.
Rom. viii. 16. "The Spirit himself beareth witness with our
spirit."
Eom. viii. 26, 27. "The Spirit himself maketh intercession ....
And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of
the Spirit."
Eph. iv. 30. "And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God." This
is not intelligible, if the Spirit is not personal : a mode of divine
agency cannot be grieved.
1 Cor. xii. 11. " But all these worketh that one and the self-
same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will " (fiovkerai).
1 Cor. xii. 411. In this passage the Holy Spirit is distin
guished from the gifts of the Church ; in the fifth verse He ia
distinguished from Christ, and in the sixth, from God.
1 Cor. ii. 10, 11. " The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, tho
deep things of God."
Matt. xii. 31, 32. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is dis
tinguished from that against Christ.
Masculine, not neuter, forms are employed to designate the
Spirit. John xiv. 16, aXkov itapdxXriTov, 26, 6 ds icapdKX.r)roS 9
XV. 26, 6 jtapd.K'X.rjToS, or, xvi. 13, otav ds eXSy &Keivo$ 9 TO itvevfiia
rns dXr}$Eia$. (kxeivot alone would not be conclusive as referring
to 6 Ttapdn'X.rjToS, but it is decisive, as referring to ro nrtvjua). See
also John xvi. 14. knelvo^ jue
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 69
Personal acts are ascribed to the Spirit. He teaches, testifies,
speaks, convinces.
All this is inconsistent with personification merely.
Acts xiii 2, 4. "The Holy Ghost said, Separate me Bar-
nabas and Saul .... So they, being sent forth by the Holy
Ghost," etc.
Acts xv. 28. " For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and
to us."
Gal. iv. 4-6. " God sent forth his Son .... that we might
receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God
hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying,
Abba, Father." Here the sending of the Son and of the Spirit
are described in the same terms.
1 Pet. i. 12. "them that have preached the gospel unto you
with the Holy Ghost sent down from hedven."
(d.) Objections to the distinct personality of the Spirit.
First Objection : There are passages which speak of Christ
dwelling in us, in the same way as the Spirit of God and of
Christ is said to dwell in us, e. g., Rom. viii. 9, 10, 11; Gal.
ii. 20; Cf. Rom. viii. 14; Eph. iii. 17; Cf. Gal. iv. 6.
Yet the Scriptures speak distinctly of the continued difference
of the Son and the Spirit.
Acts ii. 33. "He (Christ) hath shed forth this" (the outpour-
ing of the Spirit). Acts iii. 21 : (Jesus Christ) "Whom the heaven
must receive until the times of restitution of all things." So
through John xiv., the same difference is shown: the Paraclete
is to take the place of Christ.
1 John iii. 2. The Spirit transforms us into the image of
Christ when at last we see Him as He is.
Rom. viii. 16, 26. The Spirit gives assurance of adoption,
but, Heb. vii. 25, Christ in heaven intercedes.
1 Cor. iii. 16. The Spirit dwells in us as a temple, but, Eph.
v. 23, Christ is the head of the body.
Acts xix. 2. (/ rtvsvjua ayiov eXdfisrs ittdrev'tiarrts) "Did
ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye believed ? "
70 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Second Objection:
In John vii. 38, 39 it is said, " For the Holy Ghost was not
yet [given]; because that Jesus was not yet glorified" ; as if
the existence of the Spirit began with the glorification of Christ.
But Christ had the Spirit before, as prophet; Acts x. 38,
" How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost."
Christ had received the Spirit at his baptism ; Matt. iv. 16, and
parallels.
The prophets of the Old Testament were enlightened by the
Spirit: 1 Pet. i. 11; Cf. Ps. li. 12, cxliii. 10; Isa. Ixiii. 10, 11.
In the Old Testament the Spirit is promised to Christ as
Messiah.
Isa. xi. 2. u And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him "
(upon " the rod out of the stem of Jesse ").
Isa. xlii. 1. " Behold my servant, whom I uphold ;
I have put my Spirit upon Him."
Isa. Ixi. 1. " The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me." (Cf.
Luke iv. 18; John iii. 34 "not the Spirit by measure.")
Isa. Ixv. 2. " I have spread out my hands all the day unto
a rebellious people," etc. Cf. Acts vii. 51. "Ye stiffnecked
arid uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the
Holy Ghost;" and Kom. x. 21.
Hence, it is the same Spirit that speaks in the Old Testament
and in the New.
Third Objection:
That the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, or, Christ coming again
to men, as Spirit. The Lord is TO itrevna, 2 Cor. iii. 17.
Against this (1) is the fact that Christ promises his dis-
ciples that the Spirit should come in his stead: John xiv. 18,
xvi. 16, 22.
The return of Christ is to be "in glory" not at his resur-
rection not at the Pentecost: John xiv. 3, "I will come again
and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be
also ;" this refers to a coming in which He will receive the Church
permanently, having previously prepared " a place " for it.
This whole mode of statement, that Christ would depart,
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 71
send in his stead the Comforter and again himself return, is
utterly inconsistent with the view that He himself returns
simply as spirit.
(2) As to passage cited (2 Cor. iii. 17), the apostle goes on to
say, " and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." The
contrast is between the Spirit of Christ and the law of Moses:
the sense, he that has the Lord (in contrast with, he that has
Moses), has the Spirit.
A fourth objection, from John iv. 24. God is Spirit
But this cannot mean, Spirit is equivalent to God: we can-
not say the Spirit of Christ is equivalent to the spiritual nature
of God. The meaning is, God is Spirit, in contrast with the
world.
6. The Father, Son, and Spirit are classed together, separately
from all other beings, as divine. (The Trinitarian texts.)
It is a conceded point that no other beings or names than
these, through the whole Scriptures, are so represented, with
divine powers and attributes. That these three are thus rep-
resented, separately, we have already seen.
But, besides these separate passages, there are also such as
combine the three together in a peculiar way, as no others are
thus combined. Having shown the divine names, attributes and
personality of each, the Scriptures bind them together in one,
and in a peculiar manner.
2 Cor. xiii. 14. " The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with
you all."
1 Pet. i. 2. " Elect according to the foreknowledge of God
the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience
and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ."
John xiv. 16. (The Trinity hinted at.) "I will pray the
Father, and He shall give you another Comforter."
1 Cor. viii. 6. " But to us there is one God, the Father, of
whom are all things, and we in Him ; and one Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom are all things, and we b) Him," Compare with
72 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
1 Cor. xii. 3-6. "No man can say Jesus is the Lord but by
the Holy Ghost. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the
same Spirit. And there are differences of administration, but
the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it
is the same God which worketh all in all."
Matt, xxviii. 19. " Baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."
The baptized person is represented here as brought into the
same relation to the Holy Spirit, as elsewhere to the Father
and Son. .
(At the Baptism of Christ, Matt. iii. 16, the voice of the
Father is accompanied by the descent of the Holy Spirit.)
7. Result of the Biblical Evidence in respect to the divinity of
tlie Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
1. That the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are personally dis-
tinguished from each other. There is recognized throughout
a personal relation of the Father and Son to each other. So of
the Holy Spirit to both.
2. They each have divine names and attributes.
3. Yet there is only one God.
NOTE. These distinctions are not restricted to Christ's formally
appearing in the world, or to the giving of the Holy Spirit; but
continue still. Any other view than this would destroy our
whole Christian experience. Christ is still the personal object
of faith and love, distinct from the Father.
If the distinction is not immanent, yet it is permanent.
We apply what the Scriptures say of the distinction of per-
sons still; we separate between Him to whom we are reconciled,
the Father; Him by whom we are reconciled, the Son; and Him
through whom, the Holy Spirit.
The Trinity, at any rate, is in the whole economy of re-
demption, as permanent. From the Trinity in the economy
we pass to the second point, THE ESSENTIAL TRINITY.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 73
CHAPTER II.
THE ESSENTIAL TRINITY.
The Second Proposition: That the Distinctions here proved
are not restricted to the economy, the manifestation, or revela-
tion of God ad extra, but are internal.
Order of discussion:
1. That they are internal.
2. That they are appropriately designated as personal distinctions. Sense ol
"Person."
3. In what way, as personal distinctions, they exist in the Godhead. How to
be conceived of if at all.
4. Of the "Sonship."
1. That the distinctions of the Godhead are represented in the.
Scriptures as internal.
The question here is a simple one: on Biblical grounds,
whether what is asserted in Scripture, of the Father, Son, and
Spirit is spoken simply and solely with respect to the modes of
manifestation, or, so as to imply, necessarily, internal modes of
subsistence.
This is primarily a question of Scriptural interpretation.
It is a question with respect to Sabellianism. Sabellianism,
as contrasted with Arianism, says: The Son in his nature
is divine, but not eternally personal; He became, in the Incar
nation, a distinct person from the Father. (1) In the man
Jesus the infinite God appears, personally; the divine nature
is in Him. (2) God from eternity decreed this. (3) As pre-
existent in God Jesus is the Logos.
Sabellianism has two forms: (1) God, revealed as Father, Son,
and Spirit; (2) God the Father, revealed as Son and Spirit.
Strict Sabellianism says : The Logos is the medium of the reve-
lation. It is called Modalism.
As compared with Arianism, Sabellianism is more profound;
it is congruent with the divine nature of Christ; it explains
the passages which speak of that nature, and also of the
74 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
relative subordination. The relation of Arianism and Sabel-
lianism is this: what Sabellianism urges for the inherent di-
vinity of Christ refutes Arianism; what Arianism urges for
the distinct pre-existent personality of the Son refutes Sa-
bellianism. Sabellianism, says Athanasius, is refuted by the
idea of the Son, Arianism by the idea of the Father (Ath.
cont. Ar. iv. 2. 3.)
The simple primary question is this: Do the Scriptures
restrict the personal distinctions to the sphere of the mani-
festation, or do they demand that we conceive of them as
eternal in the Godhead.
(a.) Passages which speak clearly of a personal pre-ex-
istence of the Son, before the Incarnation.
John viii. 58. " Before Abraham was, I am." This can
not be interpreted as setting forth an impersonal pre-existence
in the mind of God, as idea. Also John viii. 42. " I proceeded
forth and came from God."
John xvii. 5. " Glorify thou me with thine own self
(itapd tiEavrca) with the glory which I had with thee, before
the world was" (# eixor itpd rov Toy uotifjLov sivai Ttapd 601} : a state
which was once, and is to be again: it is to be again, ag
personal; therefore it was personal.
Phil. ii. 6-8. " Who being in the form of God .... took the
form of a servant: and being found in fashion as a man," etc.
. . . . The "form of man" was personal: so, " the form of God."
John xvi. 28. "I came forth from the Father, and am
come into the world."
John vi. 62. " What and if ye shall see the Son of man as-
cend up where He was before ? "
John i. 1-14. The doctrine of the Logos.
Logos must be either reason or word: the latter is the
New Testament and Septuagint usage. Reason (Wisdom) as
Creative is expressed by 6o(pia in the Bible and Apocrypha
The "beginning" spoken of must be before creation: for,
verse 3, "all things were made by Him." He was with God,
intimate, yet separate. "The Word became flesh and dwelt
among us, and we beheld his glory." Before this the Word
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 75
was either a person or a personification: it could not be the
latter, for it is the same being after the Incarnation as be-
fore. The Logos is not a mere activity of God. "Word"
is inconsistent with that. It is an internal modification. It
is an activity, in the sense of an eternal speech, word of God
as a modification of the Deity such that thereby He makes
the world and becomes incarnate.
The great acts of God ad extra are two: creation and
incarnation, and these are both referred to the Logos.
Even if kv dpxy is to be taken as the beginning of the
world, it was the beginning of what is temporal: what is
before is eternal.
Ttp6$ toy 5s6v designates a living relation. 1
Col. i. 15. "Who is the image of the invisible God, the
firstborn of every creature."
Heb. i. 3. "Who being the brightness of his glory and
the express image of his person."
The expression "firstborn of every creature" refers to his
ante-temporal condition, also including his superior excellence.
Whatever else may be questioned in this passage, it must be ad-
mitted that his origin is a begetting; not a creating.
(&.) Passages which imply such pre-existence (not yielding the
strictest proof of it, but not naturally interpreted without it).
John iii. 16. "That He gave his only-begotten Son."
John vi. 33, 38. " The bread of God is that which cometh
down from heaven .... For I came ,down from heaven, not
to do mine own will."
John xii. 49. "But the Father, which sent me, He gave
me a commandment."
This use of the word Father, showing that Christ speaks
as Son, and the reference to himself as "sent," presuppose a
previous personal relation.
Such passages as these are to be also noted:
Gal. iv. 4. "But when the fulness of the time was come,
i The historical genesis of the idea of the Logos confirms this. Wisdom,
Logos of Philo, Angel of God, Glory of God, Name of God, etc., become concen-
trated in the dtfotrine of the Logos. And this proves a pre-exiatent hypostasis
76 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the
law." Observe that before He was sent, He was viewed as
the Son.
John xvi. 28. "I came forth from the Father, and am come
into the world."
John iii. 31. "He that cometh from above is above all."
Cf. verse 11, "and testify that we have seen."
1 Cor. x. 4. "They drank of that spiritual Rock that
followed them: and that Rock was Christ."
(c.) The assertion of Scripture that Christ created the world,
is inconsistent with all the forms of Sabellianism. Sabellianism
supposes that Christ was a person only in relation to the re-
demption of the world.
(d.) The Old Testament in speaking of Jehovah and the
Messiah, the Wisdom, the Angel of the Covenant, etc., con-
firms the view that the relations of the Father and Son are
internal.
Isa. xl. 3, 9, and especially 10. " Behold the Lord God will
come with strong hand."
Zech. ii. 10. " Sing and rejoice, daughter of Zion : for lo,
I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord."
John i. 14. " And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among
us." The perfect fulfilment: Rev. xxii. 7. "Behold 1 come
quickly."
(e.) The continued personal being and relation to us of the
Son, is also against the Sabellian position.
He is to remain forever in this relation.
Rom. i. 4. "declared to be the Son of God with power
.... by the resurrection from the dead."
Heb. xiii. 8. " Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and
forever."
Rom. vi. 9, 10. "Christ being raised from the dead dieth
no more in that He liveth, He liveth unto God."
Acts ii. 33. "Therefore being by the right hand of God
exalted .... He hath shed forth this, which ye tow see and
hear,"
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 77
2. Eemarks on Sabellianism.
The general result of the Sabellian hypothesis, on the basis
of the Scriptural evidence for the pre-existence of Christ, and
that He is the Creator. "
Sabellianism wants to show that the personal distinctions
belong* to the revealed and not to the immanent Godhead
that they arise in the revelation ad extra and only for the
purpose of a revelation, and have no essential being in the
divine na-ture.
But the pa&sages cit-ed prove:
1. Personal pre-existence before Incarnation, so that that form
of Sabellianism which makes the personality of Christ begin then
is effectually ruled out.
2. They also show that Christ as pre-existent, created the
worlds, all things in heaven and earth, so that the person-
al distinction had a being before anything created was, and
did not come into being for the exigencies of the divine mani-
festation.
3. The only resort then for Sabellianism, consistent with
these passages is to say: God as Son existed personally before
Creation and Incarnation was a distinct personal agent before
time began; but if this is said, then the Son did not come into
being as a person with special reference to any revelation of God:
the utmost that can be said is, He came into being as a person,
antecedently, because the world was to be made and redeemed
by Him. But his distinct existence as a person is thrown back
into the nature of God, into eternity.
And when this is said, we have realty either Arianism, or
what is equivalent to an eternal generation of the Son. Sup-
posing Arianism to be refuted, the only question that remains
in respect to Sabellianism would be this: does God, from a ne-
cessity of his nature, exist internally as Father, Son, and Spirit
or, do these personal distinctions in God exist in Him from all
eternity, with respect to a future revelation of himself. The
eternal existence being conceded, this question is an unimpor-
tant one; and there is no ground in Scripture or reason for
saying that the existence of these personal distinctions is con-
78 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
ditioned by the possible future existence of the world and of
redemption.
NOTE. That form of Sabellianism which makes it to be, that the same God
assumed these different characters, viz., as Father*, the character of Creator, as
Son, of Kedeemer, as Holy Spirit, of Sanctifier is utterly irreconcilable with the
patent fact of the distinct personal being of the Son.
Further Remarks on the Sdbellian Hypothesis.
1. That the Father, Son, and Spirit are simply manifestations,
is inconsistent with the doctrine respecting the Father, as already
expounded.
2. If these are taken strictly, as modes of manifestation,
following on each other and receding, we lose the abiding
personalities.
3. We have still three (if not four) divine persons to wor-
ship. We have the inconvenience which is supposed to inhere
in the orthodox view, without the firmness of personalities which
that gives.
4 The Sabellian view leads logically to the idea of a change
in God in his mode of being, a change in time.
After the Incarnation, God exists as, is, a triad a three-fold
personality; He was notso before. Hence a change must have
occurred in his mode of being, and the view conflicts with the
divine unchangeableness. This also leads to the pantheistic
view that the Incarnation is an essential mode of the man-
ifestation of Deity, a process of self-evolution.
Either this must be admitted, or else the personalities must
be viewed as fleeting and unsubstantial.
5. Logically, there must be some ground in the Deity why
He is revealed as a three-fold personality. Either, there is a
creative power, so that the person of Christ is produced by
divine efficiency, or there is a mode of subsistence in God him-
self, corresponding to the manifestation, so that the latter is but
the expression of the former. We must apply either the cate-
gory of cause and effect or that of ground and manifestation.
The first cannot be applied; for then Christ would be a created
being, and the passages which speak of pre- existence (to refer
to no others) are against this. If the second is applied, then
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMFTION. 79
we must recognize a specific mode of subsistence in the Deity
corresponding to the manifestations.
The Sabellian idea of God is that of the abstract unity allow-
ing no differences. It is a transference to God of the idea of a
human individual personality. Of old it was accused of Judais-
tic tendencies; it has also pantheistic tendencies.
6. The Sabellian hypothesis, instead of simplifying, does only
confuse our relation to God.
We have, as Christians, a direct personal relation to Christ,
also to the Father, also to the Spirit. This presupposes a personal
relation (objective) between the Father, Son, and Spirit. If it
does not, we are in a two- fold relation to God : to God as re-
vealed, and to God as He is in himself. We cannot make this
clear, cannot extricate ourselves from an inevitable confusion.
It is taking the subjective side of revelation to the exclusion
of the objective a part of the process which ends in the denial
of the objective validity of the Christian revelation.
7. By logical consequence, it leads to the pantheistic view:
the Father is God, in his abstract, unfathomable, impersonal
unity; the Son is the world, creation this abstract divinity
realized, coming to personality in man; the Holy Spirit is the
process by which all things return back to the original con-
dition.
8. The humanity of Christ is lost, on this view. It has no
abiding worth. This, if not a necessary, is a natural consequence.
3. That these Distinctions in the Godhead are appropriately
designated as Personal Distinctions Hypostases? in the present Usage.
The Father is not the Son, nor the Son the Father, the Holy
Spirit is neither. They are distinguished from each other, while
they are all termed divine.
We express what is common in them by saying, they have
the same divine nature (essence) and attributes: the same iden-
tical nature and attributes.
They differ, in this, from three men, having the same human
TOVTO sdrt TO itoiovv rot's aipsriKoiS Trjr rthavrfv, TO ravro
Tteyziv TTJV cpvtiiv ncd Trjv vrtotfradiv. Job. Damasc. DeFide Orth. lib. i. c. iii.
80 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
nature: in the latter case there is not an identity of substance.
But in God the same numerical substance belongs equally to
Father, Son, and Spirit.
How, now, shall that in which they differ be expressed?
It is all expressed in common usage, in the three distinct terms,
Father, Son, and Spirit. Another mode of expressing it is by
the term Person-, the first, second, and third persons in the God-
head. The doubts about this are: (1) It is a word not used in
the Scriptures for this purpose, (2) It seems to convey too defi-
nite an idea, as of three human persons. Some have preferred
to say, " three distinctions."
What, then, are the definitions of person, as distinguished
from substance or essence? Substance is that which is common,
person that in which they differ.
The old Scholastic definition of person is, "ipsa essentia divina
certo charactere hypostatico insignita, ac proprio subsistendi
modo a reliquis distincta." Each person is a mode of subsistence
of the same divine essence. In common usage a person is one
who can say /: who can be addressed by the personal pronouns.
Self-consciousness is then the distinctive attribute of personality
it is that by which we specifically know personality. Each
of the persons of the Trinity must, then, be supposed by us to
have a self-consciousness : this is the least that can be said, main-
taining anything like discrimination. If we do not say this, we
deny any conceivable distinctions in the Godhead we must say
"three distinctions," three modes of self-consciousness in the
Deity.
4. The ecclesiastical Statements as to the distinctive Character-
istics of the Persons.
How are we to conceive of these immanent personal distinc-
tions? Not how they came to be-, but, how they are how the
persons are distinguishable from each other.
There are two forms of statement here: The persons are dis-
tinguishable (1) as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, (2) As, first
person, second person, and third person, of the Godhead.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 81
Statements of Hie Westminster Standards:
"Conf." ch. ii. 3. "In the unity of the Godhead there be
three persons of one substance, power, and eternity; God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The Father is
of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally
begotten of the Father; the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding
from the Father and the Son."
" Larg. Cat." Ans. to Q. 9. "There be three persons in the
Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and these
three are one true, eternal God, the same in substance, equal in
power and glory: although distinguished by their personal prop-
erties/' Q. 10. " What are the personal properties of the three
persons in the Godhead ? " Ans. " It is proper to the Father to
beget the Son, and to the Son to be begotten of the Father, and
to the Holy Ghost to proceed from the Father and the Son, from
all eternity."
NOTE. The expression, "equal in power and glory" is sometimes interpreted,
incorrectly, as if the power and glory were numerically distinguishable.
The Significance of these "Personal Properties"
Without them, the doctrine is reduced to indefiniteness.
The received statements about the Trinity in most of the
orthodox expositions, may be here appropriately adduced to il-
lustrate the sense of these distinctions. These statements are
given under the three heads: (1) Unity, (2) Difference, (3) Mutual
Relation.
1. Unity. This lies in the essence, ovtiia, or substance. The
earlier mode of conceiving the matter placed this unity in the
Father as the fountain and source of the other personalities; but
this was abandoned after Augustine's time. It has since been
commonly held that the one divine essence is common to all the
three, and that each has the totality thereof.
What is this divine essence? It is absolute spirituality, all
divine perfections and attributes those of the understanding and
of the will. Thomasius: "The absolute personality is common,
the same for the three persons." God, as essence, is not dead,
but living: u actus purissimus."
82 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
2. The Difference, or Distinction of Persons. 1 In the one essence
there are different "modes of subsistence," not nominal, nor es-
sential, but real. Each one of the three " Persons " has an ap-
propriate mode of subsistence, peculiar to himself, whereby He
is distinguished from the others as a person. The properties
of these persons are partly internal acts and partly the personal
properties thence resulting. The act of the Father is generation
his characteristic then is, paternity. The act of the Father
and Son is spiratio. Or, "Generation" is the eternal production
of the Son from the Father "God of God." Spiratio proces
sion is the eternal proceeding of the Holy Spirit from the Fa
ther and the Son.
These acts are different from creation, as being eternal acts
and as not being the production from nothing. They are also
acts differing from each other, each produces a different person,
but what they are is unfathomable.
The personal properties resulting from these personal acts
are: the distinctive traits of the three persons, viz., paternity,
sonship, procession. The Father is unbegotten, the Son be-
gotten, the Holy Spirit proceeding, eternally.
The procession of the Holy Spirit is equally from the Father
and the Son, not as distinct, but so far as they have the same
divine essence. " Fatendum est, patrem et filium principia esse
Spiritus Sancti, non ut duo principia, sed ut unum principium."
Augustine, de Trin. v. 14.
3. The relation of the Persons to the Unity. The three are related
tc the same divine essence, not as parts, but as modes of subsist-
ence. The divine essence is not before, nor external to, but in
the persons eternally. This must be held, otherwise we should
have four persons instead of three. The difference is not in the
eternity, nor in any divine attribute, but in the order of subsist-
ence. The Father is first in order (not in time), the unbegotten;
1 The derivation of persona from rtpoticaTtov (=rtpo<a rov$ odrtaS) is not
sustained. Thomas Aquinas, "Sumrna," p. 1, qu. 29, art. 4, says " persona dicitui
quasi per se una." In the tract "De Persona," ascribed to Boethius, it is said,
"Persona dicta est a personando." This is the true derivation, to sound through
a mask (larva histrionalis).
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 83
the Son is second, the begotten : the Son has the principle (not
the cause) of his subsistence in the Father; the Holy Spirit in
both. If we say, first, second, and third persons, we indicate,
still, an order of subsistence.
Aquinas (p. 1, q. 31, art. 1, ad 4 m ): "Cum ergo dicimus trinita
tern in unitate, non ponimus numerura in unitate essentise, quasi
sit ter una; sed personas numeratas ponimus in unitate naturae,
sicut supposita alicujus naturse dicuntur esse in natura ilia."
Questions:
(a.) Is the Father the cause of the being of the Son and
Spirit?
No not cause the ground.
(&.) Does the Son exist by the will of the Father?
Not as the product of that will : but free activity.
(c.) If activity is stated as the ground, then before that the
Son was not ?
No, the activity was eternal.
(d.) Is all subordination inconsistent with divinity?
Yes, if it involves anything ad extra or any want of the
divine perfections.
(e.) Is not derived being inconsistent with divinity ?
Yes: if the relations of time are introduced.
KEMABK. The whole conception is in accordance with this canon: "Prinoi-
pium missionis in tempore est principium missionis in seternitate."
5. Is the term Son used in tJie Scriptures in reference to Christ's
immanent relation to the Father ?
Positions in respect to " Sonship."
1. The term is not used for the mere humanity of Christ
2. It is certainly used for his whole office as Redeemer.
3. There are passages which seem to imply that it includes
his whole relation to God.
4. There are passages which cannot without constraint exclude
divinity.
The question is not of the highest theological importance.
It has its chief dogmatic importance in connection with the dif-
ficulties on two points: an inherent subordination of the Son,
84 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
and the doctrine of eternal generation. Apart from these
points, it is a question of philology and Scriptural usage of the
terra. As a question of philology and Scriptural usage, it re-
duces itself to this: Is the term Son applied to Christ, or the
term Father to the Father in relation to Christ, solely from his
human or official manifestation or is it applied, when this is
not in view? Both sides allow, that now as a matter of fact, it
may be applied to the whole divine-human personality of Christ.
Those who say it is derived from the human manifestation
originally, allow it afterwards to be applied to the whole un-
divided person. The others say, it is applicable to Christ's
original relation to Deity, and that the human and official usage
is but a manifestation, a revelation in a lower sphere, of an ante-
cedent relation.
Christ designates himself in Scripture, by four terms:
(1) Man, (2) Son of Man, (by which not his lowliness but his
headship of men is indicated), (3) Messiah Christ, (4) Son of
God. The question, then, comes to this: when He calls himself
the Son of God, or when He speaks of God as his Father, does He
mean the same thing, or refer to the same relation that is des-
ignated by either of the other terms man, Son of man, Messiah;
or, does He express another intimate, pre-existent, essential
relation ?
A preliminary argument for the latter position may be
derived from this consideration: He calls God his Father, the
Father calls Him Son. Now, who is the He, that is thus called?
It is the person, Jesus Christ. God is not the Father of Christ's
mere bodily humanity; nor of Him as bearing an office, but is
the Father of the Son, of that person who is the Son. Now,
that person, as a personal being and agent, pre-existed. He did
not begin to be a person when He came into the world ; He pre-
existed as a distinct person from the Father, and when He came
into the world He simply assumed humanity. When, now, God
is called his Father, it designates, in many cases, the intimate
personal relation of the two to each other. It is not the relation
of the mere outward humanity, nor of the office to God; but of
the person of Christ to the person of the Father.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION 85
(a.) The term Son of God (and the correlative, Father) is not
used in Scripture in reference to Christ merely as a man. 1
Luke i. 35. " The angel answered and said unto her, The
Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest
shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall
be born of thee shall be called the Son of God."
Because He was born of God, He was to be called the Son of
God: He was born of God in a special sense. It is used as a
designation of a special relation to God. That relation might
have pre-existed in another form: the human (temporal) mani-
festation may have been merely the revelation of it in time. The
passage merely says, that because generated by a direct and
special divine influence, He shall be called the Son of God. He
is not made the Son of'God thereby, but called such. His mi-
raculous conception should lead men to acknowledge Him as
the Son of God: thus He would be known to be Immanuel, Isa.
vii. 14.
Besides, to interpret this name, Son of God, with respect to
his being born into the world is contradictory to other passages,
in which it is applied to Him under other aspects, e. </., the
quotations of the passage in,
Ps. ii. 7. " Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee "
(where VFJ^J may be, "have I so declared thee," i. e. to be my
Son):
Acts xiii. 33, " God hath fulfilled the same as it is also
written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son," etc. (here the sup-
position that the " declaration " refers to the resurrection is
highly doubtful: it is rather to his whole manifestation that the
quotation is applied).
Heb. i. 5, 6. " For unto which of the angels said He at any
time, Thou art my Son And again when He bringeth the
first-begotten into the world."
1 Episcopius (Theol. Inst.) on the Person of Christ says, there are four grounds
for Christ's being called Son: (1) Conception, (2) Mediation, (3) Kesurrection,
(4) Ascension. Another "divine filiation" is not necessary to be believed.
Bishop Bull met these assertions in his " Judicium Eccl. Cath." 1694 his second
great work.
86 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Heb. v. 5. " Christ glorified not himself to be made an high
priest; but He that said unto Him, Thou art my Son," etc.
In these passages, the Sonship is referred to Christ's whole
manifestation and work in the world.
The sense is, Christ is declared or proved to be the Son of
God, by his whole work, here. He is not made to be such by
his Incarnation, his humanity.
(b.) Jesus as the Messiah Christ is called the Son of God:
but it is not asserted that the title Son of God is given Him be-
cause He is the Messiah. By his works and words He is proved
to be the Son of God; but it is not proved, that that is the reason
for so calling Him.
Instances: John vi. 69; Matt. xvi. 16; John xi. 29, and many
others.
(c.) There are passages in which the term Son seems to be
applied to Christ in his divine nature; in his direct personal re-
lation to the Father; or, in respect to which it is at least doubtful
whether it be not so applied.
John i. 14. "And we beheld his glory, the glory as of
the only begotten of the Father."
This " only begotten of the Father " is undoubtedly the Logos.
John i. 18. " The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom
of the Father, He hath revealed Him.'*
John v. 17. "My Father worketh hitherto and I work."
Jesus here calls God his Father, with respect to his higher
nature. The Jews so understood Him.
Rom. viii. 32. " He that spared not His own Son." etc. (John
v. 18, Christ " said also that God was his [own] Father.")
Matt. xvi. 16. " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living
God."
John iii. 16 " For God so loved the world that He gave his
only begotten Son."
Gal. iv. 4. " When the fulness of the time was come God
sent foith his Son."
Johii xx. 17. " I ascend unto my Father, and your Father '
(not "our Father").
Matt, xxviii. 19. The baptismal formula.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 87
(d.) The term Son is so used in respect to Christ that we can-
not say it excludes, but most naturally say, it includes, his divine
nature, his intimate personal relation to the Father." l
And even if we get rid of the application of the term Son to
his personal relation to God, yet the same kind of relation is
hinted at by other terms and phrases, which are applied to Him
in respect (probably) to his pre-existent state.
The Logos, the Word, is that which expresses or reveals:
that in a being whereby it is revealed. "The image of the in-
visible God, the firstborn of every creature." If the first clause
relates to the historical Christ, the second points to a different
origin from the creation, and leads most naturally to the in-
ternal relation of the Godhead which is intimated in other
Scriptures.
So, the Son is "in the form of God" and "the brightness
of his glory and (^apaHriip xrfi vTtotirddews) the impression of his
essence."
The relation of speech to the mind, of the first (and peculiarly)
begotten to the Father, of the brightness to the glory, of the
impression to the seal, discovers something of the same relation
as is designated by the terms Son and Father: {. e., the same
substance or essence in different forms.
6. How now are we to conceive this relation as an internal one
in the Godhead?
Here is the question and the difficulty; and here is seen the
arbitrary character of many theories.
The relation of Sonship is figurative. It cannot be taken
literally, or after the mode of human fatherhood and sonship.
1 If we deny any definite internal relation of dependence of the Son on the Fa-
ther a certain inequality (yet wholly immanent), we are led to an arbitrary in-
terpretation of some passages of Scripture . What is said about the whole person
of Christ and his total relation to the Father, by himself and others, is referred
to Him as a man exclusively. " My Father is greater than I " ; "I and my Father
are one"; if the former of these is spoken of Christ's humanity, or official state
alone, so must the latter be. It seems to be forgotten often that it is the same
person who is speaking in the different passages; and that what is true of Him
as a person, in His personal relation to God, must be abiding.
88 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
The relation among men denotes (a.) priority of being in the
father to the son, in point of time, (b.) communication of nature
from the one to the other, in the relation of antecedent cause
to a subsequent effect, (c.) consequently an absolute dependence
for being of the son on the father. The literal application of the
analogy would draw after it, then, a denial of the independent
being, of the self-divinity of the Son. It is an analogy the best
among human relations; and to hold what must be held of the
eternity and independence of Christ we must say, it is an anal-
ogy which applies only to the relation itself, not to the mode in
which this relation came to be.
It expresses the relation and of the same general kind as
the term Logos; there are two persons, their relation to each
other is like that of the son to the father, of speech to the mind.
To arrive at a more definite conception or form of state-
ment of this relation, we may regard it, (1) Negatively (2)
Positively.
1. Negatively: Statements not authorized:
(a.) The most common is, that the Father communicates the
divine essence to the Son. John v. 26, " Even so hath he
given to the Son to have life m himself,' is commonly adduced.
But this gift does not probably refer to the divine mode of
being.
"The communication of the divine essence" seems to sup-
pose that the Father is before the Son ; though the relation is
not that of a created being, yet it is not eternal.
(b.) The view which makes the relation to be that of em ana
tion, as a ray from the sun. The old objection is valid; it im
plies a division or possibility of division, in the divine essence
2. Positively:
(a.) God is not a single individual person, like an individual
man, alongside of other men.
(b.) God is perpetual activity actus purissimus ; and his eter
nal activity is not merely that of attributes ever working, but
is that of a three-fold, internal, personal relationship, as Father,
Son, and Spirit, or as the first, second, and third persons of the
Godhead.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 89
(c.) In the order of interdependence, though not of time,
there is a dependence of the second person, the Sen, upon the
first person, the Father, and of the third person upon both the
Father and the Son; yet not so that the Son is really dependent
upon the Father any more than is the Father upon the Son. It
is an order of subsistence, an internal relation. The same di-
vine essence and attributes exist eternally in this personal rela-
tionship. Any view of the Trinity must concede a difference in
Father, Son, and Spirit, in the first, second, and third persons;
in short an ordo subsistendi a certain inequality. Only in some
such mode of representation can we keep clear of annulling the
personal distinctions in the Godhead, of reducing them to three,
distinctions.
(d.) There is an eternal generation, meaning the relation in
which the Father and the Son are, not how they came to be.
By this, too, we discern in the Godhead the same relationship
internally as that which is externally revealed.
The ground is in the divinity itself, why it must be revealed
as Father, Son, and Spirit; as it is revealed, so it is, abstracting
from it the limitations of time and space. This is the fact with
regard to everything else: so by analogy with the Godhead.
There is the same relation eternally, which in the manifestation
is revealed. 1
i Pascal, in a letter to his sister (cited in Vinet, " Etudes sur Pascal," pp. 78-9)
speaks thus: Keferring to a peculiarity in retaining the knowledge of spiritual
things, not by memory "though we can as easily remember an Epistle of St.
Paul as a Book of Virgil" but in things of grace "II faut que la meme grace,
qni peut seule en donner la premiere intelligence, la continue et la rende toujours
pre'sente en la retra9ant sans cesse dans le coeur des fideles, pour la faire toujours
vivre ; corcme dans les bien heureux Dieu renouvelle continuellement leur beatitude,
qui est un effet et une suite de la grace: comme aussi I'dglise tient que le Pere
produil continuellement le Fils, et maintient 1'eternitd de son essence par une effu-
sion de sa substance, qui est sans interruption aussi bien que sans fin."
Dr. E. S. Candlish (in Introduction to " The 'Eternal Sonship," by Jas. Kidd,
D.D., 1st ed., 1822, London, 1872, p. xlix.) says: "The Trinity is a revealed fact,
.... but is there nothing in the laws of intelligent thought, in the essential con-
stitution of the thinking mind, that responds to and closes with the doctrine or
fact when presented to it, so as to facilitate the acceptance of it by the understand-
ing, and give it a place behind or beyond the understanding in the deeper region of tht
soul's intuitional perceptions" Then he goes on to say, substantially: Before ere-
90 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
ation God was infinite and alone, He was of infinite intelligence and moral excel-
lencies, which latter are essentially communicative seeking objects of fellow-
ship. If only one being existed in all eternity, it must be assumed that "all
these attributes existed in a state contrary to their very nature: a state of sheer
passivity, or rather potentiality: under the category rather of the posse than of
the esse." E. g., Love is under "a necessity of communicating itself in grace and
glory to some one to whom it may say, I and Thou I GIVING, THOU KECEIVING."
.... "The life of God is love. He lives in loving . . . And his love cannot
be without an object." .... " Here is the precise difficulty which the doctrine
of the Trinity is fitted to solve " (p. lix.)
PART II.
CHEISTIAN COSMOLOGY.
We have considered the proof of the Being and Attributes of
God; also God as revealed in and by the system of Redemption, as
Triune, the immanent Trinity as the basis of the economic, which
latter is found in the whole subsequent work of God. We are now
to pass from God in himself to God in his works, the mirror of
himself; his eternal power and Godhead are understood by the
things that are made (Rom. i. 20), and of course are in them.
The general title here is Christian Cosmology, or, The World
viewed as a Divine Cosmos or Order, manifesting the divine
glory: The immanent glory as seen in the declarative glory of
the Godhead. The subject of consideration here is the Cosmos,
not as seen in itself, as science studies it, in detail, by induction
and generalization, but as seen in its relations to God, to Re-
demption, to the Christian system, to eternal life. For the Cos-
mos is essentially the manifestation of God in time and in its
progress towards eternity. It comes from the eternal God, it
finishes its course and returns to its source, perfected, transformed
into an eternal kingdom of grace and glory. In God himself
there is infinite fulness, but that He might manifest his glory
He brought into existence a universe, material, moral. In this
creation God is revealed, his attributes co-working to produce
the highest result for infinite wisdom and infinite love.
CHAPTER I.
CREATOR AND CREATION.
God is set forth in Scripture as the author and creator of the
world as well as the Being who sustains and carries it on. The
world is to fulfil a good end, the manifestation of the divine ful-
ness so far as this is possible in the forms of space and time.
92 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
1. The Scripture represents God as the Creator of the World.
It represents Him as the cause of being, to all that exists ad
extra. The ground and source of all life are in God. This is
frequently declared in the Scriptures: Gen. i. 1; Acts vii. 50;
Rom. xi. 36; 1 Cor. viii. 6; Eph. iii. 9; Heb. i. 12; Rev. iv. 11.
The creation of particular parts of the world is ascribed to the
divine power: Acts iv. 15; Heb. i. 10; Rev. x. 6.
2. The Scripture represents the Son of God as the Medium by
whom the World ivas brought into being.
Col. i. 15; John i. 3; Heb. i. 2. The Socinian explanation of
Buch passages is that they refer to the spiritual creation of the
kingdom of God, but the passages far surpass such interpreta-
tion. See Grinfield's " Christian Cosmos, or The Son of God the
Revealed Creator." 1
3. God created freely and not by necessity.
No external or internal necessity for creation can be supposed,
certainly no external, for all that is external is the product of the
divine act; nor any internal, excepting a necessity from the di-
vine love, which is moral, and not physical or natural. God is
described -in the Scripture as blessed and sufficient to himself:
Acts xvii. 25; 1 Tim. i. 11. This is shown also by the nature
of the case, if God be an infinite and absolute Spirit. In the
Scripture, Creation is ascribed to the will of God, of course
implying voluntariness : Ps. xxxiii. 6; Eph. i. 11; Heb. xi. 3;
Rev. iv. 11.
4. Creation is not from any previously extant substance.
1 1 was not a modification of an eternal material. An apoc-
ryphal book, Wisd. xi. 17, speaks of creation as " from formless
matter," but in the Scriptures God is represented as the only
cause, producing by a word and not from extant material. All
things are said to be from Him, which implies that there can be
no eternal substance. See Heb. xi. 3, the purport of which is
that the visible universe is not a mere manifestation of what is in-
1 He perhaps goes too far in saying that this idea has almost vanished fVoi.i
evangelical preaching; still it is not enough insisted upon.
ANTECEDENTS OF IlEDEMPTION. 93
visible but is the product of divine power. Rom. iv. 17 contains
a strongly corroborative expression: Who calls what is not
into being* as if it were. 1
Some of the Theories held on this Subject.
The old theologians distinguished between the first and sec-
ond act of creation : the first, the creation from nothing, indicated
in Gen. i. 1, with the result in the second verse; the second, the
work of the six days, bringing all into shape 'and order and
implying, what is perhaps correct, a distinction between the
creation of the prime material and its specific arrangement
and organization. This is found also in some of the heathen
cosmogonies, although it is a matter of doubt whether they held
matter to be eternal. In Plato this is disputed. The New Pla-
tonists were dualists, holding to the eternity of matter. As
the question is now raised there are several theories.
The first theory. That there was a primitive or original
matter having its laws, which is developed into the worlds and
all the orders of life in them, through the gradations of gas,
fire, etc., the forces of the planets and their rotation, the geological
stadia of the earth's progress, and then the orders of plants and
animals up to man all developed out of an original matter.
The questions which this theory does not answer are : Whence
the matter and whence its laws? Whence is the order of crea-
tion, and what is it ? There cannot be anything in the effect
which is not in the cause. If from the cause sprang life, instinct,
organization, intelligence, reason, person, and personal being,
then in the cause there must have been at least as much, and
therefore the primitive matter must have been a matter having
intelligence and personality, which is an extraordinary kind of
matter.
The second theory. Spirit and not matter is primitive;
spirit, not as conscious, intelligent spirit, but in a generalized
abstract sense, as containing all the laws and ideas out of which
matter is developed. This becomes external to itself, and is
developed into all the forms of the created universe. This
theory may be either pantheistic or pantheistico-theistic, ac-
1 Compare this with 2 Mace. vii. 28.
94 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
cording as spirit is viewed as having self-consciousness or not.
If viewed pantheistically the prime objection to it is that we
cannot derive from it any explanation of the mind in the uni-
verse. How can the abstract produce the concrete ? How can
an idea bring into being an animal, by its own force as an idea ?
If it cannot, the theory will not explain the works of creation.
The other form, that spirit is primitive and all else is an emana-
tion from it, is pantheistico-theistic. It allows that the intelli-
gence which is disclosed in nature is divine, but says that there
is likewise in the divine Being a kind of material out of which
the worlds were formed, the mode of development, however,
never having been explained. This is the emanation theory of
some German philosophers, and it is akin to the theory next
to be mentioned.
The third theory. That God is a self-conscious Being,
having an antagonism in himself, which is called "the nature
in God." This develops itself in the forms of the finite and
material. Space and time, in their finite measures, existed as
really for God as for ourselves. In God there is a kind of finite
material out of which the worlds were made.
The fourth theory. That which alone is primitive is God,
the infinite, absolute, and personal Spirit, and all that is in being
is the product 'of his power. In Him, however, in his being and
attributes, there was always the possibility of the existence of
a finite and dependent universe. In his love lies the impulse
to producing such a universe; in his will, the power of bringing
it into being. That which was previous to creation in God
was the possibility of its existence and also the idea of the
world or the plan of the whole world from eternity. That was the
archetype of the world, and it is this ideal world which is real-
ized in a created universe. In creation God brings into being
that which was not, as far as force or material are concerned.
Although this was always in the divine mind, and in that sense
eternal, yet as actually existing it came into being through the
divine will. The purport of this theory, in relation to the others,
may be shown by two or three considerations, (a.) It implies
that the substance of the created universe is not that of the
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 95
divine nature. The substance of the created universe as ma-
terial is radically different from the divine essence ; in the quali-
ties of impenetrability and attractive force, in the qualities which
make the atom and form the play of forces neither of which
can be supposed to be existing in a spiritual and eternal essence;
and therefore the universe must be absolutely different from
God. We must distinguish in creation between the matter
(the element or atoms) and the forces. Both of these are entirely
distinct from anything that can be in Deity. Thus, that which
is absolutely new in the creation, which was not there before, is
the existing of these material atoms and forces, in the forms of
space and time.
5. The Belation of God as Creator to wliat He has created.
The Scripture view is that God is exalted above the world,
yet present in it by his works, is both transcendent and imma-
nent, far surpassing the universe, yet dwelling and working in
it. He exists in one way in nature, and in another in man ; is
related in one way to the heathen, and in another to his people
the Israelites; is revealed in one method in the Old Testa-
ment, and in a closer relation in the New. He dwells among
his people and sets his tabernacle among them. The humble
and contrite heart He will not despise. Those who love Him
become the temple of the Holy Ghost. These different relations
are in accordance with the different characteristics of the objects
which He has brought into being. Especially is God's relation
different to the good and to the bad. Heaven is his peculiar
place of blessing. In the realm of despair, He works only in
punishing. The omnipresence of God of course extends to the
bounds of space and time, but the presence of God, in his special
workings, is according to the nature of the objects which He
works upon.
6. The Scripture represents Creation as a Plan and not as a
Development.
Creation is not a development in the sense of the "Vestiges
of Creation/' It is a plan in which all the parts are connected
96 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
All of it is to reveal the divine glory. The great end of God is
the manifestation of his fulness, his wisdom and power, in a cre-
ated world, and all the universe is made upon one plan with ref-
erence to that, with its regular orders and stages: which are set
forth even in the first account of creation, that of the six days,
where there is a regular and philosophical order in which the
objects are brought into being, beginning with the lowest in
the scale, and ascending to man. We have first, the ele-
ments, secondly, the vegetable kingdom, thirdly, the animal
kingdom, ending fourthly, in man; but this is not an order
or plan which has a development, in such a sense that the
higher springs out of the lower. The unity of the plan is
made by its being one in the divine mind. There is no evi-
dence that there can be a passage from a lower to a higher
order, or from the inanimate to the animate.
CHAPTER II.
OF THE CREATED UNIVERSE AS SET FORTH IN SCRIPTURE.
It is designated by different names: the Creation, as having
its origin in God ; the Cosmos, as exhibiting a fair order ; the
jEons, as having its being in time. It is described as having
a real being of its own, not a mere seeming, as held by some
philosophers. The finite universe is not a perpetual creation,
but consists of proper second causes: Heb. iv. 3. Each partic-
ular order has its proper functions and office, its distinct char-
acter: 1 Cor. xv. 38, "To each seed its own body," implies a
distinction in the natural characteristics. While Scripture repre-
sents that there are different spheres of creation, different parts
of the universe, it represents them as all having respect to the
kingdom of God. Heaven, earth, and hell are the chief divi-
sions, and all are named and described as being a part of one
plan, the whole object of which is to illustrate the divine glory.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 9?
Under this point of view the Scriptural representation is much
higher than that of natural science. The conception of unity
given here is much higher than the sciences have been able to
attain. The two parts of the world, in the general description
of them given in Scripture, are the heavens and the earth, the
relation of above and below being that which is generally im-
plied : the heavens being the invisible, and the earth the visible
(Col. i. 1G); the earth being for a time, the heavens for eternity.
Yet the earth is to become heaven (Rev. xxi.): they are sepa-
rated now for a time in order to a reunion, against the time
when the Bride shall be prepared to meet the Bridegroom at
his coming. Earthly things thus become an image of heavenly
things, (a.) Heaven is the place in which the kingdom of God
is fully realized, where unfallen and redeemed spirits abide and
in which God dwells and is perfectly revealed : the Father's house
in which are many mansions, with which the name of God as
our heavenly Father accords. The kingdom of God is called
the kingdom of heaven in reference to its moral character and
also to its ultimate destination ; Christ is spoken of as having
dwelt in heaven and as having returned thither. In it are dif-
ferent degrees or mansions. Christ has ascended above all the
heavens. Paul speaks of having been caught up to the third
heaven. (6.) Earth is that portion of the universe in which
fallen humanity dwells, and where the kingdom of God is not
yet fully realized. It is to be transformed, and the seeds of
heaven are found even here: Heb. vi. 5: "The powers of the
world (or age) to come " are already at work. The earth is to
pass through a process of change arid redemption. Such a pro-
cess is probably set forth in Rom. viii. 20, 21. The word " creature "
here appears to mean the whole physical universe, and this is
described as in sympathy with redemption and destined to share
in the redemption when completed. 2 Pet. iii. 10 gives further
indications of the same destiny, (c.) The other grand portion
of the universe is the under- world, Hades, the world of departed
spirits. This is represented as being under the earth. There
are two main divisions of it: Paradise (Luke xxiii. 43), a place
for the departed good, called also Abraham's bosom (Luke xvi.
98 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
27); and the prison (1 Pet. iii. 19), the place where the evil are
kept, which at last becomes the Gehenna, 1 the hell, the lake of
fire, denoting the place of final torment to which the wicked
are condemned along with the devil and his angels.
CHAPTER III.
OP THE DIFFERENT ORDERS OF CREATED BEINGS.
The creation is represented as having different orders of
animated beings, not a series in development, but a series
in a plan, constantly ascending to man, the highest. Be-
tween man and God there are other orders of beings. The
Scriptures reveal the existence of angels, making another
scale of ascents. These are sometimes called the sons of
God. As far as any distinct revelation guides us, we are
constrained to think of these as spiritual beings. It' they
have any body at all, it must be what is termed a spiritual
body, not partaking of flesh and blood; and apparently they
are not so far subject to the restrictions of space and time as
men are. There is no evidence that they belong to any order
of beings that grows from small to large. It appears that
what they are at creation, that they remain. Their power
is superior to that of human beings, yet subordinate to that
of God ; working through second causes and not above them ;
and it is doubtful whether they can have any immediate in-
fluence upon human souls: at any rate this is not directly
asserted. Probably their influence is limited to working
through and by second causes, and thus they must work
according to established laws. They are described as ap-
pearing for the most part at the great epochs of the world;
at the creation, the giving of the law, the Incarnation, and
the scenes of the final judgment. That there are some orders
1 Dr. Campbell, in his "Introd. to the Four Gospels," has one of the best
essays in respect to the Jewish views as to Gehenna, etc.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 99
among them is implied in Col. ii. 10, and other passages,
but we have nothing more definite than the general desig-
nations, " principalities and powers," "thrones and dominions."
A few names of angels are given. The good angels are de-
scribed as angels of light, as employed in the service of
God, as ministering in some respects to man, and in one pas-
sage as having some particular relation to children (Matt,
xviii. 10).
As to the evil angels. (1) If there are angels, there may be
evil angels. If there may be spiritual beings of purity, there
may be spiritual beings impure, sinful, and evil. The evidence
that such beings do exist, rests solely, of course, on the testi-
mony of the Bible. From a priori reasoning we could make
no inference except the possibility of their existence. The fact
of their existence is revealed to us in the Scriptures. Speci-
mens of the Scripture testimony are 1 Tim. iii. 16; Jude 6; 2 Pet.
ii. 4. It appears from the passages cited that these angels
were not originally evil. They became such. 1 (2) The Script-
ure representation of the character of the evil angels. The
love of evil is rooted in them. They rejoice in the destruction
of others. 1 Pet. v. 8. Works of deceit, fraud, temptation
to sin, and malignity are ascribed to them, as seen in the
names, Adversary, Accuser, The Evil One, The Destroyer.
In them probably evil has reached its height, so that the
love of sin is paramount even when it is known to be folly.
(3) The Scripture represents that the evil angels together form
a kingdom or organization: Eph. ii. 2; vi. 12. Elsewhere,
the prince of demons, of the power of the air, the devil with
his angels, is spoken of, so that in such designations we
have the intimations of an order. (4) The power of these
evil spirits is described as extending to spiritual solicitations
and also to influences upon the body. Satan binds the mind
and ensnares. "The Devilish wisdom" is spoken of; this power
is controlled, but it is a power appealing to men's evil passions
and moving them by wicked motives. The power over the
1 The "sons of Go:l," in Gen. vi. 2, are most probably the purer port of
caankind, and not angels as some writers would suggest-.
100 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
body comes out in the Demoniacal Possessions. The reality
of these possessions cannot be given up without giving up
the historical verity of Scripture. That there are forms of
disease now something like these is undoubtedly true, such
as lunacy and epilepsy, but this does not show that all these
phenomena are connected solely with bodily causes. Epilepsy
may be the result of a violent conflict of passion. The phe-
nomena of epilepsy and lunacy may have occurred in con-
nection with demoniacal possessions. That they did rests solely
upon Scriptural evidence. We cannot now show that there
are cases of possession, and science is unable to prove them
impossible. It may be that our Saviour's great work in sub-
duing them was such that the power of these possessions
should be paralyzed for the future. That there was a conflict
with the power of evil, and that Christ broke that power,
is evident from Scripture, and it may be that this was one
of the cases.
The chief objections to this doctrine of the reality of evil
spirits are presented by Schleiermacher. He objects to the
whole doctrine of the Devil as inconceivable, as not to be
thought consistently, and therefore reduces it to a personifica-
tion, placing it among the mythical elements of Scripture,
on the following grounds:
1. That the .fall of Satan and his host, whether they fell
together or separately, is inconceivable, because no motive can
be assigned which would not presuppose the fall already
accomplished. Reply. This lies against the case of every first
sin in every creature, and would prove that there could not
be any first sin.
2. It is impossible to conceive of the fall of Satan in con-
nection with such high intellectual endowments and knowl-
edge as must be assigned to him ! Reply. We do not
know how much Satan knew. We. know that he was not
omniscient. We do not know whether he himself knew all
the consequences of sin. But even if he did know, that is
no reason why he might not have fallen. In every creature
the knowledge of the evil consequences of sin is such that
ANTECEDENTS OF REI/jeMPTlON^/ K \ J >\ '. /10J
if that knowledge were followed there would be no sin. Hu-
man beings know that when they sin they are exposing them*
selves to wretchedness, and yet they sin. No cue can say
but that there might have been such knowledge as Satan
had, and still he would have fallen.
3. It is inconceivable that Satan should have parted with
this knowledge by an act of the will; that the will in surrender-
ing itself to sin should be the means of blinding the intellect.
Eeply. It is of the very nature of all sin and evil that they
carry the soul away in opposition to light and knowledge. The
knowledge may exist, and the will be still perverse. The reply
under the second head applies here also.
4. Some fall while others do not. This is no real objection.
5. Such a being could not hope to relieve his misery by con-
stant hostility to God, and yet he engages in such hostility
knowing that it will only increase his wretchedness. Reply.
Satan in this respect is like all who sin. Every sinner knows
that in the end he must succumb, and yet he sins. All sin is
folly in its very nature. 1
Another objection may be mentioned, viz., that the Scriptural
representations of the Devil's power are dangerous: that it is
dangerous in a public teacher to say much about this. If this
be true, and the Scriptures are truly from God, it is wonderful
that they should contain such representations. There cannot
be any danger in using Scriptural revelations in the Scriptural
sense. The chief danger has been not in taking Scripture, but
rather Milton's " Paradise Lost," as our standard. Whatever be
the amount of Satan's power, it is all subject to God's power, and
Satan can never overcome the soul that trusts in God.
Observation. We should guard ourselves against teaching
the ubiquity of Satan. There may be evil influences widely dis-
persed, but that the Devil has ubiquity is not contained in the
Scripture. Also we should note the difference between Scripture
and other pretended sources in regard to details of the spiritual
world. The Scriptures give simply intimations, while fanatics
and pretenders enter into minute particulars.
' See Twesten's "Doct. of Angels," Bib. Sac. I. 792.
102 > '*.': V - -CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
CHAPTER IV.
THE PRESERVATION OF CREATION.
By preservation is meant a continuance in being by God's
omnipresent agency of what has been brought into being by
God's omnipotence, including of course the preservation of the sub-
stance and the qualities and the powers of each individual thing.
There are various theories of the Preservation. Some represent it
as a continued creation. Others view it as mechanical continu-
ance. A mechanic makes a machine, and leaves it to work
through its own properties; preservation here is simply non-
interference. Limborch, the chief Arminian theologian, says
that preservation is simply not annihilating. Others represent
it as a continual influx of God, by a substantial omnipresence,
so that God is in everything by his essence. Calvin has some
strong expressions upon this subject : he says, God is everywhere
present by illapse and influx, terms which would be understood
now as having almost a pantheistic sense.
1.. Sources of the Proof of the Doctrine.
From the divine attributes in their necessary working, Pres-
ervation might be inferred. Omnipresence, Omnipotence, and
Wisdom, exerted in reference to a world brought into being, in-
volve a divine energy continuing it in existence. It may also be
said that the world being the product of divine omnipotence
must be continued in being by the same power or fall into an-
nihilation. Otherwise the world would have the principle of its
being in itself. Again, God having produced the world, his
wisdom and love would of course prompt Him to continue it in
existence. The Scriptures set forth God's preservation of what
He has made in passages such as the following: Acts xvii. 28;
Ps. xxxvi. 6; Neh. ix. 6; Ps. Ixvi. 9. Christ is revealed as the
Preserver as well as Creator: Col. i. 17; Heb. i. 3.
2. The Purport of the Doctrine.
1. It recognizes what is true in the other theories, the theory
of continual creation and the mechanical theory, without im-
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 103
plying the denial which is implied in them, viz., in the one case,
of proper second causes, and in the other, of a continued de-
pendence of the world upon its author.
2. This doctrine farther maintains and insists upon the real
presence of God in all his works, operative, upholding, and guid-
ing all things for his own purpose and plan. It asserts a real
operative presence, and does not deny a substantial presence.
3. The proper theory of preservation also allows the real
existence of second causes, while still insisting that these are
kept in being and upheld by the great First Cause. They are
proper causes in themselves, and have a proper mode of activity
and being, but not as separate from God. All experience proves
the existence of these causes. They are not modes of action of
the great First Cause, but proper second causes sustained by the
First Cause. This view alone is consistent with God's making
real responsible agents, who must yet recognize their depend-
ence on God.
3. Theory of continued Creation.
This theory asserts that the same divine creative power which
was at work in the first instance is ever at work, producing all
things by an omnipotent energy at each instant. It of course
involves a denial of any real subsistence in the things them-
selves. It is the creative omnipotence which is the upholding
omnipotence.
That the creative omnipotence does-uphold is undeniable, but
that the creative and upholding omnipotence are the same, rests
on no valid ground of evidence. This position has been taken
by some of the New England divines of the strictest Hopkinsian
cast, suggested no doubt by the speculations of Berkeley, who
held that the external world had no real proper being, but con-
sisted of ideas, which were constantly produced by the divine
power, and had their origin only in the divine mind. This in-
volves of course the position that there is no real substance be-
hind the phenomena. 1
i The Divine Efficiency scheme of Dr. Emmons is but a modification of the same
Berkeleian position, being Berkeley's principle applied to the inner acts of the mind
as well as to the ideas of what is outward.
104 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
The Objections to this Theory.
1. It is against our native belief in the existence, external
to us, of real, proper substances. This is a belief of which we
cannot divest ourselves.
2. If carried out logically, the theory would lead to the po-
sition that God is the only real being, and that all besides has
merely phenomenal being without reality; and so we should be
brought to pantheism.
3. In the same manner the theory runs athwart another of
our beliefs, that of a proper causal action, the connection of
cause and effect, which is certified by reason. It asserts that
God is the only causality. Second causes are denied.
4 It is against the tone and general representations of Script-
ure, which represents creation as completed : Gen ii. 1, 2 ; Heb.
iv. 3.
4. A Modification of the Theory of continued Creation.
This modification is found among the Scholastics, in Thomas
Aquinas, and in some of the Reformed and Lutheran divines.
Acknowledging the real existence of finite substances, that
there is a real proper substance beneath the phenomena, the
theory denies any efficiency to this, tracing the efficiency to God.
It confesses that there is an underlying substratum which is
the ground of the phenomena, but all the activity of the phe-
nomena is ascribed to a divine influence. Newton, in one of his
speculations, comes nearly to this, saying that the laws of the
material universe are the stated modes of the divine operations.
All who deny proper second causes stand here. 1 This same gen-
eral view is found in the Cartesian philosophy, and is there called
Occasionalism, which represents God as producing the activities
of body and soul correlatively to each other.
The Objections to this Theory.
1. Like the previous one it contradicts our experience, our
native belief not now in the existence of substance, but in the
existence of causes in nature. What we perceive in nature, ac-
cording to this view, must be not the phenomena of matter, but
Dr. Woods borders on this. Works, Vol. ii. 20.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION, 105
the phenomena of God, God working. In thus resolving ail
activity into a mode of Divine operation the theory tends to a
pantheistic conclusion.
2. As applied to mind and moral agency, the theory is in con-
flict with our conviction that we are proper causes, the proper
authors of our own acts, Which we know by immediate con-
sciousness, if we know anything. We know that we choose and
decide, and do it by our proper power, and yet this theory would
compel us to say that these acts are modes of the Divine agency,
and would thus annul moral agency.
3. In doing this it would of course lead to the conclusion
that God is the author of sin, because all causality is traced back
to Him, and this annuls the idea of God as a holy being.
4. While there is no evidence that there are not second
causes, there is very much evidence that there are such. They
are not independent of Deity, but have a proper sphere of their
own. The theory rests on the underlying notion that there is
only one cause; but if there is only one cause there is only one
substance, and pantheism is the only theory.
5. The Mechanical Theory of Preservation.
This is, that God has brought into being the world and all
that is in it, and then sustains it without any constant agency
or personal direction and care. This was the general view of
the Arminians, also of the Deists in England and on the
Continent.
The objections are: (1) It makes the creation to be virtually
independent of God. After his works are once brought into
being, they subsist by their own power, work by their own
efficiency. Thus this view is opposed to the truth of God's
omnipresence, and it is also opposed to the doctrine of God's
Providence, which comes presently to be considered. (2) If
the view be carried through and acted upon consistently, there
cannot be any prayer. Religion expressing desire in prayer
would be impossible, and thus the theory runs counter to the
Scriptures and to Christian consciousness.
106 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
CHAPTER V.
DIVINE PROVIDENCE.
1. General Statements in respect lo the Doctrine.
The "Westminster Confession," Chapter V., gives the main
points of the doctrine in a full and clear manner, viz., ( 1)
" God, the great Creator of all things, doth uphold, direct, dis-
pose and govern all creatures, actions and things, from the
greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy provi-
dence, according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free
and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the
glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness and mercy."
( 2) " Although .... all things come to pass immutably
and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, He ordereth them
to fall out according to the nature of second causes, either
necessarily, freely or contingently." This providence extends
likewise to sin, (4) "-.'.... not by a bare permission, but
such as hath joined with it a most wise and powerful bound-
ing, and otherwise ordering and governing of them [his crea-
tures], in a manifold dispensation, to his own holy ends; yet
so as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature,
and not from God; who being most holy and righteous, neither
is nor can be the author or approver of sin."
The acts of Divine Providence are divided by theologians
into immanent and transeunt, the immanent being the foreknowl-
edge and purpose of God, and the transeunt the execution of
this purpose through and by his creatures. Providence is di-
vided also in respect to its objects, into general, as having re-
spect to all; special, having respect to man and his destiny; and
most special, having respect to the good or to the bringing
about the supremacy of holiness in the divine dominion.
The doctrine of Divine Providence includes the following
particulars :
1. It supposes or presupposes the carrying into execution
of a divine purpose or plan in the world, which God has brought
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 107
into being. God's agency in the world is in order that his prov-
idence or plans may be consummated. This is the terminus ad
quern, and in doing this all the divine attributes concur. God's
power, wisdom, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth are all in-
volved in his bringing about this end by his providence.
2. The doctrine further asserts that to promote and execute
this plan, God's government extends to each and all. Every-
thing in the world may be viewed in reference to this end, ail
being subordinate means to this general purpose.
3. The doctrine further asserts that God governs each thing
and all things that He has made, according to their respective
natures: that the Providence in respect to the animal and vege-
table kingdom is one thing, and in respect to moral agents is
another, is a moral government carried out in God's direction of
his moral creatures.
4. It still further implies that God treats men as moral agents,
governs and guides them according to their character as good
or bad ; that the divine providence is different in the good from
what it is in the evil, i. e., that it acts in a different mode.
5. Moreover, by the very statement of the doctrine it is im-
plied that the natural world is in order to the moral; that God
directs the ends of nature not to subserve natural results but to
promote the divine plans, and thus nature is ever subordinate to
the divine kingdom.
6. It is involved in this that in the regular order of nature
God may interpose in the midst of physical causes by special act
or by miraculous intervention, acting against and interrupting
second causes, producing that which second causes cannot pro-
duce. Yet this interposition, this miraculous intervention, are
all part of the plan, as much involved in it as second causes are.
As thus stated the doctrine is opposed to the doctrine of
Fate, because there is a wise end and a wise author, and equally
and for the same reasons to the doctrine of Chance. 1
1 James Douglass: "There are but three alternatives for the sum of existence,
Chance, Fate, or Deity. With Chance there would be variety without uniformity,
with Fate uniformity without variety, but variety in uniformity is the demonstra-
tion of primal design and the seal of the .creative mind. In the world as it exists
there is infinite variety and amazing uniformity."
108 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
2. Proof of the Doctrine of Providence.
I. The Scriptural Argument.
1. The Scriptures prove that the divine providence is uni-
versal, extending to and embracing the whole world and the
whole of human history: Ps. cxxxv. 6; Eph. i. 11, last clause;
Ps. ciii. 19; Dan. iv. 34, 35. Here also is to be produced in
proof the general tone of the prophecies, which set forth every-
thing as arranged with reference to the divine purpose: Ezek. xxi.
27; Isa. x. 5; Acts xvii. 26; Rom. ix. ; xiii. 1.
2. This providence is further declared in Scripture to embrace
the natural and animal world, the whole physical sphere: Matt,
vi. 26; Ps. civ. 27; Acts xvii. 25, xiv. 17; Job xxxviii.-xli.
3. Individuals also in their destiny are under the divine
guidance and providence. This, which is implied in the whole
of Scripture, is declared in such passages as the following: Prov.
xvi. 9; Isa. xlv. 5; 1 Sam. ii. 7. So in all passages which trace
disease and health to the divine guidance, and represent man as
in his temporal destiny under the guardianship of God.
4. Still further, the Scriptures represent the actions of men
as under the control and government of divine providence:
Prov. xxi. 1; xvi. 1. -Every opportunity that we enjoy, every
capacity, every blessing, is traced to this divine guidance. Suc-
cess or failure in our enterprises is in the hands of God.
5. Sin also is included in the divine government. God per-
mits and controls it, the permission being such and only such as
involves control. It exists not without divine permission, but
God overrules it. This is implied in the reasoning of the Apostle
in Rom. ix., where he speaks of the hardening of Pharaoh's heart
and the blinding of men's eyes. Also, Ps. Ixxvi. 10; Rom. xi. 32;
Acts ii. 23. Such passages prove more than simple providence,
they set forth a predestination, but as a matter of course they
involve the doctrine of providence. Yet the Scriptures never
represent God as the author of sin. They positively assert the
contrary: 1 John ii. 16; James i. 13.
II. Proof from the divine attributes, their character and
characteristics. If God's wisdom be such as we have seen, He
would not create a universe and then leave it. His attributes
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION, 109
must be in constant activity, and the exercise of these, om-
nipotence, omniscience, goodness, etc., is the exercise of divine
providence.
III. Another argument is from the fact that God is a moral
ruler, and as such has a proper end in the creation which He has
made, and He must so govern and direct it that the end shall
be accomplished.
IV. From History. The Biblical history is the history of the
divine providence, the only history that ever was written from
the truest, highest, and broadest point of view; and in this God
appears at work in all the events recorded, among the heathen
as well as the Jews, directing everything for his purposes. The
highest point of view for treating all history would be this. 1 Di-
vine providence is clearly seen in the lives depicted in the Script-
ures. Moreover, the general course of history, when regarded
from its highest point of view, demonstrates a divine agency,
working towards an end. The old world, the mediaeval and
the modern times unite in one plan, tending towards the con-
summation of the Messiah's kingdom. No unity can be given to
history on any other plan. No other central point of view can
be found. History without this is chaotic. The only views that
can make any pretence to compete with this are the Positivist
and the Hegelian theories: the former asserting that human
history is intended to develop the social and material welfare
of mankind; the latter, that history is tending towards the illus-
tration and development of human freedom, particularly as that
is found in a well-ordered state. 2 But each of these theories
narrows the view and cannot take in all the facts.
V. From the order, harmony, and adaptation of nature.
God is everywhere, intelligently acting, directing the different
orders of creation, putting them in their just relations, mak-
ing one subserve the other, the inorganic to contribute to the
organic, and the different orders of the organic to each other,
until man is reached, the head and crown of all.
i [See the author's Introd. to Christian Theol., page 174.]
Q This is well criticised in Flint's Phil, of Hist, in France and Germany,
110 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
VI. From the nature and necessity of faith, piety, and re-
ligion. Without belief in God's providence, religion is an im-
possibility. All prayer, all sense of dependence upon God,
involve the belief that God works through his providence.
3. Distinction as to general and particular Providence.
General providence is God's control over the whole ; particular,
his care over each in relation to the whole. There are not two
kinds of providence, but the same providence is exercised in two re-
lations. The phrase, special providence, is sometimes used to de-
note a different aspect of the subject, i. e., to describe God's provi-
dence as it appears in its relation to us, to designate some special
combinations, as in a special answer to prayer or a relief in an
emergency, and in fact in all instances where grace and help come
in critical circumstances. There is doubtless a special character
in these, involving as they do an unusual combination of inci-
dents in order that a petition may be answered or a particular
purpose be accomplished. There is understood to be an order-
ing of the ordinary course of things particularly to some high
moral end. 1
The proof of such particular or special providence is derived:
'!) From the fact that general providence cannot be carried out
without this. All great events are somewhere small. The destiny
of nations turns at some points on very slight circumstances.
(2) From Scripture. In all parts of Scripture it is presupposed
that God directs and guides individuals and has a care for their
life. Appeals and exhortations are made on this ground: 1 Pet.
v. 7; Luke xii. 6; Prov. xvi. 33. (3) From individual experi-
ence, particularly of all Christians, who have found that the
more they presented to God their cares, the more they were
1 The rule for the due interpretation of special providences is to be taken from
their bearing on our spiritual state. Have they made us more spiritual or hum-
ble? Probably the " providence " is imaginary when it does not minister tc the
Christian graces, but fosters pride. Especially should caution be used when mat-
ters concern a wide sphere of interest, as, e. g., a nation or political party or
church. We may be kept from much error in the interpretation of special prov-
idences by observing the condition referred to, viz., in its true idea a special'
providence is a providence having respect to the spiritual growth or welfare of
individuals.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. Ill
guided and blessed. Such trust in God's providence exercises
a healthful influence upon all who love Him. It is particularly
necessary to belief in the doctrine of the renewal of God's chil-
dren. . Without a most special providence this is inconceivable.
An objection to such special providence is sometimes made
on the ground that it represents God as interposing at points
which are unworthy of his greatness. This is to be met, if it
needs to be met at all, by a consideration of the relation of the
little to the great. The objection moreover proves too much.
It would bear as directly against God's bringing little things
into being, as against his sustaining and guiding them.
4 Modes of the Divine Providence.
1. God by his providence governs the whole universe in all
its parts, each and all, and each for all.
2. He does this for one comprehensive end, in respect to which
we do not yet inquire what it may be.
3. He governs not by suppressing second causes, but in har-
mony with them. Here comes up the chief point of discussion
and controversy on the relation of providence to second causes.
From, the views and arguments already advanced, it is evident
that the government of second causes is not to be taken as a
mode of direct divine efficiency. Second causes are not modes
of operation of the one great cause. What then the mode of
the direction of second causes is, is the topic of discussion. The
theological term by which the divine agency in connection with
second causes is designated is, Concur sus, and what we have to
consider is the theory of the concursus. That there is a co-agency
or co-operation is implied in all the Scripture.
The first theory. This co-agency is general. God acts
upon and through all, but He does not determine the specific
nature of the activity of each second cause. So, e. </., the
sun excites all sorts of seeds to activity, but the seeds grow
according to their specific nature, and the office of the sun
is simply that of general excitation. It stirs equally all sorts
of seeds, and then its work ceases, the specific activity of each
seed being determined by the nature of the seed. This is
112 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
the way in which the co-agency of God in man's spiritual
quickening and life is interpreted by the Remonstrants and
the Jesuits.
The second theory. A more specific statement is made by
the main body of the Roman theologians, including Aquinas,
and by the greater part of Protestant teachers. It is that
besides such a general exciting agency on the part of God,
there is an immediate and simultaneous co-operation, a joint
agency in every effect, i. e., the divine agency extends to
all and each. The agency of the sun upon the seed and
plant is outside, is superficial simply, is exerted in the way
of general excitation. But the agency of God as omnipotent,
omnipresent, exerted in conformity with the idea of the
divine co-operation, must enter into the interior as well as
arouse the surface. It must go along with every motion,
every activity which is found, there must be a joint simul-
taneous activity of God with the trembling of every nerve,
with the. particular or specific growth of each plant, so that
a divine power shapes and works along with the seed itself,
with the secret agencies as well as the external products.
And so with the human soul. The divine power must enter
into the soul itself, and sustain each second cause in working
according to the particular end of that second cause, must
sustain and direct it in every movement so that the concursus
shall be perfect throughout, as if there were a twofold ac-
tivity perfectly parallel in every act. But this raises
The third question. How then can this view be reconciled
with the sinful activities of certain second causes? In meet-
ing this difficulty almost all Roman Catholic and Protestant
divines insist upon the distinction between an act and its
moral character, and put the sin, as far as the divine agency
is concerned, in defect. God's agency thus extends to sin
not as sin, but simply as an act of the creature. Augustine
illustrated it thus: the power which causes a lame man to
walk is not the cause of his limping: the striking of an in-
strument which is out of tune is not the cause of the discord.
The cause of the limping is not 'in the agency of God, it is
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION, 113
in the structure of the limb, so that there can be co-agency
in the whole limping, while yet the co-agent does not produce
the limping and is not responsible for it. As to the musical
instrument, the influence acting upon it is not the source
of the discord. This is in the structure of the instrument,
and there may be a co-agency in the production of the sound,
the player being responsible only for the striking and the
instrument for the discord. So in respect to sin. God's agency
may extend to every act and activity, while yet He is not
responsible for sin, because this comes not from his agency,
but from the state of the heart of the individual with whom
He co-operates. These illustrations are not perfect, but per-
haps they are as good as can be found.
A fourth position. God in his providence so governs that
the natural world is subordinate to the moral world. He
governs the natural in order to the moral. Some naturalists
oppose this view, urging that there are two entirely different
spheres, the one physical, the other moral, and that the whole
physical sphere proceeds without reference to the moral, that
the physical realm comprises cases of mere necessity, and that
these never can be modified or diverted for moral ends. 1 The
doctrine of Divine Providence maintains the general position
that although the spheres are different, and though physical
and moral laws are different, yet both spheres are a part of
one plan and make one whole, and that in the divine plan
the natural is in order to the moral, and is upheld and guided
for moral ends. In both God is equally a sovereign. The nat-
ural laws are seen chiefly in the preservation and in all the
agencies and effects of our natural powers. The moral order is
God's government of moral beings to secure the highest moral
ends. This may be illustrated by the following considerations.
1. As a matter of fact, in the divine government, the natural
is made to subserve the moral. This is in the ordinary course
of God's providence. Natural pains or pleasures are directly
1 One writer says, they can no more be turned aside than the ball coming
from the mouth of a cannon, that both systems of laws must go on, and that the
physical cannot bend to the moral. See Prof. Chase in Bib. Sac.
114 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
connected with the violation of, or obedience to, moral laws
The course of nature thus works for God's government.
2. Also in the course of nature, besides these connections in
the ordinary course of providence, there may be and are, on the
part of God, interpositions for high moral ends and purposes.
" Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all
these things shall be added unto you." God so directs the course
of nature as to make it subserve the interests of his moral gov-
ernment. Obedience to his divine laws in the long run is seen
to issue in greater temporal well-being. There is no violation
of natural law in this, but there is direction of natural law in it.
God so arranges the whole complexus of physical laws that in
the long run the physical follow in the wake of the moral, and
tend to uphold the moral. God turns the physical law into the
current of his moral government. This is illustrated in the
prosperity and destiny of nations.
3. God likewise acts above the course of nature, as in the
renewal and sanctification of the soul, and as in the Incarnation
of his Son.
4 God may and does interrupt the course of nature, as in
miracles.
5. God so governs moral beings that they are free. More
over, his efficiency is not the same in sinful as in holy acts.
6. God governs in different modes of interference according
to the exigency.
7. God knows the causes and essences of things, and hence
He may and doubtless does work in ways which we cannot
fathom.
CHAPTER VI.
THE DECREES OP GOD. 1
The relation of the decrees of God to his providence is simply
this: the whole course and order of divine providence are the
i The subjects of the Order of the Decrees, Election, etc., belong in the third
division of theology.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 115
result of a decree and purpose. God as a sovereign has fore-
ordained the course and order of providence. He has purposed
that things should be and take place as they are and do actu-
ally occui. In other words, the doctrine of the divine decrees
is the doctrine of divine providence referred back to the di-
vine sovereignty. The doctrine asserts that all that is ir> the
natural and moral world, including the kingdom of grace, takes
place in consequence of a fixed arid unchangeable and eternal
purpose of God. (In some systems of theology the doctrine
of decrees is treated before that of providence, which is the
logical order, but the natural order is rather to consider the
divine providence first.)
1. Preliminary Statements.
I. In his decree God is a sovereign. The doctrine of di-
vine decrees is simply and ultimately that God is the sover-
eign ruler of the universe which He has created, and that
He does as He pleases, according to the counsel of his own
will and wisdom, not in an arbitrary sense, but in such a
sense that He needs not to take counsel of his creatures. The
argument for this is from various sources. 1 (1) The doctrine
of the divine sovereignty results from the divine nature and
attributes in relation to a dependent universe. (2) It is best
that a Being of infinite power and wisdom should be the
sovereign of the universe, and that it should not be left to
the contingency and change of inferior creatures. (3) Our
deepest religious convictions show us the need of the doc-
trine for our renewal and sanctification. We cannot rest
on any created power, but must cast ourselves on the arm
of a sovereign. As is often said, Arminians are Calvinists
when they pray. (4) The Scripture argument. Ps. cxv. 3;
cxxxv. 6; Rom. xi. 36; Eph. i. 5; i. 11; Phil. ii. 13.
II. This sovereignty is not a bare omnipotence, although
that is involved in it, but it includes the activity of all God's
attributes and powers. Sovereignty is often taken as equiva-
1 See especially Dr. Woods's Lectures, Vol. I, and Dr. Balmer in Brown's
Theol. Tracts, Vol. in.
116 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
lent to arbitrary power, but the doctrine is not that God
has no reason for his action; He has the best of reasons for
all that He does; He has a rational, wise, holy end over in
view, and the doctrine is that God brings this wise and holy
end to its consummation.
III. God's decrees are one decree, one plan, in which each
is for all and all for each.
IV. God's decrees or purpose simply determine this: that
all things are to be as they occur. The order and plan of
the universe, both natural and moral, are in divine fore-or-
dination just what they are in fact nothing more nor less.
Whatever anything is in itself, in its internal and external
relations, so it was decreed to be. The decrees refer to all
things, results, and means, just as they occur in the course
of divine providence. If there are contingent events in provi-
dence, there are contingent events in decrees; if there are
free acts in providence, there are free acts in decrees; if there
are sinful and guilty acts in providence, so there are in decrees.
The doctrine of decrees or sovereignty is a comprehensive
doctrine. Most objections spring from taking isolated facts
by themselves, as if God purposed each event by itself, as
if, e. g., He determined to condemn a certain individual to
eternal death without any regard to anything else, when the
true statement is, that if, in point of fact, the condemnation
comes as the issue of a sinful career, so it was in the divine
purpose. On this ground we may meet the common objection,
that if an action is decreed we cannot be responsible for it.
The objection supposes that the action is decreed in circum-
stances which prevent responsibility, whereas the conscious-
ness of the individual is that he is responsible, and that con-
sciousness is as much decreed as the act is. If there is a
sinful act it was decreed as the act of a man and as his
own act.
V. In short, the doctrine declares in substance, that the
present system of the universe in all its parts, as it was,
is, and is to be, is an eternal plan, or purpose, or idea in
the divine mind.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMI TION. 117
2. Of the Terms used to denote the Doctrine.
The term purpose is equivalent to the term decrees. The
word decree is in some respects unfortunate, because misunder-
stood so frequently. Decree is used ordinarily, and in Script-
ure, in the sense of edict or law, that which God commands.
But the theological usage takes the word not in the sense
of command or approbation on God's part, but of what He
permits or determines to be done as a whole plan. It does
not imply moral approval on the side of God, or fate or ne-
cessity on the side of the act, but it does imply certainty. Of
the general decree of God, predestination is a part. The de-
cree of God embraces all that occurs; predestination is tech-
nically a part of the divine decree, and is used of that which
relates to moral beings, and especially to their final condition
(although predestination really applies to every event of their
history as well as to their final destiny). As thus used it
implies that man's final state is involved in God's plan, yet
never without respect to what has gone before, rather as being
the sum of what has gone before. Predestination contains the
end only as containing the sum total of what has gone before.
3. Characteristics of the Divine Decree or Decrees.
I. They are sovereign, expressing the good pleasure of God,
and so in many respects must be unsearchable to man.
II. They are unconditional. They are not dependent on
anything which is not a part or parcel of the divine decree
itself. This does not mean that the decrees themselves are not
mutually dependent, but that nothing in the plan is conditioned
by anything which is not in the decree itself. 1
III. They are eternal. They must be so on the considera-
tion that otherwise there would be a change in the divine plan
or appointment: Eph. i. 4; 2 Tim. i. 9; 1 Pet. i. 20. When
the Scriptures speak of one decree as preceding another, the
order is in the unfolding of the decrees, and not in the formation
of them.
1 Yet the phrase unconditional decree is usually understood to mean an arbi-
trary purpose. This is the sense in which it is taken by Supralapsarianism.
But that theory* since the Synod of Dort, ha's scarcely dared to lift its head.
118 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
IV. They are immutable. This is involved in their eternity
Ps. xxxiii. 11; Isa. xlvi. 11.
V. They involve the certain occurrence of that which is
decreed. This is the meaning of the word efficacious as applied
to the divine decrees, i. e., what is contained in them is sure,
certain, the decree is effectual, a purpose which is carried into
effect. Not that the decree itself is efficacious, or that God by
a direct efficiency carries each decree into operation. The rea-
sons for this are: (1) If it were not so there would be 110 certainty
to divine government. This might be overthrown or set aside.
The fulfillment of prophecy may depend upon a million of mi-
nute particulars whose occurrence must be secured. (2) The di-
vine attributes prove the position. (3) The Scriptures assert it.
All the prophecies establish it: Isa. xiv. 27. Also all passages
which declare the divine sovereignty.
VI. The divine decrees, as including all events, include sin
also. The controversy between the Supra- and Sub-lapsarians
is not on account of this point, whether the decree of God in-
cludes sin as certain, but it is in respect to the order of tlie
divine decrees. The Supralapsarian says that the divine purpose
in respect to sin or the permission of sin in the world was subse-
quent to the divine purpose for salvation and punishment, i. e., in
the order of divine decrees, the logical order, the first decree is
that God will set forth his glory, the second, that He will do
this by saving some and condemning others, and the third is
the decree of the fall, the Lapsus. The Sublapsarian says
that in the order of the divine decrees, there is first the
decree to create, then the permission of the fall, and then elec-
tion and redemption, or redemption and election. There ap-
pears to be good reason for asserting the sublapsarian position
as against the supralapsarian, though it is to be acknowl-
edged that the whole subject of the order of the divine de-
crees is above man's comprehension. But it appears absurd to
speak of redemption unless there was a fall in the order of
thought, or of a punishment unless there was sin to be punished.
Irrespective of supra- or sub-lapsarian speculations, it is necessary
to consider that in the whole divine plan sin somehow has its
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 119
place. It is taken into the plan, not under God's approval nor
as the means of good, but as a fact. The arguments for this
position are: (1) If sin be excluded from the divine decree or
purpose, then that on which the whole economy of grace rests is
not contained in the divine purpose. (2) If sin is excluded, mucli
the larger part of the history of mankind is excluded. How
much of human history is there which is not sin or of sin ? To
exclude it would be to throw the divine plan out of the world.
(3) As all events are connected, and sin belongs in the line of
cause and effect, to exclude sin from the decree would annul the
possibility of providence and a divine government. Sin is ever
interlocked with good. It is the overruling of sin which produces
the highest good. 1 (4) The relation to sin in which the Script-
ures exhibit God is that of permitting and overruling it, but at
the same time they imply that it is included in his general pur-
pose: Kom. v. 20; ix. 18; xi. 8; xi. 32; Gal. iii. 19; iii. 22.
NOTE. The question between Calvinists and Arminians is this: whether the
decrees depend on foreknowledge. Does the divine decree depend upon God's
foreseeing that such and such a thing will be ? Is it decreed simply because God
foresaw it would come to pass? In relation to this: (1) In one sense the fore-
knowledge must be the ground of the decree, i. e., God does not decree anything
which he does not know, He must know what He is going to decree. God knows
what is possible, what is best to be in a certain plan, knows what belongs to all the
parts of the plan, knows all this in the order of thought before He determines that
the plan shall take effect, and in this general sense the foreknowledge is the log-
ical and intellectual condition of the purpose. But this .is not the real question.
The real question is, Is the foreknowledge that such and such an event will be,
the ground of the determination that it shall be? The Arminian says that God
foresees that Peter will do a wrong act, and foreseeing that he will, God determines
to allow it. In regard to this, (a.) God may undoubtedly foresee that a free agent
in such and such circumstances will act in such and such a way. and may deter-
mine to place him so and so, and in doing that may virtually determine the action,
and here God's determination is simply not to prevent the doing of what He fore-
sees will be done. This is a supposable case, and here of course there would bo
no interference with the freedom of the individual. (&.) But the ground of the
certainty of the event that Peter will do a wrong act, is not the divine foreknowl-
edge, but the divine purpose, i. e., the purpose of God to permit the act, to take
it into the whole divine plan is the ground of the certain occurrence of the event.
God foresaw that Peter would do so and so, but that is not'all. That Peter would
do so and so is also certain, for it is included in the divine plan. What is the
ground of that certainty ? Is it that God foresaw that Peter would thus act? No.
1 Nominal Calvinists and Arminians protest against the doctrine of decrees,
because they insist upon putting a foreign sense upon the word decree.
120 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Because all which that would bring with it is, that if Peter is placed so and so, he
will do so and so. But it is that God has determined that that event with all its
circumstances shall he, and it has been adopted into his plan, (c.) Unless the
event or act was adopted into the divine plan, there could not be a certainty of
its occurrence. It would only be possible. Thus there is both foreknowledge
and certainty in regard to an event, but the certainty of an event as future rests
in the purpose and not in the foreknowledge. The purpose is the ground of
the foreknowledge, and not the foreknowledge the ground of the purpose. ' (d ) In
respect to the Scripture testimony, see passages cited above. The passage Rom.
viii. 29 is brought into the controversy. "For whom He foreknew, He also fore-
ordained (or predestinated) to be conformed to the image of his Son." Even
supposing that itpoeyroo (foreknew) means solely to foreknow, the Arminian in-
terpretation would not follow; because all that the passage can be said to assert
is, Whom God did foreknow (L e., Christians) He did also predetermine should
be conformed to the image of his Son. But the better interpretation is that of
taking foreknew as equivalent to predetermine, and to understand the passage as
declaring, Whom He predetermined to be Christians He also did appoint to be
conformed to the image of his Son.
4. Proof of the Doctrine of Decrees.
I. There is a strong analogical argument from the doctrine
of providence. There is the same God working in natural and
moral government. There are designs and ends in nature: why
not the same in God's providential dispensations? The designs
in nature were planned beforehand : why not in the moral sphere?
If in the less, why not in the greater ? If in the natural, a fortiori
in the moral, as being more important.
II. There is also a rational argument on the general posi-
tion that it is best that all events should be embraced in one plan
of a wise and holy, omniscient and omnipresent sovereign.
III. The various divine attributes imply and demand the
doctrine. (1) The attribute of omniscience implies the divine
decree. 2 Omniscience cannot know events unless they are ob-
jects of knowledge. If they are known as certain, the quality
of certainty must have been imparted to them. Anything can
be made certain only in one of two ways; either by an internal
necessity or by a divine purpose. Free acts are not rendered
certain by necessity, consequently if they are certain they can
only have become so through the divine purpose. That they are
certain is shown by prophecy and providence. If it be said that
Edwards on the Will, Part ii. 12.
* Fully argued in Edwards on the Will.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 121
God foreknows them as certain through the laws and processes
by which they are made certain, yet it must be acknowledged
that He made these laws and established them in their goings,
and fixed the conjunction under which they work at any par-
ticular point. (2) The immutability of God is a proof of the
doctrine of decrees. It is sometimes said that the proper state-
ment is, If men will do so, then God will do so, and that is the
posture of things in God's government; He changes his conduct
when man changes. To which the sufficient reply is, that He
does this undoubtedly, changing his relation to men as they
change, and that He always meant to do this, and this is the
doctrine of the divine purposes; and if He did not always mean
to, then something comes upon Him unawares in the course of
his providence. It is also said that the decree of redemption
was dependent on the fall, and before the fall this decree could
not have been formed. In the order of time it is true that
redemption is brought in in connection with the fall, and in
the logical arrangement of the decrees it is true that the de-
cree of redemption is subsequent to the notion of the fall, but
that is simply an order of the divine purposes and not a depend-
ence of those purposes upon anything that is to occur by and
by. (3) God's holiness is a proof of his decrees. It must be
the purpose of a Holy Being that holiness shall be triumphant,
and this can only be by a plan to make it triumphant, and that
is the doctrine of decrees, viz., a plan by which God makes every
thing to work so that holiness shall triumph. In the same way
God's benevolence and all his moral attributes may be adduced
in proof. Everything must be provided for, otherwise God
would commit the fortunes of the universe to an uncertain sys-
tem. (4) The Scriptural proof, (a.) Some direct and pregnant
assertions: Is. xlvi. 10, 11; Eph. i. 9, i. 11. (&.) From proph-
ecy. The whole of prophecy proves decrees. Christ was de-
livered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.
It was before announced that He should come, (c.) The doctrine
of decrees is involved in the doctrine of a special providence as
derived from Scripture (see above), (d.) From the Scriptural
representation that man's destiny for life and death is iii the
122 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
hands of God. " He giveth to all life and breath and all things. 1 '
Job xiv. 5: "his days are determined." (e.) As far as sin is
concerned, the Scriptures represent that as embraced in the di-
vine purpose: Acts ii. 23, iv. 27. (/.) The doctrine of election
also involves the truth of the divine purpose.
5. Objections to the Doctrine of the Divine Decrees.
I. It is said that the doctrine involves fatalism.
Fatalism is an indefinite term, and the different senses which
it has need to be carefully distinguished. (1) The chief doctrine
of fatalism is that which makes everything that is produced in
the world to be the result of matter and motion. In this sense the
doctrine of decrees is not fatalistic. (2) Pantheistic fatalism makes
everything to be the result of a blind necessity, and although the
original source may be conceived as spirit rather than matter, yet
it is a blind unconscious force, and not an intelligence which is at
work. These are the two strict systems of fatalism. (3) The
Stoical system of fatalism of ancient times and the system of
strict necessity of modern times assert that all things are bound
together by a series and concatenation of causes, make God to
be merely the necessary First Cause and deny human freedom.
The human will is declared to be subject to the law of cause
and effect, its freedom not being allowed as one of the causes in
the continual connection. This system has been repudiated by
Calvinistic divines in the statement that the divine purpose em-
braces freedom. Hence, in no proper sense of fatalism can the
doctrine of the divine purpose be said to come under it. For the
doctrine of divine decrees simply asserts that all things are fore-
known and predetermined by a wise, omniscient, and omnipotent
being and conscious intelligence, and that in the plan everything
is provided for just as it occurs in fact.
II. Kindred to the objection just considered is that which
asserts that the doctrine of divine decrees is a doctrine of
necessity.
The word necessity is used in a variety of senses. (!) Meta-
physical necessity, by which is meant the impossibility of tho
opposite. It is impossible that at the same time a thing should
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 123
be and not be, that there should be an event without a cause.
Wherever there is that in the nature of the case which makes
the contrary view impossible, there is metaphysical necessity
In this sense the doctrine of decrees is of course not the doctrine
of necessity. (2) Logical necessity, by which is meant the logi-
cal impossibility of the opposite. Given the premises, and such
a conclusion is the logical result, so that any other logical con-
clusion is an impossibility. (3) Physical necessity, which is
what is ordinarily meant in the objection. This is a necessity
which is based on the uniformity of natural laws, a necessity
in which the terms conjoined are physical, in which with a cer-
tain physical cause a given physical effect must result. The
assertion that physical necessity must rule if the doctrine of
divine decrees is true, rests on the position that the laws of
nature are uniform in their action, and that these imply in
their relation to the will, coercion, that they simply force the
will. The position implies that the result will come although
the opposition of the will may be put forth. In this sense the
doctrine of divine decrees is riot a doctrine of necessity, because
it does not assert or imply that the decrees take effect in man
in spite of his will, or that they coerce man by a physical force
which he cannot resist, or that the terms conjoined are simply
physical. (4) Moral necessity, by which is meant 1 the certainty
that they will be and take place as they are and do. It is equiv-
alent to certainty. In this sense of moral necessity the opposi-
tion of the will is not conceivable. The concurrence of the will
is embraced in the necessity. In other words, moral necessity
is the conjunction of moral causes and effects, as physical ne-
cessity is the conjunction of physical causes and effects. The
laws of cause and effect are at work in both moral and phy-
sical necessity, but in cases of moral necessity the causes are
inclination, motives, desire, etc., which do not force the will.
With this understanding of the term necessity, as a combina-
tion of moral antecedents and consequents, the doctrine of
decrees may be said to involve it, in the sense of there being
a certainty of action, certainty not under physical, but undei
1 A.S explained by both the older and younger Edwards.
124 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
moral, laws. The term necessity is an unfortunate one. Cer-
tainty is better. 1
III. It is sometimes objected to the doctrine of decrees that
it is the result of a speculative tendency; that it is the introduc-
tion of a philosophical thesis into theology, and has not a re-
ligious source. As a matter of fact this is false. All the great
advocates of decrees have been influenced not by a philosophical
but by a religious view of things. 2
IV. Objection is made on the score of human freedom, with
which the doctrine of decrees is said to be inconsistent. 3 But if
decrees are inconsistent with human freedom, it must be from
something in the nature of the decree, or something in the nature
of freedom, which is inconsistent with the decree. The general
answer is that there is nothing in the nature of the decree which
is inconsistent with human freedom, because what the decree
secures is certainty; and there is nothing in the nature of human
freedom which is inconsistent with the decree, because freedom
is consistent with certainty: i. e., the middle term here is cer-
tainty. The decree secures certainty, and freedom is consistent
1 On the position of the younger Edwards some further remarks will be made
under the head of Liberty and Necessity. We cannot agree with the limitation
which he puts upon the action of the will, especially in seeming to imply that in
the case of moral agency we have a given volition or choice, and that what is the
cause of that choice is simply and solely the motive, and not the man. In ordei
to save the doctrine of liberty in the causality of any choice, we must put in hu-
man freedom, the will as well as the motive. Any given choice or volition con-
sidered as a result, is the product of two factors, of the motive on the one hand
and the choosing on the other, and the result of the choosing is the choice. The
difficulty arises from not distinguishing between the choosing and the choice, be-
tween the man willing and the volition which is the result. If we make the whole
cause to be in the motive and desires, and the whole effect to be in the volition, and
do not put in an act of choice as also included, it becomes impossible to assert the
freedom of the will except in mere words. See Pres. Day's Keview of Edwards
on the Will, which is one of the best expositions of the subject.
2 See Julius Mtiller in Studien und Kritiken, 1856. He goes through the litera-
ture of the subject, and shows that the belief of both Calvin and Luther was con-
nected with their views of justification, and with the general position that man is
in such a moral state that he cannot rely upon himself for salvation.
3 This is the chief argument of Bledsoe in his Theodicy, on the whole the
ablest work in this country against the Calvinistic system. He is obliged to take
refuge in an absolute self-determining power of the will, ultimately in the sense
that that which determines the will to any particular course of action is nothing,
that all that cm be said is that the will determines itself.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 125
with this. The chief point to be considered is the assertion, that
wrtainty is consistent with freedom. On this it is to be said:
1. There is nothing in the nature of the decree which is in
itself inconsistent with human freedom. The decree says events
are certain as they take place, and if they take place freely
through choice this is included in the decree. Whether we are
able to state fully how this is or not is a secondary question ; it
is enough to save the doctrine, that the sense in which we hold
it is one which includes human freedom in the field covered by
the decree.
2. Nor can it be alleged that in the execution of the decrees
there are proceedings which are inconsistent with human free-
dom. The execution of the decrees, as they are actually carried
out in regeneration, and so in all cases of sin, takes place without
interference with free agency. There is nothing in man's con-
sciousness which is at variance with his acts, his activity from
beginning to end proceeds according to his free and responsible
nature, and yet his acts are the results of the decree.
3. For each fact, the fact of the divine decree and the fact
of human freedom, there is sufficient independent proof, and
there we might rest. There is enough proof for decrees on ra-
tional and Scriptural grounds, and enough for freedom in con-
sciousness; and if we state the two so that they are consistent
with each other, we have done all that is required. They could
be so stated as to involve a contradiction; e. g., the decrees as
bringing the human will under physical necessity, or freedom as
consisting in the power of arbitrary choice or determination of
the will, without or in spite of motives. But if we view the de-
cree as that which secures certainty, and freedom as the powei
of choice under motives, which is consistent with certainty, then,
so far as the form of statement is concerned there is no objection
to be made. And if we cannot find all the links, the points of
connection between the certainty which is secured by the divine
decree and the freedom which is attested by consciousness, we
may simply say that we are under no obligation to do this.
4. Moreover, there are positive facts which show that cer-
tainty is not inconsistent with freedom. God's acts are doubt
126 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
less all certain, and they are unquestionably all free. And if
freedom and certainty can co-exist in God, the omnipotent, much
more may they in man the creature. It is certain that all the
divine acts will be holy; it is certain that they are perfectly free.
So in respect to Christ, it was certain that He would continue to
be holy, harmless, and undefined, and yet all his acts were volun-
tary, free. Scripture asserts that the saints will persevere in
holiness to the end, yet in the whole course of their perseverance
they are conscious of freedom. In all cases of regeneration, we
believe that the renewal is effected by the Spirit of God. All
Arminians confess this. And yet, in all that we can trace as be-
longing to the regeneration, we know that we are free, we act
"most freely" under that divine influence which secures the
certain renewal of the soul. Further, all cases of sin in the
sinner's conscious experience illustrate the fact that certainty
and freedom are reconcilable with one another. It is certain
that sinners will go on to destruction unless grace intervene, and
yet in all their course they are free and are conscious of free-
dom. We ourselves can foresee with tolerable certainty how
men will act under certain circumstances; and if we with our
imperfect knowledge may have a degree of certainty in regard,
why may not God have entire certainty in respect, to them ?
CHAPTER VII.
THE END OF GOD IN CREATION.
References: Edwards, vol. ii., also in Brown's Theol. Tracts,
vol. 2, " God made all things for the most perfect gratification
of his infinitely benevolent mind " ; Dr. Spring : " God the end of
all things," Princeton Repos., 1832, Princeton Essays, vol. ii., -an
unsatisfactory discussion ; Pres. Day, on Benevolence and Selfish-
ness, Bib. Repos., 1843: "There are several ultimate ends, sincts
an end is a good in itself;" Rev. W. C. Wisner, Bib. Repos.,
July, 1850 : "The end is happiness in holiness," against Edwards;
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 127
Burton, Essays, pp. 286 seq. ; Dwight, SermonXXV., "Thechief end
of man"; Dr. Samuel Austin, Worcester, 1826: "that God could
not be in any sense His own end He could not gain anything
by creation": so Wisner, for substance; Dr. Harris, in Man Prime-
val: ch. i., The great reason why God must be his own Last
End, ch. ii., The divine all-sufficiency, last end of creation; Hop-
kins, System, i. 90-92; Bretschneider, Dogmatik, I.; Strauss,
Glaubenslehre I., 47; Ebrard, Dogmatik, L, 273, pp. 355-8;
Twesten, Glaubenslehre, II., pp. 88, 89; Kant, Kritik d. Urtheils-
kraft(Werke vii.)p. 311 seq. ; Schweizer, Glaubenslehre, L, 137-143 ;
The Glory of God the great End of Moral Action, John Martin,
D.D., Brown's Theol. Tracts, vol. iii. ; Quenstedt: The last end
is the glory of God, glory of his goodness, power, and wisdom.
" Finis intermedius est hominum salus. Omnia enim Deus fecit
propter hominem, hominem autem propter se ipsum."
In the discussion of this subject the following points are as-
sumed on the ground of what has gone before:
That God is the author of creation;
That He is a wise, holy, and benevolent Being;
That the creation is something distinct from himself;
That there is an end, an object, to be attained by it.
1. Meaning and Statement of the Question.
The meaning of the phrase, " End of God in creation," is, the
final object for which the world was made, the result which God
intends to bring about, to consummate in the created universe,
the last end, the chief end. Some have discriminated between
the chief and the last end, but this can hardly be done, as they
run into one another. 1 It is said that the chief end is holiness
and the last end is happiness ; but this is a forced distinction.
The inquiry is still further after the last end of God in crea-
tion, not the last end for the creatures simply, though that may
be included in it, but the end of the divine manifestations.
It is an inquiry, too, about one such last end, to which all
others may be referred and subordinated. If there be several
1 See Bib. Sac., Oct. 1853, article on Edwards's Nature of Virtue, where ulti
mate is made to mean last in order of time.
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
ends, the problem is, to refer them to one which shall include,
in their integrity, all the others.
The inquiry is also for the last end of God in creation; and
by creation is meant, here, all of the universe which is not God,
and which He brings into being for an end.
The last end of anything, Kant truly says, is that end or
object which does not need anything beyond it as the condition
of its existence. Distinctions have been made as to ends, and
differences in theories arise partly from neglect of these distinc-
tions, (a.) Subordinate and ultimate ends: subordinate, one that
is sought for with reference to an ultimate end. 1 (&.) Inferior
and chief. These terms relate to a comparison of different ends
whether subordinate or ultimate as to their respective value
and worth, (c.) Objective and subjective, in respect to creation.
Subjective means, that which moved the mind of the author,
his pleasure in the act; objective, the end to be realized in crea-
tion, the object in view, that in which the pleasure is found.
This distinction brings up one of the main differences in the
theories. With the distinction as here made, nobody would deny
that God's subjective end in creation is his pleasure, his hap-
piness in it. "For thy pleasure they are and were created."
But that is not what God intended to realize; our inquiry is
not for this subjective end in itself that ive knoiv; but it is
for that objective end in view of which this divine joy arises. 3
(d.) Original and consequential. Edwards (ii. 197) distinguishes
between ultimate 3 ends as original and independent and
consequential or dependent. E. g., God loves to do justice
to men as a good in itself: but this could not be an orig-
inal end with Him in creation, for it is consequential or
dependent on their existence. So God loves to make his
1 In this sense ultimate ends may be as various as our specific duties and aims,
natural or moral.
2 Objective and subjective ends are also found in the creation itself; subjective
meaning man's happiness, and the delight and happiness of all sentient beings,
and objective meaning that manifestation of the divine operations which is to
moral beings the source of their highest blessedness. By this usage the terms
are much intermingled and confused.
3 In his use of "ultimate" Edwards is sometimes perplexing. Ho ought
always to have used supreme or last end.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 129
creatures happy; this is an end, yet consequential and de-
pendent upon their existence.
The purpose of the inquiry. In asking, What is the end of God
in creation, we mean to inquire for his original, ultimate, ob
jective end in all his works of creation. We mean by original,
that which needs nothing besides as the condition of its being,
which is not to be conceived as derived from a higher end ; by
ultimate, not simply that which is last in time but also that which
is supreme in value; by objective, that which is extant in the
creation itself, and as such is found and rejoiced in by God.
2. Conditions of the Solution of 'the Problem if possible.
1. The end must be one, and as such, sufficiently general to
include in one form of statement a great variety of inferior, sub-
ordinate ends. Nobody doubts that there is such a variety, and
the question is as to the redaction of all these under one. The
problem is virtually given up as insoluble, when several original
ultimate ends are stated.
2. These subordinate or inferior ends must be so included in
the one that all shall be seen to be parts of that one end, that
they all can be referred to it fairly, as expressive thereof. If
they cannot be, that one cannot be the end, because there is
something which it does not include. This is one of the strictest
tests of any theory. 1 God and man must be both concerned in
this end.
3. Hence, this end must be one which includes in itself all
that is in creation, according to the measure and degree of each
part: it must be found and exemplified, more or less, in the whole
of creation, natural, moral, and spiritual. The sum of all the
works and ways of God is in the natural world with its moral
ordering, in providence and in the kingdom of God's grace what
is his end in all these, is the question : it is necessary to comprise
them all under some object to which they all refer.
4. This end, while it is to be fully realized only at the end or
consummation of all things, yet must also be contained, in its
1 In our view one of the strongest objections to any form of the happiness
theory is made by the application of this test.
130 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
proper measure and degree, in creation as it is, and in the whole
past history of creation. 1 It must not be inconsistent with what
already is, but be illustrated by it: it must be an end which is
future in the sense of complete realization, but present in the
sense of partial realization, at each point in the historic course.
And hence, it may be possible for us to find the end.
3. Statement of the Theories.
Here as elsewhere there are two antagonistic views sharply
iu opposition, and the question is as to their respective rights.
The fundamental contrast is in the statements: the ultimate,
objective end is God himself, God makes himself the end; or that
end is man, the happiness of the creature. 2 The different theo-
ries are formed either by taking one of these to the exclusion of
the other, or by attempting to reconcile them.
1. The end is the happiness of man. In its best form of state-
ment, this theory says that God could not make himself the end
of creation, because He is sufficient unto himself, and could
need nothing. And if He could not make himself the end, then
that can be found only in the creature, and ultimately in the hap-
piness of the creature taking happiness very comprehensively.
2. The end is God himself. The divine glory is the ulti-
mate end: in man there is no ultimate end, only means to the
end. Divine glory is used in different senses: some making it
equivalent to God himself, others making it to be the objective
manifestation of God, while the pleasure of God in this is the sub-
jective ground for the creation.
3. An attempt at reconciling the two : that the good of man
is an ultimate and yet intermediate end, while the glory of God
is the ultimate objective end.
4 Another attempt at reconciliation: that the end is the
glory of God as seen in the highest good of the creature, and
that this last is the objective end.
1 Wisner, p. 434, says the end must be "future."
2 These respectively form theology and ethics: they constitute two great ten
dencies, the one making God to be all in all, the other making the good of creat urea
to be the ultimate end. The problem is, their reconciliation.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 131
5. That neither alone is the end, but that the two are iden-
tical: the highest good is the divine glory, the divine glory
is the highest good. The mediation is through love. 1 Some
seem to put the end in happiness in two forms: God's delight
in doing good, and the happiness of the creature.
6. The ends are various, as much so as the whole manifes-
tation of the divine attributes in the divine works. This is to
say that no solution is possible; there is no last end.
4. The Scriptural Argument.
This is elaborated by President Edwards in his " End of God in
Creation." He has given it fully: we shall give only a summary.
In regard to this Scriptural argument one thing is certain : either
the ends are various or the divine glory is the end. There is no
passage of Scripture which asserts that happiness is the end:
there are numerous passages to show that the divine glory is
such.
1. A class of passages, which decide only that God in some
way God and not the creature as He is the source, is also the
end of all: Rev. iv. 11; Rom. xi. 36; Heb. ii. 10; Col. i. 16;
Prov. xvi. 4. These passages do not say what the end is, but
do go to prove that that end is in God.
2. Passages which more specifically declare that the divine
glory is the end. Scripture sets forth in a variety of ways that
this is the end of external nature. It is to be remembered that
the glory of God is sometimes designated by the term name,
which is equivalent to nature or essence : Ps. viii. 1 ; Isaxliii. 7 ; Ix. 9.
3. Passages which show that the end of the creature is in
glorifying God. These, as against the so-called happiness
theories, are decisive, for if the end of the creature were the
creature, then he must be exhorted to seek his own good as ul-
timate; but if he is exhorted to seek something beyond himself,
then the good of the creature himself cannot be the end : 1 Cor.
x. 31; vi. 20; John xv. 8. Also such passages as Ps. cxxxvi. 1-9;
cxxxviii. 5.
4 Those passages which set forth in the same strain that
' So Twesten, Vol. ii. p. 89: and so perhaps the younger Edwards.
^ CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
the holy obedience of the creature is not the ultimate end, that
even this redounds to the divine glory. If all that God had in
view was to insure the holiness of the creation, then Scripture
would naturally stop short with that, but such holiness is said to
reach beyond, and to redound to the glory of God. Isa. Ixi. 3,
where the glorifying of God is not made the means of the holi-
ness of his people, but the converse is stated; Eph. i. 5, where
we have the subjective end in the creature or the creature's sub-
jective end, "the being adopted as children," the subjective
divine end, "the good pleasure of his will," and the objective
divine end, " the praise of the glory of his grace. 1 ' 2 Thess. i. 10;
Phil. i. 10, 11; 2 Cor. i. 20, "unto the glory of God by [or
through] us"
5. Passages which show the end of Christ's work to be the
glory of God. John xii. 28; xvii. 4; Phil. ii. 6-11.
The result of the Scriptural teaching then is, that this world
is a revelation of the divine glory, and that God's being glorified
by it is its chief end. 1
5. The supreme End of Creation is the Declarative Glory of
God.
By the declarative glory of God is meant, the manifestation
of the internal divine glory. The word glory is used in the
Scriptures, in reference to God, in several distinct senses: (a.)
For the divine internal perfections, the inherent excellency of
God's nature and attributes; (b.) In the sense of the manifesta-
tion of this inherent excellency, of the internal made external or
"extant"; (c.) For the rendering of praise to God on both
accounts, for his internal and external glory; as when we give
1 Edwards, ii. 242, says, " an ultimate end of God is the communication of good
to his creatures as something not merely subordinately agreeable," yet this is "not
what he delights in simply and ultimately." John xvii. 19; Isa. liii. 11; and in
short, all the Scriptures which set forth God's goodness, mercy, grace, that He
desireth not the death of any, rejoices in his people, delights in doing good, etc.
There is no question that the communication of good to creatures, is an ulti*
mate end, in the sense of being a good in itself.
Such passages as the following are sometimes brought to supjort the position
that the highest good of creatures is the ultimate end. Ps. civ. viii. 5; cxix. Q-i
Acts xiv. 17; xvii. 24. These prove simply the reality of God's goodness
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 133
glory to God. [Another sometimes given as (d), The glory
which God has in his creatures, comes properly under (6.).] The
second is the sense intended in the proposition here maintained :
the first is the ground and the third is the result of the second.
The second is the true end. (Christ is also called the glory of
God, and the Shechinah is perhaps a form or radiance symbolical
of all the declarative glory.)
I. To explain the proposition negatively:
1. It does not mean that this glory is separable, in re, from
other ends subordinate to this and included in it. It is seen in
those other ends, in the good and the happiness of the creature.
2. Nor does the proposition mean that the receiving glory
from others is the end. The receiving of glory is an end, in-
cluded in the supreme end, but is not itself the supreme. God
did not create in order to receive glory, but to make his glory
extant and manifest.
3. Nor is it meant that God had ultimate respect to himself
(subjectively) in such manifestation of himself, that his joy in
the manifestation was the final cause thereof. This is the sub-
jective happiness scheme as applied to God. He undoubtedly does
rejoice in his work, but we cannot say that He did it in order tc
rejoice in it. Some have taken this view, 1 but this representation
of the matter is the chief reason why it is argued that the mak-
ing the divine glory the chief end of creation is a selfish pro-
ceeding. 2 We prefer the statement that the joy of God in his
work was the ultimate subjective end in his mind, but was not
the objective motive for the creation itself.
4. Nor does the proposition mean that in creation God had
not a true and an ultimate regard to the highest good of his
creatures. He must, as a God of love, as a God who delights in
what is best, have had such a regard. The creature is not to
be sacrificed, the good of the creature is to be estimated at its
proper value, but it must also be maintained that the supreme
1 So Dr. Spring. See President Day on the connection between this and the
self-love theory of morals.
2 Edwards, ch. i. 3, Works, ii. 207-11, explains "making himself the end"
as meaning the communication to others of himself, the impulse of and pleasure
in self-communication: ' a disposition to diffuse and communicate himself."
134 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
end is as much larger than the creature, as God is larger. God
the infinite Being cannot have ultimate respect to finite beings
and their happiness. There is no inconsistency between the
two views, that in creation God had respect to his own glory as
ultimate, and that He regards also as a real good, and desires
for its own sake, the highest welfare of his creatures. 1
II. Meaning of the proposition stated affirmatively.
The objective end of God in the whole created universe, i. e.,
the end which He had as objective to himself, was to manifest,
in the most complete way, the sum of the divine perfections or
the internal divine glory, in such a way as to ensure as a sub-
ordinate end the highest good of his creatures, by their partici-
pation in this manifestation. (This is shown to be a subordinate
end by the fact that the highest good of the creature is found
in glorifying God.) Creation is the mirror of Deity, and as
such it is the objective end of God. We mean of course by crea-
tion, all that is not God. It is the whole system that is the
objective end of God. The end is not in individuals or their
state, but in these as parts of the whole plan, in relation and
subordination thereto. The whole system, as reflecting God,
is the end.
1. In what does the internal divine glory consist, which we
here declare to be set forth in creation ? It is the radiant sum
of all the divine perfections. These may be viewed as consist-
ing of four chief excellences : (a.) The infinitude of God's Being,
including his power, his resources; (6.) The perfection of his wis-
dom; (c.) His absolute holiness; (d.) His perfect love.
2. The declarative glory consists in setting forth these per-
fections, in manifesting them, making them to be extant, which
is the objective end of the Creation. And this may be said to
be done:
(a.) As regards the infinitude of the divine being, compris-
ing the immensity and eternity of God, in the existence of in-
1 Dwight, Sermon XXV., holds that it is God's end to glorify himself: "the
manifestation of his inherent glory " is what is intended by the glorifying of God.
"To show his own character, to unfold his power, knowledge, and goodness tc
oeings capable of understanding them, was the supreme object He had in view."
But Dr. Dwight makes all to culminate in benevolence.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 135
finite space and unending time, which are the conditions of all
finite existence. These mirror forth the divine immensity and
eternity. 1 The power of God is also mirrored in the energies
which act through the creation.
(b.) The perfect wisdom of God is" set forth in the whole order
of creation, and in the plan which is there found, running through
all the orders of existence and culminating in man and in human
history, where God's divinest purpose is seen in the imparting
the knowledge of himself to his creatures.
(c.) God's absolute holiness is revealed in the giving of his
law, and making rational creatures capable of knowing it as
holy, and further in making all that is transacted in history to
show the supremacy and triumph of his holiness. The holiness
of God is the consent of his will and his wisdom, constituting
his supreme moral excellence. This holiness is his essential
goodness love in the broadest sense.
(c?.) God's perfect love love in the narrower sense as the at-
tribute which prompts Him to communicate to others is poured
forth and exemplified, in imparting good to all his creatures, and
BO that He himself is the supreme object in which that good is
found, as He is the real source of it, the highest good and joy of
creatures being found in glorifying Him. This is seen most
fully in his gracious purpose of redemption.
These are the several particulars into which the divine glory
both as internal and external may be distributed. The enumer-
ation is not exhaustive, but it is sufficient for our purpose.
The sense in which God makes himself his end 2 is, then,
1 [Of course the question is here raised whether space and time belong to the
creation. The following hints of the author's view of this are gathered from his
papers: Certainly, absolute immensity and eternity do not belong to the creation,
but time as successive and finite, and as indefinite in duration, and space as lim-
ited and indefinite in extent, do. It is a false view that God exists in all space
and time; his eternity and immensity precisely are his not existing in space and
time. Spaca and time are not attributes of the infinite, they are not substances
or entities, they are not relations; but if they were any of these it would hold true
that they cannot belong to the uncreated or the unconstituted, for then that which
is finite in its parts, though immeasurable as a whole would be uncreated.
Conceive them as merely subjective phenomena, and even then they come into
being as such phenomena, with finite existences.]
2 Undoubtedly there is a sense in which God (as no creature can) maken
himself his end.
136 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
simply this: that He delights most in that system which best
sets forth his own perfection. 1
6. Arguments in Favor of this Position.
1. It is most accordant with the Scriptures. See above.
2. It is the highest conceivable end for God himself. In
respect to his creation, nothing more comprehensive or complete
can be conceived of than this: that it should mirror forth the
divine perfections, so far as this can be done by what is limited
and finite. This is the idea of the world, the divine plan of
things. All things here are from God and for God. The splen-
dor of his glory irradiates them, is seen through them. 2 If
there is any shining, it is the glory of Deity. 3 And this which
is a positive result is a higher result than doing good to sen-
tient creatures, than benevolent activity: for that is only a
part of God's ways; it is an integral part, an ultimate end,
but the highest result must be the highest end.
It is sometimes said, in the way of objection, that this
seems to argue a display of the divine perfections for the
sake of display. The answer is plain: It is not display, in
any evil interpretation, for the sake of the glory accruing,
or for any outward sake; it is such a display as everything
that has fulness of life is prompted to by its very fulness.
It is such a display as is that of the acorn in becoming an
oak. It is such a manifestation as a poet makes of himself,
when he pours out the fulness of his soul in an epic or drama.
The end for which the true genius makes the epic or the sys-
1 In this system we find several ultimate ends in the sense of results good
in themselves. The divine wisdom, in the plan and order of creation; the divine
holiness, in the moral constitution and ordering; the divine love, in providence;
the divine grace, where holiness and love are concurrent, in the work of redemp-
tion; and happiness occurring in and by each and all of these. The grand
objective end is God's union with man through Christ in a divine kingdom.
Here the glory of wisdom, holiness, and love all concur. Here the material (in
the new heavens and earth), the moral, the spiritual or gracious, all find their
unity of ends.
5 Hegel says that the great end of his primitive substance is, to become ob-
jective to itself, and he declares this the ultimate statement in philosophy; so
that here Pantheism is compelled to do a sort of homage to old Orthodoxy.
3 The positive philosophy has given us as the alternative: "The heavens
declare no glory save that of Kepler and Newton."
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 137
tern of philosophy is, to satisfy the longings of his being
for a full expression of itself. So God sets forth himself in
his works; in the universal epic of all nature, in the grand
drama of history, in the whole system of things which is
ensouled by himself; his archetypal ideas are expressed and
symbolized in all nature and history. And what higher di-
vine end can we conceive?
3. A third argument is that the end here assigned is alone
sufficiently comprehensive to be the true end of all God's ways
in creation. 1 It has the advantage of comprising in subordi-
nation other ultimate ends, subsuming them under this one
For example, the great end of the material creation is included
here. "The heavens declare the glory of God." It is very
difficult to bring what we find in nature under the idea of
happiness as the chief end. For what end were the hosts
of heaven made ? To fill the beholders with sublimity, it may be
said: but this gives us use for a small part only of the heavens,
and gives us an inadequate end even then. How late were
the discoveries in astronomy! How impossible to bring under
the idea of happiness many of the discoveries in science ! We
find order, wisdom, manifestation of mind. Doing good to
sentient and intelligent creatures can be included under the
3ne supreme end of manifesting the divine perfections, for in
ill his works of goodness the glory of the divine love is
manifested. So also the maintenance of holiness in the uni-
verse is a revelation of God's essential holiness, and the blessed-
ness which He gives in redemption is a joy in himself, in
the sum of his own divine perfections.
It is objected that the end here stated is too general; but
what we are seeking is, a sufficiently comprehensive view to
include the whole range of the divine manifestations. If the
.end were so indefinite as not to allow of being distributed,
as not to include fairly all the other ends as subordinate to
itself, the objection would be valid. But its value is, that
it is a general statement under which all the others may be
brought; and therefore we remark, as our next argument,
1 This alone agrees with the definition of " end " given by Kant
138 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
4. It is also an end which, while fully realized only at the
consummation of all things, is found going on and illustrated
in all that has been and is. This glory of God, consisting in
making himself extant to his creatures, began with creation,
when the morning stars sang together; it is illustrated in all the
tribes and orders of creation ; it is seen in Paradise with its prime-
val goodness; it looks out upon us through the whole course
of human history; it descended incarnate in the person of our
Lord ; through the centuries since his coming it has been grow-
ing more and more radiant; and the full carrying out of the
divine idea in the future history of the earth will bring about
its consummation, even to the ushering in of that day when
Christ shall give up the dominion to the Father, that God may
be all in all.
And thus are all the conditions which we proposed of a right
solution of the problem met in this most comprehensive state-
ment of the end of God in creation. To this we might add
5. That no other view does meet these conditions; but as
there is confessedly only one other view, we defer consideration
of that until we come to speak of the Greatest Happiness scheme.
7. Consideration of Objections.
1. It is said that a selfish scheme of the universe is presented
when the end of creation is made to be the glory of God. 1 Here
we might concede that to say simply and without qualification
that God made everything for himself, for his glory, is to use
language which is liable to be misunderstood. Such forms of
expression may not convey the real truth which we hold. In
reply to' the objection, we say,
(a.) Even if God "made himself" the end, He could not be
selfish in this. Even if it were strictly true that God made all
things for himself, yet his love to himself, as Edwards remarks,
3annot be a selfish love, a preference of the individual to the
universal, of the narrow to the general; for in loving himself
He "in effect" loves all, and in acting for himself He in effect
1 Pres. Day even seems to argue that this view gives support to the self-love
theory of morals. But read Edwards, ii. 215, etc.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 139
acts for the universe ; for in displaying himself, what does He
do but simply bring the universe and all the good and glory
and happiness of it into being ?
But (b.) God does not make himself the end as alleged. He
made the universe, not in order to gratify himself as the great
end, although He does delight therein, but to manifest himself,
for the sake of his declarative glory. That is the objective rea-
son; the subjective delight therein is not the rational ground,
the final cause and end of the creation. And this considera-
tion does away with, or rather puts in its true light, the main
objection.
2. It is also objected that this scheme leads to the inference
that God created some men in order to damn them, in order
that, by their perdition, the awfuluess of the divine justice might
be glorified. Such a representation may have been favored by
the incautious language of some writers. But the fact is, that
the punishment of the individual sinner or of all sinners is not
truly and properly to be called an ultimate end, that is, a good
in itself. The punishment when inflicted does doubtless illus-
trate the terrible splendor of the divine holiness, but the end of
the divine holiness even is not punishment. That the punish-
ment of the transgressor is not an ultimate end is proved by
the fact of an atonement, by pardon on the ground of an atone-
ment. If it were an ultimate end, a good in itself, there could
not be transfer; Christ could not suffer in the place of the trans-
gressor. God did not create any man in order to punish him. 1
3. It is asked, which is better, a system in which God's glory
is the means of the creature's good, or one in which the creature's
good is the means of God's glory ? and it is argued that that is
better in which God's whole aim is to do good to his creatures,
rather than a system in which the creature is relatively sac-
1 [No more, says the author, than He made the race-horse, which was driven
one hundred miles in eight hours and died at the end, for such inhuman sport
of man. If there is perversion of his work and this is visited with his holy dis-
pleasure, this does not prove that He did his work in order that it might be
perverted. The same argument would seem to apply in reference to Darwin's
question, whether divine intelligence made the bull-dog in order that brutal ineu
might delight in its ferocity.]
140 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
rificed to the divine glory. This comes to be more fully con-
sidered elsewhere; here we only say, that that is the best system
which puts the two, man and God, in their just relations to each
other. And a system which, while it allows that God does all
good to his creatures according to the promptings of his infinite
love and the dictates of his infinite wisdom, yet asserts that He
does also more than this, is a higher and better system than
ne which restricts the whole agency of God to a single form
i f activity. If we distinguish between the objective end of the
ystem and its subjective end in relation to creatures, 1 we have
mple grounds of comparison and judgment. The objective end
)f creation is the making extant of the divine perfections; the
ubjective end of that same system is the promotion of the
nighest good not happiness merely of creatures. And this
subjective end of the system is found in creatures becoming
participants of, finding their highest good and therewith their
highest happiness in, the objective end of the system : in the
fact that man's chief end is to glorify God; and thus these two
ends are in the last result one end. 2
8. The Happiness Theory.
The other system, that which puts the end of God in creation
in the happiness of the creature, or in the greatest happiness of
the whole system, is comparatively imperfect and narrow in
several points. Full discussion of it would come up later, under
the head of The Nature of True Virtue; here we only consider:
1. There cannot be subordinated to this end all that is
1 ["Subjective" here has a different meaning from what it has in the distinction
made between God's objective and "subjective " end in creation. It means now,
the sense which intelligent creatures have of the excellency of God's objective
end in creation.]
2 Compare Edwards, ii. 219. "God and the creature in this affair of the ema-
nation [it must be remembered that in Edwards's time Pantheists had not appro-
priated this word as they have now; otherwise he doubtless would not have used
it] of the divine fulness are not properly set in opposition, or made opposite parts
of a disjunction. Nor ought God's glory and the creature's good to be spoken
of as if they were properly and entirely distinct, as they are in the objection."
"God in seeking his glory, therein seeks the good of his creatures. Because the
emanation of his glory (which He seeks and delights in as He delights in him-
self, his own eternal glory) implies the communicated happiness and excellency
<tf his creatures." " God is their good."
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 141
found in the creation. All that is, cannot be explained in re-la.
tion to happiness, still less to human happiness. The vastnesa
and sublimity of the creation are degraded when they are con-
sidered simply in regard to the emotions they may excite. Their
adequate end is found in their exemplifying the wisdom of God,
thus manifesting his glory ; while the happiness which they con-
fer is subordinate and resulting.
2. This scheme does not account for the creation, but only
for God's conduct to a creation already in being. Creatures ex-
isting, God may be said to delight in doing them good; but this
does not answer the question, Why did God create them ? He
created them for a variety of purposes, one of which was that
He might do good to them, but this was not the whole. The
doing good to them supposes them to be, and therefore it could
not be the ground of their being brought into existence. 1
3. This theory begs the question (at least for us at present)
upon the most important ethical question, viz., whether happi-
ness be the highest good. If the affirmative of that question
cannot be held, the theory cannot be maintained.
4 When framed to accord with the "subjective happiness"
view of the nature of virtue, the theory leads to the inference:
Jf God's highest end be the creature's happiness, then the crea-
ture should seek his own happiness in all that he does, as the
supreme end; thus giving a most vicious ethical theory.
5. When happiness is taken in a larger sense, the term be
comes indefinite and the theory that happiness is the end of the
creation becomes vague. If the word happiness be made to take
in all happiness, including the divine blessedness, and to include
a peculiar kind of happiness, that arising from holiness, i. e., to
take in all that is good in the system, all that can be appreciated
and be the ground of satisfaction to God and to finite intelligences,
then of course we simply come out upon the statement that the
subjective end of creation is commensurate with its objective end.
God created the universe to manifest his own perfections, and in
the manifestation He has his own subjective joy and intends that
his creatures shall have theirs. But that which is highest and
1 Compare Edwards, ii. 206.
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
best in the system is distinct from the appreciation and love of
what is highest and best, which is the source of the truest hap-
piness. If the highest happiness is made synonymous with the
highest good of the whole system, we have one of two things:
either a restatement of the subjective happiness view or a vague
use of language. If the meaning be, that the end of the whole
system is the highest happiness of individual beings, we come
back to the inference that the individual should seek his own
happiness as his highest end; if it be said that what is meant by
the highest happiness is, that which constitutes the goodness of
the system taken as a whole, this leaves the question open, what
does constitute such goodness of the whole system : its reflection
of the divine glory or its power of producing happiness ? If the
meaning be, that the great end of the system is the sum of
good which is in it, all of which is appreciable and capable of
producing happiness either in God or in man or in both, then
there is no objection to the view, but it would seem best to keep
to the common use of terms, and not confound the happiness
with the good from which it arises.
In fact, the happiness scheme if consistently carried out, would
lead to the position that the glory of God in the whole system is
the great end in creation. All the happiness of all the good,
taking it in its largest sense, is derived from God, is only a
participation on their part of what God gives. What God
reveals in the system is the objective ground or source of the
happiness: the creature's happiness is found in having part in
that; and if we could suppose the creature's happiness so great
as to be co-extensive with this, still it would be dependent upon
this manifestation or revelation of God, and thus the happiness
will be merely the accruing good.
9. The Connection between the View of the End of God in
Creation and the Theory of the Nature of Virtue.
1. That which is the great end of God's work in creation
must be the summum bonum to his creatures also; for their high-
est good can only be found in subjection to or harmony with
the great end for which all is made.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 143
2. This end, as we have seen, is the whole system of things,
considered as declarative of God's inherent perfections, terminat-
ing in redemption and the union of himself with man ; all oi
which declare his glory.
3. Man's chief end must then be found in his harmony with
this system ; in glorifying God and enjoying Him forever.
4. The subjective condition of man's doing this is, his love to
the whole system of things as declarative of God, or to God as
declared in the whole system.
5. Ultimately then, in the last analysis, love to God as being
4 in effect" all being, is the root and ground of all true virtue.
10. Some historical Statements as to Theories of God's End
in Creation.
Justiri Martyr: TtpoS erdsi&v rrjS SeiaS avrov dvvajLisooS.
Origen, de Princ. ii. 9, 6: "[Deus] nullam habuit aliam creandi
causam, nisi propter se ipsum, id est, bonitatem suam."
Greg. Naz. Orat. xxxviii. : " God's goodness was not content
with the purely immanent activity of self-contemplation, but
would pour itself out and multiply itself externally."
Aquinas, Summa I. Q. 44, iv. : "Communicare suam perfection-
em, quse est ejus bonitas."
Bonaventura: "The honor of God, i. e., to reveal and impart
his glory, and thus at the same time to promote the highest
good of creatures."
The Calvinistic theologians who have been led by the very
nature of their system to dwell much on this subject, have
adopted the general position of Augustine ; the glory of God is
the end of creation.
Zwingle, iv. 81: ". . . . ita bona sunt, ut ab illo bono sunt, ut
ii, illo bono sunt et ut ad illius boni gloriarn sunt."
Calvin, Inst. I. v. 5: " Mundus in spectaculum glories Dei
conditus est."
A common representation is, that the glory of God consists
in the manifestation of his love in salvation, and of his justice in
condemnation, and that these together make up the glory of the
divine holiness^ which is to be taken as the ultimate end. The
114 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
supralapsarian theology emphasized the statement, that God
decreed the creation of a reprobate portion of mankind in order
that He might show forth the glory of his justice.
The general Calvinistic view is: The objective end is the di
vine glory ; the subjective, the good of creatures. All that is,
is from God and for God a self-revelation or manifestation of
God. " The highest end is the manifestation of God finis ob-
jectivus, ultimus, est gloria Dei: the subordinate end" our chief
end "is the glorifying of God in our salvation finis subjectivus,
subordinatus, est salus nostra" (Cf. Schweizer, I. 135).
Stapfer, I. 122 : " Finis existentiae hujus mundi est manifest-
atio glorise divinae."
Wendelin, 3: "Finis est glorificatio Dei et nostra salus; hie
finis proximus, ille finis summus."
The school of Kant urges that the harmony of virtue and happi-
ness is the highest good, and so the chief end of all things. (But
this confines the end to the sphere of the rational and moral.)
Bretschneider, I. 670-1 (for substance): "The last ground
of creation, which is also its last end, cannot be objective, but
must be subjective, and is to be sought in God himself. (God's
independence obliges us to seek the ground of all his purposes
in himself.) But we do not fully know what it is So much
we know: it must be an expression of the divine ideas, a rev-
elation of God, a mirror and image of his perfection. Its im-
mensity corresponds with omnipotence; its order to the divine
wisdom; its well-being to God's goodness; to his holiness and
justice, rational [moral] beings. The revelation of his majesty
to rational beings is a subordinate end; the revelation of his
perfection, for its own sake, must be the highest end."
Ebrard, Dogm. I. 358: "The last end for which the world was
made must be the glorifying of the moral attributes of God, i. e.,
of God as holy, blessed, and wise. And since it is personal beings
(men and angels) in whom these moral attributes are glorified
and that in the way of their blessedness it follows that the
glorifying of the ethico-Trinitarian nature of God in the blessing
of finite subjects, is the last end to which the providence of God
is directed**
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 145
Edwards. The following seems to be, for substance, the
view of Pres. Edwards, especially as unfolded in his last section :
Other ultimate ends (i. e., results good in themselves) are in-
stances, exemplifications, all of them of the one end, i. e., the
manifestation of the internal divine glory are different modes and
degrees of this manifestation; not means to that end, strictly,
so that they are sacrificed to it but higher and lower modes of
realizing it. And the highest mode, within the creation, in
respect to the creatures, is, the communication of the divine
love, in the form of grace, reuniting man with God. This is the
highest, brightest manifestation of the divine love, in respect to
the creatures. But this is still, in respect to God's end or total
plan, a. form or mode of the divine declarative glory. Some of
President Edwards's statements, as when he argues, ii. 207-11,
that God makes himself the end, might at first sight seem in-
consistent with this, but a careful study of that in connection
with the last section shows, that he could not have meant it in
any sense which implied a supreme regard to himself as self;
though on this point he is not always entirely consistent.
The younger Edwards thus represents his father's views (Cf.
Remarks on Improvements, I. 481): "The declarative glory of
God is the creation, taken not distributively but collectively, as
a system raised to a high degree of happiness. The creation
thus raised and preserved is the declarative glory of God. ID
other words it is the exhibition of his essential glory." This,
though in form a reconciliation of the two theories as to God's
end in creation, is in fact a sacrificing of the divine glory as an
independent ultimate end; the glory is put in the happiness. It
is not his father's theory, which expressly subordinates the hap-
piness to the glory.
146 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGF.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE THEODICY. THE QUESTION OF THE BEST SYSTEM.
The word Theodicy is used in the sense of Vindication of God
in the work of creation, especially as to the existence of sin.
The Best System means, not the best conceivable in the
abstract, but the best in relation to its materials and objects;
that which is best on the whole, in a world of matter, for a
race, destined to have a history, a race of personal, free, and
moral beings, capable of sin or holiness, and made for fellow-
ship with God.
The sum of what is intimated in the Scriptures on this
subject is that God has special regard to redemption in the
permission of sin, and so has regard to the special manifesta-
tion of his own attributes: Rom. xi. 32, 33; Acts xvii. 30, 31;
Eph. iv. 13 ; 2 Cor. iii. 18 ; 1 John iii. 2 ; especially the argument
of Paul, Rom. v. 12-21.
The problem is, to reconcile the existence of sin with the
divine character, or, in other words, to reconcile the existence
of a system in which sin is, with the position that it is from the
hand of an omnipotent, wise and holy author. The fact of sin
is conceded. Those who believe that God is holy, wise, and om-
nipotent, of course believe that the reconciliation may be made
even though they cannot effect it. The existence of sin being
conceded, and the belief in a holy, wise, and omnipotent God
being taken for granted, the different theories are the attempts
to account for sin. We come here upon the old dilemma which
was put even in pagan times: 1 God either wishes to take away
1 The argument of Epicurus as given by Lactantius, "De Ira Dei," xiii. :
"Deus aut vult tollere mala et non potest; aut potest et non vult; aut neque vult
neque potest. Si vult et non potest, imbecillis est; quod in Deuin non cadit. Si
potest et non vult, invidus; quod seque alienum a Deo. Si neque vult neque
potest, et invidus et imbecillis est; ideo, neque Deus. Si et vult et potest, quod
solum Deo convenit, unde sunt mala? aut cur ilia non tollit?"
The dilemma is here canied further than is necessary. It is sufficient to say:
either will and cannot, so denying omnipotence, or can and will not, denying
benevolence*
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 147
evil and cannot, or He can and will not. In the one case He
lacks omnipotence, in the other benevolence. There are two
main theories in the Theodicy corresponding to the parts of the
dilemma: It is said on the one side, It is not against omnip-
otence to allow sin, because sin could not be prevented in a moral
system; on the other side it is said, It is not against benevolence
to admit sin, because sin is the necessary means of the greatest good.
1. Is Sin the necessary Means of the greatest Good ?
Is it a solution of the problem of moral evil to affirm this ?
Does that reconcile the existence of sin with the divine char-
acter, so that God is still seen to be benevolent, because sin is
the necessary means of the greatest good?
There are two chief subdivisions of this theory: I. The phil-
osophical or metaphysical ; II. The theological or orthodox.
I. The philosophical form of the theory. This has been
stated and considered under Part L, Book i., 7, p. 40.
II. The theological form of the theory. This was found
chiefly among the New England divines of the strictest effi-
ciency school, Hopkins, West, etc. It affirms that sin is an in
herent evil, yet is the necessary means of the greatest good; in the
sense, not that sin is a good or the direct means of good, but
that the highest good, such as the complete manifestation of the
divine perfections, cannot be reached except by overruling sin.
Is it a solution of the problem to say, that sin is a necessary
means of the greatest good ? To say the least, the phraseology
is objectionable. The only real scheme of this sort is the panthe-
istic, that sin, from the nature of the finite, is a necessary stage
in progress.
1. The theory is liable to the objection that it seems to im-
pose a necessity on God to produce sin, in a moral system ; since,
from the nature of things, He could not produce the best system
without sin. Consequently there is a necessity for the existence
of sin, even to God. So that thus the scheme is carried over
into the scheme of necessity.
2. If the sense of " the greatest good " be happiness, then
it is difficult to see how sin, which is and produces wretched-
148 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
ness, is necessary to the highest happiness; for just so far as
sin exists, it is so much taken from the sum of happiness.
3. If, on the other hand, we define the greatest good as holi-
ness, the same difficulty remains. Sin is the opposite of holiness,
and if so, how can it be the necessary means of holiness V Just
so far as it exists, there is a deficiency of holiness in the universe.
We might as well say, Darkness is the necessary means of light,
whereas just so far as there is darkness, there is a want of light.
4. If the greatest good be defined as the declarative glory of
the divine perfections, then the theory is, that sin is necessary
to the fullest illustration of these. To this there are objections :
(a.) It is difficult to see why, taking the divine attributes
separately, the divine wisdom, love, holiness, may not have been
perfectly manifested without sin. Why could we not have had,
e. (/., a perfect manifestation of the divine wisdom, without sin?
(6.) In respect to the Godhead itself, the Trinity and the In-
carnation of God, why might- there not have been a manifestation
of God in his triune being or an incarnation, without sin ? As
a matter of fact, the Incarnation was connected with sin, but we
do not see that it was necessarily so.
(c.) The only difference in the manifestation of divine attri-
butes which sin has occasioned, that can be conceived or stated,
is in respect to two points: Without sin the divine benevolence
in redemption could not have been manifested, nor could the
divine holiness in punishing. Then this is the theory: Sin is
the necessary means of the greatest good, because without sin
God could not redeem or punish. This is what the theory must
logically come to. It is not all the divine attributes which are
here supposed to be fully exhibited, but only those which are
concerned in redemption and in the punishment of sin. In re-
spect to this: (1) As to punishment. If we say, sin is the
necessary means of the greatest good, because God could not
otherwise manifest his glory in punishing, that is to make the
punishment an end and object for which God acts as ultimate,
which, as we have seen, could not be the case. In consistency
with his attributes, He could not bring into being persons with
the object of punishing them. (2) As to redemption. If it be
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 149
said that sin is the necessary means of the greatest good, because
without it there could not be Redemption, and in Redemption
God's greatest grace is seen, this is to assume that Redemption
is the highest good, whereas it is not: it is the highest good for
sinners, but holiness is the highest good absolutely. Redemp
tion is not ultimate; it is in order to holiness. The system of
the Gospel is a method. We cannot then meet the real question in
the Theodicy, from this point: we cannot, i. e., say that the simple
object of the manifestation of the divine glory in redemption is
sufficient, alone, to justify God in introducing sin and misery,
though, being introduced for other reasons or grounds, they do
serve to illustrate the divine glory in redemption. Certainly, so
far as the present system of the world is concerned, we may say,
as a matter of fact, though not of moral necessity, that in the
system of Redemption we have the highest glory of God re-
vealed. As far as this scheme is concerned, then, the arguments
to prove that sin is strictly necessary to the greatest good, are
insufficient, do not reach to the point. All the scheme gives us
is, the fact, but not the fact as a necessity.
2. Does the Nature of Free-Agency account for Sin ?
Is it a solution of the problem to say, that from the nature of
free-agency God could not prevent all sin in a moral system ?
In New England theology this position was taken in oppo-
sition to the divine-efficiency or necessary-mearis-of-the-greatest-
good scheme. The position is most precisely given in Dr. N.
W. Taylor's Lectures on Moral Gov., ii. 309: " What, then, is the
impossibility of God's preventing all sin in moral beings, which
it is now supposed may exist? I answer, It is an impossibility,
the supposition of which involves a contradiction in the nature of
the case. It is the impossibility of God's preventing moral beings
from sinning, by anything which He can do, when beings who
can sin in despite of God do in this respect what they can do." '
Yet he says, ii. 340: "[We do] not affirm that God could not
i Of. also, Lects. on Moral Gov., i. 321-2; ii. 366; notice that nevertheless he
argues, ii. 313-15, " that the moral acts of men and of God may be certain "; ii.
342; ii. 357. In i. 309, it is said that " the power of the creature to sin is superioi
to God's power."
150 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
prevent ail sin in a moral system ; but simply that its prevention
in such a system may be impossible to Him." l The position at
the root of this scheme is, that a free agent is a being who can
arid may sin at any rate, in spite of all conceivable or possible
agency, even of God. Choice is essentially the power to the
contrary, and the power to the contrary always involves a pos-
sibility of a different choice and possibility of sin, and even om-
nipotence cannot control it. 2 Now, is this position a vindication
of the divine government in respect to sin ? Does it give us ft
sufficient reason and account of the present system ?
fiemarks :
1. This theory at the utmost gives us only the possibility of
sin, not its certainty, not its actuality. God in making a free
agent, gave him power to the contrary, made it possible for him
to sin. The theory accounts for the possibility, not for the fact,
of sin.
1 This is an important point in the theory. So Leibnitz, Theod., p. 158, says;
" Bayle demands too much: he would have us shew how evil is bound up with the
best possible plan of the creation, which would be a perfect explanation of the
phenomenon: but this we do not undertake to give, nor are we obliged to do so:
it would be impossible in the present state; it is enough that it may be true, it may
be inevitable, it may be that particular evils are bound up with what is best in
general. This is sufficient to answer objections, but not for a comprehension of
the thing."
Dr. Taylor wishes to throw the burden of proof on his opponents. He does
not say, that God could not prevent all sin in a moral system, but, it cannot be
proved that He could. God can exclude sin from a mora! system, but perhaps
not from the best, not from all. The sin and punishment of the fallen angels may
be the means, the necessary means of preserving the rest: so of man: so that the
fact of the existence of sin in some may be the reason why, in the actually holy,
God keeps sin out. But where does the burden of proof lie ? It is proved that
God is omnipotent, that He can do all that can be done. The presumption, then
is, that He can exclude sin, and that He has not allowed it because He lacked
power, but for other reasons. This presumption is strengthened by the fact that
He has excluded it from one system, and that He can and will keep saints to the
end. It is for the negative then to show that such is the nature of a moral system
that God cannot prevent sin in it. The affirmative might go one step further and
say, that the nature of moral agency is such that God can prevent sin in a moral
system, for He does and will in some. And since moral powers are the same in
all, He can in all; and the reason why He does not is not that He cannot, out is
something else.
2 Compare Whately's Bampton Lectures for 1822, App. II., against Arch.
King, who says, " the best system is one of free agents, liable to wrong" There
is a fallacy, says W., in the use of " liable to sin." It means only, " in his power
and in that sense possible, for him to sin " ; does not mean, " may be expected tc
sin ": this begs the question.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 151
2. On this basis, sin could never be certain in the system,
and therefore it could never be provided for by any eternal pur*
pose or plan. It might be or might not be. The plan of God
in respect to it must always be a plan of possibilities and not
certainties; because while it is possible for a creature to sin, il
is equally possible that he might not sin, and therefore all the
future there could be to God would be one of bare possibility
and not certainty. 1 The creature might sin, though omnipo-
tence should try to prevent it; he might be holy, notwithstand-
ing all finite inducement to the contrary. The matter would be
left in equilibria. So, of other divine attributes. God could not,
if his attributes are such as we have proved, bring such a sys-
tem of uncertainties into being. The theory regards the finite
will as an absolute contingency, in respect to which nothing
can be certainly foreseen.
3. This theory derogates also from the divine omnipotence.
It puts a limit in the creature to omnipotence. God as a mat-
ter of fact Jias exercised his omnipotence in keeping holy angels
from sinning, and He has promised to keep renewed men in
holiness and to secure their final sanctification.
4. An attempt is sometimes made to meet these difficulties
by another form of statement, viz., " that sin is necessarily in-
cidental to the best system." This form of statement does not
help the matter. It is true, as all will concede, that as a mat-
ter of fact sin is incidental to the best system, but what the
word " necessarily " means in connection with the term " inci-
dental," is difficult to decide. Of course the meaning is not that
sin is a necessary incident in the best system, and then the
only necessity which the phrase attempts to keep in view must
be that supposed to inhere in the nature of free agency. And
here, as we have seen, we have mere possibility, not necessity.
" Necessarily incidental" can amount only to this: that sin is
necessarily possible, and that really means (unless there be cori-
fusioii of terms) nothing more than possible; so that the word
1 See Meth. Quarterly, 1860-1 and Jan. 1862: "God foreseeing how each and
every possible free agent in any possible case will freely act, so places all free
agents in existence, and so adjusts his own course as that from their free, unne-
cessitated, nndecreed actions He may educe the best possible result."
152 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
" necessarily " serves only to make it more difficult to understand
the theory. 1
5. Even if the theory could be freed from its difficulties in
relation to omnipotence, it after all would not solve the problem
before us. The question is, Why did God choose a system in
which it was certain that sin would exist? It is no answer to
say, God chose it because it must be a system of free agents,
about whom it was wholly uncertain whether they would sin or
not. The only object of a theory would be to give a reason why
God chose a system in which sin was certain to be, while this
only states why He chose a system in which sin might possibly be.
6. The theory is still further no answer to the real question,
which is this: Why is the present system the best system? All
that the answer amounts to is, that the best system is one in
which there are beings who have the power of choice. But
their having the power of choice is not what maJce-s the system
best; it is simply an incident, a sine qua non. The bare power of
choice or power of sinning is no particular good. That which
constitutes the " good " of the system must be found either in
happiness or in holiness; and the theory in relation to either hap-
piness or holiness would amount to this : that the highest happi-
ness or holiness could not be insured without the power of
choice, which everybody grants ; but it does not answer the ques-
tion at all, Why sin is in such a system ? To state the matter
in another form: the only question which can be proposed in
respect to vindicating the divine government, and the point to
which any theory that attempts to solve the question must come,
is this: To show why a holy and benevolent God chose a system
in which sin was to be as a matter of fact, and why the exist-
ence of sin in that system was a condition of its being the best
system. Understanding that to be the question, it may be said
that the theory that sin is the necessary means of the greatest
good fairly undertakes to meet the question, though it does not
The theory is also sometimes supposed to be stated with a modification, thus:
God's omnipotence in the case is restrained by his view of what it is best or not
for Him to do. He cannot as a wise Being do what is unwise. But this is a dif
ferent theory. It puts the solution on a very different ground. It runs into the
first theory or a modification of it.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 153
answer it. But the other theory does not meet the question. It
merely says, that in the best system free agency involves the
possibility of sin, and that there cannot be a moral system with-
out free agents.
The theory thus leaves the question and problem wholly
undecided. No relief can be found in a scheme which limits
divine omnipotence.
As far as we feel constrained to make a dilemma, we seem
to be compelled to say: God could exclude sin but would not.
"Could" asserts the divine omnipotence as not limited by, but
extending over, moral beings and systems; "would not" of course
does not mean that God ever approves sin from any point of
view, but simply that He allows it for some good and sufficient
reason which we may or may not be able to state.
3. We cannot state all the Reasons for the Permission of Sin.
The true position is, that we do not know the ultimate or
metaphysical reason why God allows sin to exist, and so cannot
give a theoretical solution of the problem before us, while yet
the Christian system gives a sufficient practical solution, so that
they are without excuse who reject the redemption offered in
Christ.
The two preceding theories attempt demonstrative solutions,
they undertake to give the ultimate reason for the existence of
sin and fail.
In saying that we cannot give the final reason in the case,
it is not meant that we cannot give some important reasons, in
certain aspects and relations of the matter, but only that we do
not know the ultimate reason in the divine mind, or the reason
which is the complete vindication of Deity.
The preceding theories may afford a measure of help in
meeting difficulties and objections, and clearing the subject in
certain relations.
1. The state of the question. We prove that God is a holy,
wise, omnipotent, and benevolent Being, on independent grounds
and with certain evidence. The proof as far- as we go is suf-
ficient. Then, objection is made to the proof for this one rea-
154 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
son: the existence of moral evil or sin, with its consequences
(The existence of natural evils, and of suffering as the just
desert of sin, can be left out of account here, as the pressure
of the problem is not on these grounds.) That objection is
supposed to be sufficient to undermine the whole sum of the
evidence derived from other sources, that God is omnipotent,
wise, holy, and good. Then the state of the question is this.
Is it a valid and sufficient objection to the proof that we have
of the divine' wisdom and benevolence, that sin should exist
in the world? Or although sin exists, may we still hold fast
to that proof? In meeting this question, there are two classes
to be argued with, on different grounds: infidels, with whom
the whole argument from natural theology is to be urged,
with the proofs given there of the divine wisdom and love;
and believers in God, with whom the question comes as to
the grounds on which we can reconcile the two positions.
2. Points on which the parties in dispute are agreed, as
the question has been discussed in this country : (a) That the
actual system is the best system on the whole, for some reason
or other; (6) That sin is in it; (c) That sin in its nature is evil
and only evil, and hence it cannot be in the system for its
own sake;- God did not put it in the system because it was
a good or the direct means of good; (d) That it is in the
system as the act and guilt of the creature. With agree-
ment on these points, the differences come out in the two
theories already considered.
3. Some reasons why this may be the best system, though
sin is in it. There is a difficulty about the phrase, " best sys-
tem." Defining it that no better system can possibly be con-
ceived, involves us at once in a difficulty; because we can
imagine a system in which there should be no sin, and that
would be better than the system in which we now are. But
the best system is defined by Leibnitz as the system which
answers the great end the best; we mean by the phrase, not one
that we could not conceive to be better, but the system which an-
swers best, or as well as any system we could conceive, the greal
end: the manifestation of God and the good of the creature.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 155
Without pretending to give the ultimate grounds or reasons,
the divine government may be vindicated on the following
grounds, which give points of relief and rebut objections (as
that God is not both omnipotent and benevolent, if He allows
sin, etc.), in connection with the Incarnation, the Atonement,
the Redemptive system.
(a.) The divine benevolence, which we have taken as the
highest divine attribute, is not a mere and ultimate regard
to happiness, but to holiness. The divine benevolence has
for its main object to secure the supremacy of holiness in God's
moral system. That must be the great object to which God
looks: a moral system in which holiness shall be supreme,
not a moral system in which holiness shall be implanted
in every creature, but in which holiness shall be triumphant.
(6.) Such a moral system can only exist with and by free
agents. It is inconceivable that there could be holy beings
without freedom, and in that freedom there is of course given
the possibility of sin as well as of holiness. This does not
make sin certain but possible. The possibility is not a ne-
cessity, and if sin ever becomes actual, it will be through a
free act for which the actor is responsible.
(c.) Now, having got a system in which holiness is to be
the end, and a system of free agency in whose free agents
there was a possibility of sinning, we advance to the state-
ment that God might allow the possibility of sin to become
actual, for two main reasons. For two reasons, God as a
benevolent Being having ultimate regard to holiness, might
permit the creature to sin. (1) From the consideration that
if God should prevent sin by omnipotence or exclude it wholly,
this might diminish the capabilities of holiness (and of course
of happiness also) in the system. He could do it, because
omnipotence can do all that can be done, and it could control
a free agent. But if God should exercise his omnipotence
in that way throughout the whole creation, it might require
^ncli an exercise of omnipotence as would diminish the capa-
bilities of holiness and happiness. (2) From tht consideration
that the system of which sin is a part allows a special mani
156 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
festation of the divine attribute of benevolence or love, in
Redemption. We repeat that these reasons are suggested, not
as solving the problem ultimately, but as showing that God
in his omnipotence might, in consistency with his benevolence,
still permit the existence of sin.
(d) The reasons why God may have permitted sin may also
be reasons for his not suppressing it finally in the system, i. e.,
for allowing some to go to eternal condemnation.
(e.) As Chalmers says, for aught we know, it may be better
for each individual to be in a system where there is a common
sin and a common redemption, than for each to be in a system
where he might sin and where there was no redemption pro-
vided. As far as the whole system of the world is concerned, it
seems plain that the vindication of the divine government is ulti-
mately in the scheme of Redemption. God chose the system, as
far as his own agency was concerned, for the sake of the Redemp-
tion in it, and not because He was obliged to take it with its pos-
sibilities of evil for the sake of free agency. If there had not been
a Redemption, there would not have been a race of sinners, proba-
bly. God would have cut oft' the race at the root, if it had not
been in his purpose to provide a scheme of Redemption, and a
scheme co-extensive in its provisions with the extent of the
apostasy. So far as God's own motive or agency was con-
cerned, a general Redemption set over against a general rain
was the reason why he allowed sin to go on, a Redemption
which will ultimately no doubt embrace by far the great major-
ity of the race.
(/.) God is more than benevolent, He is gracious. Man is
ultimately condemned for rejecting grace. (As to those who
know not the gospel, we need not fear to assert that God will
deal with them, too, benevolently as well as justly.)
Summary. Concluding Statement: God might, by omnipo-
tence, have excluded sin; yet we must say: for wise and good
reasons, some of which we can see, others not, He chose not to
exert his omnipotence in the way of its suppression.
For aught that appears, the present system answers its end,
t. e., the manifestation of the declarative glory of God and the
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 157
ensuring the triumph of holiness through free agents, as com-
pletely as any can, in which both these elements are to be
conjoined. Both of them are to be taken into account in
estimating the system.
The full Theodicy could be known only by knowing the
universe; for evil began in angelic natures, and has its full issuo
only in eternity. This world gives us but a part; the Theodicy
is to be framed with reserves and suspense .of judgment as to what,
is ultimate ; but so far as we do frame it, we are to avoid natu-
ralistic grounds, and put ourselves on the basis of the Redemptive
scheme. The problem of evil brings us and leaves us face to
face with the offer of Redemption, and that is the most we can
do with it: to make opposers concede that the existence of sin
is explained as far as may be in the Redemption, and then ask
them themselves to taste and see that the Lord is gracious.
The practical solution of the problem is and ever must be found
in the personal acceptance of the offers of grace.
NOTE. Some additional statements not incorporated by the
author in his lectures.
I. Attempts to prove a priori the metaphysical necessity of
sin in the best system fail, if sin be held to be sin. The only
consistent statement here is the pantheistic: sin is a stage of
development.
II. The proof from free will, motives, etc., fails in showing
more than liability, possibility. It does not show how God could
choose a system involving the actuality of sin.
III. The position, This is the best system sin is in it
therefore, etc., is analysis and not proof.
IV. Sin the necessary means of the greatest good, fails too.
V. Yet we have enough to answer objections and difficul-
ties so as to leave us face to face with the system of Redemp-
tion. This is all that can be rationally asked in a Christian
Theodicy.
VI. We should remember that the moral system of which
we are a part, embraces the angelic as well as the Adamic
world. Sin is far reaching; it reaches back into the past
158 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
eternity and forward into the future. Hence the more need
of caution the less the probability that we can see or know
the whole. 1
VII. We should recollect, also, that as far as this world is
concerned, it is a system, not of individuals, but for a race; with
common characteristics, and a moral government for the whole
as well as for each individual. In such a system there may be
elements which would not be found in one of pure individualism.
E. #., It might be better for each individual to be in a system
with sin for all and a common redemption, than in one where
each came into the world to stand or fall for himself alone.
More might be saved, on the whole, by such a system than by
one of individual action and penalty. God would make a race;
individuals to be generated; there must then be body and soul;
this gave occasion for sin and also for Redemption. The fact
of Redemption is connected uniformly, in the Bible, with Incar-
nation. No redemption for angels is intimated.
VIII. Recollect also, the necessary constituents of a moral
system. The best system is that which secures the highest glory
of God, through and by the acts of free moral agents. There
are two elements in it: the declarative glory of the divine per-
fections, and the agency of the creature : or, the supremacy of
holiness as the end, and the freedom of the creature in relation
to that end. Such a system of course implies that men are free
moral agents; yet also, that God through and by their free agency
will secure the end of his system.
IX. 1. The Ideal: God a perfect world man, free, holy
collection of individuals like angels immortal -bliss in obedi-
ence to the holy law for each.
2. The Actual: God a sinful world man in bondage to sin
common ruin violated law uncertain or dismal future.
1 As to the fall of Angels, see Birks, Difficulties of Belief, ch. v. (1) A moral sys-
tem was first set forth in creation, in the simplest way; in angelic hosts and orders;
individuals; all favorable to stability. (2) The Fall, through pride, before the Ad-
amic. (3) The system passing over to a mixed one: a new trial, in the human race;
sinful angels still connected with it. (Angels not at once cast down to the lowest
hell, as is inferred from 2 Pet. ii. 4; Jude 6, 7. This last refers [probably to<t
the first] to the sin of angels with the race, a second apostasy.) "A later fall of
Satan in the Garden, in connection with the Adainic."
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 159
3. The Union of the Two : Christianity Man a race with
common sinfulness: Christ a Redeemer common provision of
Redemption the world a probation eternity unveiled.
The difficulties of natural religion solved by the Christian
religion.
X. Consider the attitude of God in respect to sin and its
consequences. The general maxim here: "Deus concurrit ad
materiale, non ad formale actionis liberse." God is to overrule,
bound, control sin. God could not prevent sin, from regard to
his plan ; could, per se. Consider that metaphysical evil is not
really such; in gradation there is no real evil. Misery and
death are in the world for the sin of the race; they are not nec-
essary; are to pass away: Rom. viii. 21; viii. 1825; Rev. vii. 16,
17; xxi. 4. Evil still attends sin: Rom. v. 12; vi. 23. Evil serves
the glory of God: John ix. 3; xi. 4; Rom. viii. 28; James i. 2-4.
XI. Such a permission of sin in this race allows a peculiar
manifestation of the divine love, in this system of Redemption,
where the highest divine glories shine. In its results in saving,
it will doubtless reach far beyond our common thoughts and
ways of estimating. Infants. Who knows what a millennial
period maybe? some conjecture three hundred and sixty thou-
sand years (year of thousands). We need not fear to make this
statement broad and strong.
PART III.
CHRISTIAN ANTHROPOLOGY. THE DOCTRINE
RESPECTING MAN.
This Third Part of the First Division treats of man, in his
original endowments, his moral relations, and his original moral
state. It differs from Psychology (which considers man in his
isolation a mind an intelligence) in taking the broadest and
highest view of man, treating the whole doctrine respecting
man in his relations to God, 1 and as a subject of God's moral
government.
Under this title we include the discussion of the much-de-
bated questions as to the nature of moral agency and of holiness
and sin, which are to be applied in respect to all the doctrines,
both in Anthropology (with Hamartology) and, in the Third Di-
vision, the Application of Kedemption. We have here to con-
sider the nature of free agency, of conscience, of true virtue ; all
of which go to exhibit the true nature of God's moral government.
The general subject of the prime constituents of human na-
ture, or of man's endowments and relations as a moral being,
can be considered under these points of view : I. What is man
as a moral being? II. What is the law for which as a moral
being he is made? III. What is man's relation to the law (syn-
thesis between I. and II.) man's destination as a moral being ?
In what is conformity to this law found ? 2
'[The author sometimes made Anthropology include the Doctrine of Human
Nature I. in Itself ; II. as Fallen; III. as capable nevertheless of Eedemption.
The first head would treat of the prime constituents of human nature and its chief
moral relations; the second, of the condition into which man as a race has fallen,
and of the penalty and power of sin in men as individuals; and the third, of the
need on man's part of deliverance from without and above, and of the poswibility
of receiving deliverance which still survives in human nature. But on the whole
the division of the subject into Part HI. Anthropology, and Part IV. Hamartology,
suits his treatment best.]
a [This is the question of " the nature of true virtue." The above scheme is not
Btrictly followed, yet it governs more than any other in the ensuing discussions.]
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 161
CHAPTER I.
WHAT IS MAN AS A MORAL BEING?
in order to know what man is as a moral being, we must
consider the relations in which he stands, his endowments and
capacities.
1. Of Man in his most General Relations.
(a.) Man in his relation to the Creator, which is his highest
and chief relation, is finite and dependent. His fundamental
relation is that of a creature of God, dependent upon Him for
life and breath and all things: Gen. i. 26; Acts xvii. 28; Rev.
iv. 11. As a creature, man falls under the general condition of
finite existence, limitation by space and time. As a creature
of God he is made for God, having the destination of glorifying
God, so that that is his chief end; and in nothing that he does
can he be independent of the divine government, as exercised
in the way o general providence, ordering all things with om-
nipotence and wisdom, for the highest ends of such a government.
(6.) In relation to the rest of the material creation man is the
crown and head thereof. 1 One aspect of the world Tie wed by
itself is, that it was made for man; it culminates and is cen-
tralized in him. This is foreshadowed in the order of creation
given in the book of Genesis: man was made last and to have
dominion over all. 8 It is proved also by science, which shows
that everything in the lower orders of animals points to man.*
The order is : inorganic ; organic with life vegetables ; organic
with souls (in broad sense) animals : man has all these elements
in his constitution, and
(c.) He has not only what allies him with and makes him
the recapitulation of the order of creation, but he has also what
1 "Man is not an animal whose mind is agitated with animal sympathies and
passions, but a calm, deep sea, in which the heavens with the sun and stars are
mirrored " (Herder).
2 Here religion and theology have anticipated science.
3 Especially the investigations into the stages of embryo life.
162 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
puts him above all other natural beings, a spiritual subsistence.
He is made up of both matter and spirit. The two realms meet
in him. The angels are spirits without bodies, and the lower
orders have a material constitution without a rational soul
Man is the union of both. This combination assigns him his
place in the whole creation. The difference between matter and
spirit: (1) General: we cannot ascribe the qualities of the one to
the other; (2) Matter is defined by its relations to space: spirit,
not; (3) Matter is moved by foreign agency: spirit is self-active, 1
is essentially free; (4) "Spirit has its center in itself: matter,
not" (Hegel).
(d.) Man is not only thus related to God and to nature, but
each individual man is also one of a race: he is an individual
example of a race. What he is as a member of the race is the
substratum of what he is as an individual, personal being. The
unity of the race as a whole underlies the idea of the individual.
In each individual the constituent elements of human nature are
individualized. The individual has all the common properties,
relations, tendencies, qualities, attributes or whatever they may
be called of the race of which he is a part and an individual
copy. The unity and " solidarity " of the race is at the basis of
the doctrines of sin and of redemption. As a whole, as well as
in each individual, it is the object of the divine government:
Gen. i. 27, 28; Acts xvii. 24-26; Rom. v. 12. The race is in idea
before the individual : the whole is in idea before the part : for
the part has essential respect to the whole. 2 Hence, men can-
not be considered as isolated beings. We cannot understand
the human body except in its relations to nature, which it was
made to act in. We cannot understand a human affection ex-
cept as it is related to other beings. The very idea of man is
that of an individual being or agent in such leading relations as
have been named. His capacities and powers have respect to
these. And,
(e.) In all these relations man is a moral being. In them all
1 In a broad seiise we must admit a spiritual principle in animals: they are
self-active.
2 Aristotle, Pol. 1, 2: "Manifestly the state is by nature before the family an]
before each individual. For the whole must needs be earlier than the part."
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 163
he is to live as a moral agent. He is such a being, he has such
a constitution that he can and must be in moral relations with
all, can and must act in a moral way, in respect to all. As con-
sisting of body and soul, as related to nature, to his fellow-
beings and to God, he is to act morally, in accordance with a
moral law, for a moral end. This is his fundamental destination:
to be morally at one with himself, with nature, with other
rational beings, and with God.
And he has such endowments that he can do this. Man is
made a moral being: having such capacities and powers, in such
a state, that he can and must act in a moral way, under a moral
law. And this leads us to consider
2. What constitutes the Individuality of each Nan ? What
are the specific Characteristics of each Man as an Individual Person ?
The most general statement: Man is a personal agent, hav-
ing capacities or powers and tendencies corresponding to. all
the relations in which he is placed and for which he was made.
The order of discussion: I. Man as made up of body and
soul; II. Personality; III. Faculties; IV. Tendencies; V. Con-
science. Man is primarily constituted of body and spirit, and
is thus connected with the natural and spiritual sphere; his
body has a central principle of life, which is not the result
of, but the living center of unity to, all his organism; his
personality presides over and expresses itself in all that he
does; he has powers or faculties; he has tendencies towards
the various objects to which he is related; and in respect to
all, he has the power of moral discernment, feeling, and self-
determination, and of moral judgment upon himself and upon
all that comes within the moral sphere.
3. Of the union of Body and Soul in Man.
I. The dichotomy in man. Man is animal rationale, the cen-
ter between matter and spirit, made up of both ; his material por-
tion we call his body: his spiritual substance, his soul. This
union is the most wonderful and mysterious fact in our organic
frame. Various theories have been proposed to explain or illus-
trate it. The theories rest upon one of two assumptions: that
164 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
body and soul are one substance originally, or that there is an
essential duality of matter and spirit. On the first assumption
we may have (a.) Materialism, which affirms that this primitive
substance is matter which takes the form of spirit; or (b.) Ideal-
ism, affirming that the primitive substance is spirit which be-
comes objective to itself in what is called matter. 1 The diffi-
culty in either of these cases is that things so different as
body and soul cannot be deduced the one from the other.
We cannot bring one under the other; we can only super-
add the qualities of spirit to those of matter, or the qual-
ities of matter to those of spirit. The second assumption,
that matter and spirit are dual, essentially distinct, may be
carried to the extreme of asserting that they are entirely
disparate, giving rise to the three chief theories as to
their mode of acting upon each other, (a.) The union is made
in the seneorium: the nerves carry impressions thither, and then
the soul receives them. But when we have got to the senso-
rium and the nervous action and the spirit awaiting the
reception oi the nervous influence, we still have to explain
the nature of this union as much as before; and therefore
some have imagined a nervous fluid intermediate between
matter and spirit, which is so vague that it may be taken
to be matter or spirit, or both. 2 This theory really materializes
the soul, while it leaves the problem unsolved, and simply re-
moves the difficulty to parts unknown. (&.) The theory of
occasionalism Cartesian. This started with the position that
matter works by its particular laws, and spirit by laws peculiar
to itself, and that these are so different that there is no possi-
bility of a mutual action. Then, to explain what appears to
be the mutual action, it was said that God, on the occasion
of the action of the one, produces by his direct agency a cor-
responding action in the other, (c.) The theory of pre-estab-
lished harmony, suggested by Leibnitz. This also rests on
the assumption that there is no direct interaction between
1 To say, the primitive substance is neither matter nor spirit, as in Cud worth's
*' plastic soul of nature," etc., (so Morell) is to make a union in statement merely,
not in any definite conception.
2 "Physical influx " designates a similar theory.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 165
the material and spiritual, but it hesitates to say that God
produces the actions by continual interference; and says in
distinction that He made the soul and body in a perfect cor-
respondence the one with the other, so that, e. g., when a motion
took place in the body there should be a motion in the soul,
not by the direct act of God, but by the action of the spirit
it-self, according to a pre-established harmony. These three
theories have been illustrated by the instance of two watches
keeping the same time, which might be taken under three
points of view: they keep time together, (1), because they act
on each other; (2), because the maker of the watches acts di-
rectly upon both; (3), because both watches were made so perfect
at the first that they correspond in movement at every point.
The simple facts, however, to which we must come back are.
that body and soul are distinct; that they do interact; and that
the mode of their interaction surpasses human scrutiny. We
must accept the fact as ultimate and a mystery. We may say
that the soul is prior; takes to itself a material form ; and that in
this union neither is understood without the other. 1 "The soul
is the entelechy of the body." The whole body is the seat of
the soul. Both soul and body are in constant union and mutual
action. The body is the organ for the manifestation of the soul,
and the medium of its communication with the material world
and beings. The union of body and soul is through and by--
not bare matter, but the forces of matter, or through matter as
force. There is force in the action of all the organism : mechan-
ical, chemical, vital; there is force also in the soul. Force is
common to both body and soul, and here, in some way, is the
point of union. The soul shapes, forms the body; and because
it does this, it is susceptible to all its motions. This does not
explain, so that we can comprehend, the union: but it deter-
mines the relations of the body to the soul.
After all, body and soul, while essentially distinct, are per-
haps not so disparate as we traditionally imagine.
i Compare The Theory of the Soul, by Rev. J. B. Dalgairns. He vindicates,
against the Cartesian dualism, the Aristotelian view of the soul as "entelechy."
He says, "Man is one oomplete being made up of body and soul, in the sense
that the intellectual soul is by itself the true and immediate form of the body."
166 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
II. Does the dichotomy (body and soul) in man include also
a trichotomy (body, soul, and spirit) ? Those who affirm that it
does, rely upon two passages of Scripture : 1 Thess. v. 23, rendering
this "May you remain, be preserved entire, in all your parts, body,
soul, and spirit, blameless," etc. It seems better, however, to un-
derstand it: May you in all your spheres, all your relations, be
blameless: in Spirit, i. e., in relation to the new spiritual life; in
soul, in all your individual traits; and in body. The other pas-
sage adduced is Heb. iv. 12; where "piercing to the separation,
or the dividing, of soul and spirit" is taken to imply a difference
in substance between soul and spirit, or at least a difference in
the whole mode of existence and manifestation. But the pas-
sage appears to refer not to two distinct compartments of the spir-
itual Christian man, but to two different relations: a relation to
the whole spiritual sphere and to the natural, both of which are
searched to the very joints and marrow of them by the Word of
God. 1
If spirit and soul were two distinct substances, then, (a.) death
could not be described as the giving up of the soul (Gen. xxxv.
18; 1 Kings xvii. 21; Acts xv. 26, Cf. xx. 10, 11), and again as
the giving up of the spirit (Ps. xxxi. 5 ; Lulse xxiii. 46 ; Acts vii. 59 ;
Cf. Luke viii. 55); (6.) " souls" and "spirits" of the dead could not
mean the same (1 Pet. iii. 19; Heb. xii. 23; Rev. vi. 9; xx. 4);
(c.) we should not find the Scriptural formula for man to be
sometimes "body and soul" (Ps. Ixxiii. 26; Matt. vi. 25; x. 28),
and sometimes "body and spirit" (Eccl. xii. 7; 1 Cor. v. 3, 5).
4. Of the origin of Souls (after the Creation of ike first Soul).
While it is agreed that the first members of the human race
were the immediate objects of the divine power, and that their
souls were immediately created like their bodies, 2 on the question
how the souls of their descendants come into being there are
three chief theories: Pre-existence, Creationism, Traducianism.
1 The words, " spirit " and " soul " designate, the former, the life as proceed-
ing from God; the latter, the life as that of the individual. This is the only gen-
eral view that can be carried out.
'[With those who do not agree to this, the author's plan was to conduct dis-
cussion under the head of Apologetics, "j
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 167
I. Pre-existence: God created originally (on "the first day,"
some have said, some, on " the sixth,") all the souls of the human
race that ever should exist. (The view of the Rabbins was, that
these souls were kept in a heavenly treasury until conception
took place, and that then the soul was introduced into and united
with the new body.) Some have supposed that there is an
allusion to this in John ix. 2. If the man did sin, of course he
pre-existed, it is said. The phrase, however, is colloquial and
not metaphysical. Ps. cxxxix. 15 is also cited, but this is
doubtless an allusion to the formation in the womb. 1
Plato, Philo, Justin Martyr, Theodoretus, Origen, Synesius,
Prudentius, taught pre-existence ; some holding that the souls
were in the ether and came freely, the Church Fathers for the
most part teaching that they were brought into the body as a
punishment and with the benevolent intent of giving them the
opportunity of redemption. Against it were Tertullian, Greg-
ory of Nyssa, Cyril, Augustine, Leo the Great; at a synod under
Justinian (Mansi, IX. 396) it was condemned.
II. Creationism: Each soul is created by the divine power,
and united with the foetus, which alone is propagated. The
soul is supposed to be created pure, and united with a depraved
body. This view was held by Hilary, Pelagius, Theodoretus,
Gennadius, Ambrose, Jerome, by the Scholastics, by Melanch-
thon, and most of the Reformers. It has been the view of most
Roman Catholic divines, and of many Calvinists. Lutheran
theologians are for the most part against it, though Luther him-
self was not decided. Pelagius used it against the doctrine of
oiiginal sin, urging that God would not create a soul impure.
Augustine was not decided. Against it are usually cited: Gen.
i. 26; ii. 2; for it, such passages as Heb. xii. 9, " Father of spirits."
The chief objections to it are: (a.) It is difficult to see how God
could create a perfectly pure spirit, and unite it with a depraved
organization; (6.) It puts man out of analogy with all the other
living beings in the world; in these the entire vitality is allowed
1 Other citations are: Isa. xlii. 5; Job xii. 10; 1 Pet. iii. 18. The following
have been quoted to show that the souls of children are in Hades before birth: Job
i. 21; Ps. cxxxix, 14, 15; Ps. xxii, 30.
168 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
to be propagated, including all that goes to the animal soul, the
degree of intelligence, traits, etc.; (c.) It tends to destroy the
organic unity of the race. 1
III. Traducianism. (" Tradux," the vine shoot, brought over
to become a new branch.) This theory, which on the whole
has been the most widely approved, accounts for the genesis of
souls from the first pair, by the position that the soul is propa-
gated with the body.
Certain passages of Scripture are believed to be most -in ac-
cordance with this view, though they cannot be said to be ab-
solutely decisive. Heb. vii. 10; Gen. v. 3, the "likeness" to
himself in which Adam begat a son can scarcely be restricted
to the body, and if it was also in the soul, then that was included
in the begetting ; Ps. li. 5, this certainly cannot refer to the body
alone, but to the depravity in the soul. If the Psalmist has not
in view his own sinfulness, what could he have had in view? he
was not speaking of the guilt of his mother; John iii. 6, "the
flesh " here means, all the natural constitution of man, all that
is not the effect of a special divine influence; Rom. v. 12 seq.,
where the reasoning seems to presuppose transmission of the en-
tire human endowment from the first man; and the general
Scriptural mode of describing generation as of the whole man:
"Adam begat Seth," "Isaac begat Jacob:" it would seem that
Ihere is everywhere recognition of the fact that man does not
beget mere animals, but persons, or at least personal natures.
Other arguments in favor of the Traducian view are: (a.) the
analogy of creation already referred to; (&.) the slow develop-
ment of the powers of the mind seems more in harmony with
this view than with Creationism; (c.) the traits of parents de-
scend to children, peculiarities of intellect, even moral peculiari-
ties, all of which must have their seat in the soul; (d.) the doc-
trine of original sin is best stated in accordance with this vie\*.
The chief objection to Traducianism is the philosophical
1 Lasaulx, Phil. d. Gesch., p. 15: "In all human pro-creation, it is not the
individual man and woman that generate, but the race (the generic) in them; hu-
manity generates life: i. e. t in the last instance, "the eternally pro-creative na-
ture," springing from "the original and universal prototype," and "the divine
creative power dwelling in the protoplast/. " So Plato, De Leg.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 169
difficulty raised in respect to the simplicity of the soul. It is
asked, how can a pure essence be propagated? is it derived from
the father or the mother, or both; if from both, must it not be
divisible? Propagation seems to imply a division of souls and
a reunion, and yet the soul is not composite, but simple. We
can only answer such questions as these by asking others. If
on account of simplicity of essence we exclude man's soul
from the line of propagation, we must also exclude the animal
soul, for that too is simple and indivisible, and we must extend
the theory of Creationism to animals. Indeed we should hardly
know what to say of the principle of life in the vegetable. Must
we assume in each seed a new creation? We should not be free
from embarrassment in our thoughts of the ultimate forces of
nature. These are simple, at least to our thought, and yet they
act in a great variety of ways, transmit, incorporate themselves
so to speak at different points. Take, e. </., electricity. In fact
the old assumption, that simplicity prevents difference in modes
of action, has been abandoned.
On the whole, Traducianism is the most natural theory, and
has fewer difficulties. We are not bound to answer the question,
how the soul is propagated. That we do not know. We need
only say, that such appears to be the constitution of the race,
that souls are potential in it, are ultimately from the first father
of the race.
Yet this view should not be held so as to exclude the agency
of God from the origination of each soul. God does doubtless act
in a specific way in producing each human individual. There is a
peculiar co- working of divine power, but the mode of that agency
need not be asserted to be strictly creative. Martensen, Dogm.
162, 3: "Every individual is the effect of the natural productivity
of the race, while the mysterious natural agency is the organ
and means of the individualizing agency of God." " Both Tradu-
cianism and Creationism are true. 1 Traducianism alone would
give us the natural side, the copy of the race: Creationism alone
would demand absolute purity, which is inconsistent with the
sinfulness of the race."
i Pre-existence is also of course true, in the sense that souls existed in idea in
the divine creative cbtmeeiB.
170 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
5. Of Personality.
Man is made up of body and soul, but he is also a personal
agent, and personality is the center of unity to the conscious
being The central fact in respect to man as a moral agent is,
that he has a distinct personality. Personality is indefinable,
because ultimate. Wherever there is consciousness, there are
the elements of self and not-self and the union of the two: there
is a knowledge of self and of that which is not-self. The equiva-
lent of personality is self, and personality may be described as
that in man which enables him to say " I." It is man's self-hood,
knowledge of self (not of " the existence of self ") directly given
in consciousness. The having of personality is what distin-
guishes man, so far as the central principle in him is concerned,
from the brutes. So far as we know, they do not distinguish be-
tween the ego and the non-ego. Rudiments and anticipations of
personality are found in the plant and animal: they have centers
of life and activity. Man is more than a self-active being; each
animal is that, self-active in its sphere; man is a personal agent:
he has a derived and dependent, but still a real, personal agency; 1
all that he does is an expression, a manifestation of this central
personal force, which is inalienable from his very being. 2 This
personality gives the possibility of his fellowship with God, in
which his glory as a man chiefly consists. There is a degree of
vagueness about the use of the terms, person and personality.
The word person is usually employed to designate the whole
man as apparent, while personality refers rather to the center
v of that being, to self-hood.
6. The primary Fads involved in aU Personal Agency.
Personality is the central principle in man; at the basis is the
distinction of the me and the not-me, the personal agent and the
1 Thoinasius, Dogm. I. 135: "The divine idea of man is, that the absolute
personality is imaged forth in the limits of the finite and created."
2 Another form of statement: Man is self-active, is a center of force determined
by its relations. This is true of plants, of all that is organized. Brutes are subjects
(individuals). But man's center is proper personality, essential to which are rea-
son and conscience and affections of a moral nature, with free will as the organ
of manifestation. Personality and free will are inseparable; the latter is the ex-
pression of the former. In man, germ (as in plants) and individuality (as in brutes)
are merged io personality.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 171
objective universe, with which he is placed in relations; for
man's powers have respect to all that is objective, and they can-
not be conceived as acting except in respect or relation thereto.
Bat this statement gives ns only the central fact in human na-
ture, not its full idea. There are certain fundamental elements
in all personal action, or essential conditions of it, or primary
facts involved in it. These are :
I. Consciousness. The fundamental form of personal activity
is consciousness; by which is not indicated a specific power, but
the condition of the exercise of all our powers. Consciousness
simply means that the mind knows that it acts. The tree knows
not that it grows, but man feels and knows it, thinks and knows
it. He is also conscious of the external world. Consciousness
may be analyzed as containing the elements: (a.) the person,
(6.) the object, (c.) a real connection between the two. All of
these make up every act of consciousness. It is not the knowl-
edge of the operations of the person, but of the person himself
in his operations. It is given with, not after, each act. 1 Brutes
probably have no proper consciousness: they know, but do not
know that they know: do not distinguish self and knowledge.
So perhaps, very young children do not say " I."
This is the primitive fact lying at the basis of all the mind's
faculties; confirming the position that these faculties have re-
spect to the person's relation to other being, to what is objective.
II. The fact of personal identity. Personal identity is the
continued existence of the same self or person, in a variety
of states. The knowledge of personal identity can only come
upon a comparison of at least two states of mind. The knowl-
edge of self may be given in a single act; personal identity
implies a comparison of at least two. One state of conscious-
ness gives us self and an object: another, self, an object, and
the sameness of self in this diversity of states. This also is a
primitive fact in relation to the soul's agency, and is so deeply
involved that doubt of it, in a sane person, is a psycholog-
ical impossibility; the doubt cannot be stated without affirm-
ing the fact: the doubt annuls itself. The identity which we
! Yet " the marvel 6f cbnstidusnefte involves the marvel of memory " (Maurice)
172 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
know in personal identity is that of the soul, the self, not of
the particles of the body. A person may lose the conscious-
ness of his identity, but not the identity itself. Identity is not
in consciousness, though Locke says: "Identity is depend-
ent on consciousness."
III. The continuity of the mental states. This is the third
fact lying at the basis of the mind's operations. This is distinct
from identity, though identity is involved in it. The fact is
this : the states of the mind are held together by the self or per-
son in the unity of consciousness; they succeed one another in
time and are mutually dependent; they serve to produce and re-
produce one another. This fact is connected with the existence
of the soul in time. Given the identity of the person and the
continued existence in time, and the product is, the continuity
of states. A part of this fact is what is known in general under
the term, association of ideas, but the whole fact is more than
that: it is the association of all the states of the mind. It in-
volves memory. There are: (1) successive states; (2) which are
also dependent; (3) which are retained after passing; (4) which
come up again, as they at first co-existed: (a.) some, always to-
gether as ideas, etc. ; (6.) some, as faculties always operating to-
gether (Hamilton's Law of Reproduction).
It should be remembered that the above are/ads, notfaculties,
of the mind.
IV. In all its operations the mind is an active agent, work-
ing for some end or object; it is an efficient cause working for a
final cause ; and the final cause, or the object, for which it works,
exists and must exist in itself, as impulse or motive. This is a
universal law or condition of all the mind's practical agency,
activity, in relation to what is objective, different from itself.
The ultimate ground or reason for the action is in the mind
itself: (1) as efficiency, (2) also as the impulse, motive (the ob-
jective as subjective).
V. In all its agency the mind is both active and passive.
This is virtually contained in the preceding. It is the necessary
result of man's finiteness, that he should be both acted upon and
active, receptive and reactivS. Even in the animal soul there
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 173
are spontaneous reactions, and in the lowest spheres of organized
being, this law is shown in contractility and expansibility. In
respect to the soul, there are influences from without, waking
it up, and reactions, by spontaneous power or force, in view of
these. There is no conceivable activity of the mind which is not
under this law. Still, the mind, when acted on, is only excited to
self-agency, to manifest what it is in itself, in the way of re-agency.
7. The Powers and Faculties of the Soul
All of these facts, now, of personality: consciousness, identity,
continuity of states, and action for ends, are presupposed in moral
agency, are conditions of such agency ; they are at the basis of all
the operations of the mind; they are the conditions of the exercise
of all the faculties. But they are not these faculties or powers
themselves. What these are, we are now to inquire. Under the
above conditions all man's powers act: what are these powers?
The faculties themselves are man's essential powers as a moral
agent.
I. Of the method of determining as to the faculties.
The term, faculty, is variously used. In attempting to de-
fine it, we are apt to run into a practical difficulty, which is the
division of the mind, more or less after the phrenological method.
1 1 is easy to say that we do not mean to divide up the soul, but
difficult to get rid practically of the feeling that we have done
so, when we have distinguished its faculties. Many of our
reasonings go upon the supposition of a real division, e. g., in
ethics and theology, as respects the question whether regener-
ation is of the will or the affections. If we only can refer it to
the will, it seems as though we had made it much clearer than
if we say it is in the affections; but we have not, in reality; we
have only put the work into another word. In determining the
faculties, the following points are to be observed: (a.) The mind
acts as one indivisible faculty or power, in all that it does. There
is one undivided energy in all its operations; and in almost all
its acts, all the main faculties work together: man acts as a
person, an agent, not as an intellect or emotion; e. </., a person
etoops to pick up a stone: he perceives the stone, and here is at
174 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
work in the intellect; he desires to take it up, in the emotions;
he determines to take it up, in the will. (6.) Our divisions
then, are matters of convenience and classification, and do not
imply real divisions in the mind's operations, (c.) By faculties
or powers, is meant about this: the largest classes of distin-
guishable operations under which we can consider the mind and
its actions; the largest classes of operations in respect to objects
under which we can view the mind; intellectual powers having
respect to knowledge about objects ; sentient, to feeling ; will, to
choice and action, in regard to them. Or, stating the matter
from another point of view: A general faculty is a class of oper-
ations having respect to some specific function of the agent, a
distinct mode of operation. (There is a difference between
power and state, which comes up for consideration later.)
(d.) The rules for division into faculties: (1) The sum of the
divisions must include all the phenomena of the mind: nothing
in it must be left unassigned. This is the rule of comprehen-
siveness. (2) In each division or faculty, there must be one
class of phenomena unlike those which are found in the others.
If all the phenomena in one division are like those included in
any other, there is no line of demarcation. This is the rule of
similarity and difference. (3) The ground of the divisions must
be sought in the characteristics of the phenomena themselves.
We must make the division on the basis of facts found in the
phenomena. We must not come from the outside and put a
foreign measure upon them. We must not divide by mathe-
matics or metaphysics, but psychologically, by the laws of the
phenomena themselves. This is the rule of characteristic qual-
ities as the principle of division.
II. The divisions themselves.
According to the principles and rules above given, the main
faculties :>f the human mind will be those of Intellect, Feeling,
and Will, The old distribution was two-fold: 1 understanding
and will, perceptive and active powers. (This, Edwards pro-
ceeds upon.) The division almost universally current now is
that of Intellect, Sensibilities, and Will: the phenomena of the
i Yet Aquinas had the three-fold distinction as clearly as any modern writer.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION, 175
will being separated from those of the desires and affections.
There are unquestionably such phenomena, which cannot be
brought under either of the other classes without constraint,
though .there is a constant tendency to give to the will an au-
tonomy which does not belong to it. These three main powers
express man's relations to what is objective to himself; they are
real powers for these relations. The most general statement in
respect to them is this: by the intellect, we know, perceive
what is objective; by the sensibilities, we desire, or, more
generally, are affected in a feeling way, in regard to what is
objective; and by the will considered as separate from the af-
fections we decide to act in respect to objective things; and
by the will considered as in union with the affections we
choose, prefer, love them. This act of will as love includes the
action of all the faculties: it is the concentrated action of all
our powers, of the whole man, in relation to the objects and
ends for which he is made.
These three faculties are also described in another way: as
expressing differences in nearness of relation to objects. By
the intellect, we view what is outside ourselves simply as a mat-
ter of contemplation; by the feelings, we are drawn towards the
objects and desire them; by the will, we put forth activity in
regard to them, and make them our own as far as we can. So
that in the will we have the closest conjunction of man with the
objects around him. The will marries the man to what he de-
sires and seeks.
1. The Intellect. In the intellect man is contemplated as
knowing. (Sensation and perception are commonly brought
under the intellect, although in sensation there is also a phys-
ical side. In a more correct division of Anthropology, what ha&
respect to the body would be separated and treated by itself as
the basis of the activity of the mind. In the senses, there are
physical elements, and the intellect is secondary.) Under the
intellect are comprised all the processes by which man obtains,
retains, and combines knowledge; and all through which the
knowledge thus obtained is brought under generalization, sug-
gestion, and memory; the logical processes, inductive and de
176 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
ductive, are included, together with the powers by which we
apprehend ideas. 1
2. The Sensibilities. Under the sensibilities are combined
all the faculties which have the common element of .feeling.
Their having this common characteristic is what .warrants us
in making this common division of them. Though the sensi-
bilities are widely different from one another, yet they all have
this common element. There are the desires which are con-
nected with our animal organization ; then, the higher emotions
in view of the beautiful, etc. ; then, our highest moral feelings
and affections, which come forth in connection with our relation
to other personal agents. Under this head belong all those af-
fections which unite us to nature, to our kind, and to God. The
permanent acts and states of the will are referred by many to
this division. But the permanent moral states of man are both
feeling and will, and cannot be referred to either class by itself.
3. The Will. As this comes up again, we only remark here,
that the common characteristic by which we set off a certain
class of operations of the mind, called the Will, is that of choice
or preference. Wherever there is choice there is will. Intellect
and feeling are necessary conditions of the choice, but the choice
is distinct from both. The act of the will is the simple act of
choice or determination, a putting forth of power in relation to
some perceived or desired object. And it is always accompanied
by the possibility of not putting forth this act, which possibility
is grounded in the very nature and definition of the Will. The
will may not have in distinct view more than one object, but
there is the possibility not only of choosing but of refusing that
object, so that there are always two objects in fact, though there
may be only one in consciousness.
8. Of tJie original Tendencies of Man's Soul
We have considered the general relations in which man is
placed, and then the specific characteristics of the individual; we
1 If the philosophy of the subject "were here our chief aim, we should urge
that it is undoubtedly better to consider under psychology only the faculties and
their operations, and to take up the subject of ideas as another part of philosophy
metaphysics proper.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION, 177
are now to consider the tendencies of the individual man in
respect to these relations. The personal agent, with intellect,
affections, and will, is placed in, is an integral part of, the uni-
verse; he has thereby certain relations to nature, to his fellow-
beings, and to God. And he not only has general faculties and
powers, but also implanted, specific tendencies, constituting the
bent, bias of his soul in respect to these relations. He has
inherent relations to nature, man, and God; and to these relations
correspond certain implanted, connatural tendencies, which are
not his faculties, which cannot be resolved into his faculties,
which are the connatural or native biases of his soul.
These tendencies, abstractly considered, are neither right nor
wrong. As we find them in actual exercise, out of their proper
state of subordination and government, they are wrong; but in
themselves, viewed simply as implanted tendencies and con-
natural dispositions, they are neither right nor wrong: 1 1 Cor.
vi. 13; Mark vii. 15; 1 Tim. iv. 3. There is an aspect of the
flesh and of the will of the flesh in which they are necessary
constituents of human nature. The antagonism of flesh and
spirit, as given in Horn. vii. 22, 23, Gal. v. 17, is not the
original, but a degenerate state. The only rule by which to
measure the character of these native tendencies or impulses
is that of proportion the lower under the higher in a strict
subordination : if they are not in that state, they have become
evil: Luke xvi. 10; Matt. vi. 33; Luke x. 27. All that is lower
is to be subordinated to the higher to the highest ends.
That alone is a normal state in which this is the case: Matt,
iv. 4; 1 Cor. iii. 21-23.
Another form of statement : Man is placed in the midst of
varied relations, as an integral part of a great whole. Corre-
sponding to these relations, he has specific impulses and desires.
There is for him a good in the various objects to which he is re-
lated, and in which he finds happiness according to the measure
of each object and relation.
The leading tendencies may be classified by means of the
They may become, and actually are, in all cases of exercise, probably, either
right or wrong.
178 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
leading relations. (1) Tendencies as impulses, having respect
to the preservation of the body, as the love of life, hunger, etc.
(2) Those which have respect to the continuance of the species,
sexual love, family affections, etc. (3) Those which have re-
spect to society and the state, our social instincts in a wider
sphere ; the love of man for his kind ; the disposition to unite in
social order, which gives rise to the state. and ultimately forma
government. (4) Moral tendencies (using "moral" in a restricted
sense): those which have respect to our specific moral relations
to other finite personal agents, giving rise to human "rights";
which tendencies are also to be regarded as specific and im-
planted. (5) Those which have respect to what is beyond the
sphere of time and sense; to a supersensuous and supernatural
world, to the proper and highest Supernatural, to the Divine.
Man has these as truly as he has the tendencies and relations
of the body or of society. Man is made to be religious, and he
has a tendency or bias in respect to that implanted in him. 1
These are the main tendencies, different from the faculties;
they are the man in all his relations; they exist more or less in
all; they express, according as they are in proper measure or
are inordinate, the bias of each individual in view of his rela-
tions; and in these tendencies, all the faculties meet and act.
There is always involved in them a feeling of conscious want
and an impulse towards its realization, so that they may be said
to move between the poles of need and desire.
9. Of Conscience.
Conscience is a collective term, embracing certain natural oper-
ations of the mind in view of what has moral quality, in view of
right and wrong, whether this exist in law, states, acts, or relations.
It is often taken in narrower senses. (1) It is sometimes
taken as a special faculty, which decides upon single acts im-
peratively, by a sort of sovereign arbitrament, without respect to
anything but the individual act. 2 Hence an objection is some-
1 " Man is a religious animal" (Edm. Burke).
2 See an article on Conscience, by Pres. Day, in New Englander, May, 1856
It is a "moral faculty" ; its decisions relate to acts and states of a man's own mind,
though it may judge also about others; if allowed to be perverted, "we cannot do
right either in obeying or disobeying it."
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION, 179
times brought to its very being, from the fact of different
decisions by different men and peoples. (2) By others it is
taken as chiefly an emotion, as a particular kind of compla-
cency or displacency in view of our acts. (So Brown and
Mackintosh. On the other hand, Butler: "We cannot form
ji notion of this faculty without a judgment.") (3) It is de-
scribed by others as a law; a transcript of the divine law
upon the human soul; God's law in man's soul; the presence
of God in the soul, always judging and warning in respect
to acts. (So Coleridge.)
All these different statements have a partial truth, present-
ing different aspects of what is included in the general term.
Conscience is better viewed, not as a special faculty, but as that
combination of powers by which we judge and feel in respect to
moral right and wrong. It embraces operations of the mind in
view of what has moral quality, which are partly of the intellect
and partly of the feelings. Conscience as a power cannot be
brought exclusively under either: it is combined of the mind's
operations both in respect to feeling, and to judging of and in
respect to moral right and wrong. The term Conscience no
more designates a special faculty than the term Keligion does. 1 /
Under religion we comprise all the mind's operations in respect
to God; under conscience are comprised all the mind's operations
of judging and feeling in view of rectitude.
The elements that belong to it, or the different points in its
action, are the following:
1. It discriminates: discerns right and wrong in actions,
states, etc. ; has a knowledge of moral right and wrong as ulti-
mate. This may be called the intellectual part of conscience.
2. It feels: (a.) it has the feeling of obligation, of what Kant
calls "the categorical imperative:" when we know the right,
we feel that we ought to do it. This is an urgent feeling.
(&.) Besides the above, there is another emotion: a susceptibility
to right and wrong, a capacity of being moved by the excellency
of the one and the heinousness of the other.
3. It approves or disapproves: judges morally about the right
> Or than the ^Esthetic sense.
180 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
and wrong in states, conditions of things, conduct, etc., on tke
ground of conformity to right, or not.
4. It passes sentence: has a sense of the merit of those who
do right and of the demerit of those who do wrong. The sense
and judgment as to what is due in respect to reward and punish-
ment belong eminently to conscience. 1
Some definitions: Aquinas, Summa Theol. i. 79, 13, gives
" actualis-applicatio scientias ad ea quae agimus." Butler, Serm. i. :
" This principle in man by which he approves or disapproves his
heart, temper, or actions is conscience; for this is the strict sense
of the word, though sometimes it is used so as to take in more."
Locke: "It is our own judgment of the rectitude or purity of
our own actions." Stewart, Act. and Mor. Powers: Conscience
" refers to our own conduct alone," while " the moral faculty "
includes also judgments on others. But the unity of conscience
is not in its being one faculty or in its performing one function,
but in its having one object, its relation to one idea, viz., Right.
Having made these general statements as to the nature and
functions of conscience, we proceed to some special points which
arise under it.
(A.) The Scripture Testimony. The Scripture presupposes
the existence of conscience in men. In the Old Testament the
word conscience is not found; we have the word, "heart," in
which moral judgments and feelings are implied throughout.
(There are in the Septuagint one or two instances in which the
Greek word corresponding to conscience is used. See Die Lehre
vom Gewissen nach d. Schrift. Guder in Stud. u. Krit, 1857.)
In the New Testament the nature and functions of conscience
are developed most distinctly by Paul, who has been called
" the Apostle of Conscience."
1. Conscience referred to in the Old Testament: Jer. xx. 9:
1 Kings ii. 44; Prov. vii. 22; Jer. xvii. 1; Job xxvii. 6; 1 Sam
xxiv. 10; Ps. xxxii. ; xxxviii. ; li.; 1 Kings viii. 38; Hos. vii. 2.
1 Another statement: Conscience acts: (a.) before we act, as monitor; (&.) when
and \vhile we act, as motive; (c.) after we act, as judge, and also, in part as
dispenser of the award, as executioner of the doom.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 181
2. Nature of conscience as recognized in the New Testament :
Rom. ii. 15; 2 Cor. i. 12; iv. 2; v. 11; 1 Cor. viii. 7, 10, 12; x. 25,
27-29; 1 Pet. ii. 19 (conscience as determined by the previous
knowledge of God). These are the chief passages showing how
conscience is regarded as to its essence and principal functions.
3. The relation of conscience to the faith and life: 1 Tim. i. 5;
i. 19; iii. 9; 1 Pet. iii. 16.
4. The good conscience: Heb. xiii. 18; 2 Cor. i. 12; Acts
xxiii. 1; xxiv. 16; Rom. xiii. 5; 2 Cor. iv. 2; v. 11.
5. The weak conscience: 1 Cor. viii. 7, 12.
6. The evil and perverted conscience: 1 Tim. iv. 2; Tit. i.
15; Heb. ix. 14; x. 22.
. The sum: Tho Scriptures set forth that the mind has a native
capacity of judgment and feeling in respect to moral subjects;
but that this may be enfeebled, darkened, and even perverted, so
as to become a source of delusion and a snare.
(B.) The existence of conscience proves a moral law above us,
for which we were made. It testifies constantly to the grand
fact that man is a moral being, made for moral ends. It leads
logically to the position that there is a moral Lawgiver: a moral
order of the world directed by a moral Governor. This law is
universal: Rom. ii. 14. There is not merely an outward law;
it is also written on the heart: Rom. ii. 15. Cicero: "Nor does
it speak one language at Rome and another at Athens but
to all nations and ages, deriving its authority from the common
sovereign of the universe, and carrying home its sanctions to
every heart," Butler, Serin, ii., upon Hum. Nat. (ad sensum):
" Superintendence is a constituent part of the faculty of con-
science, and to govern belongs to it, from the constitution
of man."
(C.) The existence of conscience thus testifying to a moral
law, implies an essential distinction between right and wrong,
an immutable morality. It acts in view of Right, which is a
simple idea, no more to be resolved than the idea of Beauty.
182 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
From this judgment we cannot get rid. We can no more help
pronouncing this and that action to be wrong or right, than we
can help judging this or that proportion to be true or false. We
not only say pleasant or painful, but we are also compelled to
say right or wrong: to put one of these words on each of our
acts. We may give good or bad reasons for the judgment, but
we sum up by saying, right or wrong. The conscience may be
perverted so as to say evil is good, and good is evil ; but still it
says evil is good, etc., i. e., it pronounces a moral judgment. And
in that judgment each one for himself rests, as final and sufficient,
In individuals there are differences in details l about particular
courses of conduct, but still a moral judgment and decision is
applied throughout.
That there is this independent moral judgment, is proved by
several considerations.
1. By our constant consciousness. We are invariably pro-
nouncing this judgment on ourselves: it is a concomitant of all
our own acts. 2 It is a judgment we are ever passing on others.
And its power is seen in the simple fact that it binds us to a
law from which we would, as sinners, gladly escape.
2. By the consensus gentium, as shown in laws, customs, lan-
guage, proverbs, literature. The noblest dramatic literature
especially runs back into this conviction. The State is a moral
body, existing for moral ends: this is the idea of it, though in
actual practice, it is often otherwise.
3. By the early and instinctive moral judgments of children.
They can be led to a moral judgment as quickly as any. And
then in proportion to the progress of men in knowledge and
culture, they judge more and more according to the simple
standard and rule of right.
4. (though this may be a branch of the 1st): Even when
reasoning from expediency, from prudential considerations, we
cannot stop with the affirmation "This is expedient": we pass
Though differing in details, conscience is generally true in the main princi-
ples, e. </., Honesty is always right; Ingratitude is always wrong; Selfishness is
sinful; Benevolence is virtuous.
2 " A guardian angel or an avenging fiend" (Coleridge).
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 183
to the further affirmation, " It is right " and therefore binding.
And it is an inexplicable fact that after saying anything ia
for the highest good, we should also say that it is right, if right
be not the ultimate ground of decision, the consideration which
is simple, ultimate, supreme. This fact no utilitarian scheme
can master.
(J9.) This perception (and feeling) of right and wrong is im-
mediately attended by a feeling of obligation to do the right
and refuse the wrong. We are obligated morally to do only what
is morally right. No force can morally bind us which is not
resolvable into right. This feeling of obligation is definite and
peculiar. It is expressed by the word "ought." It enforces a
simple and imperative obligation. In calling it the " categorical
imperative," Kant frees morals from the happiness scheme.
Right and Ought are inseparable: we need no intervening
terms. From a simple regard to happiness or the general good
we cannot derive this sense of "oughtness"; we can only derive
impulse, tendency, desire, not a specific moral obligation. On
the utilitarian view, the highest idea of obligation is that man
should perform that which is for the highest good; but that
gives only desirableness. The statement eliminates from the
word "ought" its whole force. Why "should" I, or "ought" I
to seek the highest good ? As a means of happiness, it is desir-
able, but why is it morally binding on me ? The only possible
answer is, because I feel that it is right and therefore I ought
to do it. This ought is native to the soul ; it comes up before we
have any conception or idea of the highest good ; children feel
its force against all that seems to be pleasant or desirable.
(E.) In the operations of conscience there is always involved
moral approval or disapproval. We need not dwell on this
further than to say that these are emotions arising in view
of rectitude or its opposite. Moral approval and disapproval
cannot be derived from the idea of happiness or good : all we can
get from that source is, pleasure and displeasure, satisfaction
and discontent
184 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Of merit and demerit. There is further involved in
conscience a special judgment in view of personal account-
ability. It differs from approval and disapproval, as having
special (though perhaps not always exclusive) regard to per-
sonal acts and liabilities, or responsibility. The merit of per-
sons is their desert of good on account of right moral action ;
demerit, their desert of evil, suffering, personal punishment,
on account of transgression. This judgment is made with
respect to each individual as under the law, as an account-
able moral agent; and it is strictly according to each one's
personal character, on the basis of personal acts. Hence
the judgment of merit or demerit cannot be pronounced until
there has been personal choice or action. On the utility
scheme, we cannot distinguish between regret and remorse,
between the natural consequences and the deserved punish-
ment of transgression.
(6r.) The domain or sphere of conscience. To what does
conscience apply, or what is under its supervision ? As a
general answer to this question we say: Everything in which
there is moral quality; everything in which right and wrong
can be found or are exemplified. Subjectively considered, as
my conscience, it has special respect to my moral states and
acts. In its fullest exercise, in the use of all its functions
including the ascription of merit and demerit it is applied only
to individual, personal character; but in some of its activities
it has a wider scope than personal actions. Conscience is no*
merely my conscience.
1. We pass moral judgments about laws and institutions, etc.
Wherever right and wrong can be applied, conscience has its
sphere. We say, such a law or enactment is right or wrong: it
is conformed or not conformed to a standard. What do we mean
by that judgment? Do we refer merely to the motives and
character of the men who passed the law ? No; for we also say,
they were right or wrong in passing it. We refer to its abstract
iiature, as conformed to the moral standard. The law is not a
person or the act of a person. We speak of the divine law as
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 185
holy, just, and good, although it is not a person. So the State
is a moral body, and we judge its officers not merely as individ-
uals, but as officers of the law. We may pass a moral judgment
on a treatise on Ethics, although it has no merit or demerit in a
personal sense. Either it is true that conscience has a wider
scope than personal acts, or we must say that the judgments
about right and wrong do not belong to the conscience, but
to the intellect. We should then make conscience to be an
emotion.
2. We pass judgments not merely upon laws, institutions,
books, etc., but upon dispositions and tendencies, when not
acting or antecedent to action. A man asleep has a moral
character. Dispositions which underlie action, native tenden-
cies of the mind, are estimated and passed upon from the
moral point of view. We do not indeed make such judg-
ments in an individual, personal sense; but we make them
in a general and truly moral sense. That we do this is
evident from common forms of speech, and from our own
consciousness. I cannot help believing and saying that an
inordinate self-love, viewed as a disposition, is wrong, and
needs to be extirpated by divine grace.
If it be asked whether the law is worthy of punishment, and
the disposition, of everlasting condemnation, the answer is, No, 1
but none the less is the law worthy of moral disapprobation,
and the disposition also; and we are bound, as moral beings,
to oppose the one and eradicate the other. It may be still
asked, does not a moral decision always imply desert of re-
ward or punishment? It always does when, and only when,
it has respect to the acts of moral beings; it always does
when applied in the way of strict personal accountability.
But there is here a new element, warranting another judgment,
viz., that of personal desert.
3. Conscience, in judging of the individual in his personal
liabilities ind relations, judges of his outward acts as they are
presumed to contain personal intentions or moral dispositions.
1 The theological statement that an evil disposition, a native depravity, causes
liability to eternal condemnation comes up in its proper place.
186 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Conscience does not blame the acts of the body as such, nor ex
ecutive acts of the will as such, but blames the person for being
influenced by wrong emotions in what he does. The executive
acts of the will and the external acts of the man are viewed in
relation to the right and wrong motive; but even the motive is
not what is blamed, but the person for being influenced by the
motive.
4. The opposite view is that conscience has only to do with
exercises, choices; and has no other function than the personal
one. This rests on two assumptions, (a.) That conscience des-
ignates a special faculty, whose sole province is to decide upon
personal acts, instead of designating all the operations of the
mind in judging and feeling about what is right and wrong.
One difficulty about this view is, that it is contrary to experience.
What we know is, that the mind judges and feels in respect to
right and wrong, and this is conscience. Another difficulty is
that this view is logically obliged to confine conscience to the
intellect or to the feelings, while at the same time it is obliged to
concede that it is both a judgment and a feeling. Then again,
if conscience be a special faculty, how can we account for the
variety of moral decisions ? The only way of bringing unity
into our treatment of conscience (and of ethics) is to subsume it
all under the general idea of right and wrong, (b.) The other
assumption is the atomistic view of morals: that which confines,
by force of definition, all that is moral, to acts, and ultimately to
acts of the will. Of this we shall have to speak later. Here we
need only say, that it appears to rest upon a confounding of two
entirely distinguishable ideas, viz., those of right (or wrong) and
of personal desert. In fact right is by some actually defined as
that which deserves good; and wrong, as that which deserves
punishment: a defining by the consequences, and not by the char-
acter, of acts.
(J3!) Is conscience always right in its decisions? Generally,
I and not universally. It is more generally right than man is in
his acts, and perhaps more generally right than even reason is
in pronouncing its judgments; but it is not more universally
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 187
right than man or reason is. If we assert that conscience is
universally right, we must also assert that each man having a
conscience is universally right. Also, so far as conscience in-
volves reason, that reason is universally right. If man is not
infallible, conscience is not. If reason may be darkened, con-
science may be. If man having reason may believe what is
false to be true, he may also, having conscience, believe what
is wrong to be right.
This further appears :
1. From the diversity in moral decisions. Men agree that
what is right should be done: but when we come to specific
points, differences commence. This is so evident that those who
advocate the universal correctness of conscience say, that in
these cases it is the intellect that is wrong, and not the con-
science: the data are wrong and not the conscience. But this
does not help the matter. The decision is a wrong one, and it
is the decision of conscience. If it is not, what is a decision of
conscience, and what is the sphere of conscience? This attempt
to evade the difficulty rests on the assumption that conscience is
an ideal dictator of right and wrong, something apart from or
above the man. Whereas we have maintained that it is neither
a faculty pronouncing dictatorially on all actions, nor a faculty
giving all men right principles of action, but that it is simply
the mind judging and feeling in view of right and wrong: it
includes all the operations of the mind in view of what has
moral quality, except the desires, the choices, and determinations
of the will.
2. Scripture speaks of the perverted, seared, evil conscience,
the conscience that needs to be purified, etc.
3. Conscience, as much as any power or tendency of the
mind, may and ought to be cultivated, educated, enlightened;
and if this be so, it is presupposed that unless it is cultivated, it is
not universally right. Kant makes conscience to be purely na-
tive. 1 He says: " It is not to be attained; it is not a duty to get
a conscience, but every man has it by nature;" he describes it as
44 the consciousness of an internal judgment-seat in man." But
1 Rel. innerhalb, etc., p. 287.
188 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
this is a rationalistic position, and is against Scripture. Con-
science, in its primitive function, assures us that right is ulti-
mate, and is essentially different from wrong. This is its most
distinct, unmistakable, and well-nigh universal utterance; but
it does not tell us what the right is, in all its particulars and re-
lations. Conscience, in short, is not of itself alone autonomic. a
self-law above all law, or rather dictating all law. This is the
ethical against the theological position: it is the rationalistic
against the supernaturalistic. Here is the turning-point in
many discussions: in discussions, e. g., as to the Scriptures go-
ing against conscience; the general abstract statement of the
binding nature of the distinction between right and wrong is
mixed up with the question as to what is right or wrong in par-
ticular cases. Conscience tells us that there is an essential dif-
ference between right and wrong, and does this so certainly
that if the word of God should seem to reveal what we abso-
lutely knew to be wrong, we could not receive it and be con-
sistent. But the discussion, so far as Scripture is concerned,
does not turn upon that point, but rather upon particular cases.
It used, e. g., to be frequently said: My conscience tells me that
the Scripture, in allowing the continuance of the relation of
master and slave, permits what is wrong, and I cannot receive
it as the Word of God. A man is apt to say, in such a case,
"My conscience tells me so." Now conscience, as a native
power, asserts the general distinction between right and wrong,
and the necessity of observing it, but does not, as a native
faculty, decide upon particular cases. We do not believe that
conscience says directly, in regard to any external relation, that
it is necessarily right or wrong. The assertion must come back
to the internal state. Yet we remark:
4. Conscience, when enlightened and educated, is right;
and, as is said above, it is generally right in respect to general
principles, though not so generally as to details and modes of
carrying the principles out. 1 The ideal conscience is of course
\ theoretically always right.
1 Yet these are the cases in which those who mistake their wills for their con
sciences always insist most strongly.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 189
NOTE I. As to the practical question whether an individual
ought always to follow his conscience.
The well-known Scholastic maxim is, that a wrcng conscience
obligates "per accidens et secundum quid," i. e., as to the matter
in hand.
Several quite distinct points are involved in the question.
(1) Suppose a man so blinded by sin as to say, "Evil, be thou
my good," and to believe that it is so, and he appeals to mo
who knew it to be wrong: shall I encourage him in following
his conscience? Assuredly not. Can I tell him he will be
without blame ? I know that he will be blameworthy, if he is
acting on a wrong basis and from wrong motives. So far then
as the judgment is influenced by any wrong motive or belief, so
far it is a wrong one, and ought not to be followed, but cor-
rected. (2) This is confirmed by experience. Paul says, " I
verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things
contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth." But when re-
newed, he confessed his sin and guilt in doing that which at
the time he had allowed. This is the case more or less with
all sinners and all sin, and in all Christian experience. Before
conversion we approve what we afterwards condemn, and we
condemn ourselves not for doing it now, but for having done it
then, and this although at the time we may have felt justified. /
(3) Yet there are undoubtedly some cases in which, while we
condemn the act, we acquit the person of intentional blame: he
may have meant to do right, but lacked the opportunity and
the knowledge. Yet even here we must still condemn the act:
it was wrong. (4) There is another case under this same head \
in the matter of faith. It is said, " It is no matter what one
believes, if he is sincere." This is the general practical form of
the matter: i. e., the question comes up in reference to faith
rather than to moral duties. A person is sincere in disbelieving,
and we are asked to say that he is as well off before God and
man, as a believer. This demands consideration later under the
title of Faith, but here we may briefly say: (a) Sinceiity can
never be taken to be the highest moral state. Sincerity is not
the chief of virtues, as seems to bB assumed. It is nothing
190 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
more nor less than my personal conviction that I am right in a
given course of action or article of faith. But wholly above the
question of my personal conviction, is the question whether my
principles be really right and my faith correct. Man's great
duty is not to be sincere, but to be right : to be so, and not tc
believe that he is so. (b.) Nowhere would this plea be admitted,
except in religion or by religious indifferentism. It is not ad-
mitted in the state, for holding a wrong opinion in politics: if
communism, e. g., be carried out by men who sincerely hold it,
the state comes in and checks them. If the Mormons are sin-
cere in their polygamy, we say so much the worse for them and
their society, (c.) It is a fact that men may be sincere from
wrong motives as well as from right ones; so that the sincerity
cannot be pleaded as sufficient, (d) It is a fact a terrible fact
that men may be given over to believe a lie, and be conscien-
tious in iniquity. But this is no evidence of their being blame-
less, but of the fearful power of iniquity in them, and of their
need of being duly enlightened, (e.) The position that it is no
matter what a man believes if he is sincere, is inconsistent with
the ground that the Bible is the standard and rule of duty and
life. In its logical results, the position makes conscience and
reason supreme, and religion subordinate. It puts ethics above
theology, instead of inquiring for the harmony between them.
NOTE II. The possession of conscience meaning by it
what has been described and defined does not confer per-
sonal righteousness. It is an essential condition of personal
righteousness, but not the righteousness itself. Conscience is
man judging and feeling about what is right and wrong;
but personal character is in the affections and will. Some
Unitarians maintain that a person cannot be wholly depraved,
because there remains a conscience, a sensibility to right
and wrong. But this may only show the greatness of the
depravity, having conscience and yet ever disobeying it.
10. Of Han's Ugliest Spiritual Capacities.
The outline of treatment [not carried out]: Man is made
for God, with an implanted tendency to the eternal and infinite.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 191
' Thou hast set eternity in his heart." This is not a faculty:
but Reason, Conscience, Affections and Will, in relation to their
goal. There is an intuition of the unseen, a feeling of depend-
ence, a sense of a law above time and the world, the awe of
Judgment, the longing for immortality.
BEMAEK, in the way of transition to Chapter n.
We have thus far gone over the main points under the general head in Chap-
ter I. What is man as a moral being? viz., (1) Man in his most general relations;
(2) Man in his specific traits; (3) Man in his native tendencies, in respect to these
relations; (4) Man in his conscience, or his judgments and feelings in view of
right and wrong. Now, here as (5) might be introduced the doctrine respecting
the Will; but that is so involved with the inquiry respecting the nature and ob-
ligation of the law of God, that we shall first discuss this (which will include the
question of the nature of virtue) and then in Chapter III., viz., Man's Relations
to the Law, take up the question of the Will.
CHAPTER II.
WHAT IS THE LAW OF GOD: WHAT DOES IT REQUIRE?
The " Law of God " l is used in two different senses : some-
times for the positive, written law, given to his people: as such
it includes the ceremonial laws, the precepts and prohibitions
of the old dispensation; again, it is used to signify the moral
law, that which God has made and given for the moral govern-
ment of his creatures, summarily comprehended in the two
precepts of love to God and to our neighbor. The Mosaic law
was given for God's people then: from Christ the law is given
in a more perfect form. It is also revealed in conscience, the
natural law. This law, as recorded in the Scriptures, is the
norm, the rule for human life and conduct, prescribing
what man, as a moral being, ought to be and to do. It
rests in the idea of rectitude; this is presupposed in it,
not made by it. It commands what is right and holy.
It is commanded because it is holy, and not holy be-
1 One of the best treatises on the Law is Dr. John Smalley's sermon: "P:i-
fection and Usefulness of the Divine Law,'* in Brown's Theol. Tracts, vol. iii.
192 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
cause it is commanded. The majesty of the law is in this,
its inherent rectitude. The law of God may then be defined
as rectitude embodied in the form of command (both in precept
and prohibition). 1 In the form of example, the law is given
us perfectly in the life of Christ. Lactantius calls Him the
living and present law. Augustine says, "The law of the Lord
is He who came to fulfil, not to break the law." 1 Pet. ii. 21-25.
1. Some general Statements as to the Characteristics of the
Law.
1. The law is holy, essentially good and perfect. It is
such as being the expression of the perfect will of a holy and
wise Sovereign. It is the expression of the inherent rectitude
of God, enforcing a like rectitude on the part of his creatures.
"Be ye holy for I am holy:" there is no utterance which gives
us a higher conception of the dignity of human nature than
that.
2. This law is enforced, not merely by its own inherent
rectitude, which gives it a rational power, but also by the
authority of the lawgiver. It is the law of God, our Moral
Governor, and as such has the force that a person has over and
above an idea. The moral law of abstract ethics is moral duty.
The law of the Bible is that same law, enforced by a supreme
Power.
3. This law is still further enforced by its appropriate sanc-
tions: penal evil for transgressions, and eternal life for obedience.
In each case the award is eternal.
4. The law is for the highest good of each and all. It com-
mands what can ensure what alone can do this the highest
moral ends of the universe. It is not only the expression of
rectitude and designed to maintain rectitude, but it has also in
view the highest good.
5. In order to ensure the highest good, the law enjoins per
feet holiness on the creature, nothing less and nothing else.
Holiness is what the law enjoins, and it is that which is to be
1 Miiller on Sin, i. 58. Law, in the purity of its idea, is "die Darstellung del
eittlichen Idee in der Form der Forderung."
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 193
the highest good of the moral universe. Some restrict the law
to external legality, to the outward act, and do not extend it
to the inward state. Paul sometimes does this, speaking as a
Jew, and in respect to his bondage under the law; but in his
Christian experience he recognizes it as spiritual: this is what
marks his conviction of sin and his feeling of the need of a
Saviour.
6. The holiness which the law requires of each man is his
personal perfection. It is perfection to the extent, and the full
extent, of man's capacities: "all the heart, all the soul, all the
mind, all the strength," Matt. xxii. 37, Mark xii. 28-34 Man's
natural ability l is to be completely expressed, his physical ability
to be completely employed in fulfilling the command.
7. The law, as commanding entire holiness, is always obli-
gatory upon all moral beings. It cannot be satisfied in any
individual case with anything less than entire conformity. It
is unchangeable in its obligations, and is equally binding upon
all. It has not one standard for the heathen, another for the
Jew, another for the Christian. It does not require of a child
that he love God with the power of an angel, because he has
not that capacity; but it demands of a child that he love with all
his heart. Man insensible to the demands of God's law is not
a man: in the most debased there are gleams of its glory.
NOTE I. The distinction between moral law and physi-
cal. Dr. Wayland, in his Moral Science, gives a singular defi-
nition of moral law. He defines law generally as a mode of
existence or order of sequence, and then moral law as an
order of sequence established between the moral quality of
actions and their results. But this is reversing all our moral
conceptions, and confounding the province of morals with
that of physics. Physical law is undoubtedly an order of se-
quence : the cause and effect make the law, in the sense that the
same causes in the same circumstances will work in the same
way. If there be an exception in this sphere, the physical law
1 This is the old notion of natural ability, the reach to which our powers
could extend if we would. The modern sense of power to the contrary is a new
and derivative idea.
194 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
is disproved. 1 But law in morals rests upon an entirely different
idea: it is that which ought to be: it is rectitude commanded: it
is no less law, though what it commands may not be fact: it
would be eternally binding, though nobody conformed to it.
The moral law is not the connection between holiness and
happiness. The consequence depends on the law, and not the
law on the consequence.
Muller's position. God's law in relation to man is this: God
has the idea of man (end of his being) and prescribes this, as
law. In man's formal freedom there is the possibility of losing
the end, of not realizing the idea: hence the law comes as the
objective norm: man needs it in order to begin his moral life
and to grow as a moral being: 2 Matt. v. 17-19, the law and the
prophets must control until the. end of the economy: Gen. ii.
16, 17, the law was given for the state of rectitude, and laws
were needed at the beginning; but to the perfect, law (as ex-
ternal) ceases: 1 Tim. i. 9. Discussion of the German view, that
the law ceases. [Discussion is not given, only indicated.] Not,
so. In nature, law determines things absolutely: in man, the
law is distinguished from his powers; he is conscious of it as
demand, and must ever be, so that it cannot "cease." The "end"
of the law is to bring man from the undeveloped and indefinite
relation to good, to the full reception.
NOTE II. As to the order of discussion. The following are
the chief points: (1) Moral rectitude its abstract nature ; (2) Tbo
common principle of all holiness, in beings; (3) Formal state-
ments of the same; (4) Happiness; (5) Love.
t 2. The two fundamental Objects or Ends of the Law of God.
These are: (1) In respect to the whole system of things. The
object of the law is to bring out, to realize, the most perfect state
and order of God's intelligent moral universe. This is the highest
good: the law has respect to the highest good of the whole. The
ideal end of the law is to make holiness supreme, to secure gen-
1 We hold a miracle to be the effect of the divine will, interposing, and of
course that does not disprove physical law.
8 [Dr. Bushnell's speculations give a different view The author, without die*
cussing these, intimates his entire dissent from them.]
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION, 195
eral justice or the triumph of holiness, which is the highest good.
(2) In relation to each individual moral being. Its object is, to
prescribe that rule, by following which, such a state of the uni-
verse may be brought about. This is the highest good of the
individual, viz., that state of mind, by which he is adapted to
produce, in his measure and degree, the highest good of the uni-
verse. This is personal holiness, this is virtue. The law com-
mands each individual to have those motives and that state of
heart, by which, if every one possessed them, the great end of
the universe would be promoted to the highest degree.
We have thus to inquire : I. What is the highest good of the
universe? II. What is the highest good of the individual?
What is holiness ? What is virtue ?
CHAPTER III.
THE HIGHEST GOOD.
We have here the question of the Summum Bonum, the vexed
question, yet fundamental in morals.
The highest good is taken in a two-fold sense: it is taken
both objectively and subjectively.
I. Taken objectively. The highest good, thus taken, can only
be found in that state of things which is the last and highest re
suit of the divine providence, of God's government of the world.
The whole system of things, carried to its highest degree of
perfection, is the highest good, objectively considered. It is the
final end, the result, the ultimate end of the whole moral gov-
ernment of God : it is the general good, taken comprehensively.
And that consists, as we have seen (End of God in Creation),
in God's revelation or manifestation of himself to his creatures,
in the communication of himself to them, so that they find their
joy, their good in Him. It is the union between God and his
creatures carried out so that all things human are conformed to
the divine plan and purpose.
196 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
The law of God has this for its ideal end; obedience to that
law would bring about this result; disobedience interferes with
it; God man having disobeyed interposes on his part to bring
about the same result in another way than that of obedience,
viz., by an atonement, but still the general object of the atone-
ment is the same as that of the law, to produce holiness. The
law of God is sometimes spoken of as if all its bearing was in
respect to individuals. Those who define conscience as a faculty
which simply individualizes, which has respect only to individual
choices and acts, define the law also as having respect simply
to the choices and acts of individuals, and ultimately as having
respect simply to acts of the will (in the narrower sense), voli-
tions, which volitions are accompanied with full power to the
contrary (in the modern sense), afnd which are deliberate in view
of all the consequences. But this gives us conscience as having
to do only with the faculties concerned in choice (as volition),
and the law of God as dealing only with the same. Thus orig-
inal sin is excluded; there is no sin except in such choices; there
is nothing save these that comes under God's law. The bearing
of such a view upon the atonement is evident. It is granted
that Christ suffered in our stead, but not under the law; because
the law has to do only with personal acts, and these are not
transferable; and if that be so, Christ could not suffer under
the law for us, and so the atonement is removed from the
law entirely.
[What else the author meant to give under this head appears
to have been combined with the final statements of the next
chapter.]
II. The highest good taken subjectively. The consideration
of this leads us to the general statements as to the nature of virtue.
What is the sense of the inquiry as to " the nature of true virtue" ?
1. Virtue is here used in a large sense, as the equivalent of
holiness, and so as to include even the virtue of the divine mind. 1
This however is a bad form of speech; because the word virtue
1 Aristotle denies moral virtue to God; L e., God does not, like man, act from
a sense of duty; there is no struggle in Him to an end not yet realized; God'a
perfection begins where man's ends.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 197
has acquired such a secondary meaning that we can hardly speak
of God's virtue. In common speech the term is used for the
separate virtues, but the inquiry here is not for these, in their
limited relationships, but for virtue generally.
2. The inquiry is not, as it is sometimes said to be, an inquiry
as to the abstract rectitude of our acts. It is not an inquiry
whether there be such an idea as Right, and whether that idea
be ultimate. It is assumed in the inquiry, that what is virtuous
is right, that virtue is a proper moral state, that it is conformable
to the idea of rectitude, that we apply that idea to it. Some,
when anything more is stated as to the nature of virtue than that
it is rectitude or the love of rectitude, are apt to say that a util-
itarian view is presented : but this is a confounding of two in-
quiries. The questions: What is virtue? and, What is right
abstractly viewed ? are very different. The one inquiry is, Is
there an idea of right, ultimate, independent of all other ideas r
The other is, What is that in our state and actions which is right r
3. Hence, the inquiry is not as to all that is right, as to all
that comes under that idea; but as to what that is in a moral
being which is truly conformed to the Moral, what state of the
affections in such a being it is which is virtuous.
4. There are a great many minor separate virtues : the inquiry
is not whether these are right that is presupposed; but the in-
quiry is as to the common subjective principle of what is virtuous
and holy. In other words, Can all that is holy be reduced to
some one common principle, and can that principle be stated ?
That principle makes the nature or essence, or as some say the
foundation, of virtue. The inquiry is, What is that state of mind
or heart which is common to and expressed in all virtuous affec-
tions and acts ? We are grateful; we love parents and friends;
we are just, honest; we seek the welfare of our fellows: is there
any common principle in all these acts which makes them vir
tuous, and which alone makes them to be virtuous ?
5. It is still further an inquiry after true virtue and holiness
How can we distinguish the true from the counterfeit ? Is all
that men call virtuous really so ? Does it come from that which
is supremely virtuous ? President Edwards was led to write his
198 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
essay on The Nature of True Virtue by that which came up in
his treatise on Sin; because the Arminians held that human na-
ture could not be wholly depraved, inasmuch as it retains more
or less of what are commonly deemed virtues: honesty, kindness,
temperance, etc. His object is to show, that although these may
be virtues in a minor sphere, yet they are not true virtues, be-
cause they do not contain the essence of true virtue.
The Theories on this subject may be divided into two classes
(1) Those that measure and define virtue by some formal and
external standard, that describe virtue in some other way than
by giving a common internal quality which is found in all vir
tuous acts. A yard stick can measure cotton, woolen, or silk,
but it does not tell us anything about the cotton itself or the
silk itself. No more from the formal theories of virtue can we
get anything as to its distinctive nature. (2) Those that attempt
to define virtue by something contained in the virtuous acts
themselves; by some quality or qualities of the acts themselves.
These are the only theories that attempt to grasp or answer th<*
inquiry. This class is subdivided into (a.) The Happiness
Theories and (b.) The Tlieories wliicli put Virtue in Holy Love.
CHAPTER IV.
THE FORMAL THEORIES OF THE NATURE OF VIRTUE.
1. Virtue is Acting according to the Fitness of Things.
This is a strictly formal definition. It was employed by many
of the Independent Moralists of England, Cudworth, etc. It has
its value in contrast with the theory of mere Utility, which is,
acting for present good or happiness. A virtuous man will act
according to the fitness of things, but that does not tell us in
what his virtue consists. We have here a scaffolding descrip-
tion of virtue. Animals, even machines, act according to the
fitness of things, as a horse, a locomotive, going safely on the
right track. Many of our own actions accord with this definition
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 199
which are not virtuous. If, to relieve this difficulty, it be said,
Virtue is a voluntary acting according to the moral fitness of
things, then in the word moral the whole question appears and
we have to ask, what is the moral fitness of things ?
2. Virtue is that which promotes the great End of our Being.
Virtue undoubtedly does this, but the defect of the answer is,
that it does not answer two other questions: (1) What is the end
of our being ? (2) What is that in virtue which promotes or
produces the end of our being?
3. Virtue is Acting in conformity with the Relations of Things.
This is Dr. Way land's view in part. There are certain re-
lations, he says, in view of which there arises a feeling of moral
obligation: in view of the relation, e. g., of parent and child, there
is a feeling of obligation to have certain emotions, to do certain
things; in view of the relation of the creature to God, arises a
feeling of obligation to love and obedience. An act performed
in obedience to the obligation to man, is virtuous, to the obli-
gation to God, is pious. 1
1. If a man feel as he ought and act as he ought, he is
undoubtedly virtuous, and all his acts take in and include his
virtuous acts. Everything finite is in relations, and if we act
in accordance with all of them, we are virtuous.
2. But there are some relations which a man may act in
conformity with, without being virtuous, e. g., the physical
relations. The definition is too wide.
3. Then the conformity cannot be to all relations, but to
some particular kind of relations. Therefore there is a question
behind that of relations: What particular relations are those
which call out the sense of moral obligation ? Here is the in-
sufficiency of the theory. In view of certain relations we have
the feeling of moral obligation; but what peculiarity is there in
these relations which gives rise to this feeling in us, when we
1 Moral Science, pp. 44-48, 75-77. Cudworth and Clarke hold that virtue is to
act conformably to relations. The "fitness of things" theory runs into this.
They supposed the general power of judging of truth and falsehood to be the
power which perceives these relations: Way land, with the later Scottish School,
supposes a distinct power, viz., Conscience.
200 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
do not have it in other relations ? To get at the moral element,
we must go Jbehind the mere statement that we are under
certain relations.
4. Even supposing that we have ascertained what these re-
lations are, there remains another inquiry: Virtue, we are told,
is acting in conformity with, or feeling as we ought in view of,
certain relations ; what then are those motives and feelings which
are such "as we ought" to have, such as constitute the true
conformity with the relations ?
4 Is it any better explanation of virtue to say that it is
Acting in Conformity to the Will of God, or that the will of God
constitutes virtue ? There are four senses in which this theory
is held:
(1) God is our superior, our creator, and as such He has a
perfect right to us and to our services. His will is our highest
law. Our relation to God as creatures draws this after it, and
this is the ultimate thing in morals: it would settle, e. g., the
questions raised as to the course of the Israelites with the Ca-
naanites, etc. Virtue is obedience to the will of a sovereign.
(2) God's revealed will is law to us: and acting according to that
is virtue. (3) God's will creates, makes virtue and its opposite.
Virtue exists by an act of the divine will as much as the world
does, and so that God could make it different if He chose.
(4) God's will is taken for the expression of his whole nature,
so that what He declares or reveals, the expression of his will,
is the expression of what seems to Him wise and good. (This
fourth view is closely connected with the second, though it is
well to distinguish them.) And our action in conformity with
that will (thus understood) is virtue.
As to the first position : We grant that such is our relation to
God, our natural relation, that it does lay a foundation for
obedience. Moral obligation is inseparably connected with our
relation to God. This is indisputable. Still the mere perception
of power, even of omnipotence, the mere relation of authority,
does not constitute the moral relation which exists between ua
and God. God being ivhat He is, it is our duty to obey Kim
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 201
But suppose an omnipotent being who is malevolent, would it
be virtue to obey him? The very supposition shocks the mind:
but that only shows that we connect with the idea of God's power
his other attributes. Without these we could not feel moral ob-
ligation. Mere omnipotence may control us in a physical sense,
and may constrain us to the performance of certain acts, but it
can never call forth a moral response. That can be evoked only
by what is moral.
As to the second position : It is indisputable that God's re-
vealed will is law to us. If God commands me to do anything,
I arn bound to do it. God's revealed will is the rule of action -
wherever it is revealed, there it is binding. But this does not
reach the inquiry as to the nature of virtue, for two reasons:
(1) God's revealed will commands us to be holy, to be virtuous.
That is a part of the revealed will itself, it is what the command-
ment has respect to. If we obey, of course we are virtuous, but
it is not the command which makes the virtue. The inquiry
still remains, What is that holiness which is thus commanded?
(2) And why do we yield such unhesitating assent? It is only
from our conviction that God's revealed will must be holy and
altogether right. Take, for example, the instance of the Israel-
ites commanded to destroy the Canaanites. They were bound
to obey, although they might not see all the reasons for the
justice of the command. Why were they bound to obey ? Be-
cause God commanded. But was it because God commanded as
a sovereign, or as a holy sovereign ? It was because of their
conviction that He could not command what was not holy.
(3) This second position really means: God's revealed will is a
perfect expression of a perfect will. God gives a law : in doing
this, (a.) He appeals to our moral nature, the sense of right and
duty in us. This is before the command, and necessary to its
binding force. And (>.) We feel that He knows best in all
cases where He gives a positive command. It does not follow,
that if we do not see the reason, or the full reason, of a com-
mand, we are not bound to obey. But in order to feel the obli
gation, we must have the conviction that the command is right
If we have not this, what is our obedience worth?
202 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
As to the third position : God creates virtue and vice, by the
act of his will, as such, we do not believe that any one can hold
this. Could God make benevolence to be sinful, and hatred to
be right? If any one should pretend to a revelation which con-
tained such things, we should instinctively reject it. Still further,
when carried out, this theory must deny that God has any es-
sential holiness. There must have been a time when He was
not holy. He made holiness by an act of will, and then He be-
came holy.
When we say that it is the essential holiness of God that
makes virtue, some object that we are putting something behind
God; but this is not the fact; we are only putting something in
God. We do not say that virtue was before God. Before has no
sense here. But we say, holiness is as eternal as God, and
necessary to the very conception of His nature. God, if He
were not holy from the beginning, would not be God, any more
than if He were not omniscient.
It is further said that God has created us, our minds and
moral natures, our perception of virtue and feeling of obligation,
and in this sense God is the author of virtue, in this sense virtue
is dependent on the will of God. This is undoubtedly true. But
in giving us such a feeling in regard to virtue, such perceptions
of right, and appealing to these always as ultimate; in address-
ing to us his commands and making us feel the value of virtue
for its own sake; in making us so that we can think of virtue and
right without thinking of his commands; in all this, He shows
that the independence of virtue is recognized by Him. He cre-
ated us capable of perceiving virtue, but that does not include
the position that He created virtue. He made us capable of per-
ceiving mathematical truth, but He did not make the truth that
the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles: that
truth is eternal.
As to the fourth position: This may be accepted, in the sense
that all truth, all relations, all ideas, ultimately inhere in the
divine mind. All that is wise and good appears to Him to be
such; all that is true and right is forever apprehended by Him
as such ; and if his will is taken as the expression of his whola
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 203
nature, of course his will and what is right, or virtue, will
coincide. Yet, after all, this is not the best form of statement in
morals any more than in mathematics. Nothing is added to an
axiom by saying that it is the will of God; e. g., by saying,
Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one
another, and this is the will of God, because all truth inheres
in the divine mind. Eight is the will of God, but is not the
product of the will of God. In order to have an idea of right,
we do not need to have an idea of it as first coming from God.
It adds immense practical force to the right that it is the will
of the holy God, but we do not need this consideration to have
the idea of right.
And after all these statements and qualifications, allowing
them their utmost weight, they do not reach to the real point
of the inquiry as to the nature of virtue, which is, not, what is
virtue conformed to ? not, what is the source of virtue ? but,
what is the essence of virtue, or what is the common, subjective
quality in all virtuous acts ?
5. Kant's Theory.
It is taken from the New Testament rule: "Do unto others
as ye would that they should do unto you." It is: "Act so that
the free use of thy will may consist with the freedom of every-
one, according to a universal law." Fichte's is somewhat sim-
ilar : " Let each restrict his freedom by the idea of the freedom
of others."
This, again, is a merely formal rule for virtuous action, good for
outward actions, but not telling us anything of the principle of
virtue itself. What is that universal law, according to which we
must act and use our freedom ? What does it demand ? What
is the state of mind which it demands ? This is a formula, but
not a formula into which all our acts can be put, and it does
not give the internal quality of the acts themselves.
6. Dr. Hiclotts Theory.
' When the man sees himself to be just what the spiritual
excellency of his being demands that he should be, he has, in
204 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
the contemplation of this worthiness, at once his virtue and his
reward." " This worthiness is no revelation from without, but
a necessary truth seen in the spirituality of his own being from
within." 1
This, again, is one of the formal theories of virtue; it gives us
an account of it, but not the thing itself. What is it which
spiritual excellency demands that a man should be? In spirit-
ual excellency is virtue, is approbation, is happiness: Yes, but
what is spiritual excellency ? And what is the conformity to it
which is virtue ? The whole inquiry is still before us.
REMARK on all the formal theories': The common fault of them
all is that they give us a description, a general account, of virtue,
but do not tell us what it is in itself. They define it by some
standard or rule, but they do not give us any principle of it, any-
thing inhering in it, any common quality. If a man has it, he
might from these descriptions give a pretty good guess as to
what was meant by it, and hence the plausibility of such theo-
ries. They give us some characteristics and conceptions of
virtue, but not the concrete conception of holiness itself. De-
fining it thus is like defining body as that which occupies
space, instead of by its inseparable qualities. It is giving an
external objective measure of virtue, but not its internal, real
characteristics.
But the class of theories we are next to consider, though
widely differing among themselves, have the common charac-
teristic of attempting to answer the question: What is virtue?
and to do this by some supposed common, subjective quality of
all that can be called virtuous.
Of these theories there are two classes: those which make
HAPPINESS, in some form, objective or subjective, to be the spring
and end of all virtue; and those which do not, placing it in
HOLT LOVE.
i The Westm. Bev., Oct. 1853, says, this reads like Cudworth, but in truth is
more like Dr. T. Brown's "moral approbation."
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 205
CHAPTER V.
THE HAPPINESS THEORIES.
PRELIMINARY INQUIRY: What is happiness?
The most general notion of happiness is that of the pleasure
or gratification of sentient beings, attending or consequent upon
their activity. All feeling in the line of law confers happiness. It
is a simple term, expressive of a fact known to all sentient beings
in their measure and degree. It is found in animal life. It is
found in the exercise of all our powers, whether intellectual,
sensitive, affective, or voluntary. Future happiness is such pleas-
ure or gratification expected or destined for any in the future;
present happiness is the gratification now enjoyed. Happiness
is contrasted with conditions of pain, suffering, want, sickness,
etc., where the exercise of our powers, whether bodily or mental,
is a source of suffering.
Self-love ("self-regarding affections," Bentham) is defined
sometimes as the desire of happiness, the instinctive desire of
that gratification which attends the exercise of all our powers :
the highest happiness being found in the highest exercise of em-
powers on their highest objects.
Since happiness is ultimate, all we can do is to describe it.
It is a simple psychological fact about the exercise of the powers
of sentient beings ; in the exercise of them they are happy, and
happy in proportion to the degree of the exercise and the worthi-
ness of the objects. But still, notwithstanding this difference
of degree, all the exercises have a common element, viz., hap-
piness, and this is a real good, it is the only real good, it is that
which alone is sought for its own sake. The highest happiness
contains the same elements as the lower forms : its differentia is
in its objects. 1
1 The noblest view of such happiness, as the perfect good, is given by Aristotle:
"An energy of the soul, or the powers of the soul exerted according to that vir-
tue or excellence which mostly consummates or perfects them" (Hampden's par-
aphrase). Further, Nic. Eth. Bk. x. 4: "It is doubtful whet her we strive for happiness
for the sake of life, or for life for the sake of happiness ; both are inseparable. ' ' This,
from a heathen, is a much higher view of Utility (if indeed it can be considered
as an Utilitarian view) than is found in some Christian writers.
206 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Of these happiness theories, there are several distinct forma
of which we will first speak separately, and then comment on,
in reference to their fundamental common assumption, viz., that
happiness is the only good, is the ultimate object of desire and
action. The question is, Can all virtue be resolved into happi-
ness, in some form ?
There are three chief forms of the happiness scheme:
1. The selfish scheme of Paley, which makes the seeking' of
our own future happiness (or avoiding misery) to be virtue.
2. The objective 1 happiness scheme, making virtue to consist
in a tendency to promote the general happiness, or in the love
of the general happiness (happiness, not good). Not our own
future happiness, as Paley has it, but the general happiness.
3. The subjective happiness scheme (as distinguished from the
selfish scheme), or the self-love scheme, which is perhaps a union
of the two above, the substance of which may be thus expressed:
My happiness in the general happiness is the spring and sum of
virtue. Logically, both the others are to be resolved into this.
There might be added :
4. A scheme which defines benevolence, as primarily a love
to general happiness, and ultimately having regard to it, which
has been defended as Edwardean.
5. Perhaps also the theory of President Finney: Virtue is
the choice of the greatest happiness of God and the universe.
1. The Selfish Scheme. The Ethics of Paley.
"Virtue is doing good to mankind in obedience to the will
of God for the sake of everlasting happiness." According to
this definition, the will of God is the rule, the good of mankind
is the subject, and everlasting happiness is the motive, of human
virtue. Take in connection with this Paley's statement about
happiness, viz., "Pleasures differ in nothing but in continuance
and in intensity," and we have a moral system about as bad as
1 John Maclaurin, Philos. Inq. into Nat. of Happiness (written before 1736,
first printed in 1773 in Goold's Edition, ii. 491), makes the distinction of subjective
and objective thus: Happiness must have an objective cause and a subjective ex-
perience. God is the sufficient objective cause of the highest happiness to man;
man is formed for God's glory, etc.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 207
one can be, inexcusable even in a heathen. It does not even
recognize duties towards God: the doing good to mankind is all
that it takes into view as the field of virtuous action.
But particularly and specifically, reduced to a proposition,
the subjective motive of virtue is said to be one's own future
happiness, seeking our own personal future good.
Against this lie considerations such as the following:
1. Common experience tells us that, when we do not think
of our happiness, we are the happiest; e. g., in relieving misery.
The idea of our own happiness is an intrusion, in religion and
benevolence for instance.
2. Mackintosh says: Upon this theory, unless we are think-
ing of our everlasting happiness, unless we have that as a direct
motive before us in all that we do, we cannot be virtuous. We
should be what, then? vicious? Vice must consist in not
seeking our happiness. When a man thinks only of doing good,
he is sinful.
3. The theory allows no difference in the motives of sinful
and holy action. Both have regard more or less to the happiness,
real or supposed, of the agent. There is no rule. All men act
from self-interest; all men are so far forth virtuous. All that ia
left is to resolve virtue into the arbitrary will of God, as Paley does.
4 Acting in view of future everlasting rewards and punish-
ments is undoubtedly acting under a right motive, a motive
which has its important place. But why are such promises and
threatenings made? and to what? They are given to attract
and deter, to virtue and/row vice: not to make either virtue or
vice. Motives in respect to virtue and vice do not constitute the
motives of either The consequences, not the nature of our acts
are here shown. Exhibition of the future consequences of action
serves to arouse those who cannot yet feel any higher motive.
In sum, the motive of self-interest has its place in a moral
system, but it is not that which makes virtue to be virtue.
2. Virtue consists in the Tendency to the greatest Happiness.
The advocates of this scheme say that virtue and tendency
to happiness are the same thing. If this be so, then two things
208 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
follow: (1) Everything which promotes the general happiness ia
virtuous; all that is useful is virtuous, because virtue is the ten-
dency to promote the general happiness. (2) Nothing can be
declared to be virtuous until we can see or prove in some way
that it promotes the general happiness. 1
But we must deny both of these positions.
1. Not all that in any way promotes the happiness of men is
virtuous. Many things are useful, are as useful as they can be,
promote happiness, promote as much happiness as they can,
which nobody thinks of calling virtuous. Many animals are
useful: what they do tends to promote the happiness of the com-
munity. Steam engines are useful; vegetables are useful; our
natural instincts, our involuntary affections, are all useful: they
tend to promote happiness and the highest happiness which
from their nature they can do. 2 The tendency to happiness is
the same in the unintelligent and the intelligent being: this term
remains the same: so that it cannot be this which makes the
difference confessed on all sides between a virtuous act and
one which has no moral character. This forces us to the con-
clusion than an act of man is virtuous, not because it has such
and such a tendency, but for some other reason, which reason
is the object of our inquiry.
1 Wayland discusses the question on the supposition that virtue and the ten-
dency to happiness are different things. His opponents insist that they are the
same thing: that if we want to define virtue we must say that it is the tendency to
promote happiness. Christian Spect., Dec. 1835, p. 605: "The ideas (L e., of
right and productiveness of happiness) are identical, or rather one is explanatory
of the other." "The tendency to produce the greatest amount of happiness is
what makes or constitutes a thing right." Dr. Dwight is quoted to the effect
that the tendency to produce happiness is "what constitutes the value or excel-
lency (or as Dr. D. uses the word wrongly the " foundation ") of virtue."
2 Dr. Dwight says it is hardly necessary to answer this objection. But why
not? He says: " A smattering philosophy knows that voluntarin ess is necessary
to virtue." Here we have a new statement. It is not usefulness alone, but vol-
untary usefulness, which constitutes virtue. But here we must ask, if the ten-
dency of a thing being useful does not make it happiness, how does its becoming
voluntary give it a new character? My choosing a thing does not make it right
or wrong; it simply brings in accountability. The statement will be reduced to
this: Tendency to happiness in a being not moral, is not moral: but in a being
who is moral, it is moral. This is acknowledging a difference in the nature of the
act: it is tho moral element in the nature of the act which we are inquiring for,
and we must go somewhere else than to the tendency to happiness to find it.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 209
2. If that which makes the essence of virtue be a tendency
to happiness, we cannot say that anything is virtuous until we
see that it has this tendency. We of course do not deny that
we can see that virtuous acts have this tendency to a very great
extent; but the question is, whether our judgments that such
and such things are right are dependent on our thus seeing.
Before I can say that it is right to speak the truth, must I see
that my so doing will produce the greatest amount of happiness?
Love to God will undoubtedly tend to promote the greatest hap-
piness: but is the seeing of that necessary to the judgment that
the love of God is right. 1
3. This position confounds two things which are entirely
distinct: the nature of a thing with its tendencies, the essence
with the manifestation. These are everywhere else kept dis-
tinct. The tendency of sin is to misery, but misery does not
tell us what sin is: it shows us what it deserves, but does not
define its nature. The tendency of all matter is to gravitate,
but gravitation does not describe the nature or essence of matter.
That is only one of its modes of manifestation. So the tendency
of all virtue may be, and doubtless is, to promote the greatest
good, the highest happiness of the universe: but this very ten-
dency is a result of its excellent nature, and does not constitute
that nature. Such is the inherent excellency of a virtuous dis-
position that it makes him who has it most happy, that it con-
tributes most of all to the general happiness: but this tendency
to happiness does not describe the act as it is in itself. The
nature and the tendencies are different. We may judge of the
nature, to some extent, by the tendencies, but we cannot, with-
out gross confusion, identify them.
' Dr. Wayland here is explicit and right. When Utilitarians assert that virtue
is the tendency to general happiness, they say that their meaning is not, that we
must see beforehand this tendency (as a distinct motive) in order to the virtue of
the act: but, that upon inspecting every virtuous act, we find in it (afterwards)
this tendency; i. e., the perception of such utility is not necessary to the subjective
virtue of the act, but we must see (objectively) this tendency to such utility before
we can pronounce, judge, any act to be virtuous. Examination of Utilitarianism,
by the late John Grote, Lond. 1870. Benthana, the extreme Utilitarian: Murder
is wrong "because (1) the evil to the murdered man far outweighs the pleasure
reaped by the murderer," etc. "Quantity of pleasure being equal, push-pin is as
good as poetry." His Deontology repudiated by MilL See West. Kev., Jan. 1871,
defending Mill.
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
4. This doctrine is further exposed to the difficulty which
comes from the following consideration: Its advocates say
that virtue is the best thing, and that virtue is tendency
to happiness. Then the tendency to happiness is better than
happiness itself.
It is allowed on all sides that virtue does tend to produce
the highest happiness: the position here taken is that virtue
cannot be resolved into a tendency to happiness.
3. Subjective Happiness, or Self -Love Scheme.
This is a scheme of more refined character than those which
have been considered, and on that account is often misunder-
stood. Of the various happiness schemes, we regard this as
the only consistent one. It resolves all moral action into the
pleasure or happiness which is found in such action. 1 The
system allows that benevolent action is the highest good, but it
gays the reason why any one is benevolent is for the pleasure
there is in it the happiness in it. Our highest pleasure is in
loving God, and the reason why we love God is because our
highest happiness is found in it. So our highest pleasure is in
doing good, and this is the ultimate motive for doing good.
There is happiness in obeying conscience, and the reason why we
obey is the happiness which is in it. This is a very different
theory from the previous one: instead of making happiness objec-
tive, and virtue a tendency to promote that happiness, it puts the
virtue in the happiness itself, as subjective; yet one will hardly
1 This scheme is most distinctly advocated by the late Dr. N. W. Taylor. He
began the discussion in an essay on Eegeneration in the Christian Spectator,
1835. He laid hold of the instinctive desire for happiness as the lever by which
R sinner might be renewed with what is in him, and he professed to start from
the position or ground of Dr. D wight, the Utilitarian scheme, that Utility or Pro-
ductiveness of Happiness is the essence of Virtue. But in the subsequent debata
Dr. Taylor was led to take the view that the essence of virtue is not in the pro-
duction of happiness, but in the happiness found in benevolent action. The ul-
timate motive in virtuous action is not a regard to one's own future happiness; it
is not a regard to the highest good objectively; but it is the pleasure which one
experiences in benevolent activity. That pleasure is the ultimate motive and con-
trolling element. The difference between this scheme and Paley's can perhaps
be briefly indicated by emphasis: Paley says, My happiness is the object of virtuoui
action: this theory, My happiness is the motive of such action.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 211
find in the discussions a separation between this and the grosser
forms of the happiness schemes.
Now in reference to this view, we grant the whole fact
alleged: that our happiness is found in benevolence; but we
deny the inference : that this happiness is the ultimate motive
for right action, or the ultimate basis of an ethical system, and
for the following reasons:
1. This theory gives us no radical distinction between right
and wrong actions. The difference is simply and only a differ-
ence in the greater or less degree of the same thing, i. e., of
happiness. In sin there is some happiness, in virtue there is
more. In the wicked and the good man there is the same
ultimate motive, love of happiness.
We grant the existence of this motive in all men: it is
constitutional: but we say, it is not this self-love which gives
the difference in our actions as right and wrong. And if it be
made the ultimate thing in ethics, the ethics is not founded on
any distinct ultimate conception, whereby it is distinguished
from any other branch of science. The difference of right and
wrong is not explained by this theory, and if anything else is
brought in to explain it, then that something else will be the
foundation of ethics.
2. Closely connected with the above is another objection to
the theory, viz., that it confounds a purely psychological phe-
nomenon with a proper ethical fact or theory. It is a fact that
we are happy in, that there is a gratification attending, the
exercise of our moral powers: but this fact is not confined to
our moral powers. We are happy in the exercise of all our fac-
ulties. We are happy in reasoning, in eating, in talking, in
seeing, in doing anything. A necessary condition of the exer-
cise of all our powers is that there should be pleasure in doing
it. Now if this pleasure, this happiness, is what constitutes
morality, then there is morality in all our acts in their natural
operations. If a distinction is made, and it is said that only cer-
tain kinds of such gratification are moral, then we say, what are
these kinds, what distinguishes them from others? and the very
thing that distinguishes them from others will be the moral ele-
212 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
ment. That is, happiness is common both to the instinctive and
the moral action of our powers: and therefore, being common to
them, it cannot be the thing which distinguishes them; happi-
ness is common both to the virtuous and vicious exercise of our
powers, and therefore it cannot be the thing which distinguishes
virtue from vice. The difference between black and white is not
that they are both colors. This we take to be an absolute refu-
tation of the theory, as an ethical theory.
3. Moreover, such is the nature of virtue that, even if it did
not confer happiness, it would be binding on us. The sense of
the binding nature of virtue is in no degree connected with the
view that it is the means of our happiness. We can abstract
the one from the other. And if we did not feel happy in vir-
tue, we should still feel obliged to do right.
4 This theory proposes, as a basis of ethics, that which when
fully and fairly presented to the mind is acknowledged to be
sinful. This is a singular anomaly in the scheme. If one keeps
his own happiness before himself objectively, making it his su-
preme aim, that is sinful, if anything is: he must keep before
himself God, the good of others. The theory says, if one acts
simply in view of his own happiness, he sins, while yet it says
one's own happiness is th<* ultimate spring and source of all
moral action. So that the theory frames for ethics a subjective
basis which cannot become objective. It says: All moral action
resides in something which is purely spontaneous and voluntary,
and something which we cannot use as a simple integral motive,
without committing sin.
5. Self-love, in the sense defined, viz., as happiness in the
general happiness, cannot be even (as is often alleged in de-
fence) the spring of the motive to our benevolent acts, (a.) It
cannot exist before the benevolent impulse itself exists : for it is
said to be the happiness which is found in that benevolence it-
self. Hence, the benevolent impulse must be there before the
happiness therein can exist, and therefore the happiness cannot
be the spring or source of the benevolence. The benevolence
must be at least contemporaneous with the happiness. The sun
must be there before the shining. (&.) The mere general desire
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 213
of happiness cannot be the reason for any of our special acts:
that is a mere vague abstraction. Edwards: 1 ''Whatever a man
loves, that thing is grateful or pleasing to him, whether it be
his own peculiar happiness or the happiness of others; and if
this be all they mean by self-love, no wonder they think all
love may be resolved into self-love." This is calling self-love
that which is only a general capacity of loving and hating.
This may be a general reason why men love or hate anything
at all, but it can never be a reason why man's love is placed on
such and such objects. 2 (c.) The position involves a vicious cir-
cle : An act is virtuous because it gives the highest happiness,
and it gives the highest happiness because it is virtuous.
4. General Remarks on all the Happiness Theories.
1. It is conceded on all sides that in virtue there is happiness.
2. It is also conceded that just as there is in virtue the high-
est present conscious happiness, so in like manner virtue tends
to the highest objective happiness, and that only virtue does
this.
3. Happiness, or the highest happiness, is an indefinite phrase
it tells us nothing of the specific character of our acts: it attends
all our acts, and is not confined to those which are moral. In
no other department, except ethics, would it be used as a means
of explaining what the specific characteristics of a subject are.
Who would describe the characteristics of the intellectual acts,
or of the nerves, or of the passions, or of duties, as different
forms or degrees of happiness ? What is music? Suppose it de-
fined as that which confers pleasure, and the best music as that
which confers the highest pleasure. That would be the state-
ment of a fact, but it would tell us nothing about music. The
fallacy is just as great in ethics.
4. As with happiness so with " the highest happiness." This
latter phrase, as employed to modify the theory, is indefinite in
1 Nature of Virtue, vol. ii. of Works, p. 278. Edwards had this whole theorj
before him, and refuted it
2 As to the philosophy of love and self-love, Tennyson puts it just right:
" Love took up the harp of Life and smote on all the chords with might;
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling* passed in music out of sight."
214 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY
another way. It may mean (and covertly does mean) the same
as the whole system of things with its resultant good, and so it
constantly includes distinctive moral ends, i. e. t it means the
highest good: 1 the love of that is doubtless virtuous; but the
theory assumes that the highest good and the highest happi-
ness are identical, while in fact happiness is subjective and the
good is objective.
5. The happiness theories must all ultimately run into the
self-love theories. All happiness, in the last analysis, must be
a subjective delight or pleasure. When we speak of the highest
happiness of God and of the universe, we must mean the sum
of all the various forms of happiness that anywhere exist. Hap-
piness is in its ultimate nature subjective. The general good
is only the sum of self-loves.
CHAPTER VI.
THE HOLY LOVE THEORIES.
The other class of the theories which define virtue not form-
ally, but by some common characteristic of all virtuous acts and
states, may be comprised in these two: (1) Virtue is the love of
moral excellence; (2) Virtue is love to being, benevolence to
being in general.
I. Virtue is the love of moral excellence. This is the defi-
nition given by the Princeton Review and by Dr. Alexander.
Against this we think Edwards's objection holds, viz., that it
supposes virtue before virtue. What is moral excellence ? It
is virtue. Then, virtue is the love of moral excellence, is the
love of virtue. Edwards, ii. 263: "If virtue be the beauty of an
intelligent being, 'and virtue consists in love, then it is a plain
inconsistence to suppose that virtue primarily consists in any
love to its object for its beauty: either in a love of complacence,
1 The proper self-love scheme insists that, in the last analysis, e ny happiueHs
in the general happiness is the greatest good.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 215
which is a delight in a being for his beauty, or in a love
of benevolence which has the beauty of its objects for its
foundation."
II. The theory of President Edwards. Virtue is love, is
love to being, is love to intelligent beings, is love to intelli-
gent beings according to their worth. The best statement in
respect to his school is not found in the writings of his son.
He misapprehended his father, saying that his father's theory
makes virtue to have respect to the happiness of being. In
Bellamy's Works there is a much better statement. In a letter
(Introd. to his Works, p. 29) dated Bethel, 1764, he says: "The
whole of virtue consists in conformity to the divine law ; )ove is the
sum of the virtue required in the divine law ; benevolence, compla-
cence, and gratitude are the whole of love ; the object of benevo-
lence is being; of complacence, virtue; of gratitude, a benefactor.
The divine law [which commands this] is a transcript of the di-
vine nature : and therefore love is the sum of virtue in God as
well as in the creature." He grants the objection that this makes
the good of being the chief good, but says: "The good of being
in general, which is the object of benevolence, is not the partial,
but the complete good of being in general, comprising all the
good being is capable of, by whatever name called: natural,
moral, spiritual; than which there is nothing of greater worth in
the universe. Nay, 'tis the sum of ALL GOOD." Bellamy then in-
terprets the theory thus: that virtue has respect to all good, of
course including moral and spiritual good, taking these to be,
not the whole of what virtue has respect to, but a part, in fact
the very height of the good. Love is then the affection of
the soul, and all the good of being is the object on which this
love fastens: and that is virtue. Edwards's definition is: "that
consent, propensity, and union of heart to being in general,
which is immediately exercised in a general good-will." 1 He
says also, "Virtue is the love of intelligent beings according to
their respective worth," and then distinguishes it into two main
points: the love of benevolence and the love of complacency.
1 He distinguishes between consent, propensity, union of heart, and exercises,
Which i decisive against those Who say that he makes virtue consist in exercises
216 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
" The love of benevolence is that which has special respect to
the whole; the love of complacency is the highest form of vir-
tue, and which has respect to the virtue of others." Some say
that his theory is this: that virtue consists in the love of benev-
olence, and that that consists in seeking the happiness of crea-
tures, and then complacency does not belong to virtue but is an
offshoot. To us it is plain that the theory makes complacency
to be just as much a part of virtue as benevolence is, and not
only so, but makes it to be the height of " the love of benev-
olence " and of virtue. Edwards also argues that the highest
virtue is love to God, because He has the highest being and
beauty; next, virtue is love to men according to their capacity
for good and holiness.
There are some objections to this view. 1
1. It is objected that we cannot have such love to being, as
a direct act on our part. But this objection arises from not
comprehending clearly what Edwards was aiming at. He is
not describing virtue as it exists in our direct consciousness,
but is stating it in its abstract form, in the philosophical form,
and not in the form of experience. All particular affections
come under this general idea, under all particular affections
there must be this general love, if the particular affections are
virtue: but it is the particular affections which come within
the sphere of consciousness, so that we are not conscious of
purely abstract love, but only of the forms of this affection.
We Suppose that Edwards came to this theory in this way:
The law of God commands us to love God and to love men, and
that is the sum of virtue. Now here are two statements, but it
is cumbrous to use both. He asks then for a formal statement
which will embrace both. Taking God and man together as
including all intelligent being, if we say love to being, we have
the statement which comprises both.
2. It is objected that this theory destroys private affections.
The answer to this is, that the relations to which these private
affections belong are a part of the system of being to which our
love has respect. The private affections respond to the demands
1 The acutest are those of Robert Hall.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 217
for particular degrees and forms of love, and it is not incon-
sistent with the theory to suppose such response to be made.
The relations which call forth the private affections make the
particular "worth" of the object.
3. The theory is said to be Utilitarian. It is difficult to
know what some people mean by this word. Generally, in phil-
osophical speech, Utilitarianism means, those theories which make
virtue culminate in happiness, or in the " general good," viewed
as having respect ultimately to happiness either objective or sub-
jective. If Edwards had made virtue to have ultimate respect
to happiness, his theory would hare been Utilitarian; but as we
understand him, this is in no wise the case.
4. It is also objected that the theory does not allow for rec-
titude being a simple idea, but that it resolves the idea of right
into something else. This objection comes from not distin
guishing between right and virtue. The idea of right is a
much broader idea than that of virtue. All that Edwards says
is this: that rectitude, subjective as it is found in moral beings, is
this love to being, and that that is what is right in a moral
being. The theory presupposes that right is a simple idea, and
that it can be applied to this love of being.
5. It must be admitted that there are some difficulties in
Edwards's mode of stating the theory, (a.) The phraseology
"love of being" is too abstract: readers, taking from this the
notion of this love being independent of God, are likely to run
into a pantheistic view: though as respects Edwards himself,
this was fully guarded by his idea of God. Concretely and in
consciousness, " being " is not the object of love : God must be
the object of love. (6.) In Edwards's writings, the discussion
of the nature of virtue is perhaps not sufficiently connected
with the " end of God in creation," or with the plan of God, or
with the whole system of things. The objective ground does
not seem to be sufficiently stated, (c.) Another difficulty arises
from difference of usage as to the word "benevolence." In
common usage, it is taken for a lower form of virtue: that which
has respect to human beings, and to happiness simply as distin-
guished from holiness. But Edwards defines benevolence for
218 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
himself, and means to include holiness in it or to make it equiv
alent to holiness. If " benevolence" be taken in the lower sense,
the statement, the essence of virtue is in benevolence, is liable
to very grave objections. The interpretation of Edwards as taking
benevolence in the lower sense, making it to have respect to
happiness ultimately, is followed up by Dr. D wight, and leads
to what, in our judgment, is the great defect of his system. 1
[ A later statement than the above by the author"] : The true sense of Edwards's
Theory of Virtue. Love, in its extension, has respect to all sentient, intelligent
being, seeking its good: this is the love of benevolence. Love, in its intension and
concentration, has respect to, seeks, the best good or holiness: this is the love of
complacency. These are not two kinds of love: true, genuine love will, must, take
these two forms. Cannot the categories of quantity and quality be here applied
with advantage ?
CHAPTER VII.
SOME HINTS AS TO A THEORY OF THE NATURE OF VIRTUE.
1. Preliminary Statements.
1. Limitations and specific sense of the inquiry as to the na-
ture of true virtue or holiness. The inquiry is not as to the
whole of rectitude, but as to the prime excellence of a moral
being, or as to rectitude, concrete and subjective, rectitude as
existing and exemplified in a moral being; and the inquiry is,
as stated before, for some common element or principle in all
virtuous acts: whether there be any such.
2. Validity of this inquiry. This may be argued: (a.) From
the analogy of the other sciences: all strive after unity; (b.) From
the conscious sense of the distinctiveness of the moral sphere:
the kingdom of holiness, kingdom of evil; (c.) Historically: there
have been constant attempts at such theories. The inquiry,
are there many virtues or one ? is as old as the Greek philosophy :
(d.) The inquiry after one common principle of all that is virtuous,
1 In Remarks on Pres. Edwards's Dissertations, etc., by Eev. Wm. Hart Say
brook, New Haven, 1 771, some points are acutely stated.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 219
is also justified by what may be called, the unity of our moral
consciousness: we are conscious that here is a distinct sphere. 1
Even if ive cannot arrive at a satisfactory solution, this should
not lead us to deny the validity and possibility of the inquiry.
It is better to pause and say, we cannot meet the inquiry,
than to be content with a theory tuhich undermines our moral
convictions.
3. The special difficulties of the inquiry.
(a.) Since almost all terms, expressing moral states and acts,
refer to concrete cases, to specific acts, the chief difficulty is in
rescuing some terms from their partial signification and giving
them a general meaning. E. g., benevolence, as already stated,
is commonly used to express mere general good-will, a kind
regard to our fellow-beings, a desire of their happiness. Now
if this term be taken to express the essence of virtue, it is very
likely to be interpreted in a partial sense, as it often is in Ed-
wards's system, and made to be the basis of a theory at war with
the whole spirit of his system. It is even used in the sense of
good- will to creatures, not including love to God: and even as
implying a regard for happiness in distinction from a regard to
holiness. So if justice or holiness, love of the general happiness
or good, or love of rectitude, be taken to express the fundamental
moral state, we have similar difficulties. Any term which is
taken to express the common principle of all moral states must
be somewhat deflected from its partial use for scientific purposes. 1
This is the case in all the sciences.
(6.) A second difficulty about the inquiry is this: Common
speech makes a specific difference between what is moral and
what is religious, so that a man may be "virtuous" without
being religious, and it is also alleged, may be religious without
being virtuous. Hence the advocates of mere morality as the
gum of human duty, are apt to insist upon a definition of virtue
1 Different from what is stated under (6.), as that refers to the objective uni-
verse, which we view and must view, as issuing in moral "kingdoms." This re-
lates to our subjective necessity of putting all things under a moral point of view,
2 Virtue was used by the ancients for manly courage; it is used by us for our
lower relationships; and if we enlarge its meaning* the word becomes liable to
constant misapprehension.
220 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
which will allow this sundering. Modern Philanthropy rests
very much here, seizing upon a definition of virtue which will
only apply to morals, and leave out love to God. But if there
be no real difference, so that where religion is riot, there cannot
be true virtue, there is special need of making this evident.
And here, in fact, is one of the fundamental antagonisms of the
times, of Christianity with philosophy. If true virtue can be
justly defined without bringing in the religious element, there
is a vantage-ground for scepticism. 1
(c.) Another difficulty is that if we reduce all that is virtuous
to some common principle, there is danger of making it so ab-
stract that one cannot verify it from experience, and it becomes
worthless in fact, and not only worthless but mischievous, play-
ing into the hands of infidelity, as, e. g., the pantheist may say:
I have such generic love of being as is said to be the essence
of virtue, and hence I am truly virtuous.
(d.) Another difficulty akin to the second stated above may
be suggested by the contrast between the terms, holiness and
benevolence, as commonly used: holiness being the love of, and
delight in, all moral perfection, and benevolence being a general
regard to happiness. Now it is said, these two things are so
distinct that we cannot reduce them to any common principle.
E. g , When we speak of a holy and then of a benevolent God, ideas
so different are suggested that we cannot bring them into union
under any one conception. 2 The same is the case with the two
terms, rectitude and happiness or good. Some insist that in
ethics, all that we can do is to say that rectitude is a simple
idea, and that the love of rectitude is virtue, and that if the
idea of happiness is brought into ethics, it is vitiated, and the
radical distinction between virtue and vice is denied.
2. The Scriptural Vieiv of the Nature of True Virtue.
The Scriptures do not discuss abstract questions of specula-
tion, either metaphysical or ethical; and therefore it might seem
irrelevant to refer to them ; but we may proceed here precisely
1 ' 'All morality without piety is as a goodly statue without a head " (Lactantius).
2 Dr. McGosh, on the ground of this difficulty, holds to both unanalyzed, m
ultimate and necessary.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 221
as we do in respect to doctrines, i. e., in the way of deduction
and of using Scripture as a test. What cannot be derived from
the Bible cannot be a true ethical theory: what cannot be tested
by the Bible cannot be a true ethical theory. Scripture does
not give us the general abstract form of statement, but it gives
the data from which that statement, if it be true, must be de-
rived. And in fact the Scriptures n-ot only enforce all specific
duties, but they also give some general summaries, which make
the work of deduction and of test comparatively easy. Such a
summary is given us in the law; the principle which runs through
that, or rather, the principle which secures obedience to that,
must be the principle of all true virtue. " How love I thy law ! "
Besides the law in the Old Testament, we have the re-affirmation
of it, and the reduction of it to two principles, by Christ, and in
other passages of the New Testament which enforce and apply
it. The chief passages bearing on the point are the following:
Matt. xxii. 37-39 (parallel, Mark xii. 29-31), where love to God
and love to men are the sum of the law, and where Christ says
of love to God: "This is the first and great commandment";
1 Pet. i. 16, where holiness is the word used for the sum of
moral excellence in the creature; Matt. v. 48; then in a spe-
cific relation, Matt. vii. 12; Gal. v. 14; 1 John iv. 20-21, where
it is argued, that love to man and to God are the same principle
(also in 1 John iii. 17); 1 John iv. 8, where love is set forth as
the supreme excellence in God, insomuch that it can be used
for God himself; Rom. xiii. 8, 10; 1 Cor. xiii. ; Gal. v. 13-15; vi. 2;
Col. iii. 14; 1 Tim. i. 5; 1 Pet. ii. 21-25, where following Christ
is set forth as the sum of duty. 1
The General Results from these passages:
1. Love must be the common principle love to God and
love to men.
2. Love must have chief respect to personal beings, God and
men, although it would not exclude some regard to animals.
i Kothe says (i. 196): There are five principles: (1) Likeness to God; (2) "Be
ye holy"; (3) Follow Christ; (4) Have love to God and man; (5) "What ye would
that men should do," etc. Miiller (i. 140) says and justly: N.ot so; none of the
others, in dignity and importance, are equal to what Christ so solemnly declares
in Matt. xxii. 37 (Mark xii. 29).
222 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
3. Love to God is and must be the highest form of virtue.
4. Men must be loved under the aspects and for the ends
for which God made man.
5. These aspects, or ends, or this end, is: Mans relations
to the kingdom which God has revealed in Christ his Son.
6. Hence, Love to God and to God's great end in creation,
and to men in their relation to this end, is the comprehensive
sense of "Love" in the Bible.
7. This love is essentially the same in God and man : Matt,
v. 48; 1 Pet. i. 16. It is also essentially the same in respect
both to God and to man. Love to God will bring love to
man with it, and true love to man presupposes and involves
love to God. Subjectively and objectively (i. e., as respects the
" good " on which it fastens) the love is essentially the same in
God and man.
8. It should be observed, that love to men is not (a.) love to
men as holy, primarily; for if this were so. there could be no love
of sinners: yet it is love to men as capable of holiness; (b.) It
is not love to men as capable of happiness alone, though this is
included-, (c.) It is such a love to men as leads one to seek
their whole good, in the system of things which God has estab-
lished, and in ultimate relation to the great ends of the system.
Love to man, and even to sinners, will view them in respect to
God's kingdom, as capable of holiness, although not yet holy,
and will lead us to strive for their holiness. (This is another
objection to the definition of virtue as the love of moral excel-
lence. It is a love which would lead one to seek the whole good
of man.)
9. Love to God is not love to the divine happiness: it is love
to God as the highest and best of beings.
3. Statement of the Principle of True Virtue in the abstract.
There are two modes of statement : the abstract and the con-
crete. The abstract is the mode for the intellect, for science, in
the form of general truth, and so as to cover all virtue or holi-
ness, that of God as well as of the creature. The concrete is the
real mode, the description of virtue in its vivid, living traits, the
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 223
statement of it as it consciously exists in moral beings, as it is
in the real system of things, as it is to be preached and practiced,
and specifically, of virtue as it exists in men.
1. The principle of all virtue in the abstract must be found
in love, that being the highest form of activity of our moral na-
ture. All the powers of the mind concentrate in love. Love is
union of heart to other beings, involving delight, and prompting
us to seek all their good in the relations in which they are placed.
2. It is not, however, love as a mere internal emotion, as a
subjective state alone. The character of love is that it dem'ands
an object : it is defined and characterized by its objects, and only
thus. The character of holy love can then only be defined by
stating its proper objects. All love is not virtuous. There is a
doctrine of final causes in ethics. There are instinctive forms
of affection, and natural affections which have not the element
of true virtue in them. Our affections chiefly have respect to
personal beings, to moral beings, beings having moral capaci-
ties and ends.
3. The definition of Holy Love or True Virtue. There are
various forms of statement, in the way of general description,
the object being to give a general statement which shall em-
brace all the modes of virtuous love.
(a.) General and indefinite: True Virtue is love (the highest
subjective state) of the highest good (the greatest objective well-
being). It is described sometimes, as love of the whole system
of things, and of each part in its due relation to the whole.
(b.) More particular: It is, love of intelligent and sentient
beings, in relation to the great ends of the system. Or, it is
love of the good of intelligent beings, with ultimate respect to
their, and to the, highest good.
(c.) A definite statement: True Virtue is, love of all intelli-
gent and sentient beings, according to their respective capacities
for good, with chief and ultimate respect to the highest good, or
holiness.
We have here: (1) love, the subjective affection;. (2) the ob-
ject of love, intelligent and sentient beings; (3) the variety of
love : it varies according to the relative capacities of its objects
224 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
for good ; (4) the main, supreme object of the love, that which is
chiefly and ultimately in view, the holiness of beings.
True Virtue has thus respect to all good, and to all beings as
capable of good (including capacity for happiness), but in its
very nature it has chief respect to the highest good or holiness.
According to this, it would follow that virtuous love in reference
to each individual, who may be the object of it, can only consist
in loving him according to his place in the system; and this is
determined by three considerations: (1) The inherent dignity
and capacity of the individual himself; (2) The relation of the
individual to the great ends of the system; (3) His special rela-
tions to us in our relations to the whole system. (This last point
gives the elements which are necessary to vindicate the private
affections.) There must not only be capacity of being, but also
relation to tJie ends of the system. 1 Satan has more capacity of being
than many saints.
(d.) Some further explanations. True Virtue is love of the
whole system, of all its ends, yet chiefly its highest end. The
distinction between the primary and the ultimate object of vir-
tuous love is important. Virtue has respect to all good, to all
beings as capable of good, but it has, in its very nature, chief
respect to the highest good or to holiness. Virtue regards each
one according to his relative dignity and value: it loves most, it
must love most, the most excellent of beings; this is also of its
nature. Virtue seeks the good of each, all the good, chiefly the
holiness, of each, and delights most in holiness. The chief, high-
est form of virtue is conceded to be the love of holiness, the love
of beings for their moral worth, and in proportion to this. Vir-
tue is not the love of moral excellence alone; some forms of
virtue are not contained in this. 2 It is not the love of abstract
being, but of being as it exists. Virtue is not the love of the
Good exclusively (as distinguished from the True and the Beau-
This does not appear to have been sufficiently insisted upon by President
Edwards.
2 [The remainder of this paragraph consists of hints which the author appears
to have noted down for his future consideration.]
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 225
tiful). All leing, as it is known to, and appeals to, us, may be
comprised in the objects of the love which is virtue. Virtue, as
the highest subjective moral state, may be said to be the love
of the True, the Beautiful, and the Good, according to the re-
spective and relative value of each and all, being highest in
love to God, as the supreme Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. Is it
not partial and arbitrary to restrict virtue to the sensibilities, to
the love of good as a sensitive state ? Is not love of the truth
equally essential to its nature ? It is, love of the True and the
Good ; also of the Beautiful, in its measure.
4. Arguments for the above Definition.
1. It is comprehensive. It is the union of the highest sub-
jective state with all, and with the highest, objective weal.
2. It includes morality and religion both, and puts morality
in its proper place as subordinate to religion.
3. Unless virtue be thus defined as having ultimate respect
to holiness, the definition is not complete. Any other view of
virtue would fb.il to bring us into relation to the real end of God's
kingdom, which is, as regards the creature, his holiness in union
with himself. Therefore we must include the statement of this.
4. Unless so defined, the definition does not include the very
highest form of virtue, which is conceded to be the love of holi-
ness. This would not then be shown to belong to the essence
of virtue, but would be merely one of its manifestations or pro-
ductions. Can any love to a moral being be holy, which has
not ultimate respect to his holiness, i. e., to his highest and best
state as, love to a child? If true virtue have respect to the
good of moral beings, it must have chief respect to their highest
good : from this there is no escape. And that which true virtue
or holy love chiefly seeks must be a product of the very essence
of virtue, though it be not the whole thereof. The love may
show itself in doing good in a thousand ways, but the highest
love must be shown with reference to holiness. No definition
of the intellectual operations would be sufficient, which did not
226 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
cover their highest exercise, the intuitive discernment of truth
We cannot show that virtue must have supreme regard to holi
ness, unless in our definition we make it such that it will. If
virtue, both primarly and ultimately, is regard to happiness, then
there is no reason in its very nature why it delights in holiness.
5. As defined, Virtue includes all the forms of virtue, all the
different virtues in their place, and it shows why the virtues of
the impenitent are not truly such, (a.) It includes the animate
tribes, according to their place: although that form of virtue
which has respect to the holiness of the object of love is not
applicable here, yet that same temper of love which most delights
in holiness will have kind regard to their well-being. (To alter
all our definition for their sake alone would hardly be wise: some-
thing must be understood in every definition.) (6.) It includes
love to the impenitent, seeking their good, yet ours is not vir-
tuous affection unless it regards their highest good, (c.) It
includes gratitude, for all good, while it demands the highest
gratitude, for the highest good, to our highest Benefactor.
(d.) It includes self-love, in its proper place, loving ourselves
according to our place in the system, yet so that we have chief
respect to our holiness : there is no true self-love without that. 1
(e.) It includes justice: treating all as conformed or not con-
formed to the great end of the system; and truthfulness: acting
and speaking according to the real relations of things in the
spirit of love. (Eph. iv. 25, u Speak ye truth each one with his
neighbor: for we are members one of another.") (/.) It includes
the love of rectitude, of all that is right, especially of the highest
forms of what is right: the love of complacency in all moral ex-
cellence. ((/.) It includes justice in the form of punishment, as
upholding holy ends. It is difficult to get warrant for punish-
ment from theories which make virtue to be the love of happi-
ness; it may be said, Punishment is the infliction of misery on
those who are opposing the highest happiness: but how is that
right, if virtue has regard only to happiness? (h.) It includes
faith, which is "nothing without love," and true repentance,
which springs from holy love, and is a mode of its manifesta
1 Aristotle says: The wicked ought not to love themselves, but the good may
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 227
tion. Thus all the other virtues are included in it. (i.) The
definition also shows why the virtues of the impenitent are not
truly such. It is because they have not the main element of
true love, a supreme regard to God and his glory, and the great
end of the system.
The form of statement given above for the abstract nature
of virtue, is intended to meet the difficulties suggested by the
contrasted terms: holiness and benevolence, or rectitude and
benevolence (love of happiness.) The tension of the ethical
problem is in these two contrasted terms. The real problem is
to find a statement of the nature of virtue which shall give its
just place to these. This we have attempted.
In all true virtue there must be both holiness and benevolence.
But if virtue be made the love of holiness, it is exposed to the
objection already recited, that virtue is the cause and effect of
itself. Again, if, to avoid this difficulty, we say, virtue is (both
primarily and ultimately) the love of beings as capable of hap-
piness, we are exposed to the difficulties attending the happi-
ness theories; we have no real ethical end as the object of
virtue. The former seems to banish good-will as a real form
of virtue, and the latter to resolve all virtue into good-will.
There is a real difficulty here, as already expounded, and
whether it is successfully met in our statement, is the question.
In point of fact, when men put all holiness in the love of the
highest happiness, do they not really suppose, that in the high-
est happiness, in that which makes the highest happiness of God
and the universe, there is a distinctive moral element or end ?
5. Some Objections to the Theory.
1. The definition is too abstract. We cannot have such love
to all good, or to " being." It has been already granted that
this is true, if the definition is understood to imply that we are
to have this public affection as a specific, distinct exercise. But
in fact we are simply inquiring for the common quality of all
our virtuous acts, of our specific exercises.
2. The definition supposes virtue before virtue. This objec-
tion lies only against the position that virtue has exclusive re-
228 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
gard to moral excellence; that this is its primary ground as well
as ultimate end; that virtue not only essentially consists in, but
is wholly made up of, love to moral excellence in the concrete:
or, in other words, that the whole of virtue is in complacency,
or a delight in beings for their holiness. Our statement seeks
to avoid this by saying that virtue is love to all good, yet chiefly
and ultimately to all in its relations to the highest good, to holiness.
In other words, virtue has primary reference to beings as capable
of good, ultimate, to their highest good. The ultimate object
of virtue, that which it ultimately seeks, must be a state of
things in which holiness abounds, in which holy love rules all.
But virtue includes also the love of other things, of inferior
ends and beings, and of all inferior ends and beings in their
proper degree and in their due subordinations and relations
to the highest end or good. Love chiefly respects: (1) per-
sons; (2) the value of persons; (3) their capacities for good;
(4) their highest good or virtue; or: personal being which has
variety and gradation which in all its gradations has capacities
for different kinds of good and which has in all capacity for
the highest good or holiness. As the sentiment of the beauti-
ful has ultimate respect to beauty objectively, so love seeks
ultimately to beget love. In short, our definition makes virtue
to be, subjective love to an objective system, which includes in
itself both happiness and holiness, yet holiness as ultimate.
Virtue, abstractly considered, is a generic affection embracing
both these.
3. Such a view of virtue, as the definition gives, destroys the
private affections. This has been already considered. The fact
is, that the definition simply puts the private affections in their
place. The natural relation is a part of the capacity or worth
of the object.
4. Every definition of virtue is utilitarian, which does not
make it to be, strictly and exclusively, the love of rectitude.
This also has been considered. The definition of virtue as
consisting exclusively in love to moral excellence, if strictly
carried out, would leave no room for love to sinners.
5. Resolving virtue, as this definition does, into the love
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION 229
of all good, makes virtue as compared with vice to be simply a
matter of degrees: love to the minor forms of being is sin, and
to the highest forms, is virtue. The reply is in the repetition
of the theory. Virtue consists in the love of the whole, and
the love of each is virtuous, only as it is based upon and ex-
presses this love of the whole. Sin is found in the less
love where a greater good ought to have been loved. Sin is
the love of the less, and virtue is the love of the whole; and thus
the distinction between virtue and vice is not resolved into a
matter of degrees. In the love of the whole, there is an element
which is not in the particular love.
6. Statement of the general Principle of all Virtue in the
concrete,
1. The real moral system, 1 that in which we live and act,
is a system which has God, a personal being, for its author and
end. To live for and to promote the great ends of that system
is our real virtue.
2. Even in this world, our chief if not exclusive relations are
with personal beings, in their relations to the great ends of the
system, and in respect thereto. Our affections primarily, and
of course ultimately, have respect to personal beings. The love
of animals, flowers, etc., is transient and subordinate.
3 The highest relation, which we sustain as personal beings
in this system, is our relation to a personal God, whether we
regard his inherent dignity, or his relation to the whole system
and its ends. God's glory is the objective end of the system.
That glory is chiefly shown in promoting holiness holiness in
the creature and in making this supreme.
4. If all virtue, then, consist in love, its fundamental, its
highest, its most comprehensive form must be in love to God.
This is the reality of virtue, virtue as it exists in the concrete.
5. But love to God is not only the chief form of virtue: it
may also be said to include in itself all forms of virtue, to be
the common, real principle thereof.
All agree that love to God and love to man include all the
1 Compare Mtiller on Sin, vol. i., The Real Principle of Holiness.
230 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
virtues. The question here is of the reduction of both these to
the common principle of love to God. It is favored by the
following considerations: (a.) "God is in effect being in gen-
eral" (Edwards); all that is, is from Him and for Him: He
is the author and end of the whole system, (b.) "The real
primary ground of virtuous love to man," as Miiller savs, ia
perhaps to be found in the fact that he is made in the divine
image. " And this commandment have we from Him, that he
who loveth God love his brother also." 1 "Therewith bless we
the Lord and Father; and therewith curse we men, which are
made after the likeness of God." 2 (c.) Holy love to man must
have ultimate respect to him in his relations to God, and to his
place in the system which God has established, (d.) May not
all our private affections be brought under this? God has
established in his system these relations : of family, of brother-
hood, of society, of the state, in which all our lesser affections
move. Are any of these virtuous except as they respect the
whole end of the system ? Is not that end the union of God
and men in holy love V Moreover, it is God who has made us
capable of loving in these connections, and therefore all love
is to be traced to Him. (e.) In short, from supreme love to
God it will result, necessarily and naturally, that we love the
whole system He has ordained, that we shall love all in the
system ultimately in its relation to Him, and to the ends which
He proposes to produce by means of the system. Love to God
is not properly the co-ordinate of love to man, but is the cause
of love to man. Loving God, we shall love the system which
He has established. Our own holiness is manifested, through
doing this: in seeking and doing all things for the sake of God
and his kingdom. This is the reality of the moral sphere.
This gives us the proper end or object, as well as the highest
motive: the end, that of God God himself and the end which
He proposes in his system; the motive, love to Him. This at
any rate is the reality in conscious Christian experience, and
not love to any abstract ends. And this best agrees with the
position, that all real love moves in the personal sphere, ali
i 1 John iv. 21. 2 j ames m. 9.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 231
moral affection moves there. The highest form of it is in love
to the highest Person and to his ends and objects.
6. This, which is the highest and most real and philosophical,
is also the simplest, form of statement for the reality of virtue.
Is there any true virtue which has not its root and ground in
love to God ? If there be, a pantheist may have real virtue.
7. This best agrees with the Scriptural views of the moral
law and of holiness. Our Saviour teaches: "This is the great
and first commandment." Holiness in the Bible, is obedience
to the divine law, from love to the Lawgiver. The law is from
Him; we are to obey from love to Him; He commands this love
first of all. Transgression is against God, not against an ab-
stract system. " Against thee, thee only." Retribution is from
God's hand. 1
8. The real statement, then, of the fundamental principle of all
true virtue would be, that it consists in love to God, and to all
other beings in their relations to, and as parts of, the divine
system of things.
9. The connection between 3 and 6 the deduction or
mode of deducing this principle, as the real one may be stated
in this way: The essence of virtue is in "love to being," i. e.,
is in love to all beings, according to their relative place in the
whole system of things, and with ultimate respect to their high-
est ends. But this system in its reality, is from and for God;
and its highest ends are, the divine glory in the holiness of the
creatures. Hence, true virtue, as real in the system, must be
love to God. Or again: Virtue is love to all good, with an ulti-
mate respect to the highest good. But this n ly i n per-
sons, only in a system of personal agents. Virtue then is love
to this system. But this system is from and for God. Hence,
virtue is love to God, essentially. Or, again: Virtue must con-
sist in having the soul accordant with Rectitude. This Rectitude
is embodied in the law: love to God and man. This law is di-
vinely given, completely in revelation: it is the disclosure of
God's Nature, the expression of God's Will. Hence, obedience
to the divine law, from love to the Lawgiver, is true virtue.
1 See Tayler Lewis, Bibl. Ethics, in Bibl. Kepos., July, 1848.
232 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
CHAPTER VIII.
OF MAN'S PERSONAL RELATIONS TO THE LAW OF GOD.
The subject of consideration now is, MAN AS A MORAL AGENT in
a more specific sense. It is, THE SEAT OF MORAL CHARACTER IN MAN:
THE WILL AND AFFECTIONS in relation to Moral Character.
We have considered, What Man is in the constituents of his
being; what is the Law for which he was made; what it enjoins
and has respect to, viz., True Holiness, which we have attempted
to describe and define: we come now to consider more particu-
larly, The Relations of Man to this Law.
We come here upon the more difficult subjects of Anthropology,
where there has been the greatest diversity of opinion and stress
of conflict; and also, as a result of the conflict and to increase
the difficulty, the greatest diversity in the usage of terms. We
have no doubt that there has been, in point of fact, a greater
unity of -real belief, among the orthodox, than would appear from
their conflicts. In respect to the facts of the case, there has been
more harmony than in the use of 'terms by which the facts are
expressed, or in the definitions by which the respective ideas are
set forth. The differences are, in many instances, rather philo-
sophical than in matters of real, substantial faith. Although
the tendencies of one set of opinions may be to fundamentally
false views, yet those who have advocated the opinions may not
have been aware of these tendencies.
Remarks as to the Terms used and'tJieir Definitions.
1. The terms used in respect to moral government, moral
quality, human action, the law of God, the administration of
justice under that law, have in common parlance, in theology
and in philosophy, a two-fold sense: an abstract and a concrete,
a general and a specific, an objective and subjective, (some
say, a proper and an improper) sense. We prefer the phraseology,
general or specific. The general (equivalent to the abstract) sense
is applied in all our judgments about laws, institutions, govern
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 233
ments, etc., according as these are conformed or not conformed
to moral ends or objects, and according as they tend to produce
or not to produce a state of things which is truly moral. The
standard of judgment here is their conformity or non-conformity
to a moral standard viewed in relation to its ends or objects.
It is not like a mathematical judgment: it is essentially a judg-
ment as to conformity to a moral idea and a moral end. It
differs from an assthetic judgment, which has respect simply
to beauty. On the other hand, the specific application is simply
to moral beings, considered as the subjects of the divine govern-
ment, as under the divine law, considered as conformed or not
conformed to that law, as their state corresponds or does not
correspond with the law, as their state has or has not a tendency
to bring about, or a harmony with, the ends of that law.
2. Again: all the terms used in respect to these concrete
cases, to this subjective conformity or non-conformity to the
law, have at least a three-fold sense and application, in common
life, in philosophy, and in theology, which causes the perplex-
ity and difficulty about them, to wit: (a.) These moral terms are
applied to a disposition, tendency, or bias, which precedes and
is the ground of the personal activity, preference, or choice.
Some call this a state of the will, and some a state -of the affec-
tions, (b.) They are sometimes applied to a spontaneous outgo-
ing of the soul in respect to moral objects or ends. This again
is called by some an act of the will ; by others, an act or action
of the affections. 1 (c.) They are applied to a deliberate choice,
where the soul elects between two objects, knowing the two,
pdging between the two, and deciding "with full power to the
contrary choice." This, in the great question of choice between
God and an inferior good, is called by some, prime preference,
generic choice, governing purpose. (Moral terms are also ap-
plied to specific choices, and to external acts even ; but, when
so applied, it is only, with any tolerable thinker, as the external
act and specific choice are supposed to contain and express an
antecedent, already existing, general preference or affection of
the soul.) Those who hold to the legitimate use of moral terms
1 Edwards considers this to be of the will.
234 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
in the first sens ., of course hold to their proper use in the other
two senses. A man may hold to their use in the second sense,
and deny their proper use in the first, at the same time holding
to their proper use in the third; while others may say that their
only proper use is in the third sense. E. g., Take the word Sin.
Some say that it can be applied to a state which antedates all
conscious acts; that there may be a state, properly sinful, of
human nature, before even the spontaneous movement of the
eoul : a sinful state by nature ; and they say that the word sin
can be properly applied to that state before any action; and
that we can apply moral judgments to that state, and can say
that it exposes the being having it to the divine, displeasur
and renders liable to eternal condemnation. Others say, No;
we cannot use the word in reference to any previous state, but
it can be applied to the first activity of the soul, although this
may be purely spontaneous, although it be an affection or feel-
ing, although there be no deliberate choice, and this first act
is a moral act, and is a sinful act. (The old doctrine of Hop-
kinsianism and of Emmons.) Then, another class say that the
word sin is improperly used in reference to a native condition or
spontaneous preference. It can be used only where there is de-
liberate choice, only where the person has before him the two
ways, and has full and equal power to decide for the one or the
other, and only to such acts can any moral judgment be applied
by God or man ; and if we apply a moral term to any other cases,
we do it by metaphor and not strictly. The word Holiness has
similar variations of meaning. Some say holiness may have
been concreated in Adam; others say, No; there can only be
holiness in activity, either spontaneous or voluntary (this is the
old Hopkinsian view); others again say, No; we can only speak
of holiness where there has been choice on the part of an indi-
vidual. Of course those who hold this position cannot consist-
ently hold that holiness is the gift of the Holy Spirit. The same
three-fold usage, in respect to moral ends, obtains with the terms,
" disposition," "desire," "affection," "feelings," propensity, prin-
ciple, consent of heart; but the discussions have turned most
upon the question as to how man's state before the law of God
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 235
is to be viewed. The law commands love to God ; supreme non-
conformity in a moral being is such a state as implies preference
for something else, some inferior good, and of course the absence
of love to God. Now this state is one of non-conformity to the
demands of the law, and taken as a state of destitution of love
to God and preference of something else it is viewed: (1) as
connatural, (2) as spontaneous preference, (3) as deliberate choice,
or as the result of such choice.
3. The definitions of the terms relating to moral states differ
according to the ultimate points of view taken in making the
definition. There are three such current points of view, vary-
ing according to what is assumed as the terminus ad quern.
(a.) Some say that the point to be had in view, or the last
standard to which all definitions are to be referred, is Personal
Choice, an act of the Will. Nothing is moral, moral predicates
can strictly be applied to nothing which is not an act of choice,
viz., of choice to conform or not to conform to the requisitions of
the law. All that is moral, religious, holy, is essentially an act
of the will, nothing else can be such. The ultimate respect here
is to the causality of the state or act : it is caused by choice ; its
being so makes it moral. Whatever in disposition, tendency,
or state does not come strictly under personal choice, belongs
simply to the physical sphere. In this view the two ideas, moral
and choice, are inseparable ; it is choice of a moral end and
that alone which confers moral quality. That in this sphere
the moral is found, nobody denies : the question is, is this its
exclusive sphere? 1
(b.) Another point of view is, not the choice as the cause of
the state, but the desert, of the choice' the desert of an act under
the law; its worthiness of punishment under the law. For ex-
ample, sin is defined as that which is worthy of everlasting
1 Assuming the point that all that is moral is in personal choice, and framing
all our definitions accordingly, clean work can be made. There will be strictly
no original sin, only a physical state; atonement will be not under the law, strictly;
justification will be pardon simply, with a figurative representation attached;
God's moral government will be simply over individual, personal agents, will
have no other direct sphere; all else will be sovereignty merely: according to laws
and for ends not distinctively moral.
236 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
punishment, and if you find anything of moral abnormity which
is not worthy of everlasting punishment, it is not sin. This
conclusion of course comes because you have limited yourself
in the definition.
(c.) The ultimate point of view or standard is taken, not in
the sphere of personal choice, or in the desert simply, but from
the internal nature of the state of a moral being, considered as
conformed or not conformed to the ends of the law. This is
Edwards's maxim or canon : " The virtue or vice of a disposition
of the mind lies not in its cause but in its nature." Holiness is
holiness, not because I produce it by an act of the will, nor
because God produces it, but because of its inherent excellency,
and its tending to produce the highest good of the universe.
Sin is sin, not because it exists through my volition, but from its
own nature, and because it runs counter to, and if left to itself
would annihilate, God's moral government. Therefore we should
define sin and holiness, not by what produces them nor by what
they produce, but by their own nature.
CHAPTER IX.
OF THE SEAT OF MORAL CHARACTER. THE WILL.
General Proposition. What is moral in man, as a subject of
the divine government, is not found in his external actions, pri-
marily or strictly; nor in his instinctive desires and affections,
considered in and by themselves in respect to their appropriate
objects. Nor is it found in his intellectual activities exercised
on their appropriate objects. Nor, again, is it found ultimately
in the executive acts of the will considered as the choice of means
to an ultimate end; nor in any single native disposition, which
does not imply a respect to a single ultimate end.
All of these acts and dispositions may be exercised in a moral
way; they may become moral; perhaps they are never exercised
when there is not a moral aim included in them, determining
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 237
them: but they are not by themselves moral; the seat of the
moral quality is not in them. What is moral in man is only to
be found in the affections or the will, or both, considered as con-
formed or not, to some one ultimate end, to the highest good. 1
(K g., I give: there is the external act, not moral; the percep-
tion oi the object, an intellectual act, not moral; from natural
sympathy, as impulse, not moral; from choice to give, the act
being determined upon from this impulse, not the ultimate
seat of what is moral in the proceeding; from love to man, if
it stops there, no true virtue ; from a lore to man which is ex-
pressive of a general love to all good and ultimately to the best
good, this is " true virtue.")
In moral states and actions giving rise to moral character, the
soul, the man, or the person, is considered as having relation to
moral ends, to the uU^mate moral end. All the soul is brought
under view; what is moral resides in that which is and must be
a centred, definite tendency or act; all of the power of the soul
must be in it, converging upon it. What is moral in man is, in
short, the condition of a moral being, in relation to the great end
of his being, as conformed or not conformed thereto; and that
condition must be in the affections or the will, one or both.
1. Of the Idea of the WiU.
The position of the Will, psychologically, in man is this:
There is (a.) human nature, (6.) with its state, its general
condition, its generic biases and tendencies: or, (1) the en-
dowments of reason, feeling, conscience, and affections, (2) in a
certain connatural condition, i. e., having a constituted relation
to certain ends (the "tendencies" of man), (3) centering in a
distinct individuality or person an ego. This person, now, with
these general constituents, which he has in common with the race,
considered as having capacity of choice, or as putting forth power
especially in the form of choice or choosing, is what we mean by
Witt, in its most general sense. (" The conative powers," Ham-
1 Query. Is the seat of moral quality in the affections ?
Is the seat of personal responsibility in the will ?
In Immanent preference there is union of will and affections.
238 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
ilton.) The man choosing, the person choosing is Will. The
will is not anything distinct from the person; 1 it the person
himself, considered as acting or as having the power of acting
in a certain way, the way of choosing. The distinctive and only
function of the will is choice. Where there is choice there is
will, and where there is not there is no will. Choice is a simple
ultimate fact, like feeling. We cannot resolve it into anything
simpler: if we could, the will would not be a distinct faculty. It
implies always some object or end, and of course the object or
end chosen is always distinct from objects or ends not chosen.
There is always in that sense an alternative. It does not seem
to be necessary that there should be conscious knowledge of any
other object. The choice may be distinct and perfect with only
one object in view. We need not have two objects in view in
order to choose God, but might choose Him directly from a per-
ception of his glorious character. But the choice of God implies
that we do not choose an inferior object, and, as far as the power
of choice goes, it implies that there was something else which
might have been chosen, or, at least, it implies the capacity for
choosing something else.
2. Of the Power of the Will
Man, acting as will, choosing, is an efficient cause; among
second causes in this world, the chief: a dependent, but real,
cause. There is a proper causal efficiency in every act of choice.*
Power is an attribute of cause : it is the distinctive attribute of
an efficient cause : it is that in the cause which gives it its effi-
ciency in respect to any particular end or object. A man wills
to move his foot, and there is an efficiency in the choice. The
power of the will is not distinct from the power of the man : but
1 It is a great misconception, that the will only acts after the other powers: it
acts in and through them, putting forth energy. The mistake here arises from
the arrangement of topics in popular text-boots. See Archb. Manning, Contemp.
Rev., Jan. 1871, on the Relation of Will to Thought, in fixing the mind, atten-
tion, etc. He conducts the argument against materialists.
2 Pres. Day, in discussing this point, which is urged by some Arminians
against Edwards, says, that nobody denies that a man is the author of his own
acts. Edwards, the same. There is an article in the Princeton Review, Jan. 1857,
showing that the highest Calvinistic view is not inconsistent with this position.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 239
through the will the power of the man is exerted, so far as
power is involved in choice. Power is seen in all conscious
energy attention, fixed feeling, as well as in choice.
3. Of Self-determination.
This is one of the points in debate between Calvinists and
Arminians. Edwards discusses it fully, and with particular refer-
ence to the Arminian definitions of his day.
I. The self-determining power of the will. By this is meant,
a power in the will to determine itself by its own act alone.
This is a fiction, an absurdity, involving the contradiction that
it at the same time is and is not. Edwards argues against it,
showing that if it could be at all, it must be in one of two ways,
both of which involve absurdities: (1) By choosing to choose,
which implies always a choice before a choice, arid requires the
assumption of an infinite series of choices. All that the will does
is, to choose. The will does not " determine itself by its own
acts": it simply determines; or (2) The will is determined by
nothing at all, and here we have an equal absurdity: pure
"liberty of contingence," without motives. 1
II. There is another sense in which the phrase, Self-deter-
mining Power or Self-determination is used (with which the
first is often confounded), in which it expresses a real fact, viz.,
that the self or person, through and by his choice, is determined,
is in a state of determination, to some ultimate end. This is ex-
pressive of a fact about the mind which is always true and real.
So far as consciousness extends, we know ourselves to be in such
a state, in such a moral condition of self-determination (not
speaking now of how it came to be, or of how it may come to be,
but simply of the fact). There are two forms of such ultimate
self-determination of a moral being, viz., for evil or for good,
*[See Prof. Smith's Review of Whedon on the Will, i n the volume, Faith and
Philosophy, p. 369. " We do not contest that motives are the occasional and final,
and not the efficient causes of volition."
Also, p. 368. " Freedom (as denned by some modern Arminians) consists in
.... the 'unrestricted power' of 'putting forth a different volition.' And this
power is not merely the 'natural ability' conceded by the school of Edwards, but
.... a creative energy. Arminianism, ..- . . . is coming to represent the will's
action as that of pure causality in the form of a creative act. ']
240 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
tor God or against God, for the ends of the law or against those
ends. These are our highest moral states.
4. Modes of the Will's Action.
Not to mention others, there are two chief modes: (1) Its
agency in the form of single volitions or executive acts; (2) In
the form of ultimate preference, or immanent preference, which
is internal.
I. Of the will as the power of single volitions. In all such
cases, the character of the act is this: the will as cause, by its
act, which is a single volition, produces an efiect outside of, and
distinct from, itself. These are executive acts of the will, in
relation to something to be done or not done, in relation to one
external object or end rather than another; and such executive
acts are the common sphere of freedom of all civil and religious
liberty; the term freedom is usually employed with reference to
such acts. The liberty of the will here consists in the power of
doing as one pleases, the power of carrying out unhindered what
one purposes, in freedom from coaction and from necessity.
Deliberate and imperative acts terminate in some action, which
we believe to be in our power. This is not the best part of free-
dom, or true spiritual freedom, but it is the full sense of free-
dom in regard to the executive acts of the will. 1 It appears to
be a defect in Edwards's treatise that he makes this the whole
of freedom. Aristotle (Eth. iii. 2, translated here by Archb.
Manning) says: "Deliberate preference appears to be voluntary,
but not to be the same as the voluntary, for voluntary is more
extensive; because both children and other beings share the vol-
ur.iary, but not deliberate choice."
II. The will's action as Immanent Preference. Muller: "As
I am, so I will, and as I will, so I am." This is the immanent
preference, the wholly internal mode of the will's action : in which
direct respect is not had to objects, to doing or not doing, but
to some ultimate moral end or object, which is preferred. Im-
1 See Dr. Kichards's Lectures on the Will, for the distinction between execu-
tive and immanent, upon the whole the best statement. Dr. Woods, in his Lec-
tures, uses will almost wholly in the sense of executive volition, and puts into
the sphere of the affections the immanent preference.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 241
iiianent preference is the choice of some ultimate supreme moral
end. In it the choice and the motive blend. We cannot say
here that the motive is the cause and the choice is the effect,
nor that the choice is the cause and the state of preference is
the effect, the one to the exclusion of the other. They are con-
current and inseparable: the motive becomes the choice. E. g.,
God is before the soul, and the soul chooses God. The motive
is what is in God: the soul by its immanent preference chooses
God, and that motive becomes its controlling principle in and by
the choice. This is the sphere of love, of moral love, the love
of some moral end. This action of the will, in distinction from
executive acts, has not reference to anything external. It does
not produce an effect distinct from itself. The choice becomes
the state of the will. Such a preference is free in its very na
ture, free because it is a choice, free as every one who has it
knows. This is the sphere of the spontaneity of the will in its
moral acts. The choice here becomes a permanent state of the
will. In an executive act, the choice passes away with the end
gained. In immanent preference, the choice stays, and is the
character: it is the highest freedom, internal freedom. The
will, as bare power of choice, cannot beget such a state. 1
Some further differences between the immanent preference
and executive acts are: In the immanent preference are virtue
and vice : it is their seat ; in the executive acts, virtue and vice
are found only derivatively; the immanent preference is spon-
taneous, the executive acts are deliberate; the immanent pref-
erence includes the affections, the executive acts express the
affections, are prompted by them.
There is both freedom to choose and freedom in choice.
The former is the liberum arbitrium. The latter is the real free-
dom, voluntas. " We must not merely will to be good, we must
have a good will" (Muller). The analysis is ultimate: Imma-
nent preference is love: in the love both the motive and the
choice are included. Immanent preference is a state of the
will : the will can be and is in a state of permanent choice.
1 See later, under the head of Motives,
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
5. Of the Liberty or Freedom of the Witt.
I. The General Notion of Freedom. Freedom is an attribute
of the will, essential to it. External freedom is the liberty to
do as one pleases; iuternal or true freedom is found in choice,
and in nothing else or less. This freedom is simple, ultimate,
and indefinable. It implies freedom to an act, freedom from
an act (need not do it), freedom in an act, exemption and
choice, both. Wherever there is choice there is freedom. Choice
cannot be forced, though the external compliance may be. Free-
dom in choice is the fact: this is much neglected by Arminians, in
their statements as to the will. This freedom is not found in
power to the contrary, though we do not say that freedom does
not involve this in some important sense, does not imply some
residuary power. Freedom is not found in anything we do not
do, in any power we do not exert, but simply in the power we
do exert in choosing. Those who define freedom as power to the
contrary fall into the singular anomaly of implying that freedom
is in a power that is never exerted; and of course nobody can
know anything about it. As soon as it is exerted, it ceases to
be; it is then the power which is exercised.
II. This freedom [in reference to what is external, objective,
outside, l ~\ implies always the possibility of election between dif-
ferent objects, deliberate choice. We do not mean to say that
this is all upon which the election depends, but as far as the
will goes the freedom is the possibility of a different election.
Of this we suppose men are distinctly conscious, and it is only
on this supposition that there is the possibility of a change in
our moral character, of the regeneration of the soul. Keal free-
dom is attained on the basis of this formal freedom.
III. This freedom does not imply what has been called the
liberty of indifference, in its technical sense : by which is meant
that the will, in order to be free, must be balanced entirely be-
tween the two opposite poles of choice, with an absence of any
previous inclination. It has been said that the will is like the
pivot in the scale-beam, perfectly even between the two scales.
But will is different from the pivot, because it is the will which
J [In some statements by the author the clana in brackets is omitted.]
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 243
moves. The will goes down the scale. Some 1 assert that there
is no such influence in existence as that of motives, and when
we ask " What then determines the will? " the reply is "Noth-
ing at all. It begins to be and it comes to pass, and that is all
we can say about it." Against such liberty of indifference Ed-
wards argues, showing that on such a supposition all free action
is taken at random and becomes hap-hazard, 2 and that an act
could have no possible moral value if we were indifferent.
IV. Nor does liberty involve the contingency of volitions.
An event is said to be contingent, (1) when it depends as an
effect upon its cause, so that if the cause be absent, the effect
will not exist, but in this sense nobody would deny the contin-
gency of a volition ; (2) in reference to our knowledge and igno-
rance, but this sense is not in the discussion ; (3) when there is
a real uncertainty in the nature of the case, and this is the sense
in which the contingency of volitions is affirmed by Arminians'
and denied by Calvinists. We have already considered this
under Divine Providence.
V. The distinction between formal and real freedom (Mul-
ler on Sin, ii. ch. 1). Formal freedom is that freedom which one
has as endued with the capacity of bare choice, with the possi-
bility of electing between two or more objects. This is given in
the abstract nature, in the very idea, of choice, or of the will, as
power of choice. It is inalienable from the will; it cannot be
destroyed without destroying will. Power of choice implies that
so far as the wiU goes* in the presence of two or more objects,
there is the possibility of selecting the one or the other. Real
freedom is found in the choice itself; in any given choice my free-
dom is actualized; in the choice, the thing chosen, I am free.
But in respect to this there is another fact to be noticed, viz.,
that not in all moral choices is there real conscious freedom. It
' AsBledsoe.
'["Choice for reasons lies between caprice and fatalism; it is in contrast with
chance, rather than cognate with necessity." Faith and Philosophy, 378. J
3 Some endeavor to make a fourth meaning for "contingent," viz., that which
may take place without a cause. When the West. Conf. says, "the contingency
of second causes is not thereby taken away," etc., contingency is used in the sec
ond sense in the above enumeration, as is shown by the proof-text cited.
* It may not be able to SLO *-> far as to procure or attain the objects.
244 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
is a part of inward experience that we feel ourselves really fret
("free indeed," John viii. 36), only in loving and serving God,
only in love. So, gifted men are "free" in the productions of
genius, in acting out the inmost self; still higher is the free-
dom of true love. The choice of sin is a bondage. This is un-
doubtedly the Scriptural position. If there is no higher freedom
than formal, all our religious states, our highest moral states,
are excluded from its sphere, and all character.
Yet, formal freedom always remains. It is not exhausted
in, or restricted to, any one preference, any immanent prefer-
ence, though the immanent preference may be so strong that
we never think of the formal freedom.
VI. Of the limits of human freedom. Man's freedom is not
absolute: the freedom of none but God can be. As man is de-
pendent, his freedom must be consistent with dependence, it must
be the freedom of a dependent being. As man is under laws,
his freedom must be limited by, and consistent with, that fact.
It must be consistent with the divine government and purposes,
with the certainty of election, regeneration, perseverance, through
the influence of the Holy Spirit, with the Divine Sovereignty in
all its modes. We are free from all physical necessity in the
mode of the mind's action ; but we are not free from the regular
laws of the mind's action : we are free in these. We are not free
from moral causes and effects, though we may be free in them.
Another statement of the limits of the power of the will.
It is not infinite nor absolute. It is not disconnected from
the other powers of the mind, nor from God, nor from nature.
The will acts in, with, and by all these. More particularly
1. It cannot act without a motive.
2. It cannot choose two contrary or incompatible things at
once.
3. In one sense of "power" possibility, it may choose either;
in another sense energy, it may be that it may not.
4. It must always act within the laws of the world, of the
body, etc.
5. It cannot directly control or change the emotions.
6. Its freedom must be consistent with the prevalence of law.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 245
and with the certainty of moral acts, and also with the sover-
eignty and prescience of God.
7. Its freedom must be consistent with the fact of its always
choosing that which in the view of the mind is most desirable
6. Of the Will and Motives.
The position that the will acts according to motives is no
other than the position that man acts according to laws; if man
does, the will does: for the will is the instrument of all human
activity. On this general basis is maintained the proposition
That the will in its choice, or better the man in his choice ia
effectually influenced by motives.
I. The sources of proof of this proposition.
1. If it were not triio, there could be no possibility of human
government. Human laws, with their rewards and penalties,
imply it. It is implied in the whole action and working of hu-
man society.
2. We judge others upon this basis. We ask, why did a
man do so and so? We always state some ground, reason, or
motive for the action, and when we want men to take a certain
course, we ply them with motives, and knowing what motives
influence men, we can sometimes predict what they will do.
3. The appeals of the gospel presuppose that the mind is
effectually influenced by motives.
4. It is evident from the doctrines of the divine providence
and foreknowledge. These imply a plan and regular order of
God which is carried on by human agents, which could not be
unless they acted according to some general order in the divine
plan. Foreknowledge is inconceivable without certainty in the
mode of human action.
5. We not only believe this of others, but believe it of our-
selves. When we want to give a reason for any action, we go
back to the motive, the inducement; and we are conscious that
we have thus ever been influenced by motives. We have the
direct witness of consciousness.
6. We cannot conceive it to be otherwise. We cannot con-
ceive of an action without a motive. Such an action is a mere
246 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
abstraction. It is an action without an object, bare action, bare
purpose, and nothing purposed; for if there is anything purposed,
that is the motive.
From these considerations we reach the general conclusion
that the will is influenced by motives. 1 The question still re
mains, how far?
II. What is a Motive ? Motives are divided generally into
two classes, internal and external : all the objects without, which
have relation to us, which we can know or desire as a good, and
all the responses within. Ultimately, however, all motives are
internal. They are motives only as they influence some internal
susceptibility. Edwards: "Motive is the whole of that which
causes, excites, incites the mind, to volition." Hamilton: "Mo-
tive abstractly considered, is no other than end or final cause,
that for which, or in view of which, the mind acts. But a
motive in its concrete reality is nothing apart from the mind
itself. It is a mental tendency." A motive thus in relation
to this discussion to bring it down to the point for which we
wish to use the word may be defined : The final state of the
man in the indivisible instant before choice, having relation to
that choice.
III. Are motives in this sense the efficient cause of volition?
Edwards in discussing this point says: "An appearing most
agreeable to the mind or pleasing to the mind and the mind's
preferring and choosing seem hardly to be distinct." In our
view, this is the least satisfactory passage in Edwards's treatise
on the Will. 2 In this view the motive would be the efficient and
not merely the occasional cause of volition. The real relation
of the two is, that the motive is the proper occasional, and the
1 "If to break loose from the conduct of reason be liberty, true liberty, mad-
men and fools are the only freemen; but yet, I think, nobody would choose to bo
mad for the sake of such liberty, but he that is mad already." Locke, Essay, ii.
21, 50. Hamilton: "The determination by motive cannot, to our understanding,
escape from necessitation." "How the will can possibly be free, must remain to
us, under the present limitation of our faculties, wholly inconceivable." "How
moral liberty is possible in man or God, we are utterly unable speculatively to
understand." Descartes also thought that a solution of this difficulty lies beyond
the reach of the human faculty.
2 Compare Pres. Day's exposition, pp. 25, 77.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 247
will is the efficient, cause. If the motive is made the efficient
cause, it seems impossible to save freedom.
IV. Do motives determine the will ? To say that motives de-
termine the will, is a different thing from saying that the motive
is the efficient cause of the mind's choices. Edwards puts the
question in this shape. By "determination of the will" he
means, "determining the will to be one way rather than another,"
" causing that the act of choice should be thus and not other-
wise," " determining to one act among various acts." Deter-
mination, as here used, is direction and not efficiency. Motive
is not that which causes the choice, but is that which determines
the direction of the choice. The general reason why the mind
determines, is that it is an agent: why the mind chooses, is that it
has the power of choice ; but the reason why the mind chooses
one way rather than another, this thing rather than that, is
different. We must distinguish here, the efficient, the final, and
the occasional cause. The agent, the mind choosing, is the effi-
cient ; the final cause is the end or object in view of the mind ;
and the occasional cause perhaps may be said to be, that object
as it influences the desires, etc., before the act of choice. The
algebraic expression here would be: Will -f Motive = Volition or
Choice.
V. In this sense of the determination of the will, is it a law
of the will's action, that it always acts according to the stronger
or strongest motive ? By law here is meant, general fact, fact
of induction, not an a priori necessity. The question here is
one of fact, and not of mere theory. What is the strongest mo-
tive ? It is not that which is intrinsically the strongest, be-
cause then virtue would always be the strongest motive; but
that was never meant in this discussion. 1 But the strongest
motive is that which appears most desirable to the mind at the
instant preceding actual choice. Not that which is the strong-
est objectively, in itself, but in itself in relation to us and our
state. Again: the assertion is not that the strongest motive
must carry the will, but simply, that it does. It is not an asser-
1 Yet this objection has been often made, e. g., by Dr. Bushnell in Nature and
The Supernatural.
248 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
kion as to what it is possible for the will to do, or whether the
will as an abstract possibility might make a different choice,
but as to what the will actually does.
Arguments for this position.
1. Consciousness. We cannot recall any actual choice which
we did not make according to the strongest immediate induce-
ment.
2. In the rational view of choice, in conceiving it as a rational
act, this law is necessary. Leibnitz: "To suppose a man acting
from the weaker and against the stronger motive, is to suppose
a man acting against himself."
3. If this be not so, then, so far as we can conceive, there
is no certainty of action, there is no conceivable mode of the
divine government. We do not say that God could not gov-
ern without this, but that we cannot see how He could
govern rational beings, unless through this general law. This
is the main argument of Edwards. God cannot foreknow
what is not certain. Arminianism says: We do not know
how God knows. True; but if an event in space and time
is wholly fortuitous, by the very mode of statement the divine
knowledge is excluded.
Objections to the position :
1. Such is the variety of motives that we cannot compare
them, so as to say, one is stronger than another. There are mo-
tives, e. g., drawn from the sphere of obligation; and others, from
the sphere of desire : and these we cannot compare, as there ia
no common term. We cannot say that the one is stronger, for it
is in a different sphere. The reply is in the consideration that
all motives assume the form, the general form, of desire: i. e.,
all motives affect the sensibilities and therefore they may be
compared. This objection 1 is merely an evasion of the state-
ment that, as matter of fact, the will is as the strongest motive.
2. The will is not under the law of cause and effect, is out of
space and time. The reply is that neither part of this objection
is true: the latter is most certainly not true. To our view, the
former is inconceivable. Every event or change of existence im-
1 It is much dwelt upon by Upham and others.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 249
plies a cause: that is an ultimate, rational truth The will is not
under the law of cause and effect, in the sense of physical cause
and effect: no one pretends this; but the law of cause and effect
must run through the will, because the law covers every change
of existence in time: it declares that every such change must have
a cause. This is not saying what the cause is, not that it is all in
the motives or all elsewhere. That all the cause of its action is
not outside of itself, is true.
3. The position is said to involve reasoning in a circle: the
motive is called the strongest, because it prevails: and it pre-
vails, because it is the strongest. The reply is, that the objec-
tion does not lie against the argument from consciousness, where
we put the force of the. proof. Consciousness tells us that the
motive prevails because it is the strongest. We find out, to be
sure, that it prevails by prevailing. But what we find out by
consciousness is, that it is the strongest.
4 It is said that the position is fatalism. We have already
considered this. In fatalism, all actions are (a.) under a blind
necessity, (6.) are determined by a natural necessity, and (c.) ul-
timately by external necessity. Here (a.) actions are determined
by a rational law: choice-from-motives; (b.) they occur under a
moral certainty; (c.) they have an internal cause. That is fatal-
ism in which the action is determined without choice, but here
in every case, it is by and through choice. Until it can be
shown that man in choosing from the strongest motives does
not choose, the objection from fatalism will not hold.
5. Instances are alleged against the position. E. g., Adam
and his fall; the Angels and their lapse. Here, it is said, the
strongest motive was not the inducement. It is to be said in
reply, that certainly it was not the strongest intrinsically, but
Adam must have been less wise than he is reputed, if he sinned
for what seemed to him less desirable than something else. It
makes, however, no difference whether we deal with this objec-
tion in one way or another: because first sins cannot be explained
on any theory.
This is true about the strongest motive: we cannot decide
beforehand which is the strongest motive always in view of the
250 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
mind. A slight circumstance may decide, as far as the mind goes,
and it is often in a state where it is nearly equally balanced,
and where the mind is not fixed on the strongest motive. 1 The
strongest motive is the indivisible state before the choice. There
is often not time to think of this: but we see that it was so on
looking back.
CHAPTER X.
OF LIBERTY AND NECESSITY.
The whole question here has reference to the application ot
the law of cause and effect to the Will. Ought it to be applied,
and if so, in what way ? 2
I. Of the terms used. Natural Necessity means the con-
nection between events as found in the ordinary course of na-
ture, the connection of cause and effect in physical events. Here
there is in the phenomena invariable antecedence and con-
sequence, and our minds compel us to conclude that there is
in connection with the antecedent a power adequate to produce
the consequent.
Moral Necessity is the real and certain connection between
moral acts and their causes. This phrase Edwards uses, through-
out his treatise, in the sense of certainty, and says that the
word necessity is applied to it improperly.
Metaphysical or Philosophical Necessity is used in the same
gense as Moral. Edwards (Inq., Pt. i. 3): "It is nothing dif-
ferent from certainty: I speak not now of the certainty of
1 Whether intrinsically strongest, or what proves strongest actually.
2 The chief passages in the Westminster Confession, bearing on this subject:
Chap III., in reference to the Divine foreordination, " nor is violence done to the
will of the creature"; Chap. IX., "God hath endued the will of man with that
natural liberty that it is neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature
determined, to good or evil." The confession does not directly decide the ques-
tion. It is not strictly a scheme of philosophical necessity. It can be interpreted
in consistency with philosophical necessity, and perhaps better in consistency
with that than with any other scheme. It is decidedly opposed to pure self
determination of the will.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION.
knowledge, but the certainty there is in things themselves
which is the foundation of the certainty of the knowledge of
them: or that wherein lies the ground of the infallibility of
the proposition which affirms them." l
The term necessity is rather an unfortunate one to use, but,
being used, we ought to know in what sense it is employed.
II. Statements of the Points in the Case. Schelling says,
" That freedom which men try to find in empirical actions is as
little real freedom, as that truth which they find in empirical
knowledge is real truth. There is no freedom which is not
consistent with necessity." Schleiermacher : "Freedom is per-
sonality itself. To ascribe sin to freedom means to reckon to
each one his own acts." Hegel says: The connection between
necessity and freedom is the most difficult subject in the whole
of speculation. He gives the following: (1) Essence and prop-
erties go together. In the properties we find the essence, and in
the essence the properties. (2) Substances act on each other.
There is a reciprocal action. Each substance is a cause in rela-
tion to the other and an eifect. Each is active and passive in
this reciprocal action. (3) So in respect to necessity and free-
dom. In the case of man the substance determines as well as
is determined. There is the activity of the free will and also
that which determines the activity the motive object or end
in view of which the mind acts. The necessity consists in the
fact that that something, in view of which the mind acts, is
something given, and not originated, and that these data are as
necessary as the power of choice itself. (4) The net result of
the whole is, that the causal relation does not exclude freedom,
when it is considered as reciprocal action. There may be a
causal relation and freedom also. What is given, or the influences
around us, constitute motives; then the mind, thus acted upon
reacts; thus solicited, chooses; but it cannot choose beyond the
metes and bounds of the influences brought to bear upon it, i. e.,
it cannot originate the substance of its choice, but only the fact
of its choice. It can give the formula of the choice, but it cannot
1 The younger Edwards puts it still more sharply, and leaves still less place
for a definite act of the will besides the motive.
252 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
fill up the formula. Hamilton : Both "are incomprehensible, as be-
yond the limits of legitimate thought. Though freedom cannot be
speculatively proved, so neither can it be speculatively disproved ;
while we may claim for it as a fact of real actuality, though of
inconceivable possibility, the testimony of consciousness, that we
are morally free as we are morally accountable for our actions."
III. Conclusion upon the Question. Volition is an effect.
As an effect, it is under the law of cause and effect. As an
effect, it must of course be produced by its appropriate cause
or causes. This cause or these causes are what immediately
precedes the volition. That which immediately precedes the
volition is, choosing in view of motives, and the volition is the
result. That is, the choosing and the motives constitute the
cause, 1 and the volition as the resultant, constitutes the effect.
The motives are the occasional and final cause, the agent the
man choosing is the efficient cause. In this statement the law
of cause and effect, as applied to the will, is allowed and the fre-
dom of the will is saved. Thus in the will there may be a union
of "necessity" (of moral necessity, of certainty) and freedom.
[What would be CHAPTEEX!., OFNATUBAL ABILITY AND MOEAL INABILITY, will
be considered under the head of CHRISTIAN HAMABTOLOGY.]
CHAPTER XI.
OF THE PRIMEVAL MORAL STATE OF MAN. 2
The main points in man's primitive state are given in the
answer to Question 10 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism :
"God created man, male and female, after his own image,
1 Edwards does not appear to make this distinction, but Pres. Day thinks
that he did not intend to question that man is the proper author of his own acts,
and that his statement here was merely analytical.
2 References: D wight; Miiller on Sin, ii. 482; Thomasius, i. 178; Hofmann,
Schriftbeweis, i. 241; Hutterus Eedivivus, 194; Martensen, 169; Ebrard, i. 250;
Bretschneider, i.; B. Tyler's Lectures, i., ii.; Ed. Wm. Grinfield, Scriptural
Inquiry into tho Image and Likeness of God in Man, Lond., 1837; Bishop Bull's
Discourse V.: State of Man before the Fall.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 253
in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, with dominion over
the creatures." Man was created after the other works, as the
crown of the creation ; all the rest centering in him, and he hav-
ing dominion. First Adam and then Eve, "male and female cre-
ated He them :" the beginning and center of unity and source of
the whole race was in this one pair. Society began, mairiage
was ordained. The law of God was written on man's heart (Rom.
ii. 15). He was placed in the garden with liberty to eat of the
fruit of the trees ; the creatures were put under his dominion.
1. The Scriptures teach that there was a primitive State of
Innocence.
1. They do this by describing sin as the consequence of
temptation. Therefore man was in a state of innocence before.
Gen. iii. is the proof. Also, Rom. v. 12, 15. The expression,
"tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Gen. ii. 17), implies
man's innocence at the beginning. He could be in this state
only by not knowing evil, and his temptation was to gain this
knowledge. All the description of the Paradisiacal state con
firms this view, implying a state of entire purity. Sensuality
was not known (Gen. ii. 25, cf. iii. 7).
2. The Scriptures also make more positive statements Gen.
i. 31, All was "very good," after man's creation; Eccles. vii. 29,
the expression " upright " is general.
This state is not that of children, still less that of primitive
savagery: it is a state of innocence, of moral purity, of simple
childlike communion with God. In order to their having com-
munion with God in a personal way, there must have been a
ripe condition of the powers. Gen. i. 28, 29; ii. 16; ii. 19, 20,
presuppose more than childhood. Dominion, knowledge of the
trees of the garden, power to name the beasts, confirm what is
implied in the great fact of communion with God as to the com-
parative ripeness of man's powers in the primitive state.
2. This original State is described in general Terms as the
Divine Image in Man.
Gen. i. 26; v. i.
The divine image in man designates both something that is
254 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
permanent in human nature and also a state of that natura
which was lost by the fall.
(a.) What is permanent is referred to in Gen. v. 1, 3, where
Adam's likeness to God and Seth's to Adam are brought together,
BO that we naturally conclude that the divine image remains;
Gen. ix. 6; 1 Cor. xi. 7; James iii. 9.
These passages imply that the image remains in man, but
tne question still might arise, whether they even then refer merely
to man's intellectual and moral powers in the abstract, or to
what these may become, what it is possible for man still to be,
his latent possibilities.
(b.) What was lost of the original image may be inferred from
Eph. iv. 24, where the idea of the " image of God " is expressed
by righteousness and holiness; Col. iii. 10, where the image is
represented as divine, spiritual knowledge, the term " renewed "
implying restoration to a former state. (It is noticeable also
that the former state, " after the image," is expressed in lang-
uage which might be a reminiscence of the Septuagint version
of Gen. i. 27.) These passages show that to the full moral im-
age of God righteousness and holiness belong.
How now shall we conceive of the divine image under the
two points,of view of completeness and defectiveness in man ?
That which is permanent is found in man's personality, his
being a spirit, his having intelligence and moral capacities, his
having a moral destination and likewise, to some extent, domin-
ion over the creatures. In distinction from this, the part lost
was the holy state of these faculties. They were originally not
merely potentialities, but were in a state of righteousness and
true holiness.
To enforce this distinction still further, there is also a meta-
physical proof. Man could not be made in the moral image of
God, unless he had been made a spirit like God. Man could not
be holy as God is holy, unless he had intelligence, feeling, and
will, as far as a creature can have them like God. His capacity
of being like God remains, although the actual moral likeness
was lost by the fall.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 255
3. Yet this primitive State was not one of confirmed Holiness
but mutable.
The primitive state is to be conceived as one of comparatively
unconscious goodness, rather than of goodness which has been
developed and come to full self-possession in conflict with temp-
tation. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was to be
the test, the means of bringing man to a full consciousness of
the difference between good and evil. It might be to him a
source of blessing, by confirming him in holiness. Full, con-
scious freedom in good might be the result. We may conceive
in Adam, of a spontaneous direction of his powers to God, in
love, and yet one not tried, not so high a state as that in which
they would be after temptation, if he had successfully resisted
it. Besides what we gather from the Scriptures on this subject,
("Blessed is the man that endure th temptation or trial," etc.,)
there is an argument of rational probability, from what we might
suppose God would do: if He created, He would create what in its
measure is perfect, the best. As far as we can conceive of this
primitive state in which Adam must have been, it was either:
(1) one of total indifference to good and evil, with no knowl-
edge or susceptibilities in respect to either, with capacities
only; or (2) one of positive inclination to sense, gradually to
come to reason; or (3) one of positive inclination to holiness or
good. The latter is the more rational, as well as the Scriptural,
position.
4. On the different Interpretations of the "Divine Image"
The Greek Fathers put the divine image 1 in man's general
endowments, in reason and freedom, which had an original per-
fection, were active in communion with God, with the Logos,
constituting the vision of God, a life in God.
The Western Church, especially as is seen in Augustine, con-
strue the primitive condition as one of righteousness, dwelling
upon the state of man's will. Man was not made with merely
the possibility of a good will (Pelagianism), but with the ac-
1 They often make a distinction between "image" (the capacities) and " like
ness " (the moral resemblance), which cannot be exegetically carried out.
256 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
tuality. But though created with a good will, yet not complete,
as even Augustine allows, not in the highest state. He says the
image both is lost and remains: there is possibility of restoration
only because something of the divine image is still left: he
finds in man an image of the Trinity: memory, intelligence, will.
Through the Middle Ages, there was a constant tendency to
make the divine image in man to consist merely in the rational
powers, and any positive goodness which was in him at creation
to be, not a state of his faculties, but a supernatural endowment:
the former being often viewed as the " image," the latter as the
"similitude" of God. It may be said that this has become the'
Koman Catholic theory of grace: Righteousness is something
superadded to the faculties of man, rather than a state of the
faculties.
In the Reformation, this original state of righteousness was
one of the sharp points of contest. The Roman Catholic view,
as fully developed at that time, was: In man at birth there are
simply pura naturalia without any specific tendency. The ten-
dency to good, which Adam had, did not belong to human na-
ture, but was a supernatural endowment, and was lost by the
fall, and this grace is that which is restored by the church in
baptism. The Protestants took the view that the integrity of
human nature, in a moral sense, was lost by the faU, and they
ran perhaps into the other extreme of making the whole image
to be moral likeness, not emphasizing the permanent likeness
which man has as a personal spirit, etc. The main point in
the view was, that man had not merely capacities for goodness,
but that these capacities were in a holy state, having a holy
bias or tendency in them. The Protestant Reformers generally
would say, that holiness was concreated in man, that there was
an original righteousness. Almost all the Reformed symbols,
Lutheran and Calvinist, have this view. The divine image is
the whole of the primitive perfections, original justice (or right-
eousness), the special ethical relations in man: they differ as the
whole and the part: the whole man is the image, his moral ten-
dencies (wisdom, love, etc.,) the justice. The Roman Catholic
objected, that on this view the loss of the divine image was the
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 257
loss of religious and moral endowments: the reply was, Not so,
only of the original state or tendency of the endowments.
But this state or tendency was primeval. This is a much pro-
founder view than the Roman Catholic, which makes grace exter-
nal. The wisdom and holiness, however, were not a perfect state
of the soul, but rather predisposition, tendency, etc. The state
was one of probation, with consummation over against it.
This is the general position and usage of language in our
American theology. Edwards (sometimes said to have held that
all holiness is in exercises) says: " Human nature must be cre-
ated with some disposition^ otherwise it must be without
any such thing as inclination or will;" "the notion of Adam's
being created without a principle of holiness in his heart is in
consistent with the account in Genesis." By principle he means,
44 a foundation laid in nature, either old or new, for any partic-
ular kind or manner of exercises of the soul, or a natural habit."
Bellamy: "As there was a holy principle in Adam before the
first holy act, so there is in the regenerate." Smalley 1 : " Adam
was created with an active principle of holiness." Hopkins 8 :
" He was made in the moral image of God, with a good discern
ing taste or disposition, a rectitude of mind and will, or heart,
by which he was perfectly conformed to the rule of his duty, or
the moral law." Dwight (i. 346): u Adam possessed a sanctified
or virtuous mind at his creation;" (i. 347): "The affections of
his soul at his creation were virtuous;" (i. 394): "Man was cre-
ated holy without any mixture of sinful affections." 8
Rationalists view the primitive state as one of savagery, out
of which man emerges by gradual cultivation; Pantheists say:
Spirit begins in nature, and is gradually developed to reason
and goodness : Pelagians argue for a total moral indifference as
the primitive state; Arminians find the image of God mainly in
man's immortality and dominion over the brutes: The General
i Works, ii. 400. 2 Works, i. 196.
3 Emmons says: "It is agreeable to the nature of virtue or holiness to be
created." Moral exercises "are virtuous or vicious in their own nature, without
the least regard to the cause by which they are produced." But he does not
recognize in man any power of action before or in distinction from action.
His position was overthrown by Dr. N. W. Taylor.
258 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Orthodox mew is: The image consisted in the entire spiritual
capacities and powers of man, which were in a state of positive
proclivity to holiness and to divine wisdom (or the enlighten-
ment from God), which state was to undergo a trial in order to
become confirmed. While doubtless there has been much ex-
aggeration as to Adam, the substantial truth, nevertheless, is
expressed in this last position. To the questions, Could holiness
be created ? Can it be created in me ? perhaps the only answer
that need be given is that man may be so created and new-cre-
ated that the spontaneous bent of his soul is towards a holy
end. Sartorius speaks of the original righteousness in relation
to man's whole being, as his health in relation to the body. As
health is not different from the bodily powers, and is not a spe-
cial substance, but only a normal condition of the members, from
which the well-being of the body results : so grace is riot a spe-
cial substance in man, but the normal, unperverted nature of
the whole faculties of man in all his impulses, in which is also
contained an untried blessedness.
CHAPTER XII.
THE DESTINATION OP MAN IF HE HAD CONTINUED IN OBEDIENCE. THE
COVENANT OF LIFE OR OF WORKS.
By the Covenant of Life is meant God's destination of man
i.i "life," if he had not fallen, which is declared or intimated in
t..e prohibition with the penalty, Gen. ii. 17. The term "cove-
rant " is not understood here as implying an actual transaction,
u compact distinctly made and entered into by two parties.
What is meant to be set forth by the term is, that if man had
continued in his state of original rectitude, if he had stood the
trial, the test, he would have had what is here called life, as the
reward of his obedience. Or, in other words, if man had con
tinued in his original state, had not transgressed the law, he
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 259
would have reached the great end of his being; his destina-
tion under the divine government would have been complete.
What that destination was, may be gathered partly from what
we know about the nature and capacities of man, but chiefly by
reasoning back from what we know to be accomplished by the
redemption through Christ, to wit:
1. He would have come to a state of confirmed holiness and
perfect wisdom and communion with God.
2. It is possible that the natural body, in the course of its de-
velopment and growth, would have come to be what is called
in Scripture the spiritual bqiy of the resurrection, although
this is only a speculation from the analogy of what is and is to
be done in Christ and his people (his own resurrection and as-
cension and 1 Thess. iv. 17). How this would have been attained
without death, we of course do not know, perhaps as the but-
terfly from the chrysalis. There is nothing in the so-called laws
of nature to forbid the possibility. The resurrection proves that
death, as we now know it, is an unnatural state. 1
3. With Adam would have begun a kingdom of God on
earth, and the laws of marriage and increase of population
would have been laws of increase to that kingdom on earth.
4. To man would have been given dominion over the world,
subduing it unto himself in the service of God. Man was made
to be prophet, priest, and king here on earth. He lost his right
by the Fall, and Christ came to be prophet, priest, and king, in
order that, standing in man's stead, He might restore what was
lost in the fall.
1 As to the "tree of life," whether through its inherent virtue or by divine
grace, the immortality was to be conferred, is not decided. Augustine calls it
a "sacrament." Hengstenberg (Rev. ii. 35) takes it to be a tree of life, "not ag
conferring, but symbolizing, life."
PART IV.
CHRISTIAN HAMAETOLOGY. THE DOCTRINE
RESPECTING SIN.
CHAPTER I.
THE FALL HISTORICALLY VIEWED. 1
Westminster Shorter Catechism, answer to Ques. 13: "Our
first parents, being left to the freedom of their own will, fell
from the estate wherein they were created by sinning against
God."
1. The Temptation: is it Historical ?
Position: The New Testament treats it as such, and draws
doctrinal consequences from its facts: Rom. v. 14; 1 Cor. xv.
22; 1 Tim. ii. 13.
It is said that Moses could not have known it as a history:
but he might have known it by tradition, and what he did not
know in that way, he might have obtained by revelation.
It is also said that the form of the narrative is allegorical.
The form is rather natural, in conformity with man's condition.
It is to be interpreted, we suppose, in the way of a real temp-
tation, though we would concede that Satan may be here repre-
sented in the form of a serpent, so that " serpent " here means,
is the name of, Satan, and that name being taken as the equiv-
alent of Satan, the narrative goes under that similitude; and
that is all the symbolical element which need be supposed to be
in the narrative; the curse being not literally a curse on the
serpent, but on Satan, and being represented as a curse on the
Berpent. It is not necessary to assert that Satan took the form
1 Edwards on Original Sin; Hopkins, i. 8, a very able development; Julius
Htiller, The Christian Doctrine of Sin, the great work of our century
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 261
of a serpent, though we think it is probable that the Tempter
did appear in some form. 1
To those in the condition of our first parents, God would not
probably have given an abstract law, but a specific command.
It was the easiest of commands, apparently; and as the obedi-
ence was easier, the ill-desert of failure was much greater. In
short, if the race were to be tried again, the circumstances of
man's condition as here given are as natural 2 as any other sup-
posable circumstances, and as favorable to man as any could be.
So that the temptation is suitable to the condition of our first
parents. If that condition ^as an historical fact, there is no
reason why the temptation should not have been. The objec-
tion that it is unreasonable to suppose that so much could be
made dependent on beings in such a state, is to be met by point-
ing out that the state was as good a one as we can suppose. '
Furthermore, the connection in this world between sin and
evil spirits, as the Scriptures describe it, is historical fact, and
hence the beginning of this connection in the temptation is
to be viewed as historical. The conflict between Christ and
Satan was real, the conflict is real between Christ's kingdom
and Satan's. Christ met and conquered Satan and all his host
for us, in a struggle of which we have only a partial revelation
and a dim conception. It would appear that the power of Satan
in the world reached its culminating point in the time of Christ,
and has been less ever since. If Christ's temptation by Satan
and victory over him were historical events, there seems to be
no ground for supposing that the first temptation was not an
historical event
2. The Features of the Temptation.
1. Man, as we have said, was in circumstances which were
highly favorable to him. In the profuse bounty of the earth
only one point was forbidden. The prohibition made a real,
1 The Serpent of Eden from the Point of View of Advanced Science, by Kev.
John Duns, D.D. (Free Church of Scotland), in Bib. Sac., Jan. '64. De Bow's
Rev., '60: " The original tempter a black man, the gardener."
2 Everything is in concrete form, with depths of truth, such as myths alone
could nevior have.
262 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
practical test, but one where obedience was easy. Dwight (i
398) : " No metaphysical or philosophical discussion was de-
manded or admitted." The reward of obedience was to be
great, and the penalty of disobedience great, more so than they
then knew, but it was sufficiently known: they knew that a
divine command was given, with a penalty attached.
2. The temptation was subtle, corresponding to the charac-
ter of the tempter and suitable to that of the woman. The
first question excited curiosity, the next assertion aroused pride.
The heart of the temptation is in the desire to know, and not in
the sensual gratification. Knowledge, independence, likeness
to the higher beings, were to be gained. First there is sug-
gested the doubt of God, whether He could be trusted, then
there is the appeal to pride, the spirit of '* affecting deity,"
which had perhaps first prevailed with the tempter himself, 1
then a solicitation through the senses.
3. As to the Possibility of the Fall. What is here in ques-
tion is, the psychological possibility of the fall. Man was made
mutable. In his primitive state, he loved God spontaneously.
Would he love Him in spite of temptation ? He knew good in
direct feeling: he knew his relation, and God's rightful com-
mand. The temptation does not give the necessity of sinning,
but it gives the necessity of deciding between good and evil,
God and the world. The state of the case, as far as we can en
ter into Adam's experience, is this: Before the command there
was the state of love without the thought of the opposite: a
knowledge of good only, a yet unconscious goodness: there was
also the knowledge that the eating of the fruit was against the
divine command. The temptation aroused pride: the yielding
to that was the evil. Taking the fruit was not the sin essen-
tially, the yielding to pride was the sin. The change was there
The change was not in the choice as an executive act, nor in the
result of that act the eating, but in the choice of supreme love
to tho world and self, rather than supreme devotion to God. It
was an immanent preference of the world, not a love of the
world following upon the choice, but a love of the world which
is the choice itself.
1 Tim. iii. 6.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 263
We cannot account for Adams fall, psychologically.
In saying this we mean : It is inexplicable by anything out-
side of itself. We must receive the fact as ultimate, and rest
there. Of course we do not mean that it was not in accordance
with the laws of moral agency, that it was a violation of those
laws: but only that we do not see the mode, that we cannot con-
struct it for ourselves in a rational way. It differs from all other
similar cases of ultimate preference which we know; 1 viz., the sin-
ner's immanent preference of the world, where we know there is
an antecedent ground in the bias \o sin, and the Christian's regen-
eration, or immanent preference of God, where we know there is
an influence from without, the working of the Holy Spirit.
Of course we do not mean that we may not make supposi-
tions enough to account for it, both in respect to man's soul and
to God's agency. But then the difficulty is only transferred to
the suppositions, and remains just as great; and it is better
to leave it with the simple fact as ultimate in the case of an
immanent preference, free, accountable.
Examples of such suppositions: (a.) That the Divine Spirit
left Adam before his choice. This would seemingly account
for the fall: but then the difficulty arises, as to the taking away
of the Spirit, which we naturally suppose to be the consequence,
and not the antecedent occasion of the fall; and if the Spirit re-
mained in Adam, how could he have fallen? (b.) God arranged
events so that Adam would certainly fall, yet he fell by his
own free choice. 2 But this too drives us to choice, as ultimate.
(c.) Natural susceptibility explains the fall: Adam desired the
food, had his ambition aroused, and, under such influences, chose
1 The phrase in the Catechism, "being left to the freedom of their own will,"
is not intended as a psychological explanation of the fall. It guards against the
Supralapsarian view, and also against Necessitarian views. The Supralapsarian
says that God decreed the fall after He had decreed election: the Sublapsarian
says (in the form preferred by us), that God decreed to permit the fall, and then,
in view of his purpose of providing Kedemption for the race, elected out of fallen
men a people to his praise.
2 Dr. Emmons has a theory which is certainly not lacking in boldness, th
theory of direct divine efficiency. ' ' Satan placed certain motives before his
[Adam's] mind, which, by a divine energy, took hold of his heart and led him
into sin." "His first sin was a free, voluntary exercise, produced by a divine
operation in the view of motives." Works, iv. 356.
264 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
freely, which was undoubtedly the case. But here is no explana-
tion. This is merely a statement of the circumstances, without
accounting for them. This choice was made while Adam was
still loving God: how then could it have been made? (d.) He
chose because he had the power of contrary choice. This also is
leaving it an anomalous case, the only case extant, and impossible
at that, (e.) If it be said, Pride rose to a certain height, and under
its influence man chose to eat, then the pride is the immanent pref-
erence itself: if it be said, the pride was merely natural, had no
character, and got a character by choice added to it, then pride
was chosen, then that choice of pride was an immanent pref-
erence or not: if it was not, we have not reached any character:
if it was, we have still an immanent preference to account for.
We must leave the whole question with the immanent pref-
erence standing forth as the ultimate fact in the case, which is
not to be constructed philosophically, as far as the processes of
Adam's soul are concerned: we must regard that immanent pref-
erence as both a choice and an affection, not an affection the
result of a choice, not a choice which is the consequence of an
affection, but -both together. 1 As to the divine agency in the
case, that simply runs into the general question of the permis-
sion of sin, which we have already considered.
CHAPTER II.
THE PENALTY. THE DEATH THREATENED FOR DISOBEDIENCE.
In consequence of the transgression, sentence was pronounced
on all who were concerned in it: on the tempter, the woman,
and the man. Gen. iii. 14-19. Of the specific term, the death
threatened, nothing is directly said, except " dust thou art and
unto dust shalt thou return : " but the evils which were included
in the original threat are brought out in the more special assign-
1 And this is the ultimate analysis of the psychology of the case in every
change of moral character. Here is the mystery of the will's action, and this
IB tho sphere of moral quality, moral ae'cduntability.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 265
merits: to the woman, pain and sorrow in childbirth and subjec-
tion to man: to man, a condition of toil and sorrow closing in
literal death. (The literal sentence on Satan is in accordance
with his assumed character: enmity between thee and the
woman, thy seed and her seed: you seem to have a triumph,
it shall prove a discomfiture.) It would seem that we must
give such an interpretation to the whole sentence as shall show
that it began to be at once fulfilled.
Death is usually distributed into a three- fold form: as death
spiritual, temporal, and eternal; and almost all expositors agree
that " death " here includes these three points. It is questioned,
however, whether some of these are not to be considered rather
the consequence than the strict penalty of sin. The difficulties
are as to temporal and spiritual death ; there is no question that
eternal death is included in the sentence. The objection to includ-
ing spiritual death is that it "makes sin to be the punishment
of sin:" to including temporal death, that it brings a penalty
upon infants, e. g., as members of the race simply, and so assigns
a "penalty" for something which is not strict personal transgres-
sion ; also, that Christ has taken away all that really belonged
to the original curse, but temporal death is certainly not taken
away ; and again, on grounds of physiology and modern scienc^
in which death is viewed as a purely natural event. On the
other hand, if we say eternal death is all that was included, we
are driven to say that there is then no instance of the proper
penalty of the law being inflicted in this life, and hence there
is no moral government which employs punishment, here. The
general, the almost universal, interpretation includes all the
three forms: the exceptions are very few.
1. As to Spiritual Death.
By this is meant, the loss of communion with God, the with-
drawal of the Divine Spirit, the supremacy of worldly and self-
ish affections and consequent "moral inability" with whatever
misery comes in connection with these. By spiritual death is
not meant merely sin in its formal mode of being, as an act or
affection, but sin as involving separation from God, the with-
266 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
drawal of the divine life, and as involving in its very nature
misery, wretchedness, pain. Now undoubtedly sin cannot be
punished by sin, but a part of its judicial consequences may be
in bringing with itself, from its very nature, loss of the divine
communion, wretchedness and pain. Every passion as it is in-
dulged, not only becomes more sinful, but adds to our estrange-
ment and misery. It is of the nature of all sinful desires that
as they increase in intensity and pass beyond certain limits, as
they are sure to do, they give pain, not pleasure. In this sense,
the sentence of the law begins at once to be fulfilled. We may
say, this is only a consequence of sin, but it is a just and an
ordained consequence of sin, and only of sin, under God's moral
government; and so it is a part of the punishment of sin, unless
we arbitrarily limit the term, punishment. All usage is in favor
of this view. All in the soul which we mean by spiritual death:
the cutting off from the source of life and from our true happi-
ness which is in holiness, and the power of worldly appetites:
these all are a proper part of the penalty. So too with remorse,
which comes in the soul as a part of the spiritual death, and
which may be said to be the most significant part of the penalty.
If the pangs the sinner feels do not belong to his punishment,
what does belong to it ?
This spiritual death is referred to in the Scriptures, in a
variety of strong and vivid representations. Rom. i. 24, where
a deeper death in sin is the judicial consequence of certain forms
and degrees of transgression ; Rom. vii., where we suppose spir-
itual death is described most fully; Rom. viii. 6; 2 Cor. ii. 16,
" a savour of [or from] death " (spiritual) " unto death " (eternal).
Eph. ii. 1, where the " death " is distinct from the " trespasses
and sins " ; Col. ii. 13 ; 1 John iii. 14.
2. Temporal Death.
The question as to the connection of temporal death with sin
brings us into the comparatively uninvestigated region of the
relation of the moral to the physical, the relations of sin and re-
demption to our bodily constitution : of sin to death, and of redemp-
tion to a resurrection. The fact that the resurrection is a part of
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 267
redemption leads by inference to the position that the death of
the body is a part of the evil or penalty which was the conse-
quence of sin, and from which redemption is to deliver us. There
is a spiritualizing of sin and holiness which abstracts them from
all relations with the body, from all our natural ties, giving over
the whole of physics to natural science. But the Scriptures do
'undoubtedly maintain a connection between sin and the death
of the body, on the one hand, and between redemption and the
glorified body, on the other hand. A mechanical view of nature,
and a merely abstract spiritualizing and reasoning about sin and
redemption, have led to attempts to explain punishment and re-
demption as if they had nothing, or little, to do with our physi-
cal constitution. But sin infects and affects the whole man,
soul and body: redemption is also equally extensive, for the
whole man, soul and body. Thus only is the full idea of the
Christian redemption realized. Through sin came disorder in
the fleshly appetites (Gen. iii. 7); the law of death is at work
in our members; and in this respect, also, the sentence began
to be fulfilled at once. As to the connection of sin with death :
Death is undoubtedly natural for the brutes, who have no proper
spiritual being, each animal being only one example of his
species, with no spiritual powers and aspirations, no personal
being. It is not so with man. Death is not natural for man,
considering him from his spiritual side: it is unnatural: immor-
tality is his proper attribute. The separation of soul and body,
as we know it, see it, with its pain, sorrow, suffering, is an
anomaly, a mystery, an enigma in our being. We would not
say that if there were no sin there would be no separation of
soul and body; but it is certainly supposable that the transi-
tion to another state might be made, without anything of that
which now goes to make up the terribleness of death. Then tho
power of death over the sinner is another illustration. It is clad
in fearfulness to him, and it is natural to consider it as a con-
sequence of transgression. Man's body, of course, in a natural
sense could have died like that of other animals, but we cannot
say that it must have died. 1 The position that temporal death
1 The "hypothetical" (posse non mori) and "absolute" (non ptosso mori)
Immunity from death: distinction asserted against Pelagianism.
268 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
is a penal consequence of sin is confirmed Ly the fact that re-
demption contemplates the resurrection, the restoration of the
body. This fact serves to make it seem stranger still, more un-
natural, that there should be a separation of the two at the end
of our present being : why separated, if to be reunited ? It seems
as Muller among others forcibly says that the only expla-
nation of this anomaly is to be found in the fact revealed in
Scripture, that the death of the body is a direct consequence
and punishment of -transgression. This makes the whole Script-
ural representation harmonious. Temporal death is not the whole
or a chief part of the penalty of transgression, but still it is a
part of the same, under certain aspects and in certain relations.
The passages of Scripture 1 which show that this temporal
death is included in the sentence, and is a consequence and the
evidence of the existence of sin, are such as follow : Gen. iii. 22 ;
Job iv. 18, 19; xiv. 1-4; Horn. v. 12 seq.; vi. 23; 1 Cor. xv. 21
seq.; xv. 56; 2 Cor. v. 2, 4, of. Rom. vii. 24; Eph. ii. 4; Col. i. 22;
ii. 11; 2 Tim. i. 10. There is an implied reference to this death
also (though not exclusively to this) in John viii. 21; xi. 26.
In fact, while in the Scriptures " death " is applied to the pen-
alty in the future life, yet, in its primitive meaning, it refers to
the dissolution of the body. For Christians this death loses its
terrors : it is to be conquered finally by the resurrection to life :
yet such is the state and power of sin in them, so deeply has
it penetrated their whole nature, that they must still die. The
evil is changed into a means of blessing through the grace that
is in Christ. Redemption extends not only to pardon, not only
to deliverance from the second death and the sense of condem-
nation, but it also embraces and renovates our whole being. It
is to be noted that this death is not merely the separation of soul
and body, but includes pain and suffering. It therefore includes
whatever may hasten and aggravate the temporal death.
Objections:
1. Is all evil and suffering in this life penalty for sin?
Most unquestionably not. But that does not touch the real
1 See Stier, Words of the Lord Jesus, on John viii. 44. Krabbe on Sin:
"There is no passage in Scripture in which there is not a lingering allusion t
temporal death.''
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 269
point, which is, that there are evils, sufferings, pains, here,
which under God's moral government are punishments for sin.
Those are such, and only those, which in Scripture or providence,
are seen to be connected with sin, naturally or by infliction.
And still further, many pains and evils are to one a punishment,
because he is a sinner, and are to another not a punishment,
because he is a servant of God. Thus, to the Christian, what
was punishment is now chastening: his regeneration transforms
it into a remedial influence. So far as sin is in him, too, evil
and suffering have the nature of punishment; they are just in-
flictions for his remaining sin : but still, triumphant over them
is the power of grace, making them a final blessing. Death
itself comes, and still with solemn terrors, for sin still dwells
within him, yet also deprived of its sting, for grace triumphs.
2. The exclusive penalty of the law is eternal death, and
consequently temporal death is no part of the penalty. The
motives for this objection are two. One is, its bearing on
original sin. One argument for the reality of a morally evil
condition of every human being at birth, which condition in
an important sense is properly to be called sinful, is the death
of the body: if men die, they are under the curse of the law:
if human beings, as such, are liable to death from the begin-
ning of their existence, then they are also under a judgment for
sin or sinfulness. In order to get rid of this conclusion, it is
denied that temporal death is any part of the penalty for sin.
It is held to be consequence, but not penalty : for, in that case,
infants suffering penalty would have a part in the sin which
cleaves to the human race. The other motive for the objection
is that Christ has removed the penalty of transgression, has
taken away the curse: and if so, nothing which the Christian
endures here can be a part of the penalty. Otherwise Christ
did not endure it all. Moreover, it is involved in the objec-
tion, that nothing which sinners endure here can be part of
the strict penalty for transgression. The position is then, that
the penalty is eternal death and only that, and that there is
no proper penalty inflicted in this life for the violation of the
divine law.
270 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Remarks or. Objection 2.
(a.) What is meant here by eternal death, it is somewha*
difficult to state. It appears to mean: those sufferings which
come after the final judgment in execution of the sentence.
This involves, of course, the position that at the last judgment
will occur the first pronouncing and infliction of the real sen-
tence upon the sinner. Whereas, we understand that every
sinner is now under the sentence. The great object of the judg-
ment is not the pronouncing of the sentence, but the winding
up of the present course of things, and the vindication of the
divine government.
(5.) We must note the logical consequences of the position
that the only penalty of transgression is eternal death. Then
there is no instance of penalty or punishment in this life. All
that we suffer here comes under the physical point of view, it
is the appointment of the divine sovereignty, it comes in
the way of consequence: it does not come under the moral
point of view, as a just coupling of evil with sin. To carry
out the principle, it must be said that remorse is no part of
the penalty of sin (while it must be admitted that remorse is
a principal part of eternal death) ; and if remorse is no part of
the penalty of sin, what is it, and what can be penalty ? More-
over, under the strict application of this principle, we could not
find an instance of God's moral government in the whole history
of mankind : and how is this to be reconciled with God's punish-
ments of men and nations, his threatenings and fulfilment of
calamities, his visiting of iniquities, etc., which are broadcast
through the Scriptures and in providence ? We shall be com-
pelled to say that there are two kinds of divine punishment:
one for the violation of the law, and another for something else.
The position that the whole penalty of sin is future, if strictly
enforced, would drive God's moral government out of the earth
for the sake of getting rid of the proof of original sin. 1
1 Or, is a distinction to be made between God's moral and his legal govern-
ment? If any concede, however, that these other evils are just "con-
sequences " of transgression under the divine moral government, concede them
to be moral and not merely physical not merely cases of arbitrary sovereignty
and yet prefer to reserve the word "penalty" for the second, for eternal, death,
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 271
(c.) The difficulty on the ground of the Atonement, as hav-
ing taken away the whole condemnation of the law, is removed
by considering that the object of the atonement is not simply to
give pardon and relief from future condemnation, but to deliver
from all the just consequences of sin though these may not all
be taken away at once, on account of the evil state remaining.
The atonement not only provides for pardon, but for the re-
moval of spiritual death, and also for taking away the chief evils
of temporal death. It gives us, moreover, the resurrection of the
body. This is a part of the eifect of Christ's work. The diffi-
culty has come from restricting the atonement to a mere pro-
vision for pardon.
(d.) The physical philosophers resolve all punishment into
the natural consequences of transgression: some theologians
resolve it all into an external infliction, granting that all the
momentous "consequences" are out of the sphere of punish-
ment. The true view combines both. The continuation of a sys-
tem in which evils were ordained to be peculiarly "consequent"
upon sin, and in which by divine providence such consequences
are often specially combined and directed in token of the divine
displeasure at transgressions, is a visitation of penalties in the
proper sense upon offences. 1
3. Eternal Death,
The third form of the death is eternal. This is also called,
the second death, Eev. ii. 11 ; xx. 6 ; xxi. 8. The term, second
death, is significant: it refers back to a death already existing;
it is an intensified form of what already exists; it is not the only
penalty, but is the intense and final form of the penalty. By
eternal death we understand this: a continuation through eter-
nity of the evils, sufferings, and pains which are the just con-
sequence of sin. These are heightened, of course, by all the
BO as to have a more precise usage for this definite case (which certainly has its
special circumstances): though they depart from the general usage, yet it may be
allowed, perhaps, as a mere definition for one class of cases.
1 Denial of this gives a great advantage to such writers as Combe. Temporal
evils are made to be only natural consequences of sin, and the moral is banished
from the present sphere.
272 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
circumstances of the then existing state, by the fact that mercy
is lost, that hope is forever excluded, etc. This second death or
final condemnation is represented in Scripture as inflicted only
iu view of actual transgression, and it is there represented not
only as punishment for violation of law, but also for the rejec-
tion of the gospel. There is a liability or exposedness to it in
all the members of Adam's race, but the reality of it comes
only to those who are condemned on account of their works.
James i. 15; Rom. vi. 21; vii. 6; 1 John v. 16.
As has been already said, we cannot regard this eternal, or sec-
ond, death as a new, an absolutely distinct form of the penalty of
sin, so that it may be said to be that penalty in the strict sense,
while the other forms are not. The elements of eternity, of
hopelessness, of intensified evil, are added, but the very epithet,
eternal, implies that it is death continued through eternity. Still
further, if the temporal evils can all be regarded as only the
consequence of transgression, eternal death might equally be
regarded as a consequence: and if the eternal death is a penalty,
then the temporal death may be a penalty. We cannot con-
ceive of an element in the eternal penalty, of which there is not
an analogy or beginning in our temporal lot. The contrary
persuasion seems to us to rest on a merely external theory of
punishment, taken by figure from human justice.
Summary.
Death, in its most general idea, as the penalty of the law,
includes all the evils and sufferings which come upon us, justly,
under God's moral government, in consequence of the transgres-
sion of the divine law. The object of the penalty is to give
sanction to the law, testifying to God's displeasure at sin. In
a state of probation, these evils may also be means of trial, and
may even become only chastisements. They may be internal or
external: remorse and pain of soul, or sufferings and death of
the body. The loss of the divine favor and of the Divine Spirit
is also amongst them. In short, the general notion of death is
separation from God and from all good, on the one hand, and
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 273
on the other, suffering; as the consequences, the penal conse-
quences, of transgression. It corresponds to "life," which in-
cludes all good, and as the expression of divine approbation, as
the award to obedience. More specifically, death is (a.) spiritual,
the forfeiture of the Spirit, moral inability, the internal legiti-
mate consequence of sin perhaps including remorse; (b.) Evils
and pains perhaps including here remorse closing in death of
the body; (c.) Most specifically, death, as the full penalty of sin,
is eternal: it is hopeless misery, all the consequences of sin and
wretchedness inflicted in various ways in God's providence, en-
during forever. This, in the highest sense, is the penalty of the
law. As to Adam, when he sinned, he came at once to a state
of spiritual death, the curse of temporal death began to work
(we may suppose that the withdrawal of the Spirit gave such
supremacy to the bodily appetites that they began to derange
the bodily constitution, making it certain that death would
ensue), and he was justly exposed to eternal death, from which
only grace could rescue him.
CHAPTER III.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE FALL TO THE HUMAN RACE.
Answer to Q. 17, Westm. Shorter Oatech.: " The fall brought
mankind into an estate of sin and misery;" to Q. 16, "The
covenant being made with Adam, not only for himself, but
for all his posterity, all mankind, descending from him by ordi-
nary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him in his first
transgression."
The emphasis here is on mankind : the fall affected man as
man, every man as a member of the human race. The divine deal-
ing was with Adam, not only for himself, but as " a public per-
son " : all mankind, descending from him ~by ordinary generation^
274 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
are involved in his first act of disobedience. No personal pres-
ence of individuals is intended to be asserted. The idea is this:
Adam is not only the individual man Adam, but the head of
the race: all the race is from him by natural descent: he was
created innocent, and. fell: his transgression involved us, not in
a personal sense, or in our personal relations, but so far as we
have the common position and liabilities of the whole race under
the divine government. In consequence of his first sin, all men
come into the world alienated from God, prepense to sin, and
exposed or liable to eternal death, unless grace interpose. Thia
is the simple fact of the case. It is not so much a theory as
the statement of a fact. The Scriptures trace this condition of
mankind, this common estate, back to the transgression of Adam.
Whether this is viewed as a matter of pure divine sovereignty,
or of justice, does not alter the facts of the case. Even if it is
sovereignty, it must be in some sense a just sovereignty. The
doctrine then does not immediately concern individual responsi-
bility as such, but has to do with the common heritage and con-
dition of humanity. The question about individual responsibility,
desert, and destiny, is distinguishable and to be kept distinct.
Although the two run into each other, yet we can draw the line,
viz., in personal consent to sin and evil. There personal respon-
sibility arises, but whether all that is moral, or all that concerns
the divine moral government, begins there is quite a different
question.
1. Sin as known by Experience.
All men, even in their natural state, know that they are not
as they ought to be ; that they are living in a state of alienation
from God. A sense of sin and guilt has always attended the
human race. But the full power of sin is known only by the
redeemed, to whom the law has been a schoolmaster to bring
them to Christ. Grace has taught them in respect to sin. Every
Christian knows that there is in him by nature, and in him still,
a profound depth of sin: he experiences its power in daily con-
flicts, in the necessity of constant self-denial. He knows sin
as the state of alienation from God. and as lust for the world,
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 275
as the higher and the lower forms of selfishness: the higher
being pride, independence of God; and the lower, that which
leads us to seek the world. He sees that, in his natural state, his
heart's affections are perverted, his understanding is darkened,
his will is set in him to do evil. Thus no one feels or fully
knows the terrible power of sin, until he is renewed or is in the
process of renewal.
This corruption and evil of human nature, reaching to its
very depths, the sinner under conviction and the Christian
acknowledge and feel to be guilt; it makes the soul guilty be-
fore God; God cannot but look upon it with displeasure and ab-
horrence, and visit it with his judgments.
It is also this too is a matter of experience so deeply
rooted and grounded in man that he can be delivered from its
power only by redemptive grace; he feels the need of atoning
blood. He knows that so far as there is in him anything good,
it is from grace alone; in all the course, from the beginning to
the end, grace leads, enlightens, renews, sanctities, and grace
alone. " It is a striking fact in Scripture, that statements of
the depth and power of sin are chiefly from the regenerate.''
(Thomasius.)
2. The universal Sinfulness of Hen as testified to in Scripture.
The general position: The whole of the Old and New Testa-
ments rest on the presupposition of the universality of depravity.
I. The confessions of those who have been renewed. They
speak, in Scripture, of their own experience. 1 Kings viii. 46;
Job ix. 2; xiv. 4; xv. 14; Ps. li. 6, 7, 10; Eccles. vii. 20; Prov. xx.
9; 1 John i. 8-10; Rom. vii. 15-25, the two passages Rom. vii.
14-25 and viii. 1-11 exhibit the two sides of regeneration: still
the sense is to show the terrible power and depth of sin in us;
Gal. v. 17, showing that even in good men the power of sin is
so strong that all their goodness is from grace: the conflict in
them is between grace and nature.
II. Passages which speak directly of the universality of
sinfulness. Gen. vi. 5, "heart," center of moral life: "imagina-
tion" and " thoughts" from that though this is not to be toe
2T6 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
strongly urged; Gen. viii. 21; Ps. xiv, this is the judgment of
God on man (Paul cites it in Rom. iii. 10-12) for all, Jews and
heathen. "The Old Testament has no passage in which the
universality and depth of human corruption is so powerfully
depicted" (Hengstenberg); Ps. cxliii. 2; Eccl. ix. 3; Jer. xvii
9; Matt. xv. 19; John iii. 6; Gal. iii. 22.
It is objected that the passages of the Old Testament, partic-
ularly Gen. vi. 5, and viii. 21, treat of those times only. But in
the New Testament the writers cite similar passages as univer-
sally true: e. g., Is. vi. 10 is cited in John xii. 40 (and elsewhere);
and Rom. iii. 10-18 contains citations from Ps. v. ; x. ; xiv. ; xxxvi. ;
cxl. ; and Is. lix.
III. The assertions of Scripture as to the nature and neces-
sity of Regeneration prove the universality of depravity. Only
two states of men are known or recognized. The two states
in contrast: Eph. iv. 22-24; 2 Pet. i. 4. The nature and neces-
sity of regeneration : John iii. 7. The necessity of regeneration :
Rom. vii. 14; John iii. 5; Eph. iv. 18; Eph. ii. 1, 5; Col. ii. 13.
Compare Matt. xvi. 24; John xii. 25; Rom. vi. 4-6; Gal. v. 24
IV. The assertions of Scripture as to the necessity and na-
ture of Redemption show a universal depravity of the human
race, (a.) If the atonement is general, for all mankind, then
all mankind must be in a sinful state. The depravity must be
universal, because the atonement is to deliver men from a sin
ful condition: Rom. v. 18; Heb. ii. 9; 2 Tim. i. 10. (b.) Man
cannot deliver himself, cannot "live "by the law: Rom. iii. 19;
iv. 15; vii. 14; Eph. ii. 15. (c.) The gospel is of the forgiveness
of sins: Luke xxiv. 47; (d.) No one coraeth to the Father but
through Christ: John xiv. 6; Acts iv. 12; Matt. xvi. 16; John i.
12, 13; iii. 14, 15; Rom: iii. 9, 19, 20, 23; Rom. T. 12-19; Gal. iii. 27.
3. This universal Depravity is set forth in the Scriptures as
total, i. e., as affecting the whole Man.
The proof of this is, to some extent, the same as the proof of
the universality of sinfulriess, which shows that man is depraved
as far as the affections of the heart and the external acts of the
will are concerned. As to the influence of depravity on the intel-
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 277
lect, the Scriptures have statements such as the following: Eph.
iv. 18 ; 1 Cor. ii. 14, which shows that the gospel first gives true
light; Eph. v. 8; 2 Cor. iv. 6; John i. 5; iii. 19; 2 Cor. iii. 18. So,
sin is "folly," "blindness," "darkness": Is. xlix. 9; Prov. xiv. 8;
Rom. ii. 19 ; 2 Cor. vi. 14.
By " total depravity " is never meant that men are as bad as
they can be; nor that they have not in their natural condition
certain amiable qualities; nor that they may not have virtues in
a limited sense (justitia civilis). But it is meant that depravity,
or the sinful condition, of man infects the whole man : intellect,
feeling, heart, and will; and that in each unrenewed person sorno
lower affection is supreme, and that each such is destitute of
true love to God. On these positions: as to (a.) the power of
depravity over the whole man, we have given proof from Script-
ure 1 ; as to (6.) the fact that in every unrenewed man some
lower affection is supreme, experience may be always appealed
to: men know that their supreme affection is fixed on some
lower good intellect, heart, and will going together in it, or
that some form of selfishness is predominant using selfish in a
general sense self seeking its happiness in some inferior object,
giving that its supreme affection; as to (c.), that every unre-
newed person is without supreme love to God, it is the point
which is of greatest force, and is to be urged with the strongest
effect, in setting forth the depth and " totality " of man's sinful-
ness: unrenewed men have not that supreme love to God which
is the substance of the first and great command.
4. This depraved State is native to Men.
Man has such a nature that he uniformly sins ; it is as cer-
tain that he will sin as that he will speak or reason. He will
1 Experience and observation also furnish proof. Aristotle, Eth. vi. 12: " For
depravity perverts the vision and causes it to be deceived on the principles of
action, so that it is clearly impossible for a person who is not good to be really
wise or prudent." Quintilian: "The orator is a good man, skilled in speaking,"
cited from Cato, and adds: " Goodness in a man is the greater and more impor-
tant quality." "The pure heart maketh a clear head." Carlyle (on Mirabeau):
" The real quality of our insight, how justly and thoroughly we shall comprehend
the nature of a thing, especially of a human thing, depends on our patience, oui
fairness, lovingness, what strength so ever we have; intellect comes from the
whole man, as it is the light that enlightens the whole man."
278 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
exercise his mora, powers in transgression as certainly as lie
begins to speak or act. " Native " is here used in the general
sense of what belongs by nature to the human constitution so
that it will be acted out.
I. The rational grounds for calling this state native or
connatural.
1. We cannot trace it back in experience to any deliberate
choice, but only to a spontaneous preference.
2. Sin begins to show itself, probably as soon as it can, in all
children. As soon as sin could be manifested, it is manifested,
in all.
3. This has been the case everywhere, with all men, in all
ages, under the most varied circumstances. There have been
no exceptions, unless where grace may have been bestowed be-
fore moral action has commenced.
4. This depravity is such that men come into a different state,
as a matter of fact, only through and by divine grace. In every
case divine grace has been the source of different action, and
divine grace acting against, subduing and renovating ihe
nature.
Now, on rational grounds, it is inconceivable that such should
be the state of the case, if there were not a specific bias to what
is sinful, somehow, in man as man. There is a determinate rea-
son in man's state, why he should sin, rather than not sin.
There is as much proof of a spontaneous out-going of the soul
in the way of worldliness and selfishness, as of anything spon-
taneous in man. This depraved state cannot be accounted for
by the mere power of choice: that gives no reason why the
acts of choice are sinful and not otherwise.
Objections.
1. Adam sinned once without such predisposition, why not
all his descendants?
Answer, (a.) That which may be possible in a single case is
not probable for a race. (&.) The Scriptures make a difference
between Adam's case and the case of men in general. He is
represented as having begun his course in innocence, and his
sin of course implies a fall from that state of innocence. The
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 279
case is not said to be such with any other member of the hu-
man race. 1
2. Sin may be accounted for by bad example. This is the
Pelagian view.
But how are we to account for the universality of the bad
example ? This is simply using the effect to account for the
cause. How happens it that bad examples have such universal
influence, and why do not good examples as of pious parents
have an equally good influence ?
3. Depravity may be accounted for by the fact that the
senses, that man's animal nature is earliest developed. This
is the nationalistic ground.
But in the senses and in man's animal nature as animal, there
is nothing sinful in and of itself. There is nothing sinful in
any animal propensity taken in its proper place. The difficulty
still remains. Why do the senses and the animal part of man
always take this form of selfishness and worldliness ? Why are
these always supreme ? Why is man subject to the world and
sense ?
4. This doctrine of a connatural depravity supposes a posi-
tive principle of evil in the soul as a specific thing, and that
implanted by divine power or agency. God must create this
principle of sin in the soul.
The common orthodox view is that from the absence of the
Divine Spirit, justly withheld, the supremacy of the lower and
selfish principles naturally follows, without a specific principle
of evil. 2
5. This doctrine supposes the very nature of man to bo
depraved.
The word, nature, is used in different senses. It is somo-
tiraes meant to imply simply the constitutional faculties and
endowments. In that sense it is not claimed or said that
man's nature is depraved. It is also used in the sense of the
bias or bent of human nature, a state of the faculties, their
bent, disposition, underlying principle. In this sense the na
1 See Edwards, Orig. Sin, 261.
2 On this point Edwards has a noble passage, ii. 477.
280 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
ture is depraved; because that bent or bias is the evil principle
Perhaps it is not strictly accurate to call it a depravity of nature
because nature is more frequently used in the previous sense.
According to Caivinistic theology, depravity is of the accidents
and not of the substance of human nature; i. e., it is separable.
A renewal of the soul does not suppose a change in the physi-
cal constitution, but a change in the moral principle that is in
man. " Principle " is defined by Edwards as a foundation laid in
human nature for a particular kind of exercises. It is not the
faculties themselves, but the direction of those faculties.
II. Scriptural Proof that depravity is connatural.
1. The strongest proof is found in the Scriptural usage of the
word <5dps, translated flesh. John iii. 6, here " the flesh " includes
the natural birth, but "flesh " is not that which is not spiritual, our
material frame, but the principle opposite to that which is spir-
itual: the passage contains birth, sinfulness, and derivation.
" The flesh " means that which is native to man. The fact that
it also means the bodily constitution makes the proof complete
that depravity is native. Our evil desires are traced to the
" flesh," as our good desires are traced to the spirit. Eom. vii.
18: Flesh is here not merely the equivalent of sinfulness, but
the whole man in his present sinful condition. Sin is spoken of
as dwelling in the flesh. Gal. v. 19-21: The inclusion here of
heresies in the works of the flesh shows that the word is not
restricted to the physical sphere. Kom. viii. 6 : The mind of the
flesh. Eph. iv. 18 : Here to the flesh is attributed understanding.
In Gal. v. 17 we also see that the flesh is not a mere state, but an
impelling power kitiSvpe'i. The essential thing in this flesh is,
then, according to the Scriptures, not merely a sensual condition,
or any overbalance of the senses, but the principle of sin. The
word designates the whole natural man, in all his movements of
heart, mind and will: it is used to describe man as estranged
from God, from life, and subject to sin and death: hence its con-
stant antagonism with spirit.
2. Besides this use of <?<*>?, there are other passages of Script-
ure showing that depravity is traced to a native state. Ps. li. 4:
David, in the deepest penitence, is confessing his sin sin so deep
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION, 281
in him that he traces it to his very birth (as the next verse shows).
There are only two possible interpretations: (a.) that the sin
referred to is that of David's mother. But it is a singular time
for him to take to confess his mother's sin. (6.) It refers to his
own native state, his condition by birth. It means, my state,
as I came from my mother's womb, was a state of sinfulness. 1
The only way of escaping this is taking it poetically. Eph.
ii. 3 : The sense which the term flesh has here has been already
defined. The word " nature" is to be considered. Let the con
nection be noted: "lusts of the flesh"; words which express the
native condition and tendencies as fully as any can do, and
" were by nature children of wrath " (wrath 2 must mean wrath
divine; the attempt of Maurice to render " children of impulse"
is without support). Actual transgressions were already ex-
pressed, "among whom also we all," etc.; he could have said, on
account of these active desires we were children of wrath, but
what he does is to add another circumstance to these actual
sins, "and were by nature," etc. 3 The unemphatic position of
q>v<5si (T&KVOL q>v6et opyrjs) is important. " It is an indirect and
therefore more convincing assertion " of original sin. 4 <pvtiet in
Gal. ii. 15, means, transmitted, inborn; in Rom. ii. 14, inherent;
in Gal. iv. 8, essential, nature. The only interpretation by
which this conclusion can be avoided is: "we were by nature
such that we became through our own act the children of wrath." 6
But if the apostle had meant this, he could have said so ; there
is a proper Greek word for " became " : the word which is used
can only be rendered " were." There may be discussion as to
the full extent of the wrath, and the character of the native
depravity; but as to the fact of such a depravity and of its
being, in some sense, an object of divine displeasure, there can be
1 De Wette's translation: "Behold with a sinful nature was I born, yea, im my
mother's womb did I possess it." Tholuck: "David confesses that sin begins
with the life of man; that not only his works, but the man himself, is guilty be-
fore God."
2 In thirty-four other places in the New Testament the word has only the
usual sense the punitive justice of God.
3 See Harless on Ephesians. See also Miiller, Sin, ii. 306.
* Ellicott.
* Dr. Taylor's "Concio ad clerum."
282 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
no doubt, from this passage. 1 Job xv. 14, shows that in is
hereditary. It is to be viewed in connection with xiv. 1.
Objections.
1. The Scriptures speak of children as innocent: Matt, xvifi.
3; xix. 13; Luke xviii. 17.
These passages undoubtedly imply a relative innocence of
children, but they do not do away with the depravity or native
propensity to sin in us, because the children are to come to
Christ, and Christ is a Saviour. The very fact that they are to
come to Him proves that they need a renewal. 2
2. From certain expressions of Scripture, (a.) 1 John iii. 4:
This is supposed by some to be the nearest to a definition of sin
which the Bible contains. But the rendering should not be " sin is
the transgression of the law," but, " sin is non-conformity to the
law." 8 This passage is urged to prove that all sin is in exer-
cises, but it rather shows, under strict translation, that sin is a
state. (6.) James i. 15 : This is urged to prove that sin, prop-
erly speaking, only exists when it is "brought forth" in con-
scious activity, but what it really shows is, that " the lust " is
that which produces sin, that like begets like. The sin produced
shows the sinful disposition. Instead of proving that such a
disposition is not sinful, the passage proves the contrary. These
passages confirm the general definition of sin given in the West-
minster Catechism, which is probably the best that can be given :
" Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the
law of God."
Besides these passages, Miiller also cites 1 Cor. vii. U (ii. 376).
2 There is a relative innocence. Ps. cvi. 38: The "innocent blood" is the
blood, not of children, nor of innocence before God. So, 2 Kings xxiv. 4.
Jonah iv. 11 is a proverbial expression. Bom. ix. 11 simply states that moral
quality can only attach to moral existence.
8 [Revised Version: "sin is lawlessness."]
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 283
CHAPTER IV.
ORIGINAL SIN.
Thus far we have considered the general facts as to human
sinfulness, and have traced them back to a sinful, corrupt incli-
nation or tendency. This only brings us to the verge of the
real problem, which is contained in the doctrine of Original Sin.
We have here the question of IMPUTATION. This turns upon
the three terms: sin, guilt, and punishment. If we define all
these by their relation to personal acts exclusively, we cannot
apply them to any native condition or race relation ; there can
be in no sense a moral oneness of mankind in the sight of God,
and no such moral dealing on his part with mankind as is
intended to be expressed in the term Imputation: in a word,
there cannot be any Original Sin. But we should understand
that this result is due purely to the definition we have made,
and that we have dismissed the problem, not solved it.
An important question as to the statements in the West-
minster Confession (Conf. vi. 3, Larger Cat., Q. 25, Shorter
Cat, Q. 18) may be here briefly considered. In the three chief
articles indicated above, the following statement is reiterated:
The sinfulness of man's estate, or, original sin, consists: (a.) In
the guilt of Adam's first sin, (6.) the want of original righteous-
ness, and (c.) the corruption of his whole nature. The question
is: Are these three statements co-ordinate or successive? Is it
meant that the sinfulness of man's estate consists in the guilt
of Adam's first sin, which was followed by the want of original
righteousness and by the corruption of his whole nature ? If
that is the sense then the strict theory of Immediate Imputation
has a foothold in the Confession, but if that is not the sense,
then it has not. To us it seems plain that these phrases were
intended to be co-ordinate, and that no causal relation between
them is meant to be expressed. " Guilt " is liability or exposed-
ness to penal evil. It does not mean exclusively personal ill-
desert. It has in theology a well authenticated meaning, though
284 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
in the modern sense it is applied in strictness only to personal ill
desert. But in the Confession guilt is exposure to punishment.
The imputation is not said to be of the sin, but of the guilt of
that sin. That is the strict sense. If it were an imputation of sin,
then it might be that our natural sinfulness as coming from Adam
might be included in the imputation: but as imputation here is
exposure to punishment, it cannot be said that our sinfulness is a
part of the imputation, unless it be also said that sin is a part of
the punishment. In the article in the Confession (vi. 3), the nat-
ural relationship of mankind to Adam is put first: " they being the
root of all mankind." This fact that all mankind were contained
in them as the root appears to be taken as the ground of the proced-
ure of imputation. This is the view taken in Mediate Imputation, 1
i e., that the natural headship comes first, and that the federal
headship is grounded upon it. It is not said that the want of
the original righteousness, and the death in sin, and the cor-
rupted nature, were a part of the imputation ; and this must be
said to sustain the strict theory of Immediate Imputation; the
corruption must be a part of what is imputed.
Another statement. Immediate Imputation, in its extreme
form, 2 is the theory of the federal headship of Adam in distinc-
tion from the natural headship. It says, God determined to
create a certain number, and He determined that they should
fall into sin, and that out of that fallen mass some should be
redeemed. As yet it is only a hypothetical possible number of
individuals who are thus to fall, and of whom some are to be
redeemed. Adam is appointed in the divine purpose to be the
federal head of all that come into this world, to stand as their
representative. Adam is to stand for all those supposed and
supposable individuals who are to live here, to stand for them
as a federal head, as much as a representative in congress stands
J (In its higher form. There is a form, at least one attributed by opponents,
which allows no federal headship to Adam, and makes the corruption in the indi*
vidual the only ground of imputation.]
2 [In this country the most influential advocates of Immediate Imputation
the Princeton theologians have not urged it in this form. The supralapsarian
elements are disavowed by them. See Dr. Charles Hodge's Systematic Theology
%nd Dr. A. A. Hodge's Outlines.]
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 285
for the people of his district. What Adam does is to be reckoned
to their account, they as yet being by supposition without any
character, but as Adam does, so they are to become. Because
he sins, they are likewise to come under the penalty of sin. Then
in order that that may be carried out, God makes this Adam
(who is hypothetical as yet) to be the head of a race, in order
that what he does may be transmitted down to all those indi-
viduals for whom he stood. The natural headship is instituted in
order to carry out the federal headship. And the sinful condition of
every member of this race is a punishment for Adam's sin. Each
individual is punished for Adam's sin by being made sinful.
Adarn is said to stand for them all, and what he does is immedi-
ately made over to them. The theory of Mediate Imputation
on the other hand is, that God makes Adam to be the head of a
race: he sins: in consequence of his sin, because he is the head
of a race, all his descendants are born in a sinful condition, not
as a punishment, but in the way of a natural connection, and the
punishment of each is on the ground of the sinful condition of
each, including as filial punishment his own personal acts and
ill-desert. Punishment is always based on sin, and each indi-
vidual's punishment is based upon what he is as an individual.
The infliction of punishment is on the ground of the sinful
nature, and just as much in Adam's descendants as in Adam
himself. 1 The relation of Adam's transgression to ourselves, ac-
cording to the statement in the Catechism, is not to be viewed as
that of an individual transgressing for us as individuals. Adam
is not only the individual Adam, but the head of the race; all
1 [It should be remembered that the author is here stating what is commonly
understood by Immediate and Mediate Imputation, and is not giving his own
view. On the whole he favored the theory of Mediate Imputation, yet not pre-
cisely in the form as given above. There is a note in his papers which reads
thus: "Neither Mediate nor Immediate Imputation is wholly satisfactory."
There is no further explanation, but it is probable that one point of the theory of
Mediate Imputation as it is sometimes urged, which he found unsatisfactory, was
the position stated above: "the punishment of each is [exclusively] on the ground
of the sinful condition of each." This fixes the divine regard in the matter of
imputation upon the isolated individual, viewed as corrupt before personal action,
etc., and leaves out of consideration all race liabilities, which the author elsewhere
strongly insists upon. It would seem that he intended to assert a proper federal
headship based upon the natural; but it is much to be lamented that this note
ia the Only indication of the final statement which he had in mind*]
286 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
the race come from him by natural descent; he was created
innocent, and fell; his transgression does not involve us in a
personal sei.se, immediately, but only so far as we have the
common liabilities of the whole race under the divine govern-
ment. In consequence of this, all men come into the world
alienated from God, propense to sin, and exposed or liable to
eternal death unless grace interpose.
Original Sin means in theology just one thing: not, the first
sin of Adam ; not, the first sin of each man ; but the general
condition of all- the members of the race by birth, before actual
transgression, into which they are brought in consequence of
the fall of Adam, the head of the race. And the great questions
in the debate are, whether this general condition is in some true
and proper sense sinful, whether there is an imputation of a sin-
fulness which justly calls forth God's moral displeasure, and
whether such imputation is of -what truly belongs to mankind
in its connection with its natural and-federal head.
1. General Statements.
I. No one can apprehend the doctrine of original sin, nor
the doctrine of redemption, who insists that the whole moral gov-
ernment of God has respect only to individual desert, in the way
of personal obedience and disobedience, who does not allow that
the moral government of God, as moral, has a wider scope and
larger relations, so that God may dispense suffering and happi-
ness on other grounds (in his all-wise and inscrutable providence)
than that of personal merit and demerit. The dilemma here is :
the facts connected with native depravity and with the redemp-
tion through Christ either belong to the moral government of
God, or not. If they do, then that government has to do with
other considerations than those of personal merit and demerit
(since our disabilities in consequence of sin and the grace offered
in Christ are not in any sense the result of our personal choice,
though we do choose in our relations to both). If they do not
belong to the moral government of God, where shall we assign
them? To the physical? That certainly cannot be. To the
divine sovereignty? But that does not relieve any difficulty;
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 287
for the question still remains, Is that sovereignty, as thus exer-
cised, just or unjust? We must take one or the other of these.
The whole (of sin and grace) is a mystery of sovereignty of mere
omnipotence, or a proceeding of moral sovereignty. The ques-
tion will arise with respect to grace as well as to sin : How can
the theory that all moral government has respect only to the
merit or demerit of personal acts, be applied to our justification?
If all sin is in sinning with a personal desert of Everlasting
death, by parity of reasoning, all holiness must consist in a holy
choice with personal merit of eternal life.
We say then, generally, that all definitions of sin which mean a
sin are irrelevant here. Edwards, vol. ii., p. 309, says: "Original sin
.... the innate sinful depravity of the heart" includes not only
"the depravity of nature, but the imputation of Adam's first sin ; or
in other words the liableness or exposedness of Adam's posterity,
in the divine judgment, to partake of the punishment of that
sin." This doctrine of original sin in this general shape has
come down from the time of Augustine, through all the Re-
formed confessions, Lnd is recognized by most of the orthodox
schools. Historically, the following points have always been
agreed upon:
1. That the distinction is to be made between original sin
and actual transgression.
2. That original sin belongs to a man as a member of the
race, and as the result of Adam's transgression.
3. That it involves, or is, the corruption of the whole race,
in its moral bias.
4. That it exists in the race in its moral relations to God, not
as a mere physical state, nor as a matter of divine sovereignty
excluding God's moral government or outside of the same, but
that it has to do with the same moral relations in which re-
demption is to be viewed. The later German divines, too, react-
ing from Rationalism, are all on this general ground : Neander,
Tholuck, Muller, Ebrard, Thomasius, Twesten, Dorner, etc.
NOTE. As to whether there is a valid distinction between original sin and
actual transgression. The simple facts of the case are to be regarded: (1) Native
depravity exists: an immanent preference (not known to be the result of a de-
288 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
liberate choice, but which manifests itself as a choice) beyond and before con-
scious memory; which we associate with, and which involves, a sense of yuilt}
(2) Which we connect with our condition as members of a sinful race, involving
us in the common evils of the race ; (3) Which the Scriptures assert to be the con-
sequence of the Adamic transgression.
1 1. Original sin is a doctrine not, primarily, respecting indi-
viduals, in their individual capacity and responsibilities, in their
separate personalities; but it is a doctrine respecting what is
common to all men, their common condition and needs, what
belongs to them as members of the human race. It has its bear-
ings on them as individuals, but it has not specific reference to
this, -just as in the atonement of Christ, redemption is not
provided, primarily, for this or that man, but for the whole
human race. The Scholastic maxim has its abiding truth: "In
Adam the person corrupted the nature: in us, the nature cor-
rupts the person."
III. In this doctrine it is not pretended, nor is it necessary
to give a solution of the problem of moral evil. This is not what
we are after in discussing the doctrine. The object of the doc-
trine as a doctrine is simply to give the general facts of the case
on the ground of which the solution of the problem of moral evil
is to be attempted. And as to the solution itself the different
ways of viewing human sinful ness do not affect it much. It is
no more easy to solve it in connection with the theory of " phy-
sical constitution," etc., than with the common orthodox view.
The constitution is still to be referred back to God. If we say,
there is no bias to sin, but only a world of temptation in which
sin is certain for all, yet we must say again, God made the world
and man. 1
IV. In the matter of original sin there are three problems
around whose solution the difficulty turns
1. The relation of the race to the individual and of the in-
dividual to the race: the old question of the genus and indi-
vidual, running back into the Realism and Nominalism of the
Middle Ages.
2. The relation of our native dispositions to their rnanifesta-
1 The theory of pre-existence only drives the solution back a little further.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 289
tions: whether we can reason back from the manifestation to
what is in the constitution ; whether what is expressed in the
manifestation can be ascribed to the constitution ; whether the
phenomena reveal the substance.
3. The relation of the moral government of God, in its gen-
eral aims and ends, to that government as exercised over indi-
viduals: whether the moral government is only for individuals
or is also for the race.
V. And as there are three problems, so there are three
terms in the discussion for which definitions are sought: sin,
guilt, and punishment. Can these be attributed, in any valid
sense, to God's moral government of men as men, in distinction
from the government of each individual? Do they have to do
with the native dispositions of men ? Does the whole of what
is moral, in short, lie in personal choice and personal desert (ot
happiness or of misery)? If it does, we have only an ethical,
moral system as the sum and substance of Christian theology.
VI. In contrast with this mode of viewing man, as simply
an individual standing for himself, it seems plain from Scripture
that he is there viewed (not excluding his individual responsi-
bilities and deserts) under two prime relations, wider than this
( in respect to God's moral government, in respect to both
sin and holiness): under the relation to Adam as the head of
our fallen humanity and the relation to Christ as the head
of our renewed humanity. The headship of Adam and the
headship of Christ are the two grand foci of the Scriptural sys-
tem respecting man. Man's personal responsibilities, liabilities,
and deserts are brought under, included within, subordinated
to, or grow out of, these more general relations in which he
stands.
Kunning through the Scripture, there are two relations of
man, under the aspects both of sin and of redemption : one, gen-
eral; another, individual. There is the sin of the race a com-
munity in sin ; the sin of each individual his own personal acts
and responsibility. There is grace for all in Christ, while the
faith and obedience of each are also required. We fail of the
Scriptural view when we do not emphasize both. If all is in-
290 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
dividualized, we make mere ethics: if all is generalized, we
make necessary sin, and redemption without personal holiness.
Nor can we draw the line in experience and consciousness be-
tween the two. The great fact at the basis of the doctrine of
original sin is that of the moral- unity of the human race: man
is one in the estate of sin and misery: there is a common guilt
and ruin (as well as individual sin): the great fact at the basis
of the new life is that of a common redemption provided for all.
This same 'point is further illustrated by the general state-
ment that the Scriptural representation makes the headship of
Adam on the one hand and the headship of Christ on the other
to be the central points in respect to the ruin on the one side,
and the recovery on the other, of the whole family of man.
Again, not without the personal intervention and compliance
of each individual his own participation in the sin and in the
redemption. Putting these two over against each other so prom
inently: the first and second Adam death from the one, life
from and in the other only: this is the great leading grouping
of the whole human race, in respect to its ultimate destiny, in
the sacred Scriptures. This is the Biblical view. The notion
of the Covenants may be in form a fiction, but it is in fact a
fact. It is partly false and wholly true. This is the basis of
the whole history, of the Bible, of its facts, as historic, realized
in history. This makes the Scriptural view entirely different
from any merely moral view of the human race and of human
destiny. Each individual of the race is represented as under
the one or the other of these two points of view, either as
connected with a race that fell in Adam, or with that race
as redeemed by Christ.
Another Statement. There are two points of view about man
in the Scripture, on the face of it: one that of personal desert
and liabilities, another, that of his condition as man, as a member
of the race, in his social liabilities, in his relations to the whole
government of God. To the former, belong the practical, the
personal, the ground of personal adjudication, the sphere of act-
ual transgression: to the latter, viz., man in his general relations
and liabilities, belong all facts and statements connected with
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 291
both the faU and redemption. Neither of these is primarily foi
each man personally, but each has respect to the race as a whole,
to man as man, though both may be in and for each man also.
There is a sinful condition of the race as such, introduced by
the fall : over against this God has set a provision of redemption,
for the whole race, covering the whole sphere of sin and its con-
sequences. (Limited Atonement, Particular Redemption ought
to be held only by those who say, all sin consists in winning.)
These are the two grand primary aspects under which the Bible
views man. Now the sphere of personal liability and desert
comes in under these conditions and arrangements of the
common sin and the common redemption. That sin in each
shows itself as preference (consent): then come his personal
liabilities and desert, and not till then. To him, in this state,
salvation, grace through Christ provided for all, is offered: which
he may accept or reject. (This is to all to whom the gospel comes.)
Sometimes the doctrine of original sin is represented as implying
that each individual is personally worthy of eternal damnation
for Adam's sin. This is not true. The conditions of judgment
as to personal desert do not exist until personal transgression
has occurred.
2. The Fads of the Case, in respect to Original Sin, as given
in Scripture.
We have thus far reached a native depravity, common to all
men, the ground and source of actual transgression. The doc-
trine of original sin carries us back one step further, viz., to the
origin of this depraved condition; original sin refers specifically
to that. The inquiry is, What is the connection of the depravity
of each individual with the sinfulness of others: what is the
origin of our native depravity? We speak here of the facts
of the case as given in Scripture.
I. The passages already adduced to prove native depravity
imply that this depravity is hereditary: Ps. li. 5; John iii. 6;
Rom. viii. 7; Eph. ii. 3; Job xv. 14. Also, Luke i. 35, the An-
nunciation of Christ's supernatural conception by the Holy Ghost,
and the result, Christ's holiness
292 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
II. The Scriptures view the race of man as one, descending
from Adam, having a physical and moral unity. This position
is at the foundation of the Scriptural doctrines of sin and of
redemption. 1 Acts xvii. 26; Gen. i. 26, 28; The Genealogies
of the Old Testament: Gen. v., before the flood; Gen. x., after the
flood; Matt. xix. 4; 1 Cor. xv. 45; 2 Cor. xi. 3; 1 Tim. ii. 14;
Rom. v. 12-19.
III. The Scriptures further declare that all men are under
sin and exposed to its just consequences. Rom. iii. 9; iii. 19,
" that all the world may become " v-jtoSixoS TV> $e<a subject to the
charge of sin before, or by, God ; Gal. iii. 2, 3. These passages
do not show the connection with Adam, but the state of man as
depraved and subject to the divine judgment.
IV. The Scripture then carries us one step further. In
Horn. v. 12-19, it is distinctly declared that Adam's transgres-
sion is the source and root of this guilty, depraved condition.
Whether with or without our consent, is not now the question.
We have here to consider simply the matter of fact that this
passage decides at least this much: that the hereditary depravity,
the sinful, guilty condition of the race, is to be traced directly
to Adam, the head of the race, as its ground and source.
(a.) This position does not rest on the interpretation of the
obscure clause kq> < in verse 12, for it is much more explicitly
asserted in the following verses: 15, "if through the offence of
one [the] many were dead" [or, died]; 16, "the judgment is by
[of] one unto condemnation;" 17, "by one man's offence death
reigned by [the] one;" 18, "through the offence of one [one of-
fence] [the] judgment came upon all men unto condemnation;"
19, "through one man's disobedience [the] many were made
sinners." Apart from verse 12, these assertions establish the
fact that Adam's transgression was the judicial. ground of bring-
ing all men into condemnation. Whatever else the passage
does or does not prove, it undoubtedly represents a moral judg-
ment on the basis of Adam's offence on the one hand and of
1 Science just at present, inclines to favor the position that mankind is from
one pair. The unity of the race might be argued from the powerful social in-
stinct, the lore of the race, which is so deeply implanted in ua.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 293
Christ's obedience on the other, as the ground of the death of
all and of the eternal life which is offered to all. It is utterly
inconsistent with the position that all of God's moral dealings
have respect ultimately and solely to individual merit and de-
merit. It is utterly impossible to interpret this passage as teach-
ing or implying a merely physical relationship. It sets forth a
moral judgment. (At the same time this passage does not teach
the way in which this was done; through what intermediate
stages it is carried out and takes effect; through what personal
agency of each individual the moral judgment is consummated ;
and there is room left for further statements. The passage does
not assert, nor necessarily involve, the position taken in the ex-
treme immediate imputation theory, viz., that the sin of Adam
is the judicial ground of making us sinful, or that our native deprav-
ity is the punishment of Adam's sin.) The object of the passage,
and particularly of the 12th verse, is undoubtedly the contrast
between the ruin through Adam and the recovery through Christ.
As really as Christ is the ground and the moral ground of our
restitution and of our moral restitution, so really is Adam of
our ruined condition. The headship of the two is explicit and
contrasted. Not that they are in all particulars the same ; es-
pecially are they different in that the restoration is not merely
coincident with the ruin, but ampler, a superabundance of
blessings is given in Christ. 1
(&.) As to the 12th verse. Some would read: "and so death
passed upon all men because, all have sinned" [or did sin]. That
is, the reason that death passed upon all men is that all have
sinned: death (which on this understanding must be eternal
death) is the condemnation for sin, and therefore there is no
death as penalty where there is not personal sin. (This view
does not say: personal death and the ground in each person of
personal sin have passed together unto all: death and corrup-
tion are interlinked; that might deserve some careful considera-
1 As men sometimes erect a grander edifice over the ruins of one destroyed,
so, it might be said, God has done with the temple of humanity. (See John Howe's
Living Temple.) Here, in Rom. v., is the best intimation which has ever been
given of the final theodicy, and given by the divine oracle, not by human
speculation.
294 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
tion.) The advocates of this rendering hesitate or refuse to
admit that " death " here includes temporal death (which it cer-
tainly does) ; because then it is necessary to say, that all before
they die have actually, personally, sinned, and that involves the
assertion of a personal transgression in the case of every infant
as the ground or reason for its natural death, and also perhaps
of its final condemnation. And in saying that the death is
eternal death there is an equal difficulty in the implication that
the youngest babes have already so violated the law in personal
transgression as to be worthy of eternal death. But even if the
force of this 12th verse could be annulled by translating $> w
" because," and making "sinned " refer to personal transgression
exclusively, yet the other passages remain, asserting unmistak-
ably that the judgment is " of one unto condemnation."
In our view, the best interpretation of the 12th verse is that
suggested by Tholuck and favored by other exegetes: "and so
death passed unto all men as is manifest in this that all have l
sinned." The sense of the verse is this: Sin and death came into
the world by Adam: from him death has passed as a common
lot upon all, as is seen in this, or as is proved by this, that all
have sinned who could sin. g> & explains what goes before,
"so far as all have sinned,"^, e., death has passed to all from
Adam, only so far as sin is found in all: inasmuch as it is found
in all, the death is universal.
Another statement as to the interpretation of Rom. v. 12.
kg> q5 should be rendered: "under which relation." "And so
death passed upon all men," under which relation, i. e., of death
having passed upon them, all have sinned. It is a clause ap-
pended to prove and substantiate the foregoing.
But whether we can reach a satisfactory interpretation of
verse 12 or not, the meaning of the whole passage, Rom. v. 12-19,
is plain: it is that through one man sin and death have come
upon all, and that there is a divine judgment in this. The ulti-
mate ground of the sin and death of all is as much in Adam, as the
ultimate ground of the life for all is in Christ. 3
1 [The author invariably refuses to accept the strict force of the aorist both here
and in the important passage, 2 Cor. v. 14.]
[Dorner, Glaubensl. 79, Eng. trans., iii. 15, says : " The result, therefore, of
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 295
Y. That there is such a sinful condemned condition of the
race is still further proved on Scriptural grounds from the pro-
visions for redemption and from the need of regeneration. These
concern the whole human race.
1. As to the provision for redemption. Eom. v. 18, showing
that so far as death reigns, so far redemption is provided; 2 Cor.
v. 14, 15, as far as spiritual death 1 even reigns, so far the re-
demption is provided; Heb. ii. 9; 2 Cor. v. 19. The argument
here is simple. The redemption of Christ is a redemption from
Sin: if it is for all, then all are in a state to need it. The atone-
ment is for all mankind, is for children as a part thereof: else
there are two kinds of atonement, one for moral depravity, and
the other for physical.
2. So of regeneration. Take only a single passage. John
iii. 5, 6 shows that all that are born of the flesh need the regen-
eration of the Spirit; else they cannot see the kingdom of God.
Hence all as born of the flesh are in a sinful condition; for re-
generation is a spiritual change. Else thei'e are two kinds of
regeneration. Either there is moral ruin, needing a moral remedy,
or else physical needing only physical remedy. What is the
meaning, too, of baptism as applied to children, if it is not sig-
nificant of the washing of regeneration? (It is no answer to
cite the case of Christ's baptism, for that is always understood
as meaning something different.) What things are principally
asked for in prayers for infant children ? And as to the hope
of the salvation of children dying in infancy: which is the best
system, one which is able to say outright, Christ died for them,
they may be the subjects of renewing grace, or one which is
obliged to hesitate and falter on this point ? Otherwise, strictly
taken, infants are not saved through the atonement of Christ
and the renewal of the Holy Ghost.
VI. This Scriptural argument is confirmed by Scriptural
the Biblical teaching i& that all men, from the days of Adam on, stand in need of
redemption and that a divine judgment of reprobation rests upon them as sinners,
from which Christ alone can set them free. A more intimate explanation of the
way and manner in which Adam became a cause of the sinfulness of his posterity,
is given neither by Paul nor John."]
J["Then were all dead" is the rendering preferred by the author.]
29 G CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
facts and facts of history in respect to God's moral government
here. Under the moral government of God, one man may justly
suffer on account of the sins of another. An organic relation
of men is regarded in the great judgments of God in history:
they are in proportion to the social position of offenders. There
is evil which comes upon individuals, not as punishment for
their personal sins, but still as suffering which comes under a
moral government. 1 The church as a whole has held either
natural or spiritual death, or both, to be the just consequences
of Adam's sin. The atonement, at the very least, is suffering
under a moral government for moral ends, by an innocent person
instead of by the guilty; a substitution; not indeed the suffering
of the penalty of the law for personal transgression, but still, in
the lowest view, a suffering justly under the law for the sake
of redemption. We have explicit assertions of God's dealing
with men morally in view of their connections in the family
order; the descendants of Canaan suffered under the curse
pronounced upon their forefather; Reuben's sin affected his
tribe ; David's misdeeds were visited on the nation ; Gehazi's
offence was punished in his offspring as well as in his person,
2 Kings v. 27; the sin of Jeroboam involved the ten tribes
in its penal consequences; the result of the imprecation, "His
blood be on us and on our children," who can measure ? What
is asserted in the second commandment of the law, is reas-
serted by the prophets. Jer. xxxii. 18, "Thou showest loving-
kindness unto thousands, and recompensest the iniquity of the
fathers into the bosom of their children after them."
It may be said, all these are merely " consequences " of family
or tribal or national or race relations, " evil becomes cosmical
by reason of fastening on relations which were originally
Dr. N. W. Taylor: "The connection with Adam is stated in such a way, by
God's sovereign constitution, that the sin and just (not actual) condemnation of all
men to bear its penalty must be inferred from their connection with Adam as his
descendants." But there is no relief in ascribing the evil which comes upon men
in their race relations to sovereignty alone, for that leaves the difficulty the same,
and adds the element of arbitrariness. Moreover it removes from the moral gov-
ernment of God the most important transactions affecting that government.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 297
adapted to making good cosmical : " but then God's plan must be
in the consequences; a plan administered by a Moral Being,
over moral beings, according to moral considerations, and for
moral ends: and if that be fully taken into view, the dispute as
to "consequences" or punishment becomes a merely verbal one.
3. The Fads of the Case as to Original Sin, as argued from
Experience, and on other than Scriptural Grounds.
I. The testimony of many of the wisest and profoundest
philosophers is entirely accordant with, and leads to, the Script-
ural view. Socrates speaks of a general corruption of the best
of nations, and calls it a disease for which no human art had found
a remedy. Plato ascribes to children an inward pravity even of
nature, for, he says, if they learned evil by example as birds learn
to sing, then it would only be necessary to seclude them in order
to make them good. Xen. Cyrop., vi. 1, 4: "It is clear that I
have two souls; for surely if it were one, it would not be good
and bad at the same time, and inclined to good deeds and evil
too, and willing at one time to do certain things and not to do
them. But plainly there are two souls, and when the good one
gets the upper hand, it does right, and when the evil, it enter?
on wicked courses." Sophocles, Antigone, 1 583 seq., 606 seq. :
"I see the ancient miseries of thy race,
Labdacus, arising from the dead
With fresh despair: nor sires from sons efface
The curse some angry Power hath riveted
Forever on thy destined line."
Of Jove:
" Spurning the power of age, enthroned in might
Thou dwell'st mid heaven's broad light.
This was, in ages past, thy firm decree,
Is now, and shall, forever, be:
That none of mortal race, on earth, shall know
A life of joy serene, a course unmarked by woe.' ;
Seneca, Ep. 52, ad Lucilium: "What is it, Lucilius, that
when we set ourselves in one way draws us in another; and
' Prof. W. S. Tyler, Bibl. Sacr., Jan. '61, p. 58 seq.
298 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
when we desire to avoid any course drives us into it ? "
" By what means or when shall we be drawn away from this
folly? No man is able to emerge from it by his own energy.
Another must stretch forth his hand and lead us out." Cicero,
Tusc. iii. 1, 2: " Sunt enim iugeniis nostris semina innata virtu-
turn; quae si adolescere liceret, ipsa nos ad beatam vitam natura
perduceret. Nunc autem, simul atque editi in lucem et suscepti
sumus, in omni continuo pravitate, et in sum ma opinionum per-
versitate versamur." Cicero in Hortensius, 1 speaks of sages,
"qui nos ob aliqua scelera suscepta in vita superiore, poenarurn
luendarum causa natos esse dixerunt." "These men," continues
Cicero, "seem to have had some proper perception (aliquid vidisse
videantur); and that may be true which we find in Aristotle, 2 that
we are punished like those of yore, who fell into the hands of
Etruscan robbers, and were slain with elaborate cruelty; their
live bodies being tightly bound with corpses placed exactly
opposite : thus are our souls linked with our bodies as the living
in conjunction with the dead." With these agree the philoso-
phers of modern times. Leibnitz; Kant, rationalist as he was,
speaks of the radical evil of human nature; Hegel, pantheist as
he was, declares that original sin is the nature of every man;
every man begins with it.
In point of fact, the whole of logical and even of pantheistic
infidelity confesses all that makes up the substance of the ortho-
dox doctrine of original sin: alienation from God, hereditary
depravity, constant sinning by all from their youth up: only
they ascribe to it a simple physical character, denying it to be
moral; they make it a necessity, and so do not lessen its evil,
while they thereby stifle the sense of guilt, and deny the neces
sity of redemption. 3
1 There are only fragments of this Hortensius. It helped to lead Augustine
to faith.
2 Brandis says, "Aristotle would have believed in original sin." (See Peip,
Trinita't, in Herzog's Encycl.)
3 Coleridge, Lit. Remains, 3, 324: "One of the main ends and results o*
the doctrine of original sin is to silence and confute the blasphemy that
makes God the author of sin, without avoiding it by flying to the almost
equal blasphemy against the conscience, that sin in the sense of guilt does
not exist.'*
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 299
II. The hereditary character of the depravity of mankind
is also confirmed by the analogies recognized by science and
philosophy. The human race is descended from one pair. The
descent is by propagation, under the law that like begets like.
The law of propagation in the animal kingdom carries down all
the peculiarities of the animal, the animal instincts, the animal
soul. The same law in the human race brings down national
traits, family traits, intellectual peculiarities, strength or weak-
ness of the will, moral traits, special moral peculiarities, pride,
envy, jealousy, revenge. That is, this law of propagation car-
ries with it the special peculiarities of all the faculties of the
soul, and therefore it carries the soul also ; which is also accord-
ing to the analogy of the animal kingdom. Besides these, it
carries with it what belongs to the race as a whole, its general
bias, its generic moral condition, in relation to moral ends, and
this generic moral condition of the race is original sin. In all
other spheres the law of propagation carries everything else
down l : it is according to the analogy that it should carry the gen-
eric moral bias of the human race.
III. The experience of all men, so far as it can reach back,
tends to confirm the doctrine of original sin. We do not mean,
of course, that our experience traces it back to Adam, but it
does trace back the sin in us so far as this: that we cannot de-
tect its origin in our deliberate choice. No human being is able,
in experience, to go back to the time when he first decided con-
sciously and deliberately for self and the world and against God.
All men, when moral consciousness is awakened, as a matter of
fact, find themselves in the state of immanent preference for
some lower good, and this,- they all feel and know to be, as it
exists in them, a sinful, a guilty condition. This is the solemn
and mysterious fact about our experience of sin and our knowl-
1 [The student will find in Dorner's Glaubenslehre some profound observations
on the individuality which is not "carried down," but which rather perpetually
springs up in the intellectual and moral differentiation of the race, and which
Dr. D. is perhaps inclined to ascribe to that very special divine concursus which
attends the propagation of mankind. There is evidence that the author would
have agreed with Dr. D., here.]
300 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
edge of its real nature. It is, too, our own sin, our own guilt. 1
This state we find as a preference, a direction, a bias of the will.
We may speculate about the time when we first came into this
state, but we cannot reach that time in experience. Our sense
of personal ill-desert is doubtless connected with, based upon,
the fact, that this sinful preference is felt and known to be ours,
approved and loved by us, to be our love, our choice. But the
universality of such a sinful preference, beyond the sphere even
of memory, proves that it has its ground in our very constitution.
Another form of statement. This state in which we are born
is the ground of our first moral choice, of our immanent prefer-
ence, so that the latter only expresses in the form of choice, of
preference, what was before in this state, in potentia. And this
immanent preference was before any present memory of ours,
so that we find ourselves in it as the whole bent and bias of
our being our inmost, profoundest moral reality. And for this,
when the light of the law comes, we feel and know ourselves to
be guilty before God : it is a state justly subjecting us to the di-
vine judgments, from which we can be delivered only through
regeneration and application of the atoning blood of Christ.
And this is the common state of men, as men, as descendants
of Adam, under the divine government. Provided these points
be granted, it becomes a verbal dispute whether we call this state
sinful or depraved, or not: the mere term is not worth contend-
ing for, because such different definitions may be given of it.
IV. This is confirmed by Christian experience and by that
which usually precedes it: by the light which comes in regener-
ation, and the deeper convictions about sin through which souls
are led to their conversion.
Horn. vii. has here its decisive application. A depth of sin
and evil is disclosed in us, a greatness of guilt and ill-desert, of
which we before had no conception, vs. 23, " I see another law
in my members" there is a laiv of sin in us. By the law is tho
knowledge of sin. vs. 7, " I had not known sin, except through
the law " (yet, the sin is there). This is the voice of all deep
1 See President Marsh's Essay on Sin, on some aspects of sin the very best
Essay that we know of.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 301
and true religious experience. Sin is profounder in us than any
depth to which we have reached before the law comes. It exists
in an unconscious state, which must be brought out into the
light of distinct consciousness. The sinfulness and guilt exists
before the consciousness of it. There is a broad distinction be-
tween guilt and the sense of guilt. Under the influence of God's
Spirit, we become sensible of a pollution, of a guilty, most sinful
condition, from which we know that no power or might of our
own can deliver us, but only grace, only redeeming grace, only
regeneration applying atoning blood. Just here experience leaves
us. It conducts us to the knowledge of a deep-seated depravity,
which we know not that we originated, but which is ours by
preference: it expresses itself to us in that form. For that we
feel guilty and condemned. Reason and Scripture together then
lead us one step further to this point : that before that prefer-
ence, there was a bias, a propensity thereto, in our native con-
dition. Scripture carries us back one step further, viz., to the
knowledge that the human race have come into this condition
in consequence of the apostasy of our first parents. 1
In respect to the problem of original sin, such are the facts
to be taken into the account, on the one side : they may be thus
summed up: In consequence of the sin of Adam, the head and
beginning of the race, all men come into the world, in the way
of natural descent, in a state of condemnation, not only without
holiness, but with a bias or propensity to sin, subject under the
divine government to evils, suffering and death, from which
condition they can only be delivered through the redemption
that is in Christ. And this native state becomes their irnma-
1 Every profounder view of human life, human history, human character, ia
compelled to go behind the individual action to its causes and grounds: ita
grounds in human nature itself: in the connection of each man with all others.
We cannot escape this if we think upon it. All philosophy leads us in this di-
rection. Especially does the whole idea and system of redemption lead to this:
our union with Christ, the grace of the Holy Spirit. The ground of our holy acts
and of our redemption is not in our own wills. The greatest minds, the best and
most life-giving theology of the Christian church, the deepest Christian experi-
ence, lead us to view men ultimately, not under their individual aspects and re-
sponsibilities, but in their connection with the whole race and the whole system
of things.
302 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
nent preference, as soon as they act morally. And for this they
know themselves to be guilty and condemned before God.
Here is one side of the problem to be solved: before considei
ing the solutions which have been attempted, we must bring
into view other Scriptural and moral positions, in order to have
before us all the elements which belong to the question.
CHAPTER V.
THE COUNTER-REPRESENTATION AS TO SIN AND ITS PUNISHMENT
IN SCRIPTURE AND EXPERIENCE.
I. In Scripture. Besides those descriptions and statements,
hi the Scriptures, about sin and death, in which they are viewed
as the heritage of all men, there is another class of passages in
which sin and punishment are spoken of under the exclusively
personal aspect, in relation to the words and deeds of each
individual : and the same is true of redemption and salvation.
There are what we may call the generic and the personal
classes oi passages, specimens of which may be compared :
Generic: Personal:
Eyod. xx. 5; Num. xiv. 18, with Ezek. xviii. 20; GaL vi. 5.
Rom. v. 16, " Rom. ii. 6.
2 Cor. v. 14, Deut. xxx. 19; Eom. xiv. 12.
Matt. xv. 19, " 1 John ii. 16.
Eom. vii, " 2 Cor. v. 10.
Holiness, too, is from the Yet, we are commanded to
power of the Holy Spirit, be holy.
waking the dead to life;
Grace is of God; Yet, commended to our
choice.
Yet it is to be noted that while the Scriptures thus put life
in our election, it is not in the form that by obedience to the
law any human being can be saved. It is only in the form of
accepting a grace offered. They thus presuppose the state of
sin and the need of redemption in every human being. The)
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 303
never intimate, they deny, that any member of the race cac
obtain eternal life by the deeds of the law. Rom. iii. 20;
Gal. iii. 21
II. In experience as interpreted by moral philosophy.
1. It is said, that the testimony of our moral nature is, that
nothing can be considered sin in u, or as involving guilt, which
is not our own free, personal choice. Inherited propensity, bias
to the world and self are conceded: but these are not sinful, and
guilt attaches only to free acts. We cannot be held morally
responsible for a native state which we could not avoid.
Conscience condemns us only for our own deliberate choices.
Sin, guilt, and punishment can relate only to what we do, inter-
nally or externally All else belongs not to the sphere of moral
responsibility, but to the course of nature and providence, external
to the proper moral government.
2. Still further it is said, that justice and right demand that
God should not bring new-created beings into a state where
the advantages of a safe issue should not be greater than the
disadvantages. 1
Thus, by these antagonisms the question is raised, on the
three points already stated: (a.) the relation of the ruined con-
dition of the race to our personal guilt; (6.) the relation of our
native state to our personal acts; (c.) the relation of God's gov-
ernment, so far as it respects the whole race, to the demands of
justice in respect to each member of the race.
Hence the Problem^in its different aspects, is:
1. To reconcile the fact that through "the one man's dis-
obedience the many were made sinners " (Rom. v. 19), with the
position that all men become sinners by their own act.
2. To reconcile the fact that we are born with a propensity
to sin, with the position that guilt implies also personal ill-desert,
and that all such ill-desert is of our own origination.
3. To reconcile God's justice to each man, as seen in the rev-
1 This is one of the positions of Dr. Edward Beecher, in his "Conflict ol
Ages." He grants that in the present sphere the disadvantages are undoubtedly
greater.
304 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
elations of the last judgment, with the fact that He has brought all
men or allowed all men to come into such a state that they
will certainly sin and perish, unless arrested by grace.
The two extreme positions, so far as sin is concerned, maj
be said to be contained in the two formulas: All men sinned and
fell in Adam, and, All sin consists in sinning. Each of these
plants itself on one side of the dilemma, as containing the whole
truth: and each of these, taken strictly by itself, is about as
true, for the solution of the problem, as the other: for each neg-
lects the other, and leaves unaccounted for about half of the
difficulty.
So, as far as the vindication of God's justice is concerned, the
two extreme positions may be said to be these: (a.) God's justice
has to do only with our personal acts; but God's inscrutable be-
nevolence has put us in a condition in which all those acts will
certainly be sinful: (6.) God's justice has to do both with our
generic condition and our individual acts; but his justice is
inscrutable.
CHAPTER VI.
THE THEORIES PROPOSED FOR THE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM.
1. The Theory of Immediate Imputation.
The word impute means, to set to one's account legally; or,
to reckon to one's account ; or, to treat as if (not, make to be, but,
to treat as if). To impute the guilt of a sin is to treat as if guilty
of that sin. To impute a righteousness is to treat as if having
that righteousness. The word is not used in the sense of a
transfer of moral character from Adam to his posterity, 1 or of an
infusion of an evil principle into the soul, but, of a sentence of
1 Any objection to immediate imputation on this ground is simply an objection
to a misapprehension of the theory. The New England interpretation of this
imputation, since the younger Edwards, has popularly been, transfer of moral
character, which, however, is denied to be possible by both sides.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 305
condemnation passed on all the race for Adam's first sin. Those
who hold the position of immediate imputation also hold that
there is an innate, human depravity, but they say the innate
depravity is not the ground of the condemnation. It is tho
consequence of the imputation. The theory of immediate im-
putation, carried out a little more definitely, is this: Adam is
both the federal and natural head of the human race, but the
federal headship is first, prior in logic and thought. Adam as
the federal head stood, as an individual, for all other individual
men, as their immediate representative. This was by a divine
arrangement. And when he fell, they were included in the sen-
tence, because he directly represented them. Whatever he did
is directly immediately made over to them. Then the natural
headship is the means of carrying down the consequences of the
imputation to his posterity. And so the corruption of the pos-
terity is the consequence and not the ground of the imputation. 1
Objections to this view:
1. It is not borne out by Kom. v. 12, which is the great pas-
sage cited in its favor. That passage undoubtedly teaches a
condemnation of all on the ground of the offence of one, but it
does not teach that the condemnation is without respect to the
moral condition of Adam's posterity. It asserts the fact, but
does not give the media, of the condemnation. This theory de-
nies that the exposure of mankind to punishment is made in view
of the corruption of their nature, that the corruption forms any
essential part of the whole state of facts which comes under the
divine regard in the imputation; the passage in Romans does
not deny this, but is perfectly consistent with it, though it does
not explicitly affirm or deny on either side of this paiticular
question.
2. The theory tends to present the whole matter of sin and
its punishment in ail external, arbitrary, and merely forensic
manner. It is merely an outside form to the whole real order
i Among the New England divines, Bellamy comes nearest to this statement,
Works, i. 223, 224 (Boston ed.) Hopkins also comes very near to it, but he does
not throw out an intermediate depraved nature, as having no consideration in the
imputation.
306 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
of facts. It is simply a scaffolding around a building, and all
the facts of the case are inside.
3 The theory rests upon an unreal and unphilosophical view
of the relation of Adam to his posterity: it is a carrying out of
tho theory of the Covenants in such a way as Scripture does not
warrant. The notion is, that Adam, an individual, represents
all other individuals, so that his act is representatively their act.
The unity of the race, as a moral organic whole, is lost in this
theory, just as much as in the extreme theories on the other side.
We have only an individual acting for a great many individuals.
(Hence, too, the theory of a limited atonement: a provision of
salvation for such and such a specific number of individuals,
with no provision, although an incidental sufficiency, for a race.)
The theory takes the doctrine of original sin out of its proper
place, as the sinful state of the race, and individualizes it. 1
4. It is also encumbered with all the difficulties of the ordi-
nary view: for besides the imputation, it has to concede a real,
native corruption, in the way of descent. And it is obliged to
view this as a punishment, a punishment without any ground
in the individual, without any ground in the race connection of
the individual. 2
5. Nor does it help us in our vindication of the divine gov-
ernment. All the truth there is about it is, that we can, in the
way of illustration, so represent the relation between Adam and
his posterity. But it gives us a structure outside of the real
matter rather than the matter itself: a scaffolding rather than
the skeleton. It is claimed for this theory that it "explains"
the corruption of the race, while that of Edwards, it is said, sim-
ply states the fact: but it would rather appear that the theory
of immediate imputation neither states nor explains. There is a
question of fact: what is the connection between Adam and man-
1 It also involves creationism as to the origin of individual souls. It is a the-
ory no more true to fact than the "social compact" theory: in fact it is in the
same style of thought as that.
a [It is doubtful whether any prominent American theologians should be re-
garded as advocating the position stated in this last clause. A certain element
of mediate imputation is often recognized by those who in the main contend for
immediate.]
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 307
kind as related to human corruption? This theory says: the
connection is primarily one of representation, and secondarily
of race-unity: which does not state the fact. Then there is
another question, viz., How is it just that we should inherit the
corrupt nature of Adam ? This justice, it is said, is shown, by
the theory of immediate imputation, or representation. But
that is no explanation of the justice: it is simply giving an ab-
stract statement of the fact. The whole question remains: How
is it just that Adam should be our representative? We are at
least helped towards an answer by taking into view our oneness
with him on some real and evident ground.
6. The argument from the imputation of Christ's righteous-
ness does not hold. It is said, the pin of Adam must be imputed
to his posterity, without their participation, and in order to their
participation, because so the righteousness of Christ is imputed
to his people (and if this latter be denied, justification is merged
in sanctification). But, to speak of nothing else here, the argu-
ment assumes that because grace is given gratuitously, punish-
ment may equally be.
7. The history of the doctrine, or at least the weight of his-
toric testimony, is against this view of immediate imputation.
Augustine teaches that Adam stood for the whole race, that
the whole was seminally in him, but he does not separate the
imputation from the propagation of the corrupted condition.
The two things go together. With him Adam was, not, stood
for, the whole race. Among the Scholastics, in Anselm and
Aquinas, we find the separation first so distinctly made, and
carried out by the Roman Catholic divines, in the serrice of
their sacramental theory. The "guilt" of sin, it was said, is
taken away in baptism: and here the guilt is separated from,
and made quite external to, the nature, while the concupiscence
admitted to be in the nature and to remain after baptism, is de-
clared not to be sin. Some such position must be taken by the
sacramental system. The earlier Reformers, Calvin, Luther,
Melancthon, in returning to the position that concupiscence is
of the nature of sin, kept the immediate imputation in the back-
ground. Turretin teaches it afterwards, distinctly : teaches reatus
308 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
poence without a reatus culpce, but, as we read him, he also teaches
both theories together. The whole of the French school of Saumur
reacted from it; Stapfer in Switzerland, who has the ablest discus-
sion on the subject, states the opposite view, which Edwards cites
largely ; and Edwards has argued the question in the most thorough
and philosophical manner. Edwards in this country first distinctly
said, that the sin is not ours because it is imputed to us, but it is
imputed to us because it is ours. 1
2. The T/ieory of Direct Divine Efficiency, in the Way of a
Constitution?
The theory is : God in his sovereignty established a constitu-
tion, in which it was appointed, that by occasion of Adam's sin,
all his posterity should be brought into being sinners, or so that
they should sin in their first moral acts. The capital phrases
here are, " a divine constitution," and " the divine sovereignty."
Hopkins (Syst. i. 268) says: "By a divine constitution there is
a certain connection between the first sin of Adam and the sin-
fulness of his posterity, so that as he sinned and fell under
condemnation, they in consequence of this become sinful and
condemned. Therefore when Adam had sinned, by this the
character and state of all his posterity were fixed, and they
were, by virtue of a covenant made with Adam, constituted or
made sinners like him, and therefore were considered as such
before they had actual existence." Then the way in which it
comes to us is by our consent to Adam's sin in our first moral
act. "This," he says, "is the only rational, consistent, and satis-
factory account of this most interesting affair that can be given."
But again, " Our sin is not the penalty of Adam's transgression ;
the sin of Adam is not imputed to us, we being innocent."
Adam's posterity are " born in sin," "so as to begin to sin as
soon as they begin to exist with a capacity of sinning, as soon
as they begin to act as moral agents." " If by their being his
[Adam's] children they become corrupt, they must of consequence
1 See Stuart, Scriptural views of Imputation, Bib. Rep. 1836, against the vie^r
that Imputation is transfer of character.
2 Hopkinsianism, especially as carried out by Dr. Emmons.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 309
be corrupt as soon as they exist, or become his children. If it were
not so, it would not appear from fact that they became sinful by
being the posterity of Adam " (p. 274). As soon as the infant
exists, he may have moral corruption in sin. Hence we are
not to distinguish between original and actual sin (Note, p. 276).
Emmons takes substantially the same position.
Objections to this theory:
1. It is unnatural. It neglects the unity, the vital moral
connection of the race, resolving everything into an arbitrary
appointment and decree in the most abstract form.
2. It supposes the earliest sinful exercises to be the result
of an immediate divine efficiency, making God to be virtually
the author of sin.
3. It neglects what undeniably exists, a nature or bias be*
fore the motions thereof. It is Berkeleian in its philosophical
assumption. It cannot answer the question: What were chil-
dren who died before a sinful act were they moral beings, or
little animals?
Yet, it was a laboring upon a great problem, in a peculiar
and original way. The solution is attained by the virtual denial
of one half of the problem the hereditary descent of the evil
nature. God decrees volitions: that is the whole scheme.
It gives an abstract unreal " constitution."
3. The Hypothesis of Physical Depravity.
This says: In consequence of the sin of Adam, all his de-
scendants are born with disordered susceptibilities, with a " con-
stitutional" derangement, which is not sinful or guilty, which
has no character, but which is always the certain occasion of
sinning. There is no sin until sinning takes place, and this sin-
ning is the just ground of condemnation. The word constitu-
tion has here a very different sense from that of the Hopkinsian
theory, considered in 2. This is sometimes represented as
Hopkinsianism, but there is a wide difference, there is a differ-
ent psychology. Neither Hopkins nor Emmons would have ad-
mitted a nature, however qualified, as innocent or without
character. In the old Hopkinsianism, the word constitution
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
is used for a divine arrangement; in the modern, for what is
human, for the physical constitution of man. The older would
not grant any soul before act, but the later brings in a soul under
the first act, alleging that until it acts it is innocent or neutral.
Dr. N. W. Taylor not only reinstated the human soul in its na-
tive rights, but he also affirmed the existence of susceptibilities,
tendencies, dispositions, antecedent to voluntary action. But
as he also held that all that is moral is in voluntary action, he
of course said that these tendencies and dispositions have no
rr.oral character. 1 Here is a human constitution, the basis of
Bmful action, securing its certainty, and not a mere divine ar-
rangement. This native state may be called vicious, vitiosity,
depravity, anything to imply what is odious, but it has no moral
character, and the above terms when applied to it must not be
understood as having any moral sense.
The Difficulties of this theory:
1. It virtually resolves the whole doctrine of original sin
into a physical condition. It is a proper doctrine of physical
depravity.
2. It derives its plausibility from its definition of sin. It
defines sin as an act or exercise, and as that which in its own
nature makes the individual worthy of everlasting death. The
whole question of original sin is set aside by this definition. With
such definitions, all that the theory claims must be conceded.
3. As it is often carried out, it leads to superficial views of
depravity, so that all spontaneous feeling, all that is not deliber-
ate choice, is excluded from the sphere of sin (some exclude even
the affections, putting all sin in a purpose). When thus carried
out, hardly any theory can more surely undermine the founda-
tions of religion and of ethics. It tends to low views of the
Atonement and of Regeneration. Denying the real facts of de-
pravity, it tends to deny some of the essential things in the re-
demption. It cannot meet, and it cannot do away with, the fact
that we feel guilty for our spontaneous preferences, for our na-
ture as acted out.
1 [See Faith and Philosophy, 259. There is an acute discussion in Beecher'g
Conflict of Ages, and in Mtillef on Sin.]
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 311
4. The theory makes an unnatural separation between what
has no character and what is moral in us. We cannot draw
the line of accountability and of guilt by this theory. As soon
as we attempt to do it by finding acts in which we have full
power to the contrary, we narrow the sphere of our moral acts.
5. There is made a like unnatural and merely theoretical
separation between God's moral and his general or providential
government. The theory is compelled to exclude from God's
moral government all excepting deliberate personal choices.
It cannot even allow God's moral government of nations in a
distinctive sense. It concedes that if the great facts of human
nature are brought under the moral government of God, the
theory is indefensible, and so it virtually concedes that God's
justice cannot be defended in this matter. But what is gained
by this? If God has put the race into this condition, it must be
consistent with his justice as well as his benevolence and in
fact, the benevolence is but a part of the justice. The theory is
fatal to man's culpability 1 ; for, to account for the universality
of sinfulness, it makes the liability to sinfulness very great,
but in saying that this is not sinful, it diminishes the sense
of guilt.
6. The difficulty as to the divine government is in fact only
carried back one step. God gives a nature which will certainly
lead to sin in every child of Adam. But it is no more easy to
reconcile that view with the divine justice than the ordinary
view. How early does an infant decide? After a month, or
six months, or a year of existence? Can this* be reconciled with
our views of what justice would demand, more easily than other
theories? No real relief is gained in fact, only in terminology:
all the advantage is in a word sinful.
7. While the theory gives no real relief on this point, it is
embarrassed in respect to the atonement and regeneration, un-
less it allows to each of these a physicaj efficacy and physical
relations; and if it does allow such efficacy to the atonement
and to regeneration, then why not to sin ?
8. The scheme of a divine efficiency producing the sinful
i See Prof. Fisher, New Englander. Aug. i860.
312 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
volition, in the form of a constitution, referred back to divine sov
ereignty, outrages all our moral conceptions. It is a merciless
system. Against this Dr. Taylor protested with vigor and suc-
cess. But his scheme 1 of a neutral state, neutral yet always
producing sin, for which state no regeneration or atonement is,
strictly, provided, is inferior in its moral appeals to a system
which allows that regeneration and atonement may be provided
for such a state.
9. As respects the nature of the decision which is the real
beginning of sin in us, and which must be " inferred " from our
connection with Adam, it is purely hypothetical; it has no
known facts to stand upon. That it was with " full power to
the contrary " we may assert but can never prove. 2 To lay the
whole burden of the vindication of the divine government on
the hypothesis of such a power to the contrary in a child six
months or a year old is, to say the least, unwise.
4. The Pelagian and Unitarian View.
We have here no proper theory for a solution of the problem,
but simply a denial that the problem exists. The facts of the
universality, the totality, and the native character of sin are set
aside. It is claimed that the sin of Adam did not injure his
descendants at all, that men are born with a mixture of good
and evil, that we cannot use the words depraved, vicious, etc.,
in respect to the natural condition of men. To each one is trans-
mitted the same nature in kind and condition that Adam had,
and each stands and falls as Adam did. 3
1 Dr. K W. Taylor, on Eom. v. 12-14. Object to show " that all the posterity
of Adam became sinners and subject to temporal death in consequence of his sin,
and yet in such a way or mode of connection as not to exclude their individual
responsibility for their own sin, nor to imply that temporal death was the legal
penalty of sin; but in such a way, by God's sovereign constitution, that the sin, and
just (not actual) condemnation of all men to bear its penalty must be inferred
from their connection with Adam as his descendants." " Such is the constitution
or nature [of men] that in all the appropriate or natural circumstances of their
existence, they will uniformly sin from the commencement of moral agency."
2 In Hopkins and Emmons the position taken merely amounts to this, that
the soul is morally active from the beginning. Emmons at least leaves it an oper
question whether the activities are not the soul.
3 Bev, Geo. E. Ellis, Chris. Exam., Nov. 1853.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 31 H
5. The Hypothesis of Pre-existence.
In recent times this theory has been brought forward by
Julius Muller as a hypothesis to explain the facts of human
depravity. (Edward Beecher has also urged it as a means of
vindicating the divine government, and showing that God acts
according to the principles of honor.) The hypothesis is framed
to meet two positions: (a.) That all sin is from personal choice;
(6.) That we are sinful from the beginning of our existence in
this life. We suppose that those who maintain the theory do
not hold it as a fact, but simply as a hypothesis, just as it is
held that there is a diffused ether in space, in order to account
for a retardation of the heavenly bodies 1
Objections :
1. The theory assumes that there cannot be in man a strictly
depraved bias, which is not the product of his own free act. It
is true that such a bias becomes our choice, and that we feel
guilty for it as such; but the assumption is more than this,
that it must have been produced by our choice.
2. Modern advocates of this theory are inconsequential in
conceding also a kind of hereditary depravity, of which the
punishment is natural death, and of which we are partakers
on account of Adam's transgression. This should hare led
them to the orthodox view.
3. The theory cannot be reconciled with the account of the
Fall in Genesis and the consequent Scriptural representations,
nor with Rom. v. 12, etc. 1 We cannot connect our present being
with a former state of existence; there is no evidence" whereas
there is evidence of the connection of the race with Adam.
Rom. v. 12-19 stands directly in the way of the theory: the
state of mankind as ruined is traced directly back to Adam's
transgression.
i Dr. Edward Beecher says this passage "gives a typical sequence; i .,
there is a sequence given between Adam and his posterity which is typical, stand-
ing for a type of what is true in respect to each individual." But Kom. v. de-
claresif anything can declare that through the offence of one condemnation
came upon all. So the interpretation of Kom. v. 12, etc., as "apparent and not
real causation " is indefensible. The causation, on the very face of the passage
is just as real in reference to Adam as to Christ.
314 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
4. It appears to grant that the divine justice is indefensible
so far as the present order of things is concerned, without some
such unnatural hypothesis. It will not allow us to take refuge
in mystery, and trust in God. If an infidel does not receive the
hypothesis, then he may say : you grant, what we say, that the
present order of things is unrighteous.
5. It gives no explanation as to our sense of guilt for our
depravity. We cannot very well feel guilty for an act do&e in
an unconscious, ante-mundane state: while we may and do
feel guilty for our sinful dispositions.
6. It gives really no solution of the ultimate problem as to
moral evil. It simply pushes this back. Some facts in relation
to our present experience are supposed to be explained by the
theory, but the real difficulty of sin is not touched at all.
7. Those who defend this theory argue against the orthodox
view throughout on the ground that it assumes that each of the
descendants of Adam is a new created being and is created sin-
ful. But this is not the view of the major part. In this country,
the propagation theory is more generally held than that of cre-
ationism, although some have argued as though they believed
the latter.
CHAPTER VII.
OF SO-CALLED MEDIATE IMPUTATION.
I. Statement of mediate imputation.
We have given the leading theories proposed for the solution
of the problem of sin, with the difficulties about them. One we
have not particularly dwelt upon, not considering it a theory, 1
which we proceed to state.
1 [In connection with this clause "not considering it a theory," the not*
already referred to, may be recalled: "Neither immediate nor mediate impu-
tation is wholly satisfactory." Understand by "Mediate Imputation" a full
statement of the facts in the case, and the author accepted it; understand by it a
theory professing to give the final explanation of the facts, and it was " not wholly
satisfactory* "]
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 315
The only true course is that which undertakes nothing more
than tc give the facts of the case, on the Scriptural basis, resolv-
ing the chief difficulties into the more general problem of the
divine permission of sin in the race as a whole. This will estab-
lish the federal headship of Adam, making it follow the natural
headship.
The facts of the case in their bearings on the problem of
original sin, have already been indicated. They may be thus
summed up:
1. The human race is not a mere collection of individuals, but
an organic whole in the sense of a physical and moral unity: and
as such a unity it is considered in the Scriptures, both in respect
to sin and to redemption, in respect to both the first and the
second Adam : so that original sin and a general provision for
redemption stand or fall together.
2. Adam was by divine appointment the head and beginning
of the race: all men were virtually, potentially, or as some say,
seminally, in him. Not that they were in him as individuals,
not that they all nestled in him, but rather as the acorns that
are in the tree were in the acorns that were planted. And this
was determined by a divine constitution which made of one blood
all the nations of the earth (in this respect the same as to
man as in respect to the animal and vegetable world). Adam
at the beginning was the race.
3. On this basis of fact, the theory proceeds to the further
statement of fact: that the fall brought about in Adam a loss of
original righteousness and corruption of nature, so that selfish-
ness and worldliness became supreme. This general moral cor-
ruption becomes the heritage of all men by descent, and it shows
itself in all men in a twofold way: negatively, in the absence of
holy principle and positively, in a propensity to moral evil. Of
course this bias to sin is latent before the act, but still it is a
reality in every child of Adam, as is proved by the subsequent
facts.
4. On account of this innate depravity, all men, mankind as
such, are exposed, liable, to evils, to sufferings and death here,
and if divine grace do not interpose, to eternal death here
316 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
after; and in such exposure or liability consists the Imputa-
tion. 1 The common current phrase in theology is not desert,
but liability or exposure. This runs through all Calvinistic
formulas. For this native corruption before act, we need not
say that the person who is the subject of it will receive, or
deserves everlasting death. It is a liability, exposure, -justly
such ; but not personal desert. The desert of eternal death is
a judgment in respect to individuals for their personal acts
and preferences. Until such choice there cannot be, meta-
physically or ethically, such a judgment. Original sin is a doc-
trine respecting the moral conditions of human nature as from
Adam generic: and it is not a doctrine respecting personal lia-
bilities and desert. For the latter we need more and other cir-
cumstances. Strictly speaking, it is not sin which is deserving,
but only the sinner. The ultimate distinction is here: There is
a well-grounded difference to be made between personal desert,
strictly personal character and liabilities (of each individual
under the divine law, as applied specifically, e. g., in the last
adjudication), and a generic moral condition the antecedent
ground of such personal character. The distinction, however,
is not between what has moral quality and what has not, but
between the moral state of each as a member of the race, and
his personal liabilities and desert as an individual.
5. This original sin would wear to us only the character of
evil and not of sinfulriess, were it not for the fact that we feel
guilty in view of our corruption when it becomes known to us
in our own acts. Then there is involved in it not merely a
sense of evil and misery, but also a sense of guilt; moreover, re-
demption is necessary to remove it, which shows that it is a
moral state. Here is the point of junction between the two ex-
treme positions, that we sinned in Adam, and that all sin con-
sists in sinning.
1 [In this statement also, it is intended to keep to what are believed to be sim-
ple facts. " Imputation," viewed as a matter of fact, is a coupling of evils, suffer-
ings, death with a state of moral abnormity; Imputation, viewed as an attempt
to state the reasons and all ihe reasons which the divine mind has for treating
moral abnormity thus and not otherwise, is theory, and theory which is perhapf
beyond our present power of construction.]
ANTECEDENTS OF KEDEMPTIOX. 317
6. The guilt of Adam's sin is this exposure, this liability on
account of such native corruption, of our having the same na
ture, in the same moral bias. The guilt of Adam's sin is not to
be separated from the existence of this evil disposition. 1 And
this guilt is what is imputed to us. Here are to be considered
the important statements of Edwards (ii. 482, etc.) " The first
existing of a corrupt disposition in their hearts is not to be
looked upon as sin belonging to them distinct from their parti-
cipation in Adam's first sin ; it is, as it were, the extended pollu-
tion of that sin through the whole tree by virtue of the consti-
tuted union of the branches with the root." Jusi: before, "I
am humbly of the opinion, that if any have supposed the chil-
dren of Adam to come into the world with a double guilt, one the
guilt of Adam's sin, another the guilt arising from their having
a corrupt heart, they have not so well considered the matter."
And afterwards, " Derivation of evil disposition (or rather co-
existence) is in consequence of the union " but u not prop-
erly a consequence of the imputation of his sin; nay, rather
antecedent to it, as it was in Adam himself. The first depravity
of heart, and the imputation of that sin, are both the conse-
quence of that established union, but yet in such order, that the
evil disposition is first, and the charge of guilt consequent, as it
was in the case of Adam himself." (He quotes Stapfer: "The
Reformed divines do not hold immediate and mediate imputa-
tion separately but always together.") And still further, ii. 493:
"And therefore the sin of the apostasy is not theirs merely be-
cause God imputes it to them: but it is truly and properly
theirs, and on that ground God imputes it to them." 2
1 [The author would no doubt have continued to urge this position, had he
written out his system of theology. He always approved the general positions of
Edwards given above. But it is a question whether he did not intend to make
some final statements which would bring out more distinctly the proper federal
headship of Adam on the basis of the natural headship. All that is found, how-
ever, is the note, " Mediate imputation not wholly satisfactory." There is no
evidence that he meditated any retraction of what he gave in his lectures, but he
probably had in mind a statement of the whole subject under some larger point
of vievv.J
a To the same effect, Dr. John Owens, Works, xii. 249. Dr. Payne (Cong'l Lec-
tures) calls original sin " a loss of chartered blessings." And in fact the so-called
318 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
II. The bearings of this view upon the three problems which
have been stated.
1. The relation of the race to the individual: of Adam to his
descendants. This is stated in the theory. Adam, by divine
constitution, was made the head and source of the human race.
They share in the consequences of his transgression. At the
same time, from the beginning, over against this, redemption
was provided. In the divine purpose the sin was doubtless
permitted and allowed to be handed down with respect to the re-
demption: not for its own sake, nor for the sake of the punish-
ment of it, nor for the sake of administering a merely moral
system, but for the sake of the redemption, eternally provided
in view of it. Hence " this is the condemnation " or judgment
(John iii. 19). To all that have known of Christ, the judgment
final to endless ruin is for the rejection of Him. Infants
are undoubtedly to be considered as included in the covenant of
redemption. As to all dying in infancy, and as to the heathen
who do not know of Christ, perhaps no better statement has
been made than that of the Westminster Confession (Conf., chap.
x. . 3): "Elect 1 infants, dying in infancy" (including all infants
dying in infancy according to the almost universally prevalent
hope and belief) " are regenerated and saved by Christ through
the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth.
So also are all other elect persons, ivho are incapable of being out-
ivardly catted by the ministry of the word"
2. The relafion of the common sinfulness of the race to in-
dividual sin. The union between these two points and their
harmony is fonnd in the fact of experience to which we have ad-
verted our s^nse of guilt in view of this depravity when it be-
comes known to us, and the " consent" of which we are conscious.
This is a fact above all theory.
Covenant is nr>+ historically a covenant only, because it is much mora than a cov-
enant; a system " not of divine equity merely but of rich sovereign grace:" a plan
by which, in and through a human race, good might become " cosmical," as Dor-
ner has rrat it.
1 [Th* author in a certain place of his notes for lectures has referred, with strong
approval, to Crawford's statement ("Fatherhood of God," App.): Election comes to
this " that what God does in time He purposed to do from eternity."]
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 319
A. fuller statement. Question: Is there any common ground
to which we may come in the conflict between the two positions
that all men sinned in Adam and that all sin consists in
sinning?
(a.) The sinning and falling in Adam is not of the individuals
of the race else it were, as has been said, a fall of millions and
not of one. It is, that human nature thereby came into a corrupt
condition, having a bias and propensity to sin, and exposed to
evils and death. This each one has by descent. This is the sin
and fall in Adam.
(b.) As soon as each individual acts morally, this corrupt na-
ture becomes his own preference, his own immanent bias and
preference. K is for this that he feels guilty and condemned.
And there is the point of junction in experience between these
two views. Were it not for this preference, our whole native
condition would wear to each one the character of an evil, and
not of a strictly guilty, state. This is a fact of universal experi-
ence and the ultimate fact in our analysis, the last point in which
the two views come together. (This is what Hopkins- and Em-
mons insist upon, though they are led especially the latter
to insist, that this is the beginning of any moral condition in the
descendants of Adam, and is coeval with the existence of each
individual.) Here is where reatus culpce and Yeatus poence meet.
The question is fundamentally of the relation of the generic
to the individual, a question between Realism and Nominalism.
There is no more difficulty in principle about original sin than
about anything that is native. 1 In much of the modern ethics,
what is moral is made merely individual; pure individualism ia
asserted : the existence, the " real" 2 existence of the generic moral
1 [/. e., in the relation of the moral abnormity of each individual to the moral
abnormity of the race, of the stock from which each springs. As regards the di-
vine view of the condition of the race, which pronounces this to be strictly sinful,
the author of course admits difficulty. He inclines to carry back the difficulty of
the permitted perpetuation of sin and of God's moral judgment upon this, intc
the insoluble difficulty of the permission of the existence of sin, and to leave it
there.]
2 [An elaborate paper by the author on Kealisni and Nominalism elaborate,
t. e., as a preparation for a work which never was executed comes out upon the
general position of universalia in re, but insists that the universals must be recog
nized as realities as truly as the individuals are.]
320 CHKISTIAN THEOLOGY.
is not allowed. Here ethics is in the rear of the advance in the -
natural sciences.
3. As to the justice and goodness of God in providing such a
constitution for the human race.
The common view, which vindicates God's justice and good
ness on the basis of a sdentia media, is not entirely satisfactory.
The fact is that strictly the question here is not of God'a
justice in respect to individuals, but to the whole race. Yet
as the question is always argued with reference to individuals, we
will consider it in that relation.
(a.) If there was to be a race at all, existing by descent, it is
difficult to see how it could be under any other condition j 1 and
it was better to have a race even with such liabilities than not
to have a race.
(b.) As to individuals, it is not improbable that it is better for
each one to be in a state where there is a common sinfulness
and in which there is a common redemption provided, than it would
be for all the members of the race to stand or fall, each by him-
self, without such a provision? As we now come into the world,
it is under a dispensation of grace offered. With such a consti-
tution, there is hereditary depravity : 3 without it there might,
there probably would have been, angelic liabilities.
(c.) Yet ultimately we must say : The depths of the divine
wisdom and sovereignty we cannot penetrate, on any theory
of justice or of physical law. The ultimate reason of the existence
of sin is not disclosed, and the question of God's justice and good-
ness in dealing with mankind as the subjects of original sin
runs back into that greater problem the divine permission
of sin.
1 [Any other, i. e., than this, in which advantages and attainments, as well as 1
disadvantages and forfeitures, should be transmitted, and the whole line of trans*
mission, so far as it had moral bearings, should be under the divine moral ap-
proval or displeasure.]
2 Some suggest: Adam was in a better position for deciding than any of his
posterity would have been; could we have had a voice, we should have chosen him
to decide for us, etc. ; but this does not reach to the heart of the difficulty.
8 [Reference is made with approval to Dr. Charles Hodge (Essays, p. 71): " We
believe as fully and joyfully as he [Prof. Stuart] does, that the grace which is in
Christ Jesus secures the salvation of all who have no personal sins. to answer for."]
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 321
Another statement. On the question: If no provision for
redemption had been intended, would God have continued the
race through Adam, after his fall? Would God, i. e., have
brought into existence a race, merely that He might show
the glory of his justice in punishing forever all that belonged
to it? It is very possible that a general redemption is only
possible where there is a race; that the same constitution which
involves liability to generic sin makes a general atonement
possible. Christ, in order to redemption, must have part in
the race, be consubstantial with man. We are apt to spiritual-
ize both sin and redemption more than the Scripture does. In
the Bible, sin is connected with the death of the body, redemp-
tion with the resurrection of the body ; sin is from Adam to the
race, redemption from the second Adam to the race. The phy-
sical and the moral are here blended.
The grand relief in respect to the problem of sin is not to be
found in the will of man, nor in any real or supposed efficacy
of that will against the inroads and might of human sinfulness.
Exalt that power as we may, still, all that we can get out
of it is a vindication of our feeling of guilt and responsibility in
view of the evil and sin that are in us. Its best effect is reached
when we have deepened the sense of sin and sharpened the
feeling of responsibility. It may thus serve a purpose of vin-
dicating the divine justice in respect to our lot. But farther
than this it cannot carry us. It is not a power on which we can
rely for our moral change ; that change is only, in fact, through
divine grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
To have that redemption is absolutely essential for pardon. Nor
is that power of the will of any real availability in respect to
accounting for our first moral choices in this sphere of being.
It only enables us to say they were in some sense avoidable, not
necessary, i. e., by a merely physical necessity. But still the
broad, terrible fact remains, that there is that in human nature
which, in spite of this power, always carries the will, and begets
our immanent preferences. The real thing in us is this mighty
power of sin. To meet speculative difficulties, some such view
of the will as that referred to above, has its value: to meet our
322 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
practical difficulties we need more than this. As a matter of
fad, to all the human race there is no hope out of the redemp-
tion that is in Christ Jesus. And on the highest question as
to God's moral government, the solution must be found not out-
side of, but within the Christian system. The great ultimate
ground is this : this world was made, sin was permitted, Christ
came, the kingdom of God was established, in view of, and with
respect to, Redemption from sin.
Perhaps the only position where we can get any real relief,
as far as the divine government is concerned (and it is only
partial), is this: Adam sinned; God would at once have con-
demned to remediless punishment, had He not intended to
redeem. Adam would have had no posterity, had it not been
for redemption ; our coming into being is under the economy of
redemption. Our position is between the two economies the
evils of the one, through natural descent the hope of the other,
through grace. We may be saved through Christ. It is better
for us to come into being thus than to come, each to be tested
for himself. To oil to whom the gospel is offered the last and great
condemnation will be that they have rejected grace provided
and offered. Then as to those tvho die in infancy, there is a well-
grounded hope that they are of the elect. 1 As to the heathen,
and those who have never heard of Christ: doubtless they will
be judged finally according to the light that they have had: not
1 As to the salvation of infants, Clem. Alex, held that they could not be saved
without baptism, Augustine, the same (De Anima, lib. 3, c. xiv. ; contra Pel. lib. i. xl.
Pelagius had said: "Quommeantscio, quoeant, wescio");Perrone, in his Manual,
defends the proposition: "Infantes ex hac vita sine baptismo decedentes ad seter-
nam salutem pervenire non possunt;" Martin (E. C.) in his La Via Futura (Paris,
1853, pp. 435-455) cites testimony of the Fathers that unbaptized infants in tho
Limbus Infantum suffer deprivation only, not pain; Brownson, Quar. Rev., 1862-S,
assigns them to " a state of natural beatitude;" it is noticeable that Arminius ad-
mitted the damnation of infants as possible (Works, iii. 368, ed. of 1853): "I affirm
that they rejected the grace of the Gospel in their parents, grandparents, great-
grandparents, etc., by which act they deserved to be abandoned of God;" see the
debate between Lyman Beecher (" Spirit of the Pilgrims," 1828, i. 42, 78, 95, 149)
and Andrews Norton (Chris. Exam., 1827, iv. 431; v. 229, 316, 506); also a good
article by H. C. Townley, Chris. Rev., July, 1863, p. 418; [also, article by Dr.
Prentiss, Pres. Rev.. 1883].
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 323
merely according to and by their nature, but as they have used
or not used such opportunities of repentance as have been afforded
and this, too, on the ground of the redemption in Christ,
whether they have known it -or not. This is not free from
difficulties; but it seems to be the utmost that can be said.
It makes Redemption enter into the constitution and the final
judgment of the world.
CHAPTER VIII.
OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.
1. It is said that the doctrine of original sin makes sin to be
the cause of sin. But this does not hold properly against the
doctrine, because:
(a.) According to the doctrine, the cause of all sin in the
world is the transgression of Adam : sin is not the cause of sin,
but Adam is the cause of sin.
(&.) This original sin or native depravity in us is, properly
speaking, the source, the ground, the principle of sin rather
than the cause. The category to be applied sin being in the
race is not that of cause and effect, but, of ground and con-
sequence, of source and stream. The objection assumes that
all sin is a choice, of a person ; but this is not the sense of the
doctrine.
(<?.) The objection proves too much. Sin may "be the cause
of sin. Sinful habits, when formed, are the cause of sin in
everyday experience.
2. It is objected that a propensity to sin is not properly
sinful. This has been considered already, but the reasons for
calling it sinful may be here summed up.
(a.) Such is usage. The confining of all terms denoting
moral quality to individual acts belongs to a conventional and
narrow system of ethics, to the philosophy of individualism.
324 CHRIST! AX THEOLOGY.
It is sinful in the sense that it is from sin and leads to
sin. It is from sin alone, and leads only to sin.
(c.) It is the same disposition in us latent for which we feel
guilty and which we know to be sinful when it comes into dis-
tinct consciousness. A propensity to sin is a latent, inordinate
love of the world and self. All grant that, after choice, the pro-
pensity is sinful. How does it now differ from what it was
before? It has become a personal, manifested choice, involving
personal liabilities. As soon as we define sin by its real nature,
and not by its liabilities, not by its causes and consequences,
we have to bring a propensity to sin under it.
(d.) It is sinful because it exposes all the members of the
race to divine judgments under the moral government of God,
to evil, misery, death.
(e.) Because we need regeneration arid atonement in order
to be delivered from it: and these are moral and not physical
remedies.
Yet, while vindicating the propriety of calling it sinful, we
would not dispute about a mere word, if the facts of the case
are conceded. Native depravity is perhaps a more unobjection-
able term than original sin. If people call it native depravity
in a moral sense, and say that it comes from Adam, all that is
essential is granted.
3. It is objected that the doctrine makes two kinds of sin.
Of course it does, if sin is to be defined as actual transgression,
as specific volition, as conscious preference. Otherwise not. It
makes two forms of sin : one the conscious and the other the un-
conscious; one the native and the other the active. The objec-
tion sometimes is: there cannot be any sin without a knowledge
of good: choice of evil, knowing the good, is sin, and only this.
But the Apostle Paul says: "I had not known sin but by the
law." The sin was there before. The Psalmist prays: " Cleanse
thou me from secret faults." There is a great deal of sin in us,
in all Christians, which is only brought out in times of tempta-
tion and trial.
4. Objection is sometimes made to the form which the doc-
trine takes in mediate imputation, (a,) This is said to be " Re-
ANTECEDENTS OF KEDEMPTION. 325
alism," 1 involving numerical identity of substance in all the
members of the race. But the doctrine does not involve any
such speculation. The assertion that the human race is a reality
as truly as the human individual is, is not " realism " in the
sense of this objection. (&.) It is said that the doctrine in this
form involves an act of a nature, which is impossible. But
this only on the assumption of universalia ante rem. Universolia
in re is consistent with the position, that " in Adam the person
corrupted the nature, in us the nature corrupts the person/'
There ivas a nature to be corrupted by an act: there is a nature
which furnishes the corrupt ground of the person who becomes
corrupt, (c.) For the same reasons, it is said that this form of
the doctrine would bring upon us the guilt of all of Adam's sins,
and of all the sins of our forefathers. But this would only
hold against a form of mediate imputation which should deny
the federal headship of Adam, asserting all the evils of sin to
be mere consequences of transmission, and denying any righteous
judgment of God upon the race as in Adam, the public person,
and upon his act, his first sin, as the source of all human corrup-
tion and transgression, (d.) It is said that mediate imputation
is no imputation: that "impute" means, to reckon to one what
is done by another. Waiving the question a whether this is
accurate, we assert that any tolerable doctrine of mediate impu-
tation does "reckon to one what is done by another." The
mode or media of- reckoning may be different in different cases.
In conclusion we say that the definition of sin, which will
cover original sin, is our standard definition: "Sin is any want
of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God."
1 See Princeton Review, Jan. 1865.
2 Dr. Charles Hodge, Syst. Theol., ii. 194, says: "So far as the meaning of the
word [impute] is concerned, it makes no difference whether the thing imputed be
..... our own personally, or the sin or righteousness of another."
326 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
CHAPTER IX
ITS POWER OVER THE HUMAN WIIL.
We have here the question of Natural Ability and Moral In
virility. 1
The inherent difficulty of the inquiry, and of the right mode
of stating the exact truth, comes from the fact that the truth is
not a simple, but a relative one. We are in danger of taking
one half and neglecting the other, of stating the natural ability
without the moral inability, or the moral inability without the
natural ability, whereas both together make the truth. Here,
too, we have to do with one form of the reconciliation of the
great facts of dependence and free-agency, and also, of the cer-
tainty of depravity with the existence of accountability. Ac-
cordingly, the truth must be so stated as to save both sides.
Besides, here the greatest interests are at stake : the divine gov-
ernment on the one hand, and human freedom on the other;
while the discussion also bears upon the most solemn and impor-
tant part of preaching the grounds for the exhortation of the
sinner to repentance.
One way of meeting this difficulty is to assert both truths
in an unreconciled way. This is the common sense mode. This
is the way in which the truths lie in most minds, each being
held to be proved by sufficient evidence, and both being affirmed
without the endeavor to reconcile them. God is sovereign, mar
is free: God's sovereignty extends to all events, man's freedom
to all his moral acts. Or, in another point of view, man is de-
praved and always will sin, and yet he is always free in doing
it. This is the sound, practical way of looking at the subject.
Many theoretical attempts do not amount to much more than
this. And it is better to leave the question in this shape, hold-
ing both positions, each by itself, than so to state and enforce
either as to cut the nerve of the other. No theory of freedom
i See Smalley's Sermons, reprinted in Brown's Theol. Tracts, I. Compare
also, Dr. Hiokok's Science of Mind from Consciousness.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 327
can be true, which interferes with the divine government, in re-
generation, election, etc. ; and no theory of the divine government
can be true, which interferes with, or denies, the proper respon-
sibility and free will of man. And besides, all concede that it
is necessary to preach both in order to make a right impression
both certainty and free-agency : now, if it is necessary to preach
both, neither is true by itself alone, neither is true in an ab-
stract statement about it, made without respect to the other;
no definition of either can be correct which is not made with
respect to the other, in view of it, and as balanced by it. An
abstract metaphysical inability and an abstract metaphysical
ability are both false.
The problem therefore is, how to state the two facts in their
relations to, and connections with, each other. The different ex-
treme positions are these: (1) Man has no ability of any kind to
repent and turn to God; he is utterly disabled to all good, in
the proper strict sense of inability and disability. His con-
dition is that of "absolute disability." (2) The counter extreme
position is, that man has in the strict sense power to the con-
trary in all moral acts; i. e., entire adequacy to repentance, full
power, all power needful for the act of repentance, is given in
the power of contrary choice. The mere fact of power to the
contrary choice' gives full power to repent, without divine grace.
(3) Man has the natural ability to repent, while he is morally
unable, and the two are consistent with each other. This is
the New England statement, the position of Edwards.
1. Preliminary Definitions.
1. Natural Inability. By this is meant a want of powers or
power of choice, or of physical advantages and opportunities,
e. (j., when one lacks the requisite faculties, so that the power
of choice cannot apply to the case, as when an impotent man
resolves to walk and cannot. This is always applied in connec-
tion with the possibility of there being a willing mind. Natura 1
inability means, that one cannot though he will.
2. Natural Ability. By this is meant, having all the faculties
and p< wers of a moral agent, including the power of choice,
328 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
whatsoever is in the possible compass of one's natural capac-
ities, so that, if a man wills to do anything, he can do it, just
up to the extent of his natural capacities; e. g., a man wills to
jump; his natural ability is the extent to which he can jump if
he puts forth all his power. If a man is capable of one hundred
and twenty degrees of virtue, and one hundred and twenty-one
are demanded, that one hundred and twenty-first is not right-
fully demanded of him, because it is not in the compass of his
natural capacities. Whatever his physical capacities, all his
powers of reason, heart, and will combined, can effect, provided
he wills it that is his natural ability. 1
3. Moral Inability. By this is meant, such a state of the heart
or will as makes continued sinful action certain, such, e. g., as makes
it certain that the sinner will not repent without divine grace.
It means unwillingness, but unwillingness as implying a state
of the will supremely fixed on some end or object, a permanent
state or habit of the will, the supreme love of the world. It is
sometimes said that the older New England theologians meant
by moral inability merely unwillingness, and that is true if the
word unwillingness is used in its full meaning, as setting forth
the fact that the will is in a permanent state of choice. The
word meant such unwillingness as is a real and sufficient ob-
stacle to actual repentance.
4. Moral Ability. This means such a state of heart and will
as implies a preference for anything, and the ability of doing
which results from the preference. It means more than the gen-
eral capacity which is involved in free agency or natural ability,
it is intended to designate entire, immediate adequacy to an end.
Natural Inability is = a man cannot though he will.
Natural Ability is = a man can if he will, can if he will
not, he has all that is necessary except the will, but the will
is needful to the actualizing of the case.
Moral Inability is = a man will not though he can.
Moral Ability is = a man will. It is, the state of the will itself.
1 In later schools of New England theology there has been a curious changing
of the meaning of these terms, so as to make natural ability signify only the power
to the contrary choice. But it is evident that the sense given above was the mean-
ing originally, from the terms used as equivalent to it, e. g., "physical ability."
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 329
Reply to the question : Can a man will ? It may mean, Be-
sides and above the will, is there a can ? Ans. No ; this is voli-
tion before volition. It may mean, Can a man will under the
appropriate circumstances ? l Ans. Yea.
2. The Power to the Contrary.
This phrase is sometimes used to mean the same as natural
ability. It is sometimes employed to designate a distinct power
from that which is actually exerted, and such power is regarded as
that which constitutes the freedom of the will. But this can-
not be. There is only one indivisible power of choice, and the
power to the contrary is simply that power of choice viewed in
relation to something which is not chosen, but which might
have been, had the person preferred. If the will is put on one
object, it is metaphysically implied that tJie will the same will,
not a distinct power might have been put on a different object.
In relation to moral action or agency, the term natural ability
is better suited than that of the power to the contrary choice,
to express the real facts of the case. It is a matter of consequence
here, what our words are: a difference in phraseology may cause
the widest difference in our mode of apprehending the facts.
The reason of using the phrase, natural ability, rather than the
simple general phrase, free agency, was, the reference and con-
trast in the former to moral inability. It is a phrase which states
one of the facts iirith reference to the other, which is what we
must do in all discussion of the subject before us.
The Difference between Natural Ability and Power to the
Contrary :
1. Natural ability, the power of choice, is exercised in every
act not the whole natural ability, but the capacities according
to the degree of them which is demanded while the power to
the contrary is never exercised. It cannot be. As soon as it is
exercised, it is not the power to the contrary, but the power
1 "If by liberty be meant a power of willing and choosing, as exemption from
co-action and natural necessity, and power, opportunity, and advantage to execute
our own choice ; in this sense we hold liberty " (Dr. Edwards, Reply to Dr. West,
Works, i. 326). [But with the author, "appropriate circumstances" means more
than this, it includes " willingness " in the deeper sense.]
330 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
which is put forth. It is a contradiction in terms to suppose it
actually exercised.
2. The assumption of a specific power to the contrary can-
not help us in explaining any acts of actual choice. It is said :
Adam could not have sinned or repented, unless he had thu
power to the contrary. It is true, so far as this: unless ho
could have willed differently from what he did, he could not
have sinned ; but he did not use the power to the contrary, he
left it behind. So when a sinner repents, he does not use the
power to the contrary. 1 We mean by natural ability, or free
agency, all the faculties of a moral agent, including the power
of choice, whereby the possibility of another than the actual
choice is always given. But no new faculties, no new power of
choice, no power hitherto unexercised, is necessary, in order to
a different result. It is a new choice, i. e., a new exertion of the
one indivisible power of choice, that is alone requisite.
3. The word power, as used in the phrase, "power to the con-
trary," is indefinite. It is sometimes used as though "power"
were a simple ultimate idea. But that which is simple is " choice " ;
power has a variety of modifications. The Greek language gives
this distinction in dvvants and tvepyeia.: the first is potential
power, the second is power in act, power exerted. Now the
word, power, in " power to the contrary," means and must mean,
that which is potential, a possibility inherent in the nature of
the cause. It can never mean, the power exerted. There is a
difference between possibility and power: one is that which
may be, the other is that which not only may be, but is, and is
put forth. 2 As far as power of choice goes, which must be ex-
erted in repentance, the sinner has it, and so has the possibility
of coming into a different moral state, and if he had not that
power, he could not be brought into a state of repentance. But
1 He uses the same power that he formerly used in his course of impenitence,
but in a different way, on different objects. The contention is against the exist-
ence of any power to the contrary distinct from the power which is used.
'["The most elaborate of the Aristotelian distinctions is that between power
in possibility and power in act. Man (in potentia) may be viewed as a possible
cause of either of several effects; but to pass from power to action requires othei
conditions or causes, which help to constitute the effect" (Faith and Philosophy
p. 372}.]
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 331
the result depends upon something more than the power of
choice; it depends also upon the motive, the end or object of the
choice. There must not only be the efficient cause, but the oc-
casional and final cause. 1 So that all that the result depends
upon is not given in the power of choice, although an essential
element of it is given.
To say, that a man can repent, actually do so, without grace,
is contrary to experience, to the Scriptures, to the certainty of
his sinning until regeneration, to his moral inability. To
grant him all the faculties and powers, including choice, as
possibilities, in respect to repentance, is consistent with these
and with the facts of the case.
3. The positive Statements as to the Eelation of Natural Ability
and Moral Inability.
The First Proposition. Though the sinner has the natural
ability (in the sense assigned) to repent and believe, yet, on ac-
count of his depravity, for the exercise of that ability, he is de-
pendent on divine grace. The whole simple truth is contained
in what the Apostle Paul says, Rom. vii. 18, taking his statement
in a strict metaphysical sense: "To will is present with me but
[how] to perform [I find] is not." This, with the context, gives
the facts of the case, in a way to reconcile the two truths of
moral inability and natural ability. It assigns the ground of the
non-exercise; i. e., depravity. That is the reason, and the only
reason, why his natural ability will not be exerted. The ground
is not put in a want of capacity, or of natural power of the will;
but it is put where it belongs viz., in the depravity. That is
the only hindrance, but that is an effectual hindrance to repent-
ing, without grace. The Apostle does not say, merely, that it
is certain that he will not exercise his natural ability, nor simply
1 President Day: "A man may have some power, but not alt power; that is,
he may not have all that on which the result depends If the word
power be used in its broadest sense, as including not only opportunity, knowl-
edge, capacity, but motives of all kinds, it is not true that a man has always
equal power to opposite volitions." The term, power, is simple, but for the
exercise of it we need other conditions than its existence. These two points
RTA often confounded.
332 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
that he "will" not exert it: but he gives the ground and reason
of the certainty that he will not. Moreover it is not "a gra-
cious ability" which is conferred when repentance occurs, but
the simple fact is, that an ability is exercised through grace,-
with divine aid. The passage agrees with the explanations
commonly given of "power to the contrary," viz., "can but will
not," but it also gives the grounds of the will not.
And this also suggests the real point of inquiry and doubt, in
respect to some of the misapplications and misunderstandings of
the theory of natural ability and shows its limitations. It is
asked, What is ability, but a power which may be exerted?
True: it may be: it is possible; and the having this power
is perfectly consistent with the position that it can only be
exerted under certain conditions, and if the hindrance is a
sinful one, with our responsibility for the non-exertion. To
illustrate. "God cannot lie"; the meaning is. He cannot ac-
tually do it; there is only an abstract, metaphysical, not a
real, possibility.
Why we assert natural ability: Otherwise there is no obli-
gation, nor even possibility of change of character. This will
appear from
The Second Proposition: There is no sufficient ground for
going further and saying positively, that a totally depraved
being has sufficient power to repent, without divine aid. That
would be to assert the possession of power in the second sense,
in the sense of what one can actually do, in his condition, with-
out God.
1. This is a position which can never be proved by in-
duction; there are no facts on which it can be based: at the
best it is but a metaphysical proposition. The facts of the
case, the consciousness pleaded in the case, reaches no further
than to the possibility of the act: it does, in our judgment,
reach to that point, but not beyond not to the position that
man, in his state, without divine aid, can really, fully, and
truly turn to God.
2. Nor does the argument from obligation reach any further
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 333
than our statement. 1 The argument from obligation is, " I ought,
therefore I can." Whence is the ought in the case ? It is based
on a sense of right, of duty, which is the simple utterance of con-
science. It is my duty: hence I ought to do it. This is primi-
tive and simple. The " ought" is not primarily dependent on
the "can," but precedes it. The feeling of obligation is the first
and simplest. But it is said: "I ought, therefore I can:" the
ability is the condition, though not the ground of the obligation.
True so far as this, that the ought cannot exceed the measure
of the natural ability all the heart and soul and rnind and
strength. But it is a different thing to say, " I ought, therefore
I can actually do it." For there is a hindrance, in the sinful
self; and that is not a natural, but a moral hindrance, one for
which I am guilty and responsible.
3. Nor does the command of Repentance imply more than
our first proposition. " Man is bound to repent, therefore he can
repent." Here we have the " ought " and the " can " brought
under the point of view of Repentance. Avoiding the ambi-
guity in the word "can," we reach the same result as before,
(a.) It may be remembered that there is no evidence that the
command to repent is ever actually given except in a system in
which divine aids are also given. But we do not insist upon
this, since repentance is obligatory in any case. But we say,
(b.) The command of repentance is also one on a level with man's
natural ability. Man can if he will. He has the power of choice,
the capacity of choice, and that is the condition of the possibil-
ity 2 of his repentance. The hindrance is precisely as before,
yet it is a real hindrance to actual obedience. Objections: " God
commands us to repent actually, does He not ? " Yes. " There-
fore we can actually repent, can we not?" 3 Still as before
say, Yes, we have the natural ability actually to repent, and
what prevents us from doing it is our own evil hearts, but
that does prevent. *' Is a man responsible for not obeying the
command to repent ? " Yes, because the reason for not obeying
1 Mtiller: " Ich sollte freilich kb'nnen, aber ich kann nicht."
* condition in which there is the possibility
s [Hints probably of answers to questions put by students in the class-room,]
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
is simply our preference for sin. And this is a final statement,
we cannot get beyond it. " What is the sense of the phrase,
* he can if he will ? " " Can the sinner repent if he will ? " Yes,
if he choose to do so. He can if he will : the actual exercise of
the will, as power of choice, is necessary to the volition: the
doing is dependent on the willing. " Is it the same as when we
say, a bird can sing if it will ?" No; there is no comparison to
be made between the cases; the bird has not the faculty of Will,
it is not a moral agent with such a faculty.
The Third Proposition. The position that a sinful, depraved
being can actually repent without grace, involves us, when
carried out strictly, in inextricable difficulties.
1. This position sunders in form of statement, what is always
united in fact viz., the divine and human co working in all our
religious acts. 1 Here the two factors are sundered, and then
the result is supposed to be achieved by one. In actual human
experience, there never has been such a state as religion with-
out grace. Those who take the bold ground here do it in pre-
cisely the same sense in which they say that God can sin. The
doctrine of power to the contrary is applied in a parallel way in
the two cases. And we suppose it is just as true that a man
can repent without grace, as that God can sin, and no more true.
It is a bare metaphysical possibility given in the power of
choosing.
2. Let us carry out the supposition for a moment, arid make
the hypothesis that a person repents without divine grace.
What is the resultant state of mind? Kepentauce is turning to
God, and supposes the divine presence, but by the supposition,
God is not really present in the act. All that the act can
amount to is this: I have an intellectual conception or idea
of God, and I love or turn to that. It is an abstract love to an
abstract idea. It is not a religious reality.
3. The position is consistent only with the supposition of
the self-determining power of the will.
1 On this all religion depends. It is this which gives the distinction between
Religion and Morals. A religious state is one in which a divine influence is felt
ANTECEDENTS OP REDEMPTION. 335
4. It implies self-regeneration, because wherever there is
repentance there is a regeneration of the soul. The soul is
renewed in and by repentance.
The Fourth Proposition. The Scriptures always conjoin the
two truths of natural ability and moral inability, and they
should be conjoined in all preaching. Neither by itself is the
truth : both are the truth. The great thing is to keep the two truths
together. Matt. iii. 2; Phil. ii. 12, 13; John vi. 44; xv. 5; Jer.
xiii. 23; Rom. vii. 18; Rom. viii. 7, 8; Gal. iii. 21. The Scriptures
give the truth in a concrete form. God is there addressing man.
The relation of dependence, of mutual activity, is presupposed.
They do not contemplate man as sundered from divine influence,
except by sin. The most characteristic invitations, Matt. xii. 20 ;
John vii. 37 ; Isa. Iv. 1, 2 ; on the face of them, imply grace pro-
vided. The Scriptures do not know of any repentance, except
through and by divine graced The power which the gospel
sets over against the mighty power of sin, is not the might
of our own wills, but the power of God's grace through Jesus
Christ.
As to Preaching: The best and the only real preaching is that
which connects the two truths, natural ability and moral in-
ability. The one cannot be set forth truly without the other.
If natural ability is preached without moral inability, then the
natural ability in its true sense is not preached, and vice versa.
Wherever the duty is insisted on without the grace, or the grace
without the duty, we are sure to go wrong. The best preaching
combines sovereignty, depravity, and natural ability: all other
is jejune and bald. The practicability of immediate repentance can-
not be urged on any other ground than the two conjoined : power
of choice and grace offered. The question is not, Shall the sin-
ner be exhorted to immediate repentance, but on what grounds?
Not Has the sinner power of choice ? but As to the way of
using that power. The obligation is urgent, the duty is full,
how do it ? The answer: Grace is offered in Christ. Immediate
repentance is always to be urged on the ground of the two com-
bined; the power of choice giving the possibility, and grace cf-
336 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
f'ered giving encouragement; the duty which springs from man's
capacities and relation to God, the obligation which binds the
soul while its being lasts: man's helplessness in himself, his
need of divine grace, and that grace offered in Christ. The two
are the perpetual complements of each other. Such preach-
ing has been the source of revivals in this country, in their
best form. Even in the acutest essay to vindicate full natural
ability which we have, 1 when the author brings the sinner to
the point where he suspends his self-love, he makes the Holy
Spirit come in and guide, in order to make effectual the choice.
And so it must be always, in order to the renewal of the soul.
In fact, the most strenuous advocates of unlimited ability say
that they preach ability so that a man may feel his duty, try to
perform it, find he cannot really do it so hard is his heart
and then be led to accept the grace offered. But they might as
well make the conclusion a part of the theory.
t
Summary. The great practical points.
1. Man has all the powers perfectly so, which are necessary
to moral agency.
2. All the inability he is under is a sinful inability. This is
an unwillingness, which is not merely an act of the will or a
lack of action, but is also a state of the will, constituting a real
and sufficient obstacle to his actually doing right.
3. He has the ability in will as the power of choice, to ac-
cept or reject the grace offered to him, to obey or disobey the
calls, has the efficiency, though not the sufficiency.
4. He is under obligation to immediate repentance: he ought
at once to repent and turn to God.
5. Under the offer of the gospel and the command of God,
lie may comply; no man can say that he has not enough of the
influences.
6. This ability is not gracious merely; it is primarily iu
man's will as power of choice: so that to refuse is the
greater sin.
1 Dr. N. W. Taylor's in Christian SpecUtor.
ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION. 337
CONCLUSION OF THE FIRST DIVISION OF THEOLOGY:
THE ANTECEDENTS OF REDEMPTION.
We have considered The Being and Attributes of God; hia
Works, his End in Creation; Man as made for God, as having
endowments to carry out and promote God's great end in crea-
tion; Man as fallen, as lying under and exposed to the penalties
for sin, and as involved in the bondage of sin. There remains to
be considered: The Possibility of Redemption, notwithstanding
the sinful, guilty condition of mankind. [This was not treated
by the author.] The possibility on God's side is found in the
doctrine of the Trinity, which has been considered, opening to
our view personal distinctions in the Godhead, through which
the Incarnation and the Redemption may become actual. The
possibility on man's side consists: (1) In the divine image re-
maining in him, in his natural capacities and powers, and his
immortal destiny: the groundwork of his nature, as a moral,
spiritual, immortal being, remains. (2) In the capacity yet re-
maining to him, of receiving divine influences, whereby he may
be restored.
DIVISION SECOND.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. THE PERSON AND
WORK OF CHRIST.
DIVISION SECOND.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. THE PERSON AND
WORK OF CHEIST.
We enter here upon the Second General Division of the
System of Christian Theology, which is also the center and
key-stone of the whole. The central idea to which all the
parts of theology are to be referred, and by which the system
is to be made a system, or to be constructed, is what we have
termed the Christological or Mediatorial idea, viz., that God
was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. This idea is
central, 1 not in the sense that all the other parts of theology are
logically deduced from it, but rather that they center in it. The
idea is, that of an Incarnation in order to Redemption. This
is the central idea of Christianity, as distinguished, or distin-
guishable, from all other religions, and from all forms of phi-
losophy; and by this, and this alone, are we able to construct
the whole system of the Christian faith on its proper grounds.
This idea is the proper center of unity to the whole Christian
system, as the soul is the center of unity to the body, as tho
North Pole is to all the magnetic needles. It is so really the
center of unity that when we analyze and grasp and apply it,
we find that the whole of Christian theology is in it. Thus: tho
analysis of Incarnation in order to Redemption presupposes the
doctrine respecting the divine nature, the end of God irx hia
works, the nature of man, and the condition of man as sinful
and this comprised the first division of theology The Ant />
dents of Redemption. The same principle, in its concrete U', ty
gives us the doctrines respecting the Person and Work of f-h f 1st,
which make up this, our second division of the system. And
the same principle, in its applications, gives us the third division
1 [See Introductioii to Christian Theology, p. 58. J
342 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
of the system, embracing regeneration, justification, sanctifica-
tion, the doctrine respecting the church and the sacraments,
and the eschatology.
The general scheme for the Second Division:
PART L The Incarnation in its general nature and objects: on Scriptural,
historical, and philosophical grounds.
PART II. Of the person of the Mediator: God manifest in the flesh.
PART IIL Of the work of the Mediator: in His three offices of Prophet, Priest
and King.
PART I,
OF THE INCARNATION IN ITS GENERAL NATURE AND
OBJECTS.
CHAPTER I.
WHAT IS PRESUPPOSED IN THE INCARNATION.
Two things are presupposed : viz. the fact of sin, and such
a constitution of the Godhead as makes the incarnation possi
ble. 1 These we have already considered. In order to redeem
man from sin, an incarnate Redeemer, one divine in Himself,
having our nature and bearing our sins, was needed. ( u Cur
Deue Homo ? " Why the God-man ?)
1. Of the Incarnation in Relation to Sin.
We do not mean that we can say that only through an in-
carnation our deliverance could be effected. But we can say
these things: (1) That such a being, one having the divine and
the human nature, is eminently adapted to this work. (2) That
no one can prove that any other being could have performed
such a superhuman work. (3) That there is a more perfect con-
gruity between such a person and such a work, than between
such a work and any other person that we can conceive to exist
And we may add (4), that on the inductive method of reason-
ing from facts to principles, if it be proved historically that such
a being has appeared, in the divine administration, for such a
work, it is a rational conclusion that such a being was needed
'[There is a third point, such a constitution of human nature as makes the
Incarnation possible, which is considered incidentally. The author did not deny
the position of certain eminent German theologians: that God and man are to be
viewed as "capable of each other," but he would not affirm it as the leading
position in CLristology. He prefers to view the Incarnation always in its relation
tort*.]
344 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
for the work. God does nothing in vain. Such a manifestation
of glory and suffering, of glory in suffering, would not have
been, unless a necessity for it at least a moral, if not a phys-
ical or natural, necessity had existed.
Over against the sin of the world, to redeem men from it, the
God-man appeared. This is his position. The fact of sin made
it necessary, in the above sense, that he should appear for this
object.
And in relation to the human race, He is the second Adam,
the Lord from heaven. He assumes the same position in re-
spect to the human race as to its redemption from sin and to
eternal life, that the first Adam did as to sin and death. This
is clearly and fully put by the Apostle Paul, 1 Cor. xv. 46-
49^ a wonderful passage : life from Christ as death from
Adam, spirit from Christ as soul from Adam. The parallel is
complete: the headship of Christ in relation to redemption is
set over against the headship of Adam in relation to sin. We
may with advantage make some fuller statements here upon this
important point. We can have from this position the best sur-
vey of theology; in retrospect as to what we have considered
under the headship of Adam, and in prospect of what is before
us under the headship of Christ.
FULLER STATEMENT OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE Two HEADSHIPS.
In the Scriptures, especially in the two passages, Rom. v.
12-21, and 1 Cor. xv. 45, 47, two contrasted economies, making
one divine plan, are presented to us. On the one hand is sin
and death, and on the other hand, righteousness and life. Sin
and death come to the human race from one man the first
Adam : righteousness and life also come to the race from one,
that is, Jesus Christ. Condemnation is by the first, Justifica-
tion is by the second : we are involved in death by the former,
and we obtain resurrection and the reigning in life by the other,
that is, by Jesus Christ.
In these positions is disclosed the grand and striking peculi-
1 Compare on this: the relation to Philo, and the difference between Paul and
Philo, " Jour. Class, and Sac. Philology," No. 1, 1854
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 345
arity of the Scriptural mode of viewing human nature and hu-
man destiny in relation to God. It is precisely here, on this
point, in this way of summing up and stating the matter, that
the Gospel of Christ is distinguished from all other schemes and
systems, from all theories and speculations of merely human
origin, from any merely physical or moral system, that proposes
to explain the facts, and to forecast the destiny of the race. It
is in the contrasted headship of the first and of the second Adam.
For the whole Scriptural doctrine of sin runs back into our nat-
ural union with the first Adam by descent; the whole Scriptural
doctrine of righteousness runs back into our vital union with
the second Adam, which is not of nature but by grace.
I. The Scriptural view of the relation of the race to the first
Adam, is at once simple and complete.
1. The human race is not a mere aggregate of units, but
rather a physical arid moral unity. There is one family of man
it is made up of individuals, each one having his personal rights
and personal responsibilities; but these separate individuals are
also bound together, by the inflexible law of a common descent;
and the unity is as real as the individuality; in fact, the generic,
in plan and in idea, precedes the individual. It is not meant,
or implied, in this, that there is any mystical identity of sub-
stance; but only a real unity, made by the law of propagation
and descent, so that we are all truly the children of the first
Adam, and have part and lot in his inheritance.
2. On the basis of this physical unity of the race, the Script-
ures still further teach us, that there is also a moral unity. The
union comes under the rubric of moral government, as well as
under the caption of physical connection. In other words, in
the technical language of theology which is a convenient,
though not the only, form of stating the truth, Adam was con.
stituted the federal, as well as the natural, head of the human
race. In some way, as a matter-of-fact, if not of formal cove-
nant, 1 he stood for us, as our repiesentative, so that what he did
might be, and was, made over to his descendants, involving
them in the consequences, whether of advantage or of liability,;
1 It was more than a c< veiiant a "charter," v. supra.
346 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
of his act. And this was not merely a physical sequence, a
matter of divine sovereignty alone: it is also represented as a
moral, even as a judicial process, in terms too distinct to be
evaded. "As by one man sin entered into the world and death
by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that [or, as is
seen in the fact that] all have sinned;" "through the offence of
one many be dead;" "by one man's oifence death reigned by
one;" "by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to
condemnation ; " " by one man's disobedience many were made
[constituted] sinners." If these statements do not imply a moral
union and dependence, a relation not physical, but judicial, it is
hardly possible for language to do so. In the technical language
of theology, this is represented as the imputation of Adam's first
sin to his posterity, that is, as reckoning to their account the
penal consequences of his transgression. We sinned in him and
fell with him not as personally present, but through our com-
munity of nature. 1
3. But we are chiefly concerned with the fact itself, that in
consequence of Adam's sin we come into the world in a state of
ein and death, and liable to penal evils here and hereafter, un-
less divine grace intervene. Here is doubtless a great, an awe-
inspiring mystery: but, as Pascal intimates, though it is a great
enigma, yet the enigma of man's life would be still greater, and
still more insoluble, if this were not so. What we assert is, that
this doctrine, with all its fearful shadows, is still only the read-
ing and rendering of the facts of the case: it is not a mere theory to
explain the facts, it is the facts themselves compendiously summed
up and stated. 2 And however we may explain the fact of our com-
1 The older Hopkinsianism of New England, in making the first moral act of
all Adam's descendants to be "the consent to Adam's sin," was immeasurably
nearer the truth than the more modern Hopkinsianism, which represents our first
moral act to be simply our personal violation of the divine law, in full view of the
consequences, and with full power to the contrary.
2 It is a striking fact, that the profoundest infidelity of the age has swept round
on this point to the substance of the orthodox view, substituting fate for God.
Materialism confesses that man is by nature engrossed in sense and the world,
Pantheism makes original sin to be the very substance of human nature. Both
systems grant the fact of alienation from God, aud explain it by denying God.
Christianity in addition brings the facts under God's moral government, making
them a part of the divine plan in respect to the human race.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 347
raon ruin and sinfulness, it meets us everywhere. No man's con-
scious experience reaches back to the beginning of sin within him.
When we wake up to a sense of our moral position, it is always
with a sense of sin, and never of innocence. When we first
know the law, it is as a condemning power. We cannot think
of saving ourselves by doing the deeds of the law : for by the
deeds of the law shall no flesh living be justified. Salvation
cannot, for any members of Adam's race, come by the law. The
life commended to our choice in the Bible is a life through grace
freely offered. We find ourselves exposed daily to penal evils,
from our youth up : and the very infant that dies before moral
agency is detected, in that death gives evidence to the sentence
of the law, and confirms the Biblical statement, that we are by
nature the children of wrath. And with this agrees the pro-
foundest spiritual experience of the depth and nature of sin. Its
roots run deeper than our volitions ; actual transgression is the
offspring of original sin. The exercises of the will only reveal
the will's immanent state and inmost preference. That which
is born of the flesh is flesh ; that is, our native state is a sinful
state; and the renewing and sanctifying Spirit works beneath
the sphere of direct consciousness and volition, and gives to
the regenerate a new heart and a right spirit. And in all this
work it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but
of God that showeth mercy.
Such is the headship of Adam in relation to the race, entailing
Bin and death as the sad consequence of the great, original apostasy.
II. But over against this headship of Adam, the grace of
God has established another economy, centering in another cov-
enant. The headship of Christ is one of life and redemption, as
that of Adam was of death and condemnation. The divine plan
of redemption from the evil and curse of sin centers in the Per-
son and Work of the God-man, Christ Jesus. The purpose of
mercy antedates the fact of sin: for He is the Lamb of God,
slain from the foundation of the world. He is the head over all
things to the church. There is (Col. i. 19, 20) an intimate re-
lation between Him and all created beings: He is the medium
of access for all creatures unto their heavenly Father.
348 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
And this headsl.ip of the Lord Jesus is on every point par
allel, and contrasted, with that of Adam. What Adam is in re-
lation to sin and death, that Christ is in relation to righteousness
and life. By man came death, by man came also the resurrec-
tion from the dead. As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall
all be made alive, referring here, too, to the resurrection. The
judgment was by one offence to condemnation, the free gift ia
of many offences unto justification. The eternal Son of God
assumed our nature, lived in it his sinless life and in it died his
sacrificial death: there is that which is human in the second
Adam over against that which is human in the first; there is
that which endures and stands to perfection over against that
which falls and sinks into corruption; there is that which ex-
piates over against that which incurs ; that which satisfies divine
justice over against that which calls it forth; that which pro-
vides for answering the demands of the divine law in respect
to the whole race over against that which brought the whole
race under the penal demands of that law. The cross of Christ
is the link between earth and heaven, and it is the shield be-
tween earth and hell. There converge and commingle the rays
of the divine justice and of the divine love the justice and the
love equally satisfied and thence emerge all these rays only to
bless and to save. There the dignity of a divine nature imparts
an infinite value to the pangs which only a human nature could
endure, and with the cry "It is finished," the second Adam
stands forth in the perfection of his obedience and suffering, in
the parallel and contrast with the first.
The contrasted parallel between the first and the second
Adam is thus complete in all its parts and relations. The first
is our natural head, the second is our spiritual head; the first
brought in condemnation, the second, justification; the first in-
volved us in spiritual death, the second is the author of spiritual
life; the former made the death of the body to be our mortal
heritage, the latter makes the resurrection of the body to be our
immortal privilege; the first alienates from God, the second
reconciles unto God; the first is the progenitor and head of our
fallen humanity, the second is the source and head of our re*
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 349
newed humanity; from the former we receive that natural life
which contains the seeds of death, from the latter, through the
Spirit, we receive that spiritual life which is the ground and
pledge of our eternal felicity; the tie that unites us to the one
is that of natural descent, the bond that allies us to the other is
a union no less real, no less vital, subsisting through faith, and
insuring to us all the blessings of the new covenant : for, if by
one man's offence, death reigned by one, much more they which
receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall
reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.
Such, set over against one another, are the headship of
Adam and the headship of Christ. But they are not only con-
trasted with each other, they also run into each other. We
therefore proceed to state,
III. That the two form one system, one plan, so that the
one cannot be understood without the other. The two togethei,
and not either by itself, embrace the purpose of God in respect
to the human race. Human nature and human destiny cannot
be explained without reference to both. God's government of
the world cannot be explained except as including both. It
would else be like explaining the orbit of a planet with only one
focus. God's moral government has the two foci of sin and of
redemption. It would else be like trying to explain the course
of our earth without both the centrifugal and centripetal force:
God's moral government includes the centrifugal power of sin
as well as the centripetal force of redemption.
Here is found the mistake of many theorizers upon the moral
government of God, reducing it to the level and scope of their
own speculations. It is very easy to make out some such scheme
with a few simple definitions, and then to substitute the defi-
nitions for the facts. But the facts of the case after all are the
solid things. Thus, for example, it is easy to construct a sys-
tem of natural ethics, to say that the whole of God's govern-
ment is by a simple rule or law of right with its appropriate
sanctions, of reward or punishment. But this position, logically
carried out, would exclude the whole system of redemption. So,
too, it is easy to say, that the divine benevolence, in the sense
350 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
of a disposition to confer happiness, is the great principle of all
God's acts and dealings; but this reduces holiness to a means of
happiness, and resolves the atonement into a mere means of
moral impression. So, too, we may set forth, in theory, the
whole of the divine influence upon man as a mere moral suasion,
like that of man on man ; but in doing this we rob regeneration
of its vital element. Or yet again, we may represent our whole
relation to Adam as merely natural and physical, and not as
moral and spiritual, and may define sin as consisting merely in
personal choices and volitions, and thus rule out, by definition,
the whole doctrine of original sin; but this is plainly incompati-
ble with the inspired statement that by one offence judgment
came upon all men unto condemnation : and what we may seem to
gain by such definitions in increasing the sense of personal respon-
sibility, is more than counterbalanced by the loss of all profounder
views of the depth of our corruption, and of the absolute necessity
of divine grace for any spiritual good accompanying salvation. 1
But the evil of such partial theories and explanations does
not end here. The divine plan and system in respect to both
Adam and Christ is one and the same in its general principles
and bearings. The headship of Adam in relation to sin, and
the headship of Christ in relation to redemption, stand and fall
together. Any theory which excludes the former, equally ex-
cludes the latter, if logically carried out. Or, in other words
to bring the matter to its test on the two central doctrines,
where both headships converge the doctrine of original sin and
the doctrine of justification by faith alone, stand or fall together.
If we give up the one we cannot save the other in its essential
integrity. One way of testing the truth of our theories of sin is
to see whether the principles of our theory will leave justifica-
tion by faith intact and complete, 2 in all its evangelical grace
1 It has been said, in the way of a taunt against the older theology, that men are
very willing to speculate about sinning in Adam, so as to have their attention di-
verted from the sense of personal guilt. But the whole history of theolcgy bears
witness, that those who have believed most fully in our native and strictly moral
corruption as Augustine, Calvin, Edwards have ever had the deepest sense of
their personal demerit. We know the full evil of sin only when we know its roota
as well as its fruits.
2 Yet many adhere firmly to the Scriptural view of justification, who deny all
sin but actual transgression.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 351
and fulness. We must define sin and holiness by parallel and
harmonious formulas. If there be no sin, but personal ill-desert,
there cannot be any holiness but personal merit, and heaven ia
of debt and not of grace. If there can be no condemnation ex
cepting for personal choices and acts, neither can there be any
justification excepting for personal choices and acts. If Adam
cannot involve us in sin and ruin, neither can Christ confer
upon us righteousness and life. If the sin of Adam cannot be
imputed to us for our condemnation, neither can the righteous-
ness of Christ be imputed to us for our salvation. If there can-
not be a headship of Adam in respect to our natural death, there
cannot be a headship of Christ in respect to our spiritual life.
But if we take such positions, how contrasted our view is with
that divine plan, which consists not in theories but in facts-
facts centering in persons and in covenants, which may not be
so fully and clearly grasped, which have a background of won-
der and mystery, but which are also majestic and simple, and
give us fixed points and centers for our theology and our faith.
Here on the one hand is Adam, made originally in the divine
image, the head of the human family, placed in the garden of
Eden, in familiar intercourse with his Maker, receiving the par-
adisiacal command, at once intelligible and fitted to his condi-
tion; appointed, if he obeyed, to be the head of a holy society
through all time; condemned, if he disobeyed, to return to the
dust, and to convey to those who were to come from his loins
the same death in sin into which he himself plunged. And
over against him, in the divine plan for the race, is the God-
man, our Saviour; appointed to suffer and conquer for those
who were involved in the wreck and ruin of the fall. We be-
hold Him, hanging upon the cross, his head crowned with
thorns, his hands stretched out^ upon the accursed tree, that
He might both suffer and save. We hear his dying words of
unutterable anguish, in their very sharpness of love full of un-
speakable blessings for our lost humanity: his dying cry is the
watchword of our salvation.
And in these two contrasted forms, we read the sum of hu-
man destiny its beginning, its center and its eternal issues; ID
352 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
these two we see the whole of the Law and the whole of the
Gospel, the whole of justice and the whole of mercy, blended in
one system.
2. The second point presupposed by the Incarnation is suck
a constitution of the divine nature as made an Incarnation possible.
This has been considered in the doctrine of the Trinity : we
only refer to it here by way of completeness of systematic view.
This constitution is that of the existence of distinct personal
agencies in the Godhead, especially of the Son as personally
distinct from the Father.
Here again, we would not say that an Incarnation was pos-
sible only on the ground of the essential Trinity: i. e., by a
metaphysical necessity: for that we do not quite know. Sa-
bellianism is metaphysically possible. But this we may say:
(1) The existence of such personal distinctions in the Godhead
is most congruous with the fact of the Incarnation, with the
personal distinction of Father and Son, as that comes out in
the Incarnation. For that such a personal distinction existed
when Christ was incarnate, and since then if Christ still lives
cannot be denied. Nor can it be shown that his personality
began with the Incarnation. The contrary can be proved. (2)
Any other view makes the personality of Christ at least to seem
ephemeral. (3) Passages of Scripture take for granted a pre-
existing personal relationship. Gal. iv. 4; John iii. 16; xvii. 5:
xvii. 24; xvi. 28. (4) We gain a more intelligible view of the
economy of redemption on the basis of the Trinity than on any
other. We see the different offices of the different persons in
the great work: and all, in every stage and part, divine. 1
Such are the two chief points of the connection of the Incar-
nation with the whole system of theology. We proceed now
to consider the Incarnation in its general nature and objects.
1 Pascal: "If the world subsisted to teach men of the existence of God, his di-
vinity would be reflected from all parts of it in an incontestable manner; but as it
subsists only by Jesus Christ and for Jesus Christ, and to teach men both theii
corruption and redemption, all in it shines with these two truths. That whicb
there appears marks, neither a total exclusion, nor yet a manifest presence of
I>eity, but the presence of a Qod who hides himself: all bears this character."
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 353
CHAPTER II.
THE INCARNATION PRIMARILY FACT AND NOT DOCTRINE.
The Incarnation is to be viewed primarily as a revealed fact.
It is a revelation of God in the form of fact and history, and as
such has about it the majesty of fact. It is not a mere specula-
tion, nor a mere doctrine, nor a mere abstract truth: but a truth
of fact. It belongs to what we have called the Christian Real-
ism in distinction from Nominalism. 1
Nor yet again, is it a mere fact of an inspired record: it is
not merely a truth announced in such a record. So to speak, it
lies back of the record, and the record tells us about it. It is
an historical manifestation of God in the midst of men. Christ
the God-man appears in human history, as a part thereof; be
comes a member of the race; lives, suffers and dies for our
redemption; and in all this we have a sublime series of facts,
of which the Scriptures give us the record. The first point to
be aimed at, then, in respect to the doctrine, is the proof of its
historical verity, on the basis of evidence; and not the specula-
tive apprehension of it, or an a priori deduction of its possibility.
This is a far-reaching statement about this truth, and puts it
and this alone puts it in its just position. This is the way in
which it stands in the Bible, as differing from systematic the-
ology. The Scriptures enter into no speculation about the two
natures and their union, nor into philosophical objections, but
they announce the grand and simple truth that God was in
Christ. The Proem to John's Gospel is a narration given by
a man who has seen a vision of facts: the first act, Creation,
the second, Incarnation.
1 [Iii trod, to Chris. Theol., p. 5.]
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
CHAPTER III.
THE FACT OP THE INCARNATION IN RELATION TO MAN*S MORAl "WANTS.
It may be said to be demanded by man, in the sense in which
need implies demand.
1. It presents us with the Life of a perfect Man as a Model
for Imitation, and so meets Need.
1. Every being who has a conscience has also the image or
ideal of a perfect man and a perfect life. Wherever there is
any morality, there is a certain standard, not only of abstract,
but also of human excellence. There is an innate loyalty of the
soul to what is good and great. Nations will have heroes,
though they have to invent their most heroic qualities. Chil-
dren must have models for imitation, though they may be
models of imperfect men and women. Thus there is in the
human race both the universal desire for a model and a univer-
sal defect in the models. And this universal longing is satisfied,
this universal defect is supplied, in the life of Jesus.
2. The natural longing of the human heart for the view of
moral perfection is not met by promulgating law and sharpen-
ing the sense of duty, nor by exalting the ideal of morality. The
profoundest minds of'every age have given their best thoughts
to ethical systems, to codes of righteous laws, to the description
of what each man should be as the citizen of a perfect state.
And all of us have some vision of personal perfection, some
imagination of the harmonious blending and working of our
powers, some impulse towards the attainment of purer love and
higher holiness. We all have some ideal of excellence. But even
though we give to our abstract ideal of excellence the form and
features of a man, it does not touch our hearts; it may be as
beautiful, but it is as cold as a statue. An imagined excellence
is not really human; an ideal man is not a man at all. Ideal
virtue has not been diffused through the affections, nor has it
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 355
emerged from the will, of a moral being. It has passed through
no conflicts, has resisted no temptations, has purified no affection,
has not been the basis or the result of any choice; it is neither a
moral act nor a moral state of a moral being. And hence it is
that it has so light attractions upon the affections of a moral
being. All praise virtue in the abstract, but the praise is barren
of fruit. The voluptuary may not only pant for an ideal beauty,
he may also admire an ideal virtue. It may attract everything
within him, but his affections; may touch all that his nature
contains, excepting his depravity. And even with the best of
men it is found that some of the most effectual motives to
obedience and a holy life, and especially to the practice of hum-
ble and self-denying and daily virtues, are not so much derived
from the abstract purity of a holy law, nor yet from the sheer
imagination of a possible human excellence, as from some elec-
tric excitement of human sympathies, some powerful constraint
from the lives and self-sacrificing zeal of one or another around
them, from some kindling of holy affections in communion with
an unseen friend, and most of all, from some emotion of grati-
tude or benevolence or love of virtue that has become an effect-
ual motive from the view of the life, the love, the sufferings of
the Lord Jesus.
3. The conformity of such a character as that of Christ, to
our moral necessities, is still further seen, if we consider some
of the special virtues on which our peace and happiness, the
welfare of individuals and of society depend. The fact is that
these depend on the practice of the humblest virtues. Pride
grows by nature, humility thrives only by culture ; self-boasting
needs to be excluded, self-denial to be excited; wilfulness is
born with us, a truly submissive spirit is a new birth of the
soul. Natural kindness is often overcome by spleen, soured by
disappointment, made fretful by petty cares and trials; and it is
hard to ensure its constancy. Justice is more praised than
loved; obedience oftener commanded than practised. It is
easier to hate foes than to forgive them; it is easier to pray
that they may be forgiven than to seek to win their good-will.
In the business of life^ what evils are there which honesty and a
356 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
checking of the inordinate love of wealth would not counteract?
Fraud, unjust gains, immense speculations, too great inequality
in the distribution of the things of life, the making haste to be
rich by which we fall into temptation and a snare: all these and
kindred evils can be done away, and can only be done away,
by a recurrence to the practice of the simplest, yet hardest vir-
tues. And to suffer shame and reproach on account of the gos-
pel and of truth, to be mild when reviled, to bear the desertion
of friends and the scoffs of enemies, to dare to speak the truth
in season: these things are not easy of attainment, though most
needful in an evil world. To relieve the wretched, to seek out
the wanderers, to help the suffering, to reclaim the abandoned, to
sympathize in the sorrows of the poor and minister to their con-
solation, to seek the vicious with love when they repel us with
contumely: in short, to live in a sinful world and among evil
men as children of the light and of the day, redeeming the time
because the days are evil: this is most necessary for the world's
welfare, yet difficult even for those who are striving for re-
demption. Now of all these necessary and neglected virtues
Jesus Christ is the most eminent exemplar. It was not neces-
sary that He should be a temporal king, but kings are greatest
when they rule their kingdoms as He ruled his spirit. It was
not necessary that He should be a statesman, but statesmen are
noblest when the favor or frown of the people are to them as
they were to Him. (It was not necessary that He should be
a husband or a father this were to degrade his mission, and to
class Him with the sons of men but it is necessary that parents
should practise his virtues, and fulfil their duties in the same
spirit in which He fulfilled his. It was more needful that He
should be a child, that thus to all the race from their earliest
years his example might be held up clear and fair.) It was not
necessary that He should be to us an example in the virtues
which the world loves and honors, for the world rewards its
servitors only too liberally, it incites them to wealth and honor
only too strongly. But it was needful that He should be an ex-
ample of self-denial, of humility, of forgiveness of enemies, of
daily endeavor to do good, of patience, of submission, of speak
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 357
ing against all evil and sin, while He sought to reclaim the
sinful, of meekness and forbearance in the midst of reproaches
and persecutions, of seeking to do the will of the Father and
of perfect submission to that will. In short, it was necessary
that there should be a perfect harmony of all his powers, and
a harmony created by their entire subjection to the law of love,
to the love of God. It was well, it was needful for all mankind
that they should see that the highest human perfection, the
most potent human influence, is not found in the objects which
are of the highest human esteem, not in wealth, nor in power,
not in the senate nor on the field of battle, not in literature nor
in science, but in love to God and love to man, in a love which
can be shown in poverty as well as in riches, when despised as
well as when powerful, in daily life more than in the career of
statesmen, in the field of the Amoral conflicts of the race better
than on fields of carnage and of blood. That He might be the
pattern of the race in all things, this was needful. That men
might be incited to the love and practice of these daily and self-
denying virtues, it was fitting that a model should be set before
them, one, a man like themselves, exposed to the same, and
to greater temptations and trials than they all, living in the
same evil world, finding the same foes to duty, and yet living
above the world, and overcoming all its temptations and
malice and might overcoming by yielding to his enemies
everything but his virtue, his love to God and love to man.
Such an example is Christ to us, to all of us, in all those daily
and hourly conflicts we are called to make for the sake of truth
and duty.
4. But the whole effect of such an eminent example is not
found perhaps its chief effect is not found in the single vir-
tues of his noble and ennobling character. TJie total impression
of such a man, and of such a life, is the grand source of its
strong influence upon others. It is the harmony and complete-
ness of his spiritual character, it is the consistency of his whole
life with our highest standard of perfection, it is because we
feel that all He did and said flowed from one pure unfailing
source, and that the purity of his life was only an expression of
358 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
the spotlessness of his soul it is this total impression of hia
spirit upon us which moves us most strongly, and which makes
Him to be a perfect model to us.
2. The Relation of the Incarnation to Human Wants is seen in
its giving to Man the most direct Access to, and Communion with, God.
1. Man craves such an impersonation of Deity. We may
say that his religious instinct leads him to seek some visible
and palpable representation of God's attributes. This may be
to some extent the effect of sin, but it is also congruous with
those infirmities of our finite state which are not sinful. The
expression of this desire is most palpable in heathenism. It is
indeed there disfigured and distorted. Their idols are an abom-
ination unto the Lord, as are their sacrifices also. But even as
their sacrifices show how deeply the sense of guilt and the need
of expiation are seated in human nature ; and as these feelings
are true and necessary, though the mode of their exhibition is
false and degrading; so in respect to their idols, it may be as-
serted that they are evidence of a profound longing in the human
mind for some visible manifestation of deity. God and man are
at such an infinite distance from each other, that when man
would seek God, he will even make an idol that he may thus
at least imagine that he has found Him. Between the infinite
Spirit and the finite soul there is a space which, when men
try to fill, they people with idols; but which God has filled by
the person of his Son. So deep-seated is this desire of some
visible connection with the invisible God, that even in the
church of Christ, when it became Roman Catholic, and when
1he living sense of a direct personal relation between Christ and
his followers had become feeble (and his actual presence was
limited to the external order and worship of the church), it was
found necessary to accommodate the notions of that church in
so far to the wants of man, as to supply the place of the Re-
deemer who had been hidden from them, by the winning graces
and image of his mortal mother, by crowds of saints and by
images of glorified spirits. They banished the Saviour from his
immediate connection with the hearts of his people; but they
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 359
were obliged to find some substitute to satisfy the cravings for an
object of worship which should call out human sympathies. Not
only in false or corrupt religions is this want experienced : it is
also deeply felt whenever there is an unusual excitement of our
religious feelings. We long for a closer walk with God tha a
we can have with a being whom we consider only as infinite in
his attributes, "removed from us by the whole diameter of be-
ing." Almost unconsciously, we make to ourselves an image
even of the invisible Father. We think of a throne and Him
that sits upon it. We think of a countenance of terrible
majesty, severe in justice, or melting into love. We seem to
see an eye, fixed upon our path, noting all our ways; a hand
stretched out to rescue us, an arm for our defence. All this is
indeed imagery, but it is the natural and necessary imagery of
the religious spirit. And the stronger the fervor of the religious
spirit, the more do such images crowd upon us. In the Incarna-
tion we learn that all this imagery has become reality. These
scattered images drawn from different members are, so to speak,
gathered into one matchless and human form.
It has been objected that such a craving of the soul for some
visible manifestation of the Godhead belongs to an inferior stage
of religious culture. But the fact is, that the more enlarged our
views of God are, the more do we need such a help to our wor-
ship and love. "The difficulty," says Dr. Whately, 1 "of coming
near to God and fixing our affections upon Him is increased in
proportion as man advances in refinement of notions, in cultiva-
tion of intellect, and in habits of profound philosophical reflec-
tion. A semi-barbarous people is less likely to think of the
vastness and infinity of God, than is a more enlightened age.
Hence it is that the religion of those whose speculations respect-
ing the deity have been accounted the most refined and exalted,
has always been cold and heartless in its devotion, or rather has
been nearly destitute of devotion altogether." To counteract
the chilling tendency of our abstract speculations about God,
nothing is so adapted as that conception of Him which we reack
through the wondrous doctrine of the Incarnation. In the Per-
1 Sermon: God made Man, p. 10.
360 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
son of his Son, God's infinite majesty is transformed into a ma-
jestic loveliness; his infinite love is made audible and visible;
his rebuke and hatred of sin are indeed revealed most clearly
to our conceptions, but his love of the sinner, his willingness
to pardon and receive him, are manifested in the whole life and
in the death of Jesus, as they could be exhibited in no other way. 1
2. What man thus craves is more perfectly given in the Incar-
nation than in any other conceivable way. God assumes the
nature, form, and speech of man; He addresses him as a member
of the same race; He becomes united to him by all the ties of
brotherhood. This is the perfection of a divine condescension;
and it appeals to man more forcibly than can aught else. Con-
sider the difference between Moses and Christ. And all this
difference is made by the fact that in Christ we have God In-
carnate, the God-man. 2 In the one case, it is an ambassador
delivering a message ; in the other, it is the King Himself, con-
versing with the subject, pleading with the rebel. The dignity
of the Incarnate God arrests and attracts us. 8
3. Especially is the need of an Incarnation manifest when
we view it as an Incarnation in order to Redemption, and as thus
meeting man's moral wants as a sinner. Here is a real moral
necessity for it.
1. The effect of sin is to increase, seemingly to the mind, the
remoteness of Deity, separation from Him, and this in three ways:
(a.) as man's spiritual perception is darkened; (b.) as his heart is
cold to the call of God's love; (c.) as he fears chiefly the judg-
ment of God against him as a sinner. This sense of remoteness
is removed in all these respects: (a.) since Christ in the most
persuasive manner brings spiritual truth, with authority, and
so breaks in upon the darkness of the spirit; (&.) since He in
the fulness of divine-human love appeals to the human heart;
(c.) since He testifies by words and deeds that He is come, not
to condemn, but to save.
1 See a remarkable utterance of Dr. Arnold, Life, p. 212.
2 " Thus He stood behind the wall, and showed Himself through the lattice *
(Leighton).
* Chalmers, The Moral Uses of the Doctrine of the Incarnation.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 361
2. This moral necessity of an Incarnation in order to Redemp
tion is seen more clearly in the light of the great fact, that man
himself cannot atone for past sin. Such an incarnate Redeemer
was needed to make satisfaction: Rom. iii. 20; Gal. ii. 16.
Thus does the Incarnation meet man's needs as a sinner, the
facts of his sinful condition. Its force, its power, it& urgency,
are in this, that " there is none other name given under heaven
among men, whereby we must be saved."
3. Moreover there is a moral necessity that the moral attri-
butes of God be seen to be harmonized in the pardoning and
justifying of sinners. The harmonizing of mercy and justice, of
maintenance of law and love of the sinner, is accomplished in
the Incarnation in order to Redemption, as it could be in no other
way. And Christ suffering, dying in our stead, appeals to the
human heart, as does, as can, no other spectacle. Here that mani-
festation of the divine attributes, which is necessary, is made,
and in the mode best fitted to the wants of an apostate world.
Thus, in the Incarnation, we have not only the life of a per-
fect man (as we have seen in 2), but we also have a manifestation
of God, in a mode adapted to our human necessities. And our
Saviour not only revealed God to us, but was Himself the very
manifestation of God in the midst of the world. Not only could
He point us upward to the Father, but without presumption He
could say, he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.
Another Statement. Far be it from our thoughts to attempt
to penetrate the depths of the divine counsels in this great matter
of which a Father of the church says, " Of things in heaven and
earth nothing is so wonderful as that God has become incarnate,"
excepting as these counsels are made known in his word, as they
are seen in the history of his church, and as they are felt in the
souls of his children. We may not be able to know all the rea-
sons why the Word became flesh: but some of them, and sufficient
to engross all our power of thought and feeling, are manifest
in the ends actually accomplished, in the revealed and visible
and experienced results of the Incarnation.
These actual results may be thus summed up: The first result
362 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
is to give to our imitation the life of a perfect man; the second ia
to bring, not only God's attributes, but God Himself near to us;
the third result (to be considered by and by) is the entire union
of the infinite and the finite, the divine and the human natures,
in one Person; and the fourth result, to which all the others
converge, is the making a propitiation for our sins and fur-
nishing the headship for that eternal church, in which is our
accomplished salvation.
CHAPTER IV.
HOW FAB MAY AN INCARNATION BE SAID TO BE NECESSARY ON
THE PART OF GOD? 1
Here there are different classes of opinions. Some say: An
Incarnation on the part of God is absolutely necessary, is de-
manded by the divine nature, apart from sin. Others: It was ab-
solutely necessary on the part of God, after man had sinned: the
divine attributes unconditionally demand Redemption through
an Incarnation. Still others: No Incarnation was needed; men
might as well have been redeemed by the proclamation of God's
grace in other ways.
Really there are only two theories: (1) that of metaphysical
necessity: the divine nature demanded an Incarnation as its
necessary complement; God is not complete without man; the
infinite requires the finite as much (relatively) as the finite the
infinite: (2) the theory of a moral necessity; and this is subdi-
vided into: (a.) moral necessity, in that all the divine attributes,
justice as well as love, demand it; (&.) in that it is demanded
by love, though not by justice. 2
1 Aug. de Trin. : "Alia multa sunt cogitanda in Christi incarnations prsetei
absolutionem peccati."
2 As to the Incarnation of God, apart from sin, see W. Florke, Luth. Zschrift.,
2, 1854. "There is only one passage in antiquity for it, Iren. adv. Hser., v. 16";
" the doctrine of Irenasus and the Fathers is, that Christ became incarnate for sin,
and not without, and that there are only casual expressions against this .'"
The voice of antiquity is well summed up in Thomasius, Dogmatik, p. 166. Th
Nicene Creed is against it: "Who for us men and for our salvation," etc. Au
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. dt)3
I. The modern Socinian, Unitarian view. No Incarnation
at all was needed: we might as well have been redeemed with-
out it, by the proclamation of God's grace in other ways.
This opinion is as bold on the side of denial, as that of
absolute necessity is on the side of affirmation. It is a purely
ethical, rather than a Christian view. The basis of it is the
view that all that is needed for man's culture is, teaching, motives,
an ethical training; and for man's renovation, only a higher and
more impressive degree of teaching and class of motives. God,
it says, might as well have announced the fact of his gracious
designs, have revealed his love in a way to impress us; and for
all we can see, the same end would have been answered. But:
(a.) This is a mere opinion, unsupported by facts. So far as we
know, no mere influence of motives is enough. History is
, against it. (&.) From the actual fact of the Incarnation, we may
justly conclude, that, whether we can see it or not, there is a
fitness, a moral necessity, of such a mode of Redemption as is
given in the Incarnation. It is, doubtless, the wisest and best
method of restoring fallen man. (c.) While philosophy may not
affirm the absolute necessity of an Incarnation, it is equally in-
competent to affirm that it was not necessary. It may be, that
after human nature had become degenerate by the fall, it could
gustine: "Tolle morbos, tolle vulnera, et nulla medecinaa causa." Among the
Scholastics, Wessel, Scotus, and the Franciscans favor the position. Aquinas:
"Peccato non existente, incarnatio non fuisset." Anselm knows nothing of this
view. Servetus favored it. Calvin is against it, Inst. ii. ch. xii. 4-7. Socinus
(under the influence of the Italian philosophy): Christ would have come if thero
had been no sin, to insure immortality. At present, the position is advocated by
Liebner, Dorner, Martensen, Kurtz (who gives it up in one of the later editions of
his Bible and Astronomy). Julius Mtiller is against it, see Deut. Zeits., Oct. 1850.
"The Reformers had too deep a sense of sin to accept this." "The whole of
Scripture is for the soteriological point of view." " This view makes the death on
the cross a mere accessory, incidental event." In Brit, and For. Ev Rev., Jan. '66,
Dorner' s interpretation of the passage in Irenseus is disputed. Irenseus: " Si non
haber/ it caro salvari, nequaquam verbum Dei caro factus esset." Dorner: " If it had
not tw en possible to restore humanity to its archetypal form." Eeview: " If flesh
had r, -t required to be saved." There is a remarkable passage in Aquinas, 3.
q. iii., art. 8, " Convenientissimum fuit personam Filii incarnari .... quia ....
verbum Dei, quod est reternus conceptus ejns, est similitudo exemplaris totius crea-
turae. Et ideo sicut per participationem hujus sirnilitudinis creatune sunt in
propriis speciebus institute, sed mobiliter, ita per unionem Verbi ad creaturam
non parti cipatam, sed personalem, conveniens fuit reparari creaturam in ordine ad
eeternam et immobilem perfectionem. A
364 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
not become regenerate in all its parts, except through an I near*
nation, e. g., as respects the resurrection of the glorified body
through Christ.
II. The assertion of the absolute necessity of an Incarnation.
Here we have the Christian system in the form of metaphys-
ics, without its ethics. The metaphysical is substituted for the
ethical. It is said that the divine nature demands an Incarna-
tion, sin or no sin.
1. As to the Biblical basis. The passages cited are the four:
Eph. i. 10; Col. i. 15, 16;' Eph. iv. 24; Col. iii. 10, 11. It is said
that these teach the relation of Christ to all the creation, apart
from sin. But, contra: (1) The Christ whom Paul had habitually
in mind is the Christ appearing for sin. 2 (2) Christ might have
had an intimate relation to all created beings as a mediator (in
large sense) without sin, and without an Incarnation. (3) The
Bible explicitly represents sin as the final cause of the Incarna-
tion: Rom. viii. 3; John iii. 16; Gal. iv. 4, 5; Heb. ii. 14-16;
1 Tim. i. 15 ; 1 John iii. 8 ; Matt. xx. 28.
2. As to the ontological aspect. This view attempts to sup-
port itself by saying that God, for his own completeness, needed
to become incarnate: there was a metaphysical need. It is also
said that there was a moral need, a need in order to the perfect
exercise of love: his love could not be otherwise fully communi-
cated, neither his love to his Son, nor his love to men.
But, (a.) It is not to be seen why God might not have
fully and spiritually communicated Himself to men without an
Incarnation. He probably does to angels, why not to men ? *
Of. Heb. ii. 16. Some say: man here is above all angels, greater
and higher.
1 This, which is the most important, is considered a little later. *
2 Cf. also, 1 Cor. xv. -i5-7; Eph. i. 21-3; 1 Pet, iii. 22.
3 Dr. Candlish, Lectures on the Fatherhood of God, 1864: Against Incarnation
without Fall, but says: even angels are not by nature sons of God: they became
such through a probation, like man's essentially: the point being, a demand to be-
come subject to the Son of God revealed proleptically as the Word made flesh.
(Cf. Jonathan Edwards's view of the Probation and Fall of Angels, and Owen's
view of the Recapitulation of all in Christ.) Against: Brit, and For. Ev. Eev.,
Jan. 1866: " Candlish' s view leads to the position that the Incarnation would hava
occurred, if no sin."
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 365
(b.} The consequence of this position would be, that the Son
of God really came for his own sake, not for ours.
(a) "The Bible says, God is love: this view, Love is God"
(J. Muller).
3. The anthropological side. That for the completion of
human nature, to bring it into full union with God, an Incar-
nation was necessary. " Man cannot obtain perfection but by
the Incarnation of the Logos." Christ is the head of humanity:
the first Adam presupposes the second.
This appears to commend itself to those whose sense of sin
is not deep. 1
But, (a.) This view supposes that in the first Adam the
means of obtaining the end of his being did not exist before
the Fall. This is against the Scriptures, both in respect to
Adam himself and in respect to the restoration of the divine
image.
(b.) How are we to explain, that Christ came only in the
midst of history and not at first?
(c.) Moreover, it is a mere assumption: an abstract, logical
assertion, destitute of evidence.
(d.) All spiritual influences needed might be otherwise
bestowed.
(e.) This view is defended by saying, if the Logos had not
become incarnate, the race would have had no unity, no head:
but this supposes that Christ came, not for sin, but for man, that
He is the head of the race, not of the redeemed, and so it is
against the Scripture, which says that Christ is the head of
those only in whom He works by his Spirit: Eph. i. 22; iv. 12;
Col. i. 18 ; ii. 19 ; 1 Cor. xii. 3. On this view, all men have eter-
nal life in Christ, and thus it runs against the whole soteriology
of Scripture. Christ comes, not for human nature in general,
but for sinful human nature, to redeem it. He is not the head
of humanity, but of redeemed humanity.
III. The third class of opinions. An Incarnation was nec-
essary, on the part of God, after man had sinned. The moral di-
vine attributes demanded it, all the attributes, i. e., on the score
1 Strongly put by Mtiller, in the article cited above.
366 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
of justice. 1 They demand it (a) unconditionally; (b) condition-
ally, on the ground of love. There is a truth in this, so far as
it does not put a natural, but only a moral necessity in God ; and
so far as it does not claim that God, on the score of justice, must
redeem a fallen world.
f
(A.) The unconditional demand. The substance of this
view: Metaphysically, there is no absolute necessity. Yet God,
in creating a world, must create it to have its end in himself,
for his glory, in the good of creatures. This is the only con-
ceivable end. Hence, if creatures sinned, and so lost the chief
end of their being, God, to promote and achieve this end, must
Druvide redemption. He need not have created, yet, having cre-
ated, and for an end, if the creature by sinning is in such a
state that the end cannot be attained, there is, on this ground,
on the ground of this supposition, a moral necessity of a scheme
of redemption. Or, to take the same thing under a different
aspect, God, as love, must communicate himself freely to his
creatures: if they are closed against it, there is a moral necessity
of his providing a way thus to communicate himself.
But, (a.) Even granting what is here asserted, it does not
c ollow that in order to communicate himself, there must be an
Incarnation,
And (b.) There is no proof of such an unconditional demand,
excepting on the hypothesis of universalism. The view makes
it necessary for God to redeem and save all, on the score of jus-
tice, and as a matter of strict right.
(B.) The conditional demand. The necessity which love is
under to realize the end of creation, so far as is consistent with
moral government. On the score of divine mercy and love,-
there is a constraining influence leading to redemption. The
question here then returns: How much may be asserted on
Biblical and other grounds, respecting the necessity of an Incar-
nation in order to Eedemption.
1, Man and perhaps all created intelligences are created for
' See Rothe, Ethik, 526.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 367
and destined to, union with God, through Christ. The chief
passage on this is Col. i. 15-17. 1 Here we have the following
points: (a.) Man and all beings are destined to, created for,
union with God through Christ, (b.) In order to this some man-
ifestation of Christ is needed for and by all. (c.) An IncarnatioE
was needed on account of sin and its consequences, (d. ) Onlj
through such an Incarnation could the end of Redemption be
secured, so far as we know, (e.) What man thus gains in
Christ is much more than what was lost in Adam. (/) We
come to the general position that man, at any rate, could have
reached such glory only through a process; he had it not at first
through Adam.
2. This general position is further illustrated by the fact
that Christ is the center of unity, the head of the race as re-
deemed, of the church. The passages in which He is thus set
forth refer chiefly to the work of redemption, to Him as head
of the church : but in the church God's great plan for the race is
realized: Col. ii. 10; Eph. i. 10; i. 22, 23; iv. 12, 15, 16; v. 23;
Col. i. 18; ii. 19.
3. Accordingly, men all redeemed men are really united
to Christ, by his Spirit dwelling in them. Through this union,
and, so far as we know, only thereby, do men attain to a re-
generated state, to the real end of their being, (a.) Passages
in which this union is spoken of directly: Eph. i. 23; iv. 16;
Col. ii. 19 (Of. Rom. viii. 9; 1 Cor. xii. 3); John xvii. 21, 23, 26.
(b.) Passages in which the fruits of this union, being like Christ,
having his image, living and dwelling in Him, are spoken of:
John xiv. 23; xvii. 10, 22, 23, 26; Rom. viii. 29; Gal. iv. 19;
ii. 20; 2 Cor. iii. 18; Col. iii. 10.
From the foregoing heads, (1), (2), (3), it is natural to con-
elude that Christ would have been in some way the mediator
to men, even if they had not sinned; that created beings were
made with respect to Christ. So we add:
1 Col. i. 19, 20, sets forth the reconciliation of all things unto God, through
Christ. Calvin thinks it relates to the influence of Christ's work, in confirming
augols in their love and obedience; others take it as affirming a relation to all ere
ated beings, which is more probable.
368 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
4. That it is probable that some manifestation of the Logce
is needed by and for all beings, in coming to God.
To all his creatures God must reveal himself that they may
know Him. The Logos, so far as we know, is the medium of
such revelations. Only by some revelation could the divine
nature and attributes be made known. How is it that God
reveals his attributes ? We cannot know, no finite being can
know, the Infinite One directly: there must be a medium. This
may be (a.) implanted knowledge, as ideas, in the mind. But
this is complete knowledge only intellectually, and not a com-
plete knowledge of fact', (6.) some finite manifestation of himself
in works or by persons commissioned or in personal form.
It may be that the Son of God appears, as the image of God,
in personal, finite form, to the angelic hosts. Hence we say,
5. The revelation by an Incarnation is imperatively needed,
so far as we know, on account of sin and its consequences, if
the race can be redeemed. It is needed, not metaphysically,
but morally and teleologically, if God is to fulfil the end of cre-
ation, viz., the most perfect manifestation of his highest attri-
butes, his declarative glory. The Incarnation was not needed
by God, but for man. It was a free act of condescension and grace
on God's part. We cannot say that Kedemption could have
been secured in any other method. Though a free act on God's
part, and of grace, we know not but that such an act was nec-
essary both physically 1 and morally, if man was to be redeemed.
God might have left man to perish, and justly; but, if He would
save man, it may be that there is no other way than through an
Incarnation. It is very possible that the manifestation of grace
to a race of beings, to be redeemed, made up of body and spirit,
could be only by an Incarnate Redeemer. (The ontology and
physics of Christianity.)
1 As relates to the resurrection of the body, . g.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 369
CHAPTER V.
THE INCARNATION IN HISTORY.
The Incarnation on Historical Grounds, including Prophetic,
[Only the main positions].
I. The ancient Pagan world strives to realize the idea, yet
without success. This is seen: (1) In the great religious sys-
tems the Oriental and Grseco-Roman, (2) In the aspirations of
wise and thoughtful men.
II. The Jewish Scriptures gradually unfold the idea, giving
elements, adumbrated, prophetic; so that they are seen to be ful-
filled in Christ. The Jewish monotheism might seem to be
antagonistic, but running through the whole there is prophecy,
promise, pointing to a Deliverer, of the seed of man, yet the
Son of God.
III. Jewish and Pagan elements come speculativdy together,
in the Idea of the Logos. (Philo.)
IV. Hence, Christianity fulfils the expectation of the whole
ancient world, yet in a more perfect way.
V. All history before Christ can be grouped only as a pre-
paration for his coming.
VI. The subsequent history of the church and its doctrines
is a constant testimony to the reality and central authority of the
Incarnation.
CHAPTER VI.
OF TliE INCARNATION AS CONNECTED WITH THE WHOLE OP THE THEO-
LOGICAL SYSTEM, AND AS VIEWED BY DIFFERENT PARTIES.
I. The lowest view is the Socinian, Humanitarian theory.
According to this, the Incarnation, if at all acknowledged, is
held to have only the design of giving us an example, or
(Socinus) to confer immortality, or, to teach that God is favor-
able to man, is a Father, and that immortality is a fact. The-
370 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
whole sense and meaning of the Incarnation is ethical, tc
communicate truth.
II. The Roman Catholic view. The Son of God became
man; through the sacraments we receive Him, as grace; we
become partakers of his very body and blood, by the transub-
Btantiation of the elements. Thus we are united with, grow up
into his humanity. (Modification in Consubstantiation.)
III. The Oxford view. The sacramental system. The sac-
raments are an extension of the Incarnation, channels of grace.
The Holy Spirit is given through them. Neither transubstanti-
ation nor consubstantiation is advocated, but a real, spiritual,
mysterious reception of Christ's humanity, as much as we receive
humanity from Adam in the way of natural descent. 1
IV. The Spiritual Life Theory. Discarding sacramental
systems, and holding to the fact of union with Christ, this view
is distinguished by the position, that we receive through the
Incarnation, directly from Christ, through his Spirit, a new
spiritual life. And the communication of such a life is the
grand object for which Christ came. The Atonement is merged
in the Incarnation. Life, life from Christ, real and true life, is
the great fact of the Incarnation. So Coleridge, Bushnell, etc.
Redemption is resolved into regeneration.
V. The Incarnation simply and chiefly has respect to Christ's
atoning death. The Arminian View. The Exhibition Theory
or Governmental Theory. This view denies the reality of the
union with Christ, and of justification on the ground of this
union. It resolves the union into a metaphor. It says sub-
stantially this: The real truth in the case is, that we become
like Christ by choosing the same end as He did, the glory of
God and the good of man. We become like Him morally, in
having the same states of heart and will. This is all the union
1 Tracts for the Day. "The Eucharist is the complement of the Incarnation,
which began in the union of God with man's nature, and culminates in the
union of individual men with God." In the Eucharist there is a "union between
the Person of Christ and the elements of bread and wine; so that it may be said,
without a metaphor, that there is a renewal or continuation of the Incarnation"
(No. 59, Tracts for the Day). "The sacrifice of Christ is not once for all and com*
plete, but continuous." Neither Transubstantiation nor Consubstantiation is ac-
cepted, for these seem to define the work.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF 371
that exists. His atonement removed an obstacle out of the way ;
we rely on that atonement not on Him, but on the atonement,
and thereupon God pardons us. Justification is this : God accepts
us as holy, so far as we are ; and justifies us because He foresees
or has determined that we shall become perfectly so, by and
by. All the relation of the Incarnation to us is, that it excites
feelings, susceptibilities, more than anything else could well do,
and thus incites us to choose right. It presents to us an affecting
exhibition of God's love of us and hatred of sin, and so moves
us to come to Him in penitence and faith.
VI. The general Protestant view. Union with Christ as
the ground of our Justification and Sanctification. By faith,
through the operation of the Holy Spirit, we are united to
Christ (the mystical union), whereby we are both justified and
renewed, all through the direct operation of the Holy Spirit.
The great fact in objective Christianity is the Incarnation of a
Redeemer: the great fact in Bubjective Christianity is our union
with Him by and through his Spirit. Sacraments are expres-
sions, primarily, not vehicles of grace. To the new life the
Incarnation has the same relation that Creation has to the old:
it is the second great act of the Logos, the center of his spiritual
kingdom, for which the whole of the old creation groaneth and
travaileth in pain. And the Redemption in Christ has the same
relation to our renewed state that the Fall in Adam has to our
depraved state. The Incarnation has the same position in Re-
vealed, that Creation has in Natural, Theology.
VII. Outside of specific Christianity. The Incarnation is
true in idea, i. e., the union of the divine and human, but this
union is not in one Person, but in the whole race. 1 Divinity
and humanity are different aspects of the same substance, the
absolute substance. God comes to consciousness in men. Men
at death are resolved into this universal substance.
1 Sometimes put in this form: " The divine ideas which had wandered up and
down the world, till oftentimes they had forgotten themselves and their origin,
did at length clothe themselves in nesh and blood; they became incarnate with th
Incarnation of the Son of God. In his life and person, the idea and fact at length
kissed each other, and were henceforth wedded for evermore."
372 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
REMARKS on these different theories as to the place and pur-
pose of the Incarnation.
Every theological system must meet the questions raised by
the Incarnation, somewhere and somehow, and must show that
it is a necessary constituent of the system. For all religion has
respect to the relation between God and man; its ultimate prob-
lems and questions are in this relation, are on this point. And
especially must every system meet the question as to this relation
between God and man so far as it is affected by sin, and every sys-
tem must find its center in the point, how the relations between
God and a sinful world are to be restored, to be readjusted. In
ether words, religion being essentially union between God and
man, the central inquiry of theology is this: how is the lost com-
munion between God and man to be restored, how is the reunion
to be accomplished. And the different views, as above presented,
as found in the different and chief theological systems, say in
substance (adopting a little different order of statement), as fol-
lows, in reply to this inquiry. In order to this restoration :
1. It is enough for God to come and teach men his goodness,
and assure them of immortality;
2. Man is to be restored, only as he partakes of the very flesh
and blood of Christ, through the transubstantiated elements;
3. only as he partakes of the divine humanity of Christ
(not his literal flesh and blood) through the sacraments ;
4. only by partaking of the life of Christ, not necessarily
through the intervention of the sacraments;
5. only through justification before God as a Moral Gov-
ernor, on the ground of Christ's atonement, of which justification
by faith is the instrument, uniting the believer to Christ, whicl
faith is the regenerating gift of God's Spirit;
6. only (as above) on the ground of our justification,
which justification is, however, = pardon, which justification also,
does not include a real union with Christ. The Incarnation, in
this view, is to exhibit God's hatred of sin and love of the sinner
and not to effect a real union between God and man.
(We do not dwell on the naturalistic and pantheistic hypoth-
eses here, because they are out of the pale of Christian theology. )
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 373
CHAPTER VII.
OP THE INCARNATION ON PHILOSOPHICAL GROUNDS, AS RELATED TO
THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION, AND TO THE CONFLICT
BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND PHILOSOPHY.
In the question, Has the Son of God become Incarnate for
the Redemption of the world, the whole of the Christian system
centers. Upon the decision of this question rests the fate of
Christianity, as a distinctive religious system, as the absolute
and perfect religion, i. e., of Christianity as compared with
all other systems of faith, and also its fate, as compared with
philosophy.
Two propositions are to be maintained here:
I. The question comes up in relation to the philosophy of
Christianity, where it is to I5e shown that the Christian is the
perfect form of religion, because it centers and culminates in
the Incarnation, i. e., in the position that in the Person of Christ
we have an Incarnation of the Son of God for the redemption of
the race.
II. in relation to the conflict between Philosophy and
Faith. The superiority of Christianity to any system of mere
philosophy is also found in the same position, since, in Christ
and his work, we have a system more complete, better adapted
to man's moral, spiritual, and intellectual wants than philosophy,
without it, can possibly ofFer.
The Christian Religion is the most perfect religion.
It also contains the highest philosophy.
1. As to the Philosophy of Christianity.
The Incarnation gives us the Philosophy of Christianity, as
the most perfect religion. The proof of this position is to be
conducted on two grounds: historical and comparative.
1 Historical. It is to be shown, in the way of historical tes-
timony, on the basis of the history of religions, (a.) that the
Christian system, under the divine plan, has always existed in
374 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
its elements, as type, etc., in human history; (b.) also, on tLe
same historical ground, that the other religions, under the di-
vine guidance, so far as human history has advanced, have been
tending towards, have led to, Christianity, to the Incarnation
for Kedemption, as their historic consummation.
2. The Comparative line of argument. To show (as in Com-
parative Philology, etc.,) (a.) that Christianity contains all the
truth which is felt after in other religions, (b.) in a more perfect
form, (c.) and other, most needed, facts and truths, which can-
not be found in any other form of religion; and, that these are
found in the Person and work of Christ, where the superiority
of the Christian system is alone fully manifested. 1
NOTE. For the completion of the Philosophy of Christianity,
there would also be needed a comparison of the different sys-
tems of Christian theology, in the different sects, etc., in order
to find which one of them was most complete, most Scriptural
and most practical, and so best fitted to attain the ends of the
Christian system, the subjugation of man to the service of Christ.
The Augustinian-Calvinistic-Edwardean.
2. In the Incarnation we have tJie Means of adjusting the Con-
flict between Christianity and Philosophy.
A different question comes up when we come to the conflict
between philosophy and faith, between Philosophy and Chris-
tianity. It is no longer a comparison of Religions among
themselves, as in the Philosophy of Christianity, but it is a
comparison of the whole of Christianity with the whole of Phi-
losophy, in order to show that the Christian system not only is
the highest form of faith, but also contains the highest form of
philosophy, that the philosophy of Christianity is the highest philos-
ophy. The question here is: Where shall we find the ultimate
and complete system, adapted to all man's wants and needs, for
time and for eternity, philosophy as the guide of life ?
As between philosophy and religion in general, the question
reduces itself to that between philosophy and Christianity.
1 [See Introduction to Christian Theology : Philosophical Apologetics.]
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 375
As between philosophy and Christianity, it is really,
mately, a question between Christianity and Pantheism, "Christ
or Spinoza." Deism, atheism, and other forms of infidelity are
swallowed up in pantheism. The present tendency is to an al-
liance between pantheistic philosophy, extreme democracy, and
infidel socialism against the whole Christian system, fully de-
veloped in Europe, rapidly approximating in this country.
1. The preliminary questions, in speculative thought, between
Christianity and Pantheism.
(a.) The fact of sin, as a moral evil, in opposition to the pan-
theistic view, that sin is to be resolved into a mere natural
necessity, a stage in the progress of the race.
(6.) The fact of the being of a personal deity, the intelligent
and moral governor of the universe.
(c.) The possibility and the fact of a supernatural revelation,
through teachers, authenticated by miracles, and recorded.
(d.) The fact that in Jesus Christ, divinity and humanity are
united, and the world's redemption is achieved.
(e.) The fact of immortality that man is to exist hereafter as
well as here that the kingdom of heaven is not to be realized
here on earth.
These are the chief points. In establishing these it is neces-
sary to show as is proved by fact: (1) That the common or-
thodox view on these points is the only one which will be of
any avail against pantheism: Deism. Pelagianism, Unitarian-
ism, cannot make headway against the philosophic vigor and
completeness of the pantheistic system ; (2) and, that the ortho-
dox view of these points gives us a system, centering in the
Person and Work of Christ, more rational, more complete, more
adapted to man's wants, than any to which the pantheistic phi-
losophy can pretend.
2. Superiority of Christianity to Pantheism.
The Incarnation, on philosophical grounds, gives us the high-
est possible system, one higher than any which philosophy can
pretend to. This is to be shown in the following particulars:
(a.) As to the fundamental problem of all religion and of all
philosophy, viz., how can divinity and humanity be united, the
376 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Christian system gives us, in the Person of Christ, that union in
a more perfect form than can be found elsewhere. Pantheism
gives us only the union in idea, of something divine with some-
thing human. Christianity gives us the union in fact and com-
plete, in a personal form the best and highest. And through
faith in Christ men also are made participants in this union.
Such is the philosophical value of the Incarnation,
(b.) As to the fundamental moral problem, the highest we
can conceive, viz., how can a sinful being be reconciled to a
holy God, how can a sinful nature be changed: Christianity, in
the work of Christ, as applied, gives us the solution of this in
the most perfect way (justification arid regeneration); meets and
solves the problem; and Christianity alone does this; while the
Pantheistic system is obliged to ignore the problem, and resolve
sin into a necessary stage of development, thus annulling the
dictates of our moral nature; and reconciliation into the mere
reconciliation between man and nature, or man and his fellow-
beings, so that selfishness is lost in good-will.
(c.) As to the highest question about man as a social being,
as made for social fellowship and communion, it may be shown
in the same way, that the Christian system gives us the most
complete view, in the idea of the Kingdom of God, established
in the world for its redemption, centering in Christ as its Head
and Lord. The question raised by all thinkers, giving rise to
schemes of republics, to Utopias, to socialism, etc., is met and an-
swered in the Christian system, as in no other, wherein men are
not merely united with each other, but with God, through Christ,
in his kingdom a moral kingdom, where love reigns. To the
possibility and actuality of such a kingdom, the Incarnation has
intimate and necessary relations.
(d.) As to the final question, in all philosophy as well as in
all religion : What is the destiny of each man and of the race ?
here, too, Christianity evinces its inherent superiority. The
kingdom which it discloses is an eternal kingdom, begun here,
perfected hereafter: our aspirations and hopes of immortality are
encouraged and fortified, and a future is held out in the endless
progression of this kingdom of God in Christ, such as naught
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 377
else can offer. And this too centers in the truth of Incarnation
in order to Redemption.
Every system of philosophy must meet and solve these four
problems: they are fundamental in respect to man and to the
universe. Every system must give some answer to the questions
which these four raise. The most perfect system is that which
gives the completest and most satisfactory answer.
Our position then is this: that as the Christian system, in its
doctrine of the Incarnation in order to Redemption, meets and
answers all these four problems, in the most satisfactory manner,
it is thereby proved to contain the highest system of philosophy
as well as to be the most perfect form of religion.
CHAPTER VIII.
COMPARISON OF THE INCARNATION WITH SOME OTHER FACTS AS GIVING
THE CENTRAL IDEAS OF THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM.
I. Comparison of Divine Sovereignty and The Incarnation
as central principles.
Calvinistic theology has had unconsciously for the most
part two germinant principles: Sovereignty and The Covenants;
the former the older, the latter more narrow, but with some ad-
vantages. In the Confessions we often see an unconscious
union of the two. Sovereignty tends to run into supralapsa-
rianism and the assertion of the exclusive divine efficiency: Will
is made to be all ; the ethical is obscured. The objections to it
are: (a.) It is too abstract; (6.) It is liable to perversion, to the
construction that God is all Will; (c.) If it is taken concretely,
i. e., if the Sovereignty is understood to stand for Plan, it comes
to much the same with our principle: Incarnation in order to
Redemption is God's Plan.
II. Comparison of The Incarnation and The Covenants, as
the central principles.
1. The original usage of The Covenant, in theology, as set-
378 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
ting forth an arrangement, an ordering, on the part of God, ii
allowable and true.
2. As applied in the Covenant of Works: " This do and thou
shalt live," we may say, It is as if there was such a covenant.
3. As applied in the Covenant of Redemption, that between
the Father and the Son, it sets forth clearly, for popular represen-
tation, that in the divine plan, Christ performs conditions and
his people are given to Him in consequence. (Only in this
Covenant there should be included all that Christ's work ac-
complished: Propitiation for the sins of the whole world and
the General Offer of Salvation as well as the Provision for the
Elect.)
4. Applied as the central, constitutive principle of theology,
it is hardly satisfactory, (a.) In respect to the Covenant of
Works, there is a lack of historical foundation for anything be-
yond the divine announcement and pledge in respect to the con-
sequences of obedience and disobedience, (b.) In respect to
The Covenant of Redemption (between the Father and the Son),
it easily degenerates into the semblance of a commercial trans-
action, (c.) In respect to The Covenant of Grace (the Covenant
of God with his people), it is not really directly with them, but
with them in Christ, (d.) In respect to both these last, there is
a difficulty on account of the confusion resulting; we have to
use " conditions " in a different sense in the two : in The Covenant
of Redemption, Christ's sacrifice is the condition of the promise;
in The Covenant of Grace, faith and obedience are the conditions,
but in the latter the sense of "conditions" is not the same as in
the former: in the former the sense of "condition" is the pro-
curing, meritorious cause, in the latter, it is the occasional
cause, merely a sine qua non, not meritorious.
5. It is better for theology to state as its central principle
the essential and fundamental fact of the case.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 379
CHAPTER IX.
OF THE INCAKNATION AS THE UNFOLDING OF THE POSSIBILITIES
OF HUMAN NATURE. THE SECOND ADAM.
" The secret of Man is the secret of the Messiah." >
" The measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ " 2
"Complete in Him." 3
Man's nature, need, and destiny are, so to speak, wrapped up
in Christ. The secrets of our own inmost being, the enigmas
of our destiny, are revealed to us in Christ and in Him alone.
Life is a maze; and we do not find the clue to guide us safely
through until we find Christ. Life is an enigma, and the word that
solves the enigma is Christ, the Word of God. When we know
Christ we know what we are, and are made to be; and out of
Him we grope in darkness and conjectures. When Christ is
revealed to us, we are also revealed to ourselves. Only in Him
can we unveil the secret and scan the end of our destiny. We
are complete in Him.
I. We know ourselves only as we know the end of our being,
and this knowledge is given to us chiefly in and through Jesus
Christ.
Socrates was thought to have received from the gods the
immortal and searching precept, " Know thyself." He awakened
the inquisitive Athenians to self-reflection and moral conscious-
ness. Bat he could not probe the depths of human nature, be-
cause he had no definite conception of the great end for which
man was made to glorify God and enjoy Him forever in a
divine kingdom. He inculcated at the best only a kind of in-
tellectual morality and sincerity : he could not pierce the sky
and see the Father of all, nor unveil the future to descry the
destiny of man. And so, he could not lead to the highest self-
knowledge, because he had not the instruments and truths with
which to ply the soul, and extract all its secrets. If we are to
have the true estimate of life, we must know the true end of life.
Jewish Proverb. 2 Eph. iv. 13. 3 Col. ii. 10.
o80 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
And this the great Teacher of our race, and He alone, was
able to declare unto us. For he came forth from the Father,
and abode in tabernacles of clay, that He might disclose to us
the way of coming to eternal life. He revealed God to a sinful,
doubting, despairing race as "our Father who art in Heaven."
He taught us to pray to Him in those hallowed words which
children learn by heart and sages cannot fathom. He told in
His own words and taught by his own example, how the suffer-
ings, trials, and woes of time may at last but enhance the joys,
the peace, and the blessed rest of eternity. He led us to see
that this earth is our pilgrimage and heaven our home. And by
thus setting before us, in the simplest terms, the greatest end of
life, He has taught us the real meaning of life. And in disclos-
ing to us this blessed reality He made us to know ourselves. For
no man knows himself until he knows what He may attain unto.
The glories of heaven instruct us about the things of earth; only
in the light of eternity do we rightly read the events of time.
II. We know ourselves only as we know the law for which
we were made. This knowledge is given to us most fully in
Christ. He is not only the living Gospel : He is also the living
Law. He republished the Law of God in all its purity and sanc-
tity, and taught us its inmost meaning by His own perfect
obedience to it. He came not to destroy, but to fulfil. He un-
folded the law in its length and breadth, in its letter and its
spirit, in its rewards and its penalties up to the judgment of
the last assize. And He so interpreted that law to the human
conscience and the human heart, and He so exemplified it in His
whole incarnate life, that it really, in and through Him, became
fully known to the human race as the law of life.
And when this perfect law was unfolded before the vision of
the human race, it was like a deeper moral consciousness, pene-
trating below the surface of our common thoughts and aims,
and disclosing to us our inner, even our inmost selves. For
when man comes to know the law aright, then he also knows
himself aright; he sees what he ought to be: that he ought to be
holy in all his desires and thoughts and acts, and that as long
as he is not thus pure he has failed of attaining the great end
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF.
for which he was made. For the law is made for man's soul as
much as light is made for man's eyes; and to let the light of the
law upon the soul is a revelation no less clear and distinct than
to let the light of the visible sun in upon eyes that ma^ long
have had a film gathering over them.
Our blessed Lord gave us the law, not only in words, but also
in His life He was the embodied law, because He was love in-
carnate, obedient even unto death. His perfect example was an
example of perfect obedience. And thus, in giving to man the law
in its highest interpretation, and exemplifying its spirit in His
own matchless and perfect obedience, He has revealed to us
what we are and ought to be; He has set before us a pattern to
show us what it is to be a perfect man; He has taught us to
measure ourselves by the measure of the stature of the fulness
of Christ.
III. We cannot know ourselves truly until we know the
misery and guilt of sin, of which we are all partakers. And
Christ has also taught us to read this lesson, that He may be-
come our great Deliverer. Human misery and guilt were not
indeed first disclosed by the Messiah ; for the experience of that
misery and the consciousness of that guilt are the common heri-
itage of all the race. But the knowledge of our wretchedness,
which is given by nature, is a knowledge without hope, tending
to recklessness or despair. While the knowledge which Christ
imparts pierces and troubles the soul that it may purge and
purify it.
One striking fact about human misery and wretchedness,
brought out by the Gospel as by no other agency, is, that the
sense of our wretchedness is almost always accompanied by a
sense of the dignity and grandeur of our nature. "Our grief
is but our grandeur in disguise." Along with the conscious-
ness of our sinful condition, giving to it its sharpest stings,
is an inalienable conviction that this is not our real self, that
though it be our common heritage, it is not the end of our
being. Brutes may suffer and die, without remorse, without
hope, without despair. But so it cannot be with man ; he has
remorse for the past, and fear or hope for the future. And this
382 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
is because, made originally in the image of God, that image is
still and ever before the eye of reason and of conscience,
though the heart and will be fixed on inferior and transient de-
lights. Man is a sinner, condemned to death ; and the condem-
nation is so terrible because he was made not to die, but to live
forever; though he might aspire to a throne, he walks to a
scaffold, and the scaffold becomes awful because it has such a re-
gal victim ; awful even though, yea because, the condemnation
is just.
And when the divine law, as interpreted and applied by Christ
reaches to the very depths of man's consciousness of sin ; when it
sets before him its inviolable sanctity and its irreversible obli-
gations ; when it forces him against his will to test himself by
its solemn and searching light; when it reveals the depths of
his sin and guilt, far 'below the careless, worldly thoughts and
feelings that usually engross and blind the soul : when sin by
the commandment becomes exceeding sinful, and is pictured in
all its blackness upon the vivid stainless background of this im-
perial rule of rectitude ; then it is that man comes to know him-
self, to know himself as a sinner, as a sinner not only against a
holy law, but also against a holy God, to know the terrible
power of his depravity as clinging to the very roots of his being.
(This certainly is not the only way in which Christ reads to
us the lesson of our woe, and of our guilt. We have to look for-
ward to the subject not yet considered, His atoning work, to
see where it is that He impresses this lesson most vividly upon
the soul. If man, at the cross of Christ, will not see his wretch-
edness and his doom, then on that cross he cannot see his par-
don and his peace. There is no redemption, if there be no
condemnation. We must know ourselves to be sinners, if we
would know Christ as a Saviour).
And so, in the mystery of sin is revealed to us the mystery
of our being. In an eminent sense it holds true that the se-
cret of man is the secret of the Messiah. 1
1 It is related of Pascal, that he always carried with him a paper on which were
written these simple and broken words: " God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob,
not of philosophers and the learned. Certainty, certainty, feeling [sentiment],
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 383
IV. The same holds true, of course, of the final perfection of
our human nature, in its completed and glorified state. The
destiny of man in Christ is to come to the measure of the statura
of his fulness. Christ is the very ideal of humanity realized.
Even in a human point of view, He is the consummate flower
of the human race, a character unique in wisdom, love, and
holiness. 1
V. Not only in the individual life and individual perfection
does this relation subsist between man and Christ, but it also
holds of man as a whole, of the collective race, of man in his-
tory. We are aU to come into the unity of the faith and knowl-
edge of the Son of God.
That which enables us to explain history must be the soul
and life of history. History, the life of our race, is also the
great problem and enigma of our race. What is the meaning
of this mysterious birth of the human race upon the shores of
time ? What is to be its future destiny here on earth and in
the inaccessible night of eternity? Here is the question of
profoundest import to all the members of our race. And to
this question the only reasonable and satisfying answer is given
us in the revelation of God in Christ. Infidel writers are not
able to find any other center to human history than the life and
death of Christ. In point of fact, the whole of the ancient Jew-
ish history, in type, symbol, and prophecy, pointed to the Mes-
siah, while ancient secular history was prepared by Providence
for his advent. And since He came, his kingdom has given the
law to all other kingdoms; his church has gone on conquering
and to conquer. And here is an incomparable and irrefragable
joy, peace, God of Jesus Christ." And then followed this significant phrase:
" Grandeur of the human soul ! "And indeed, what must be the inherent dignity
of a nature for which God himself puts forth all the resources of his mighty love,
for which the Son of God could die upon the cross of Calvary ? What must have
been the guilt that demanded such a sacrifice; what must be the blessedness that
could warrant such a sacrifice ?
1 This is confessed even by those who deny Him to be anything more than
man. Thus Renan cannot withhold the confession that " He is the incomparable
man, to whom the universal conscience has decreed the title of the Son of God.
and this too with justice Every one of us owes to him that which is best
in himself ! " Weigh those last words, and make the necessary inferences. Faitb
to Christ becomes our highest need, life in Him our highest blessedness.
384 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
argument for the dignity of the Redeemer. He who gives the
law to history is the lawgiver of the race. In Him, and in Him
alone, the secrets of humanity are hid, its enigmas resolved, its
salvation insured. He who redeems the race must be the Head
and Lord of the race. The whole human family finds its cen-
ter, its crown, its peace, in Him. " Christianity," says one of
the Apostolic Fathers, 1 " is not a work of silence, but of gran-
deur," and its grandeur is seen in the fact that Christ is the
center of history.
Hence, it appears, that to know ourselves, we must know
Christ, and that to know Christ is to know ourselves. Just as
one born a poet does not know the full stores of his own imag-
ination until he has read Homer, Dante, Milton, and Shakespeare;
just as the sculptor does not know his gift in art until he has
gazed entranced upon the matchless products of Greek and
Roman statuary; just as the young Roman painter, when stand-
ing before the breathing canvas that revealed to him all the
power of the pencil, cried out in wonder " I too am a painter";
so the human soul may gaze on all other forms, linger on all
other impersonations of thought and feeling, and explore all art
and science, but until it stands face to face with the Lord of the
race, the Saviour of the lost, it knows not, it cannot know, it
feels not, it cannot feel, all the height and depth of human woe
and of human love, all the soul's boundless capacities, its su-
preme destiny. The hour when Christ is revealed in untroubled
splendor to the heart and mind, is the hour when it realizes what
it is arid may become. In the knowledge of the Son of God, it
sees that it may arrive at the perfection of manhood, that it
may attain to the measure of the stature of his fulness.
1 Ignatius. Compare our own Edwards: The work of Eedemption is a work
carried on in two respects: " (1) in its effect on the souls of the redeemed; this re-
mains the same: (2) as it has respect to the grand design in general, as it respects the
universal subject and end: this is carried on from the fall of man to the end of the
world in a different manner, not merely by repeating or renewing the same effects
in the different subjects of it, but by many successive works and dispensations of
God, all tending to one great end and effect, all united as the several parts of 8
scheme, and all together making up one great work."
PART II.
OP THE PEKSON OP THE MEDIATOR. THE SON OF GOB
MANIFEST IN THE FLESH. THE GOD-MAN.
"The Word was made [became] flesh." JOHN i. 14.
The subject of this Part of the Second Division is, The Doc-
trine respecting the Person of Christ. The Proposition: The
Mediator was the God-man. Or, In Christ as One Person there
is the Union of Two Natures, the Divine and Human.
There is a full and careful statement of the doctrine in the
Savoy Confession of Faith adopted by the Synods held in Bos-
ton iii 1680, and at Saybrook, Conn., in 1708. This is the same
as the Westminster statement: "The Son of God, the Second
Person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one sub-
stance, and equal with the Father, did, when the fulness of time
was come, take upon Him noun's nature, with all the essential
properties and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin: be-
ing conceived of the power of the Holy Ghost in the womb of
tha Virgin Mary, of her substance. So that two whole, perfect,
and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were in-
separably joined together in one person, without conversion,
composition or confusion. Which person is very God and very
man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and man."
See West. Conf, c. viii. 2; Larg. Cat., Q. 36-40; Shorter Cat.,
Q. 21, 22.
It is a fact which here comes into view, viz. : The Second
Person of the Trinity assumed human nature, and by this as-
sumption became the God-man, uniting both the divine and
human natures in his sacred person.
These points are essential: I. Christ is both human and di-
vine; II. Christ is one person; III. This Person is the Second
Person of the Trinity.
Scheme.
CHAP. I. The Teachings of Scripture respecting the Person of the God-man.
CHAP. II. The Partial and Conflicting Representations: Earlier and Later.
CHAP. III. The Objections and Difficulties urged.
CHAP. IV. The Eesult as to the Entire Person of our Lord.
386 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
CHAPTER I.
THE SCRIPTURAL TEACHINGS RESPECTING THE PERSON OP THE GOD-MAN.
1. The general Impression of the Declarations of Scripture
on this Point.
In the Scriptures Christ is described by a series of the most
amazing contrasts. He is called the Son of David yet David calls
Him Lord; He was understood to claim equality with the Father
as man He had not where to lay his head; He took part with
flesh and blood yet thought it not robbery to be equal with
God; He took the form of a servant yet his proper form was
the form of God; He tabernacled in the flesh yet came down
from heaven; He said that He could of his own self do noth-
ing yet He is said to be the Lord of all; His mother is called
IVlary yet He is over all, God blessed forever; He was born
under the law and fulfilled the law and yet in his own name gave
a new and more perfect law, and brought in a new and everlast-
ing righteousness; He was received into heaven out of the sight
of his disciples yet He is still with them, with any two or three
of them, always, and even to the ends of the earth; He was found
in fashion as a man and yet is the image of the invisible God;
He hid not his face from shame and spitting though He be the
very brightness of the Father's glory; He increased in wisdom
yet knew the Father even as the Father knew Him; He in-
creased in stature yet is the same, yesterday, to-day, and forever;
He died at the mandate of a Roman governor yet is the Prince
of the kings of the earth ; He could say, The Father is greater
than I yet also say, I and my Father are one, he that hath
seen Me hath seen the Father; He said in the time of his tempta-
tion unto Satan, It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy
God, and Him only shalt thou serve yet He also declared that
all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father,
and of Him it is asserted that vftry knee should bow to Him
and every tongue confess that He is Lord to the glory of God
the Father.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 387
It is the total impression derived from the amplitude and
variety of such expressions as these, which brings the surest
and truest conviction to the mind. One and another of the
terms may be explained away, but the difficulty is we have
to keep explaining away one, and another, and yet another.
The Bible was meant for and is adapted to the average under-
standing and religious wants of men. It is fertile and varied
in its mode of bringing out the same truth. And the natural
and total impression left by the perusal of it will inevitably be
that Jesus Christ is a complex personage, that He was a man,
yet is an object of religious worship.
2. The Proof from Scripture of Christ's Divinity. This has
been already given in the discussion of the doctrine of the Trinity.
It is referred to here only as it bears upon the union of the two
natures in his person.
1. That such a Saviour, Eedeemer (a.) was to come and
(b.) did come, is the substance of the Gospel-message; it is
TO svayyeXtov.
" The first annunciation of the New Testament, Luke i. 16,
17, was in reference to the highest and last prophecy of the Old
Testament, Mai. iv. 5, 6" (Ebrard).
The second annunciation to Mary is in reference to the
old Messianic prophecy given to David by Nathan, Luke i. 32,
" and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of his father
David"; 2 Sam. vii. 12, 13, "and I will establish the throne of
his kingdom forever."
The general announcement to Joseph Matt. i. 21, "and
thou shalt call his name JESUS: for He shall save his people
from their sins."
And as here the wonderful office is set forth, so immediately
following is the evangelist's declaration respecting the wonderful
person, as the fulfilment of prophecy, Matt. i. 22, 23. This is pre-
sented on the Old Testament basis. Both humanity (" the Virgin
shall bring forth ") and divinity ("shall call his name Imman-
uel") are in the Old Testament; as elements ae we have already
seen. (Lectures on the Trinity.)
388 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
2. Titles and Comprehensive Statements as to the Gospel.
Mark i. 1. " The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the
Son of God."
John i. 1-14 Especially, vs. 14, ;< And the Word became
Hesh."
Rom. i. 1, 3, 4 Especially, vs. 4
3. The appellation, Son of Man, 1 originating in the Old Tes-
tament, adopted by Christ as the designation of his Messiahship,
involving both in the Old Testament and the New, divinity.
Meyer: By Son of Man "Jesus means to designate himself aa
Messiah, not referring probably to Ps. viii., but to Dan. vii. 13."
His divinity as the Son of Man is shown in his coming to judg-
ment in the clouds of heaven.
4 More specifically as to the Old Testament representations
of the Messiah.
(a.) Certainly one peculiarity of the Old Testament religion
was its (apparently) almost exclusive national character. The
covenant with Abraham; covenant at Sinai; the Theocracy for
the Israelites. 2 But
(b.) It had, equally, a universal cJiaracter. The idea of God
as One : the thoroughly ethical conditions between Israel and God ;
especially the view and scope of prophecy.
(c.) The union of these two is the essence of the Old Testament
as compared with any other ancient religion. It is characterized
by Nationality and Universality.
(d.) This appears most clearly in the fact that the Messiah is
predicted not as a national king merely, but as the king ruling
from Zion over all nations, and again, not as such a king merely,
but also as the prophet and priest for all mankind: Isa. ii. 3; xi. ;
liii. ; Ps. xl. ; ex. ; Gen. iii. 15 ; xxii. 8 ; xlix. 10 ; Deut. xviii. 18 ;
Mic. v. 2; Hag. ii. 7; Mai. iii. 1; iv. 5, 6.
1 Keil'a Daniel, p. 273, Not, mere humanity. The phrase is used only by
Jesus of himself, while on earth. So Bengel on Matt. xvi. 13, " Nemo nisi solus
Christus, a nemine dum ipse in terra ambularet, nisi a semetipso, appellatus est
filius hominis." Acts vii. 56; Eev. i. 13; xiv. 14; are passages outside the gospels,
and borrowed from Dan. vii. 13.
2 See Dr. C. von Orelli, Der nationale Charakter der alt-test Eeligioru Zti-
rich, 1871.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 389
5. The Old Testament as authoritatively interpreted in the
New, in respect to this point.
(a.) Christ himself asserts that He was foretold as Messiah:
Matt xx. 18; xxvi. 54; Mark ix. 12; Luke xviii. 31; xxii. 37;
xxiv 27; John v. 39; v. 46; and especially the great office and
work predicted for the " Son of Man,'' Matt. xxvi. 64, and for
"The King" and "Son of Man," Matt. xxv. 31-46.
(b.) The Apostles declare the same: Acts ii. 16; ii. 25; iii.
18; xiii. 27, 32; xxvi. 22; 1 Pet. i. 11; 2 Pet. i. 19.
Hence, From the Old Testament itself, and from the inter-
pretation of it by the New, we learn that the Saviour was to be
divine and also of the house of David, a man, yet of prophetic,
priestly, and regal power, beyond all that mere humanity could
aspire to or wield. This is fulfilled in
3. The Miraculous Conception.
(In theological usage, "Miraculous Conception" refers to
Christ, "Immaculate Conception" to Mary.)
1. The carefulness of Scripture and of the best creed-state-
ments, here.
John i. 14, "The word was made became flesh." Heb. ii.
14, "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and
blood, He also himself likewise took part of the same;" Matt,
i. 18, "she was found with child of the Holy Ghost;" Luke
i. 35, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power
of the Highest shall overshadow thee: wherefore also that holy
thing which shall be born shall be called the Son of God."
Reflected in the creed-statements: West. Shorter Cat., Q 22,
" Christ, the Son of God, became man, by taking to himself a
true body and a reasonable soul, being conceived by the power
of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and born
of her, yet without sin." Articles of the Church of England,
Art. ii. :' i; The Son .... took man's nature in the womb of the
blessed Virgin."
How must we think of this conception ?
The Saviour must be sinless, free from all taint of original
sin. Hence, (a.) No generation in the ordinary sense. The
390 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Second Person of the Trinity assumed human nature in the
womb of the virgin; (b.) The passivity of the mother, and as-
sumption of human nature within the womb entirely by tho
power of the Most High; (c.) A miraculous proceeding, in
the highest degree. The Holy Spirit not in the place of an
earthly father; the assumption not to be brought in any way
under the ordinary laws of the production of a human being,
but to be left in its mystery, as a new creative work of the
Logos enacted through the Holy Spirit.
II. As to the Question, Would not Christ have had stain
from the mother, if she also had not been miraculously rendered
pure? 1 The question of the Immaculate Conception. The
question is, Was the Virgin Mary herself conceived without the
taint of original sin? Was she "sancta, non sanctificata " ?
Gonzalez (Span. Jesuit, 17th cent.): "The conception of Mary
had three parts: (a.) material, before the infusion of the soul, (b.)
natural, the infusio animce, superadded, (c.) the spiritual concep-
tion, caused by the infusio sanctificationis. So that, the Virgin,
in the second part, might for an instant have been under the
power of original sin." But Perrone and modern writers say:
there were only two parts: (a.) conceptio activa, the marital act,
(5.) passiva, the union of the soul with the seed, which was co-
instantaneous with the bestowal of grace.
The question then is, Can it be dogmatically defined that
the virgin Mary was holy as soon as she had a soul? The
Roman Catholic Church decided this in the affirmative by the
decree of Dec. 8, 1854.
Remarks. (1) The consent of the church cannot be pleaded
to this dogmatic decision. This is shown (a.) from the fact that
the Fathers know nothing of immaculate conception. Tertullian,
Athanasius, Augustine, John of Damascus, teach that all are
under sin ; (b.) from the fact that the Mediasvals were against it.
Bernard's (1140) doctrine is, that Mary was freed from sins, by
1 Sehleiermacher says: "We must suppose a supernatural, sanctifying influ-
ence in the embryo." M tiller's suggestion is better: "Sinfulness is through the
propagation, not of the embryo, but of the person, the individual: this not by gen-
eration in Christ's case. This holy person would repel all impurity from the verj
start."
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 391
grace, after conception: "sanctificata in utero," like Jeremiah
and John the Baptist, and so for a time under original sin. The
church of Spain followed him. Peter Lombard (1150) was against
it: "grace to conquer sin" [received by Mary]. Alex. Hales,
(13th cent.), a chief authority, teaches that she was " sanctified";
Bonaventura (13th cent.), "Mary needed redemption"; Aquinas,
The festival of 8th Dec. [introduced in 1140 by canons of Lyons,
as the Festival of her Conception] is for the " sanctification,"
and not for the i( conception " of the virgin ; Mary was " sancti-
fied," when, we do not know. 1
2, No proof whatever is offered. Perrone cites Gen. iii. 15
(Vulgate: "She shall bruise"), and Luke i. 28, "Hail, highly
favored ! " He grants that there is no decisive proof for the
doctrine in the Bible; says there is no proof from the Bible
against it. But, the passages of Scripture which speak of orig-
inal sin and the universality of redemption, allow of no exception.
3. The argument from consent even of Papal authorities
fails. Launoy (Jansenist, 1731) gives thirteen citations from
seven Popes against the doctrine. At Trent, a decision could
not be obtained. 2
4 As to the theological argument, (a.) The position, " Only
a sinless being could beget [conceive] a sinless," would prove
the sinlessness of Mary's parents: (b.) The argument from fit-
ness 3 God would make Mary most fitting for her office, as "the
mother of God," as "the bride of the Holy Spirit" asserts more
than we can know, except by revelation. It could not establish
fact, but, at the most, only show possibility.
5. Arguments against the doctrine: Luke i. 47; ii. 43; John
ii. 3; 1 Cor. xv. 22; Eph. ii. 3; Rom. v. 12.
6. The position taken by the church of Rome in this decision
of 1854. (a.) Deciding by "infallibility" what has against it a
large consent of her greatest teachers thus sacrificing " tradi-
tion" to infallibility. (&.) Deciding a point offaith by papal
1 Perrone's explanation of Aquinas and Bernard: "The division of parts;'
" They refer only to the animal conception, before the infusion of soul, when they
speak of original sin."
2 Cf, Perrone, p. 113. 3 ibid, pp. 102-111, 148.
392 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
decree the ultramontane theory, of infallibility in the Papacy,
carried out as never before so clearly, (c.) Deciding by "infalli-
bility," on the ground of mere human consent, a matter of fact,
which only omniscience could know thus stretching infallibility
to its utmost, (d.) Carrying to a still higher extent the adora-
tion of the creature, making the virgin to have a prerogative
which, of all human beings, Christ only can claim ; exalting her
worship, and thus becoming more idolatrous, and departing
further from the faith, (e.) Giving itself up yet more completely
to the control of the Jesuit influence the most baleful form of
Romanism.
4. In the miraculous Conception the Logos assumed a true and
complete Humanity.
Our Saviour was a proper man, possessing a " true body and a
reasonable soul."
I. A true body. Proved, (a.) From his conception and birth,
Matt. i. 25; Luke i. 35; ii. 7; (6.) His growth like other children,
Luke ii, 52; (c.) Hunger, weariness, infirmities: need of rest,
sleep, Luke iv. 2; xxii. 44; John iv. 6; (d.) Pain, suffering,
wounds, John xi. 83. 35; xix. 34; Luke xxii. 44; Matt. xxvi. 37;
John xx. 27; (e.) Flesh and bones, Luke xxiv. 39, 40; (/.) Cru-
cifixion, death, and burial, Luke xxiv. 39; Heb. ii. 14.
II. A reasonable human soul, (a.) Growth in wisdom,
declaration of "ignorance," Luke ii. 40, 52; Mark xiii. 32;
Matt. xvi. 21; xxiv. 36; (b.) Temptation, Matt. iv. 1; Luke xxii.
42; Heb. iv. 15; v. 2, 8; (c.) Sorrow and sympathies, Matt. xxvi.
37 ; Luke xix. 41 ; John xi. 35. (d.) Dependence on God, Prayer, 1
Matt. xiv. 19; John xi. 41; (e.) Acts ii. 31. (/.) To Christ a
human Ttrevjua belongs, John xi. 33, 38; xiii. 21; xix. 30; Matt,
xxvii. 50; Mark ii. 8; Luke ii. 40; x. 21; xxiii. 46; 1 Pet. iii. 18;
(g.) To Christ a human tyv-xrj belongs; John xii. 27; Matt. xxvi.
38; Mark xiv. 34.
III. The indispensableness of holding the complete hu-
manity of Christ. Denied by Docetse, not truly held by Arians,
i The Prayers of Christ illustrative of his Humanity, Jour. Sac. Lit. and
Bib. Eecord, Oct. 1861.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 393
undervalued by Sabellians " we want only God," they say,
" not man." The church has always confessed the need and
want of the God-man for redemption, (a.) It is important in
connection with the interpretation of Scripture. Christ, on tho
face of the Gospels, is man proper, true, real if any ever was.
Man is not man without the human soul with all its endow-
ments of "spirit" is only animal. An interpretation which ox-
pels the humanity undermines all correct interpretation. (I.) It
is important as regards the power and efficacy of his example.
We are to be like Him. (c.) In regard to his position as the
second Adam, (ci) Most "of all, in connection with redemption.
According to the Scriptures, the Redeemer must be of the na-
ture of the redeemed: Heb. ii. 17, 16, 14; Gal. iv. 4. (e.) Atone-
ment must be effected through his human nature, the divine
could not suffer. The roots of the Scriptural doctrine of redemp-
tion are cut off, if we deny the proper humanity of Christ.
5. In the Scriptures both tJie Divine and Human Natures of
Christ are often brought under one View, are referred to in their
connection. Rom. ix. 5; John i. 1-14, (a.) The Word with God,
was God, and the first great divine act creation ascribed to
Him: (b.) The Word became flesh, dwelt among us, and we
beheld his glory; 1 John i. 1, 2; Phil. ii. 6, 11; Rom. i. 3, 4;
Heb. i.; ii. ; 1 Tim. iii. 16; John i. 18. 1
6. The various Modes in which what is said of Christ in
the Scriptures is to be interpreted in respect to his Person and
Natures.
Whenever we speak of any whole which is made up of
different elements, we use the same subject with different predi-
cates, which may be applied, which must be applied, to this or
that element. The following are the various modes in which
Christ is spoken of: (a.) The human nature gives the designation
of the subject while the predicates belong to the divine nature,
Instances: " As concerning the flesh Christ came, who is God
1 "Only-begotten God," as read by some. See Ezra Abbott, Bibl. Sac., Oct.
18G1.
394 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
over all," Rom. ix. 5; "See the Son of man ascend up where Ht
was before," John vi. 62.
(b.) The converse of the foregoing. Passages in which the
person is designated from the divinity, while the acts are of the
humanity. Instances: Rom. viii. 32; 1 Cor. ii. 8; 1 Cor. xv. 47,
(c.) The whole person the subject with divine predicates:
John viii. 58.
(d.) The whole person the subject with human predicates:
" I thirst."
(e.) The whole person the subject with predicates of both
the natures. All the passages just cited in 5 are instances. 1
7. According to the Scriptures, Christ was one Person, and
his Personality ivasfrom his Divine Nature.
I. One Person. There is nothing in Scripture to show any-
thing like a two-fold personality two Christs, a man and a God;
but the same undivided person is, as to his humanity, from
David the Son of David; and as to his divinity, the Logos the
Son of God. The Scripture asserts this, or rather, rests on this
unity of the person. In his primeval estate of glory, in his ap-
pearance in the world, in his resurrection and consequent glori-
fication, He is the same the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.
There is as much evidence, and of the same kind, that He is one
person, as there is in regard to any being or man in history.
There are two ways of showing this: (a.) He always uses the
first personal pronoun: "Before Abraham was, I am," "The
glory which I had with thee before the world was," " I am with
you always"; He is also addressed as "Thou," and is spoken
of as He, Him, etc. (b.) He is never spoken of as if the man
and the God in Him had personal relations or converse with
each other (as is the case with the " Persons " of the Trinity).
II. This one Person had its personality from the divine na-
ture. 2 It is otherwise logically inconceivable. There was not
1 Illustrative Parallel, (a.) Man is a religious animal, (&.) Man is spiritual
and sleeps, (c.) Shakespeare is a genius, (d.) Chatham suffers pain, (e.) Burke
delivered an oration.
2 Usage of person and personality. Person, usually broader: the whole outward
manifestation, the same being in all his attributes. Personality, the central point
of the person, the indefinable I, Ego.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 395
a human personality, there was a human nature, perhaps im
personal, or the personality merged in the divine person.
" Christ was not a human person with a divine nature, but
a divine person with a human nature." Another view: There
may be supposed an embryo, with human personality, yet never
coming to distinct being, lost, merged in the divine personality.
It is difficult to conceive human nature without potential per-
sonality. Some say, personality is in consciousness alone.
[Some fuller statements on this point are given in Chap. V.]
8. Summary and Conclusion from Scripture Testimony as to
the Two Natures and One Person.
Generally. Christ is very God and very man, yet one Per-
son, the God-man. The induction of these points is not from a
few expressions, but from, and giving the final expression to,
the greatest variety of utterances concerning Him. Omitting
either of these points puts us in a false position, suppresses
ome Scriptural statement.
Analytically, (a.) Christ is one Person, (b.) A perfect di-
vine nature, (c.) United to an entire human nature, (d.) In this
the divine nature is active, the human nature passive, (e.) The
act is called "personal unition;"the result, personal or hypos-
tatic union, kva.v^p^itr]6i^. (/.) So Christ is the God-man, Ssar-
SpcaTtos, 1 and so abides. (</.) In this union the natures are not
confounded or commingled, (h.) Nor is the Person divided.
There is in the one person a communio naturarum, so that the
properties of either nature may be ascribed to the one person,
and there is " one theandric energy." a
The Proof, (a.) It is inconceivable that it should be other-
wise, (b.) The reasons for the union always remain. 3 (c.) The
1 First in Origen.
a [But see further on, and especially in Chap. V., for the sense in which this
statement is made.]
3 1 Cor. xv. 24, 28, urged against this. Bat according to that passage "the
Son " remains, only the mediatorial scepter is laid down. The position [advo-
cated by Dr. Hickok ?] that when Christ gives up the kingdom, the Man remains
Head of the Church, while the Logos goes back to God, is not consistent with
such passages as are cited under (c.).
396 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Scriptural assertions. The eternal reign, Dan. ii. 44, vii. 14, 18;
Luke i. 33; Rev. xi. 15; The eternal relation to the church, and
to the redeemed soul, Rev. vii. 16, 17; xxi. 22, 23; xxii. 1, 3;
Heb. vii. 25, 16, 21, 28; vi. 20.
CHAPTER II.
THE EARLY HERETICAL OPINIONS AS TO THE PERSON OF CHRIST.
This belongs to the History of Dogmas. Here only a sketch
is to be given.
I. Scheme of the Possibilities. The Scriptural elements as
we have seen are Christ is one Person, having a divine na-
ture and a human nature, and his original and essential person-
ality is that of the divine nature. Then the following views
are possible:
(a.) Taking the Person as basis and denying the reality of
one or the other of the natures, denying the divine nature
Ebionitism: the human nature, Docetism.
(&.') Denying not the human nature, but the integrity of it
Apollinaris.
(c.) Allowing the two natures in their integrity, but asserting
(virtually) two Persons Nestorianism.
(d.) Affirming one nature and one person and that divine
Eutyches, Monophy sites.
(e.) Affirming one nature from the two, with one will Mono-
thelites.
(/.) Affirming one person, two natures, with differences upon
the question of the two wills The general orthodox position.
II. Definitions, (a.) .Nature, ovdia: what belongs to the
essence or substance, (b.) Person: substantia individua quae
nee alterius pars est, nee in altera sustentatur. 1 (c.) Personality
euppositum iutelligens per se subsistens.
1 Chemnitz.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 397
III. Statement. The human nature of Christ never existed
out of union with his divine nature, and so has no distinct per-
sonality. Yet it lacks nothing of complete human personality.
The ultimate question here is, Did the two natures manifest
themselves as two? Monothelites said: There are two na-
tures but only one will one manifestation. Orthodoxy in-
clines, with reservations, to the position of two manifestations.
" One theandric energy," proposed by the Emperor Herac-
lius, 633. [The author declares neither for nor against this.
Would "two manifestations of one theandric energy" indicate
his view? See Chap. V.]
CHAPTER III.
LATER DOCTRINAL DIFFERENCES BROUGHT UP IN THE CONTROVERSIES
OF THE REFORMATION.
I. The Calvinistic bodies have stood on the old foundation-
II. The Socinians renewed Ebionitism or Arianism.
III. The Lutherans affirmed communicatio idiomatum, that
one nature partakes of the attributes of the other. The com-
munication is of the divine to the human not the converse.
" Finitum capax infiniti." This applied especially to the Lord's
Supper. Ubiquity is the word which expresses the most essential
thing in the theory.
Objections of the Reformed: (a.) Christ's body, then, is pres-
ent everywhere as much as in the sacramental bread, (b.) How
can a human nature become omniscient and yet remain ignor-
ant, etc ? How can this be affirmed without strict logical con-
tradiction ? (c.) The theory would result in a monophysitic view,
annulling the real humanity, (d.) It ought to teach that the di-
vine partakes in the human, which it does not. (e.) Generally:
transference of properties would annul nature infinite to finite,
finite to infinite.
398 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
IV. The doctrine of Kenosis. 1 Phil. ii. 7, kocvrdv
nopqjrjv 8ovA.ov hafiwr. The Incarnation was a self-emptying act
of the Logos, the laying aside, for a time, of divine powers and
prerogatives.
Objections:
(a.) This would involve a change, for thirty years, in the
Divine Trinity.
(&.) It is inconceivable that the Godhead should thus become
naught. Gess and Reubelt 2 say, If Christ has life in himself,
He may annul it of himself. But the act ascribed to Christ
in Phil. ii. 7 is best understood as a humiliation, a taking of
new conditions not as an annulling of his divinity.
(c.) It is argued that God the Father might effect the Kenosis,
asHe gave life to the Son. But (a.) Phil. ii. 7 says Christ did what-
ever was done; (6.) The Father could not annul the divine being
of the Son any more than his own; (c.) if He could, the Son
would not be equally divine; (d.) The doctrine leads over into
the position of the entire dependence of the Son for nature, be-
ing (as well as Sonship) on the Father. 8
V. Philosophical views. Schelling: The essence of the In-
carnation is in the principle of Identity the union of opposites.
Hegelians : The second Person is the world. Schleiermacher : The
truth is that of Divine Humanity; in Christ is found the ideal
union, of which we partake. Christ was not personally pre-ex-
isterit. Dorner: Divinity and Humanity are not diverse. See
Hodge.
1 For it, Thomasius, Liebner, v. Hofmann, etc. Dorner against it (Glaubensl. ).
2 Prof. J. A. Keubelt. Two articles in Bib. Sac., 1870-71. Also, Transl. of
Gess, Script. Doct. of Person of Christ, Andover, 1870.
3 Gess says, " Aseity is to be ascribed to the Father only."
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 399
CHAPTER IV.
THE OBJECTIONS AND DIFFICULTIES URGED AGAINST THE DOCTRINE
OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST.
Preparatory Considerations.
All great truths, like all great men, pass through a protracted
struggle before their victory is secure. Though not contrary
to reason, they are above it, and reason will assail them. They
are above common sense, and common sense will take offence at
them. They are revealed to faith, but all men have not faith.
They are given to meet our spiritual wants, but sin deadens
our sense of the greatness of these wants. They show the rela-
tions and reconcile the opposition between God and man, heaven
and earth, but many who live on the earth care not for heaven,
and many men have little sense of the greatness and the won-
derful works of God. They unfold the mysteries of the divine
nature, but some can hardly see the difference between a mys-
tery and an imagination.
The greatest truths, too, are those that reconcile the greatest
antagonisms, but many do not understand, and many explain
away the fearful antagonism there is between a holy God and a
sinful world; the great gulf is for them only a narrow stream
which they may readily leap over at any time; the vast moun-
tain, seen in the distance, seems so like a mole-hill that it
appears not at all necessary for God to come down to earth
to enable us to surmount it.
But if we might expect the great truths connected with our
redemption to be assailed by man, no less may we expect that
they would be defended and made triumphant by the power of
God. And so it comes to pass. From conflict they emerge
with higher luster, purified and exalted. The attack sharpens
the defence. The truth becomes more clear and definite, is re-
duced to more precise statements, is guarded against perversion,
is seen in its connection with other truths, is adjusted in the great
system which sets forth God's dealings with man, is illumined
400 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
and not consumed by the fire sent down to devour it. Thus
has it been, pre-eminently, with the doctrine respecting the Per-
son of Christ. No truth has been more fiercely debated, through
longer ages; none has experienced greater opposition from all
sorts and conditions of men; none has received more precise
and accurate definitions; none has asserted its triumphant claims
more successfully against the wit and wisdom of this world. In
the early church the doctrine respecting Christ's Person even
took the precedence of the doctrine respecting his atoning sac-
rifice. With a humble and direct faith, men came to Him, clung
to Him, loved Him with a deep personal affection, saw in Him
the object of all praise and glory. They believed in Him heartily,
before they began to reflect upon their faith. And the first sub-
jects of doctrinal discussion were those that grew out of his
complex nature. One sect exalted the humanity, another the
divinity: the respective attributes of each nature were defined.
Council after council, through six centuries, was called, to rebut
heresies, or establish and define the faith. Let some see in all
this only the jarring disputes of theologians: let them also see
that they were disputing about what formed the central object
of their faith and spiritual life. Far from seeing in these con-
troversies an evidence against, we may derive from them the
strongest evidence for, the existence of the most striking elements
of contrast in the person of Him to whom all parties equally
looked as the engrossing center of their faith. And where in
modern times this doctrine has been assailed with the greatest
vehemence, it has come forth again from the assault with greater
luster. In the land most boastful of its philosophy, philosophy
even came to pay its homage to Jesus Christ. The problems
which the church held as articles of faith have come to be most
vehemently discussed as questions of philosophy. Around the
person of Christ their hosts have gathered, they have assaulted
Him with their fiercest questionings, they have been baffled by
his wondrous person, and even when they do not bow to his
person, they yet confess that the doctrine respecting Him is the
sublimest doctrine to which man has attained ; they have taken
it and placed it in the very center of their systems, and pro-
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 401
claimed that the union between what is divine and what is human
is the great central and reconciling truth to which all the facts
of history and all the speculations of philosophy must bring
men's minds.
And in our own New England, when many wavered in
their belief in the divinity of Christ, when most of its litera-
ture, its culture, its honored names in church arid state, and the
predominant influences of refined society were all enlisted in
favor of a system which denied the more excellent, though it
glorified the more humble, nature of our Lord, how was it that
such a cause, with every prestige of success, was suddenly checked
in its advancing course ? It was not by argument alone, it was
not alone by showing its inconsistency with Scripture, but it
was also because there was a new outpouring of the Spirit of
God, giving a deeper sense of sin, a more thorough longing for
salvation ; it was because men's souls were deeply stirred, and
came to grapple with the great problems of their destiny ; be-
cause they saw their helplessness and sinfulness, and felt the
need of an Almighty Deliverer: it was because by the exercise
of simple and hearty faith in Him, as the giver of spiritual life,
they saw the fitness of such a Kedeemer to all their wants, and
experienced the full sense of pardon and peace only when lean-
ing on the arm of this gracious Deliverer. And all this was
and must have been a wonder to those who felt not the burden
of sin, and realized not the full meaning of the law of God, and
whose religious feelings were not quickened, so that they could
cry out, my heart and flesh long for the living God. But they
who sought the living God, perfect in holiness and abounding
in mercy, found Him in the person of Jesus Christ, and bowed
in adoration- before Him as the Lord and giver of their spiritual
life. Very like a living power has been the cause of Jesus
Christ through the history and changes of his church; very like
a living influence is that which still draws men to Him from
the depths of sin, from the heights of human reason; very like
a living Being does He still and ever present Himself to the
eyes of our faith ; a secret and unseen agency still draws in every
clime men's hearts towards Him; they love Him as they cannot
402 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
love a man who has gone to his grave ; men oppose Him as they
do not. oppose a Luther or a Calvin: even when they try to prove
that He is not divine, they do it because there is so much to
show that He is divine ; they never try to prove that Paul was
a mere man, 01 that John was not a God: they reason against
Christ? s divinity as they reason against nothing that is unsub-
stantial and imaginary not as men reason against a chimsera,
but as they contend against a power which the force of the con-
test shows really to exist.
Such has been the living course of Christ, as the Head and
Leader of his church, through its conflicts in this world. No
one doctrine has been more impugned, or has maintained its
ground more firmly, than that respecting his Person. In the
course of the controversy the greatest variety of objections have
been made. Some of the chief of these we now proceed to
consider.
I. It is said that we can explain all that the Bible says
about the Person of Christ, without assuming his divinity.
Some few texts,. it is said, do seem to have a halo of divinity
about them, but when we come to examine them closely, the
halo is not so distinctly visible. This brings up the subject of
The right Mode of Interpreting Scripture. [The observations
which follow would have been in place in the Introduction, as
giving the point of view from which the author would regard
the Scriptures in reference to every main doctrine. But the
general statements could not well be sundered from the special
references to the doctrine now under consideration. Their im-
portance with reference to the whole theological system will be
the explanation of their being inserted here at such length.]
There is a strong tendency in men's minds, when dealing
with a difficult subject, to banish all difficulties by simply deny-
ing them. Many prefer to receive the half of a truth by the under-
standing, to taking the whole of it by faith, especially where the
truth seems to involve both something mysterious and some-
thing intelligible; we are very apt to grasp the intelligible half,
and let the mysterious remainder evanesce. Thus, in explain-
ing God's moral government, it is much easier to think out a
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 4'03
system made up wholly of divine purposes, or to think out one
made up wholly of free agency, than it is to combine both these
parts of the system into one orderly and consistent whole. So
it is not difficult to understand that Jesus was a man this is
simple, there have been many very wonderful men in the world
but to say that He is also God introduces a profound mystery, a
somewhat that is quite unfathomable. If now the Bible could
be interpreted so as to be consistent with the intelligible half
of what is said of Jesus, that would relieve us of a great mys-
tery, and to relieve the soul of mysteries is thought by some to
be the great end of all interpretation and reflection one evi-
dence of the advance of knowledge and culture. And at the
worst or best though some difficult passages should remain, it
is thought to be better to leave some uncertainty about their in-
terpretation, than to leave anything inexplicable in the nature
of Christ. And besides, it is very well known that words are
used in a great variety of senses, and if the highest sense of a
word be mysterious, the lowest sense may be level to our under-
standings; if the highest sense involves in difficulties, the lowest
makes all plain. And the great aim in interpreting the Bible is
to remove all difficulties. Figurative language also abounds:
the Orientals were famous for the use of it; and the Bible was
written in Oriental parts. They were not so careful to dis-
tinguish between what was divine and what was human as
we are.
A series of rules for the interpretation of Scripture might in
this way be easily made out. Prove first, that Christ was a man ;
assert next, that He could not be both God and man, that this
involves an absurdity ; and explain all the Scripture by this rule.
Another formula would be, Take any word applied to Christ,
which has been interpreted of his divine nature, reduce it to its
lowest terms, and show that it can possibly mean something less
than absolute divinity; show this of each of the terms so used,
and the result will be, that whatever words in whatever variety
have been used to unfold the higher nature of Jesus, they could
not by any possibility prove that He had that nature because
it is impossible at the outset. All the difficulties will in this
404 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
way disappear. For what is difficult can be explained by what
is easy, and what is mysterious by what is natural, and what
crosses our feelings by what suits our feelings, and we may make
a very perfect man out of one who is called God, a very clear
system of natural religion out of an obscure system of revealed
truth, an easy system of morals out of a hard system of divinity;
and we shall become versed in all the easy parts of Scripture
and easy in all the difficult parts; and if we do not understand
God's ways with man, we shall at least see clearly what are
man's ways with God and with his revelation.
But against all this we urge the position, that precisely where
and when the Bible speaks of the mysteries of the divine nature,
if it be indeed the Word of God, we are bound in critical jus=
tice to-be most guarded and reverential in our interpretations.
Far from seeking to diminish or explain away the words which
announce to us such a wonderful manifestation, we should rather
seek to give them their greatest intensity of meaning, and should
let them be invested with something of the sacredness and awful-
iiess of the subject which they are meant to announce. In their
very best estate, human language and human thoughts are all
too poor and meagre to declare to us the immensity and won-
derful works of Jehovah. All language bends beneath the weight
of such supernatural themes. What folly, then, in the wisdom
which will take all the words and phrases of the Scripture that
have been selected to describe God's wonderful manifestations
of himself, and give to them their smallest possible amount of
significancy, which will take a figurative expression, and give
the lowest meaning to the figure when it would seem as if
even natural reason might teach us, that any figure of human
language, when applied to the divine works, must be taken ;n
its most eminent and daring sense, in order to conform to the
nature of the subject which it is intended to describe.
We may interpret historical facts in the Bible by the laws
which govern us in the interpretation of history; we may write
the lives of the great and good men who are there described to
us as we would write the lives of other great and good men ; we
may interpret poetry as poetry, and prose as prose, and many
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 405
things according to the religious culture and national habits of
the chief actors in them in short, we may interpret the things
that belong to men by the standard of men, but we must also
interpret what relates to God in a manner conformable to the
mysteriousness of his Being and the wonderfulness of his works.
And when He unfolds to us, so to speak, his hidden nature,
when He unveils his glories to our gaze, and lets us catch a
glimpse of the interior economy of the very Godhead; and when
He unfolds this in connection with the greatest work in which we
can conceive even God to engage, the redemption of an apostate
world; what reverence can be too great, what caution unwise,
that we do not misunderstand or diminish the full sense of the
majestic truths so graciously delivered to us !
Against the attempt to show that the language respecting
Christ's higher nature can be interpreted in a lower sense we
urge again what has been said in another connection that
the conviction respecting his divinity does not result from iso-
lated phrases, is not determined by the interpretation of particu-
lar words, but is formed from the total representation given
of Him in the inspired record. In almost every variety of
phrase and image are his wonderful glories depicted. In his
relations to God and in his relations to man, both natures are
implied, implied when not directly asserted, most naturally in-
ferred when not expressly stated. Hence the process of trying
not to find his divinity is one of constant explaining, if not of
explaining away. The Person of Jesus Christ, so to speak, is
inwrought, into the very texture of revelation. Give the New
Testament a living form, and the form it takes is that of the
God-man, the mediator between heaven and earth, equally
allied to both God and man. Now we do not deny but that a
skilful anatomist may dissect this book, and not find the divin-
ity of Christ which animates it: but the very process of dissec-
tion has killed the living spirit, which of course eludes all his
future research.
In interpreting the Bible, something more is needed than
critical skill, a humble acceptance and belief of God's revela-
tion to us an expectation of finding, when God condescends
406 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
to unfold his nature, what may surpass our understanding,
though it may claim our faith a sense arid feeling that God is
there revealed in his Word, as nowhere else and a reverential
interpretation, and a thankful acceptance, and an implicit oelief,
of all that is declared respecting the person of Him, whose is
the only name given under heaven amongst men whereby we
must be saved. And if Christ be really the God-man, if his
state of humanity was a state of humiliation, of humiliation for
our redemption, what ingratitude to transform all that shows
the greatness of his condescension into an argument to disprove
the greatness of his majesty, what shame to make his human
sympathy and suffering the ground for denying his antecedent
and eternal glory !
In respect, then, to the objection under consideration, we
grant fully, that it is possible to explain the whole of Scripture
without proving Christ to be the God-man. This can be done,
it has been done. But how ? On principles which undermine
every rational theory of interpretation; on principles which
assert that it is possible for a person to be called God, to have
divine attributes ascribed to Him, to have divine works (as
creation) ascribed to Him, to be worshipped, to be an object of
our highest trust and love, and yet not to be divine. On such
principles Scripture can be interpreted so as to do away with
the proof of Christ's divinity, and only on such.
II. A second objection which is brought against the doctrine
that in the Person of Jesus Christ two natures are combined in
One Person, is, that the doctrine, in this form, is not found in the
Bible, and therefore cannot be an Article of Faith.
This objection, however, brings up to our minds a peculiarity
of the Bible in respect to its mode of revealing truth, and alsc
a remarkable fact in the history of the church as to the mode of
developing truth. The Bible is not a book of dry, dogmatical
statements; it contains no Confession of Faith; it gives us no
system or summary of doctrine. It is altogether a different
book from what a mere man would have written. Its words
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 407
are spirit and life. It is a book for all times. It states the
same truth in a great variety of ways. It involves one truth in
another. It is somewhat like the book of nature, where all
things seem most strangely blended, in the greatest variety
the larger animals, birds, insects, trees, shrubs, earths, all exist-
ing together without any sign of regular classification. Now
when any one begins to study nature, he systematizes, he de-
scribes accurately, he reproduces, in another form, what he finds
scattered so profusely around him: he does not mean to make
it over again, or to make a better system, but only to describe
what actually is and that is more than he has ever done yet
and it is a necessary course for him to take in order to get fully
acquainted with the laws and harmony of nature.
So it is in respect to the Bible and to human systems framed
upon it. Men will think about the Bible: it was meant that they
should; and they will set forth what they think: and they may
not think to good purpose but still they think. They cannot
produce anything half so living as the Bible; they cannot ex-
haust it; it always remains the only source of infallibility, the
chief source of sanctifying truth. But as men think about the
doctrines there contained, and think more and more, they attain
a profourider sense of its wonderful depth and consistency. . The
doctrines are developed from age to age in new harmony. One
set of doctrines after another is taken up by the church and
discussed often vehemently, seen in all their bearings, brought
into a definite and consistent whole: and then another series is
begun upon : and so the treasures of the Bible are successively
poured over into men's minds; but it still remains an exhaust-
less fountain.
If this is true as a general fact, much more will it be found
to be true respecting the doctrine of the Person of Christ. He
is revealed in the Scriptures as a living Person, full of majesty
and grace. God did not reveal to us a doctrine, He sent his
Son: He does not proclaim a system, which men are simply to
understand and assent to, He sets before our eyes a Being, a
living Person whom we may love and trust. But we not only
believe in Christ, we think about Him. And DOW if any one in
408 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
telling his thoughts about Christ should say, He is a mere man
to meet this statement we may, first of all, quote some texta
which show Him to be divine. It will be said in reply, they dc
not prove that He is divine, and then comes a controversy.
And the very substance of the controversy is this, whether what
the Bible says about Christ shows Him to have one nature or
two natures. No simpler mode of stating it can be framed.
And in this statement, He has two natures, we express our faith.
Now it is objected, this statement is not found in the Bible.
We grant it, but also say that we are compelled to make it, tc
refute a notion which has been advanced, which is also not found
in the Bible, viz., that Christ is only a created being. Had that
assertion not been made, we had probably not made ours. Had
some others not expressed their belief about what Christ is, in
a way different from that of the Bible, neither had we done so
And it is a most extraordinary piece of irrelevancy, after others
have led the way, by saying something about Christ which is
not contained in so many words in the Scripture, and which we
believe to be inconsistent with the Scripture, to find fault with
us for doing the same thing. Bat yet we can thank them for it.
Even such objections are not without benefit. They lead us to
study more closely the character and person of our Redeemer.
To refute the objections, we have had to penetrate more fully
into the sense of the inspired word, and to dwell more intently
upon the nature of Him who is its living center. We have thus
got to clearer views and more enlarged conceptions of what He
is in all his relations. And thus it is that heresy sharpens and
deepens faith.
III. This same objection, for the substance thereof, is found
in the statement that the doctrine of two natures and one person
was not held by the early church. We grant that the early
Christians had not this exact form of stating their faith, but
they had for the most part, what was better the faith itself,
whole and undivided. They were filled with a living sense of
their union with Christ: they loved Him so earnestly, and be-
lieved in Him so undoubtingly, and served Him so zealously,
that they stayed not to analyze what He was, in logical phrases
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 409
Bat when his complex nature was questioned, when doubts were
raised and queries put, then the defence was as vigorous as the
assault, then the answers were given, always in the form best
fitted to meet the objection. Had you asked an early Christian,
Was Jesus Christ a man, he would have been astonished at your
simplicity : did He not appear upon the earth, and have not these
apostles seen Him? Had you asked him, Was Christ very God?
he would have said, There is also God the Father. But, Is Christ
divine in his nature? the word "nature" in this connection
would have been new to him, and he would have thought some-
what further. Well, was He a created being ? Assuredly not.
May you worship Him ? We do so every day in hymns and
doxologies. Do you love Him with your whole heart? Yea,
and try to show this love every day of my life. Do you love
Him and trust in Him as much as you can do in any being, in
God Himself? With a countenance full of joy, he would have
answered, All I have and all I am, all my faith and all my love,
are his now and for evermore.
And if all this would not substantially prove that he really
believed that Christ was a being who united the human and
divine natures in One Person, it is hard to see what can prove it.
IV. A fourth objection that if Christ be held to be divine
his veracity is impeached, would hardly be worth noticing, had
it not been put forth with some pretensions, by a certain sort of
reasoners. Thus one says, " this doctrine attributes to Jesus
deceit, equivocation, and falsehood." And he adds, " we cannot
endure to have the name of Jesus, even by supposition, coupled
with fraud and dishonesty." " We hold a belief of his integrity
among our fondest persuasions, and this belief nothing would
tempt us to resign." But he then goes on to show that this be-
lief which nothing would tempt him. to resign, he must inevita-
bly give up if Christ were omnipotent and yet said, I can of
mine own self do nothing: if infinitely good, and said, There is
none good but one, that is God: if omniscient, and yet asserted,
Of that day and hour knoweth no man, neither the Son, but the
Father.
Eager and unskilful disputants are often earnest to resolve
410 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
every question they discuss, if possible, into a question about per-
sonal veracity or the moral character of the individuals who are
the subjects of controversy. This is an easy way of seeming to
Kettle a difficult subject, which requires from its very nature a
prolonged and careful investigation. The question in the case
before us is thus transferred from critical to moral grounds; from
being a question about natures and persons, difficult to under-
stand, into being a question about the truthfulness of Jesus
Christ. The argument might be good for one side, if it had not
the unfortunate quality of being just as applicable, with a wider
extension, on the other.
This Being of perfect veracity and unimpeached openness did
so speak, that He was understood to claim equality with God.
He who prayed to the Father, did claim that the Son should be
honored even as the Father. He asserted virtual omnipresence,
when He told his disciples that He would be with them even to
the ends of the earth. While He said that He knew not the day
nor the hour, He also said that He knew the Father even as the
Father knew Him. While He asserts that He can of his own
self do nothing, to Him is also ascribed all power, even crea-
tive power and if the fact of creation does not involve the idea
of omnipotence, we confess that it is not in the power of our
thoughts to form any conception of it. If creative power can
be given to a creature, then the prime distinction between a
creator and a creature is at once subverted. If omnipotence and
omniscience can be imparted to a being who is by nature finite
in power and knowledge, all distinction between the attributes
of God and those of his creatures must at once be done away.
And if the question of Christ's veracity is to be raised in con-
nection with the discussion respecting his natures, we may
boldly assert that it is more seriously impeached on the supposi-
tion that He was not divine than in any other way. His char-
acter receives its darkest shade when we try to conceive how a
being only derived and dependent could ever use words which
even seemed to imply an equality in any sense with the Almighty
Father: how such a one could place Himself in the midst be-
tween heaven and earth, and claim to fill up all the space between,
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 411
and say in the most unqualified terms, no man cometh unto the
Father but by me: how one who was finite in his knowledge could
say, or how it could be said of Him, that He was to be the final
Judge of the character and destiny of all who have lived here
on the earth. Here is not merely a want of veracity, here is
such pride as astounds, such arrogance as confounds us, unless
there be such divinity as may claim our homage. We must
turn from Him as a usurper, if we do not bow to Him as
a Lord.
V. Another objection which has been somewhat strenuously
urged against the doctrine of The Two Natures in the One
Person is, that it is derived from Gnostic or heathen sources;
that the pure, original faith was perverted by foreign elements,
the pure fire was mingled with strange fire brought from heathen
altars, a dependent being was deified, and idolatry was intro-
duced into God's own church.
Now the deification of a man is one of the grossest forms of
heathenism : there is no idolatry worse than this. At the same
time as a historical fact it is undeniable that Christ has been
honored as a divine being in the Church from the earliest ages,
and that the number of those who have refused their homage
has always been inconsiderable. If this be idolatry, several
things follow. It follows that the Jewish religion as a whole
was much purer than the Christian, for the Jews worshipped
God alone. It follows that Mohammedanism, in its doctrine
respecting God, has been on the whole superior to Christianity.
It follows that in respect to the essential point of all religion,
viz., whom and what we shall worship, the church has been in
a fatal error or delusion, and that not for a few centuries but
in every century of 'its course. It follows that Christianity
conquered heathenism only by yielding to heathenism, for it
adopted one of its grossest superstitions. It follows that what
has been taught with the largest and longest consent may yet
be only a pernicious error. It follows that the church of Christ
has erred, fatally erred, not in a matter of outward form, not in
a point of secondary and derived significancy, but in a point
of vital importance, involving the very substance of its faith \
412 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
has erred, not now and then, but always, through all its centu-
ries; that it is in fact heathen and not Christian.
Does not such a position as this go as far as any can to
undermine our faith in Christianity itself, and to leave us with-
out any standard of truth, without any settled conviction in
the reality of God's government and guidance of his church?
It iaay all be consistent with the position that it is human to
err, it is hardly so consistent with Christ's promise that He
would give to his followers the Spirit of Truth. It is more
in harmony with the notion that a few men in these later
times have gained an infallible reason, than it is with the
idea that there is infallibility in the body of Christ, taken as
a whole.
But yet, it is said, it cannot be denied that the heathen had
incarnations and deifications, and that heathen became Chris-
tians and what more natural than that they should bring over
some pf their old faith with them ? But what if they had some
presentiment of the truth, some troubled and distorted images,
some scattered rays: and what if they found in the Christian
faith and in the Person of Christ the reality of that which had
so long haunted them like a vision, the perfection of what they
strove vainly and idolatrously to depict, the full, concentrated
brightness.of what they had before known only in fitful gleams?
What if there was, after all, something of truth even in Pagan-
ism? Is this so impossible to be believed? If an Egyptian
had ever gone from his temples, where grotesque images were
piled together in every variety of incongruity and deformity,
into a Grecian temple where statues that realized the ideal of
majesty and beauty met his gaze, might he not at once have
felt that here was the visible representation of that which his
own misshapen deities only caricatured? Might he not have
forsaken his hateful gods to worship at the shrine of these mira-
cles of art? May it not have been somewhat thus with the
Christian Incarnation in its relation to the heathen deifications?
What they grossly imagined was here perfectly realized. What
was in them idolatry was purified in the Christian faith into the
most perfect form of worship. When Satan cannot create a lie
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 413
he caricatures the truth. Error is best overcome by showing
the highest and perfect form of the truth with which it is com-
mingled. The heathen bowed before the Person of Jesus, and
for Him renounced their idols, because they saw, that what they
ignorantly worshipped was here declared unto them.
In respect to this objection, then, we say, that the doctrine
respecting the Person of Christ was not derived from heathen
sources, but that it is the perfect form of expressing a truth
dimly apprehended by heathen superstitions. No heathen re-
ligion ever contained such a sublime truth as that the human
and divine natures were perfectly united in one Person, although
there was in heathenism a preparation for such a truth.
And, besides, we do not find that those who make such an
objection are always consistent with themselves. When they
would prove the being or the unity of God, the immortality of
the soul, a future state of rewards and punishments, they derive
some confirmation to their faith in these truths from the general
consent of men, from the dim light of heathenism. What then
if we call these also heathen doctrines? The reply would be,
Yes, but Christian also, clearer and purer in Christianity. But
if this argument be of weight in these cases as it assuredly is
it is still more weighty in respect to the Incarnation. For here
is a truth more generally anticipated, most grossly defiled, which
arises in the fullest purity and splendor, and commands the
homage of the world. In the Incarnation of the Eternal Word,
in this union of perfect divinity and perfect humanity, divinity
is brought down to earth, and humanity is raised to heaven, hu-
manity is ennobled and divinity is made apparent.
This charge of approximation to heathenism does not lie
against the position of those who hold that God became man,
but it does lie against the view of those who, while asserting
the intrinsic inferiority of Christ to the Father, do yet not scru
pie to say that he has become an object of rightful worship.
This is deification, this is the making of a god, this is the
theory of the person of Jesus which is strictly allied to the
notions of heathenism : for to worship any being le&s than
God is idolatry.
414 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
VI. The last objection we shall notice that is brought against
the received doctrine of the God-man is, that it involves contra-
dictions. It is said that what we assert of Him either will force
us to acknowledge two persons and this would destroy our
doctrine or, if we hold to One Person, then that person is made
&p of such contradictory traits that He becomes an absurdity,
an absolute impossibility.
It should be observed that this same difficulty, or the sub-
stance of it, lies against any scheme which allows to Christ any
other than a mere human nature. If we allow a pre-existent
and super-angelic state, in which Christ ever derivatively had
another nature or other powers than those he had as a man,
the same difficulty presses upon us. It is a difficulty which
vanishes only with the more difficult assumption of the mere
humanity of our Saviour.
It should also be asked, whether we really know just what
a person is, whether we know it so far as to be able to decide
just what variety of qualities and attributes any being must
have in order that he remain one person and do not become
two persons. We know that man is mortal and immortal, spir-
itual and material, that his whole character is made up of con-
trasts selfishness and benevolence, pride and humility, thought
and feeling, freedom and dependence, that he may be spiritual
and worldly, sinful and holy. And the higher we ascend in the
scale of being the more do contrasts accumulate. Do these
things destroy, or in the least impair, the unity of man's per-
son ? Does not his very superiority to the brutes consist in his
uniting in one person a great variety of diiferent and almost
opposite traits? Is not the unity of his person found in the
harmonious operation of the respective powers of a spiritual
soul and a material body? And in the highest point of view,
this finite creature, this mortal man can become, is bound to
become, a temple for the Holy Ghost, to be in some sense a
partaker of the divine nature. And the more completely his
finite and imperfect nature is filled with the Spirit of God, the
higher is our idea of him as a person. True, we cannot under,
stand how God's Spirit acts upon and in man's soul, but we do
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 415
know that it does not in the least impair the unity of his person,
although it acts in direct and constant opposition to many of
his natural tendencies and aims.
Such a view even of human nature might lead us to be care-
ful in our assertions as to what may and what may not destroy
the unity of a person. And when we come to think of a divine
Person, and to endeavor to conceive the possibility of his unit-
ing in himself a two-fold nature, it is at least befitting our ig-
norance that our statements should be most cautious. Who
can tell what are the possibilities of deity? We can know
them only as they are revealed. If a human being can unite in
himself such opposite traits as we know that we do, who will
dare set limits to the capacity of a divine being, and to set the
limits in such a way as to assert the absolute impossibility of
his becoming man?
The objection we are considering is one that is meant to de-
stroy the very possibility of the doctrine of the God-man, to
destroy the possibility of the existence of a doctrine whicn has
been held, age after age, with the firmest faith, by the church of
Christ. It is a bold thing to say that anything, not contradic-
tory nor sinful in its nature, is impossible with God. We should
rather naturally expect that when God engaged in his greatest
work, He would manifest himself in a manner beyond our com-
mon thoughts. But philosophy and reason here come in and
say, that one particular mode of manifestation is an impossibility,
that a God-man cannot be.
Now we conceive that in the idea of Person there is nothing,
so far as we know it, which has any bearing upon the objection.
A person is the same conscious being, the same individual, the
being who can say I, under every variety of circumstances. The
definition of person has nothing to do with the greater or less
variety of attributes or qualities which the person may possess.
The person is the same subject under all conditions. This is
what we affirm of Christ: He was the same identical Person in
heaven, on earth, and in his glorified state. Ho is the same
yesterday, to-day, and forever. He was the same being in dif-
ferent states. And why may not the same person assume e
416 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
different nature without loss of identity who will show it tc
be impossible ?
But, it is said, that when we assert that Christ assumed a
human nature, and united it with a divine, we assert that He
united not merely opposite, but contradictory qualities in the
same Person. But this is what we deny. A contradiction is to
be proved only when it is said that the same assertion is both
true and not true in respect to the same thing in the same sense
If a man says that any act of his is both sinful and holy in
the same sense, or that any act of his was both free and neces-
sary in the same sense, here is a contradiction. But if a man
says of himself that he is white, he is not understood, even by
those who interpret everything most figuratively, as meaning to
say that his soul is white. When a man says he thinks, he does
not mean that his body thinks. This assertion that he thinks
cannot be interpreted of the wliole of his complex nature, and
yet it is a person who has a complex nature that does think, and
yet again, it is only a person who has a spiritual nature that can
say that he thinks. So Christ may say that He is weak and de-
pendent and suffering, and He may pray to God, and yet He
cannot be understood as affirming what is contradictory to his
omnipotence and divinity, unless it be said that He means to
affirm that his omnipotence was weak, and his divine bliss was
suffering, and his uncreated nature was praying to itself. The
two natures, the divine and human, are not contradictory to one
another. There is no contradiction between the finite and the
infinite: if there were, God could not create anything. They
are in startling contrast to each other: they are opposites, but
they are not contradictories. If there were a contradiction be-
tween a divine nature and a human nature, we should have an im-
passable gulf between us and God. And if these are not contra-
dictory, who shall say that they may not be united in one Person ?
But let us narrow the objection down to its directest appli-
cation. It is said, the doctrine of the Person of Christ requires
the assertion that Christ in the same mental act was conscious
of opposite states: that when He was suffering on the cross,
He was conscious of the intense felicity of heaven: that when
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 417
Fie prayed, He was at the same instant conscious of omnipotence
that when He said He knew not the day, He was also conscious
at the same instant that He did know the day : that when He
was a slumbering infant, He was conscious of being the Lord of
all: that while He grew in knowledge, He was conscious of om-
niscience* and a consciousness of contradictions is no conscious-
ness at all. Reduced to its last terms, the objection resolves itself
into the dilemma, that He either had a two-fold consciousness,
and so was two persons, O) was conscious of entirely opposite
things at the same time in the same act.
Now what if there be a difficulty here which we cannot per-
fectly explain ? It is a difficulty like to that we find in respect
to other truths, which we are still compelled to admit. For ex-
ample, in the act of regeneration God's Spirit works in man, and
man is free : and both the operation of the Spirit and freedom are
involved -in the same mental act. We cannot see how this can
be, yet we know that it must be so. And man, when under the
highest influence of this Spirit an influence opposed to his natural
tendencies remains still the same individual person, and has
only a single consciousness. Man may be in as opposite states
as those of sin and holiness, and yet have only one consciousness.
But, it is said, man has after all only one nature: but Christ
is affirmed to have had two natures. Does then a two-fold na-
ture demand a two-fold consciousness ? We are spiritual and
we are material, and have only one consciousness, but that con-
sciousness may be at different times of things as opposite as mat-
ter and spirit. This consciousness of opposite things does not
destroy the unity of* the consciousness itself. And so it 'is of
Christ, in respect to most of the points alleged. He was con
scious that so far as He was human He was weak, and so far as
divine, was omnipotent. He was not conscious that as human
He was omnipotent, or as divine, was a sufferer. This would-be
a contradiction.
The strongest case is that in respect to his ignorance of the
day and hour of judgment. He said that He knew it not. And
the inference made is, that if He knew it in any way at all,
whether as divine or human, it was a contradiction for Him to
418 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
say that He knew it not. Two things may be suggested here,
(1) What if He did not know, as He then was in his state not
only of humanity but of humiliation does this invalidate in
the least the evidence of his divine nature ? What if his as-
sumption of human nature made it impossible for Him to ex-
ercise his divine prerogatives, what if his human body did not
and could not permit Him to be at the same time and at all
times conscious of omnipotence and omniscience, deprived Him
of the constant sense of divine bliss and perfections, would
this prove that they were not his, or would it only prove that,
when He came into the flesh, He submitted to all the conditions
of the flesh ? * There are states of the human body in which
we cannot and do not exercise the powers and knowledge which
we undeniably possess. Is it said that an undying conscious-
ness of perfect power, knowledge, and happiness is the pre-
rogative of divinity? it is granted but that does not prove
that it is essential to divinity, when divinity is united to human-
ity. So thought and feeling are essential to the idea of spirit,
but there is little thought in an infant, and often no thought at
all in sleep. It is said that here there is something which no
one can understand? That is granted: it is a mystery, but a
mystery is not a contradiction. And all that the objection
really amounts to is this: that we do not know the exact con-
ditions upon which the divine and human natures .may be united.
And what the objection asserts is, that there must have been at
every instant in the soul of Christ here upon the earth an equal
consciousness of his divine attributes and of his human acts.
But this assertion is totally without proof: it is an assumption :
it is a conclusion which we deny to be legitimate from the doc-
trine of the two natures; because we can really conceive that
it was, if we cannot prove that it must have been, otherwise.
(2) But there is a second consideration, which is this: A con-
tradiction cannot be made out even on the supposition that
Christ did know of the day as God, and was ignorant of it as a
1 [This suggestion is drawn from a source which was not included in the author's
lectures on theology. In these lectures he rejects the entire doctrine of Kenosis.
Perhaps, if he had revised what is given above, he would have made some modifi-
cations.]
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 419
man. A contradiction can be established only when it is affirmed
that in the same state of mind, He both knew it and did not
know it. But if his mind existed in successive states and if
He was a man, it could not be otherwise one state may have
been that of the predominance of the human, and another
state that of the predominance of the divine nature: one state
may have been that in which the future was hidden, and another
state that in which the future was clear: one state may have
been that in which He spoke to his disciples, and another that
in which He had held direct intercourse with the Father. And
the full expression of his state of soul at that moment, when the
weakness and ignorance of humanity predominated, may have
been of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the Son,
but the Father only. Perhaps the very aiternpt to analyze the
consciousness of Christ demonstrates that the task is beyond our
powers: the only reason for attempting it is to show that no
such contradiction can be proved to exist as would destroy all
possibility of proving the existence of a complex nature in our
Saviour.
We cannot dismiss this objection without remarking that in
the highest point of view, so far from being an objection to,
it may even become an argument for, our faith. The highest
truths are those which reconcile the greatest opposites. The
best system is not one made up of one idea. Wherever we
look we find apparent contradictions, but real harmony. In all
great doctrines there is something which to the superficial view
seems contradictory. A comprehensive theology combines these
opposite elements, and tries to show their consistency. Even
where we cannot understand how opposite truths can co-exist, we
cannot deny but that they have an equal claim to existence and
assent. Predestination is not really, though it may be seemingly,
inconsistent with free will. A system which denies the divine
purposes is a system without a God, a system which denies free
agency is a system without a man. Even in our own minds
there is something of the same sort. Nothing is so free, nothing
is so constraining as love. We find our highest freedom in our
most perfect submission. The power of law is greatest in the
420 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
freest countries. Calvinists have been most zealous for political
and religious liberty. We cannot understand our own acts
without bringing in a divine agency. When God acts in the
world He employs a secondary agency. We cannot understand
history unless we combine a knowledge of the deeds of man
and of the providence of God. Even sin itself must be brought
into a direct relation with the divine purposes, and has been the
occasion of the highest manifestation of divine love.
Perhaps, if our philosophy could reach so high, we should see
that when sin had separated between God and man, when di-
vinity and humanity had been sundered, not only by a differ-
ence in nature but also in character, it was impossible for a
reunion to be effected by any other person than a God-man.
That this was absolutely necessary, it were presumption to
assert: it were greater presumption to deny that it was neces-
sary. That such a Person alone fitted Him for such a work, we
dare not say: that He is eminently fitted for this work, we can
even see, and that there is a greater harmony between such a
work and such a person than between such a work and any
other person whom we can conceive to exist. We may venture
to affirm: the God-man, by his two-fold nature, was better
fitted to make an atonement, than God alone, than man alone,
than any angel or archangel, or than any of the seraphic or
cherubic host, or than all the hosts of heaven combined.
How deeply the doctrine of the Incarnation is involved in
the whole Christian system is evident from the fact that the de-
nial of this doctrine leads to the denial, one after one, of all the
distinguishing doctrines of the Christian faith. A system with-
out this doctrine ceases to urge the doctrines of grace. It loses
its hold on the strongest feelings of the conscience and of the
heart. It relapses into the commonplaces of the most meagre
divinity. It refuses to grapple with the great questions of the-
ology. It praises the moral virtues: it wonders at all zeal. It
has lost the feeling of the constant presence of that Captain of
our Salvation, who has inspired the faith, quickened the ardor,
aroused the intellect, and led forth the hosts of Christendom.
" Its relation to Christ," as has been well said, " is a past, a
THE REDEMPTION ITSEL*. 421
dead relation," and so they eulogize him as they do a hero, and
venerate him as they do a saint; but such eulogy and such
veneration are faint and heartless when compared with the liv-
ing energy of the faith of Paul, or with the devoted love and
absorbing contemplation of the beloved disciple who ever spake
and lived as in the presence of a living Lord. As a matter of
fact it is true, that the greatest earnestness, the loftiest faith, the
deepest religious experience, the most heavenly spirituality, the
most profound systems of theology, the most awful sense of
God's majesty, and the most affectionate reliance upon his love
have been found in connection with the belief in an Incarnate
God. And surely if anything can arouse all our powers, awaken
our intensest love, make us self-sacrificing, fill us with the holi-
est zeal and the purest enthusiasm, and satisfy perfectly all our
wants, it is living faith in such a Lord, who is not only a Lord,
but a brother also: in whom all that we can venerate as divine
and all that we can love as human are combined in perfect
harmony.
CHAPTER V.
THE ENTIRE RESULT AS TO THE PERSON OP OUR LORD.
TJie Statement. In Him the two natures were united in one
Person. Tlw Analysis, (a.) The natures are to be distinguished.
(6.) The natures are to be connected. We are to consider Christ
not only as having the two natures, but as having them in entire
union, (c.) Each nature remains perfect in the union: The God-
head is perfect, the manhood is perfect, (d.) The union between
them is perfect, (e.) The Godhead is that of the Second Person
in the Trinity: the manhood consists of a body and a reasonable
soul. The Godhead existed from all eternity, consubstantial
with the Father: the manhood was assumed in the body of the
virgin Mary. (/.) Thus, the two natures, united, constitute the
One Person of Christ.
122 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Observations.
1. We are driven to the position of the One Person in OUT
Saviour in the same way as to the recognition of the two na-
tures. The Bible always speaks of Jesus Christ as the samo
identical subject whether in his primeval state, or in hia
earthly manifestation, or in his future glory. He who lived on
earth as a man was the same being that existed in the bosom of
the Father before the world was; and He who came forth from
heaven is the one who also ascended to heaven : He who left the
eternal glory for a season, entered into it again for eternity.
There is one person, and one only, yet in wholly different states,
presented to us in the volume of our Faith.
And if He was the same Person when in the world, that He
was before He came into the world, this necessarily leads to the
conclusion that it was the Eternal Word that constituted the
Person that it was He who was, so to speak, the formative
principle, it was He who formed and actuated and gave its per-
sonal character to this new combination. He is the same person
in the world, as before He came into the world. It is the One
Person of the Logos in whom the two natures co-exist. If He
existed before He came into the world, when He came, He did
not part with what He was : He only assumed what he had not
before. He took to himself another nature. The Eternal Word
was not changed into a man but He was found in fashion as a
man which of course implies that his fashion as a man was not
all of himself.
2. There was no change in the character of either nature
The divinity remained entire, the humanity remained entire.
The humanity, as is most clearly seen from many utterances
of Scripture, had the soul as well as the body. The body of man
is the smallest part of man. Christ's connection with the race
would indeed have been superficial, were He like them only
in outward form, but not in the passions and affections of the
soul. All that we are required to abstract from our total con-
ception of man, in order to have a just and consistent view of
the God-man, is a merely human personality. The personal
element or character was given to the God-man by the Eternal
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 423
Word. But the whole nature of man was taken up into this
union not excluding even the Will, if we take that in as in-
definite a sense as it was taken by the Council which decided
that in Christ there were two wills or energies. 1
3. The union thus effected must also be conceived of as real,
substantial, and permanent like to nothing else, yet most like
among things we know of, to the union between soul and body.
There are different kinds of union. There is a mechanical union,
as when two distinct things are brought into external relations.
There is a magical union existing only in imagination. There
is a union by absorption, as when one substance passes over
wholly into another substance. There is a chemical union, as
when out of two substances a third different from either is
formed. There is a natural union, as we mr,y call that between
our souls and our bodies. There is a union between God and
man, as when his Spirit dwells in man : and this may be of two
kinds extraordinary, as in his prophets and chosen messengers,
where knowledge and power were supernaturally communicated
or, ordinary, in the operations of his Spirit in the souls of
believers. But the union of the two natures in Christ was not
mechanical, for their relations were not external, the natures
were not kept separate, as Nestorianism asserted ; nor was it magi-
cal, as if by some arbitrary assertion of power or some miracu-
lous transformation, as Cyril asserted; it was not natural, as if
occurring in the usual course of things; nor unnatural, as if a
prodigy were produced; it was not effected, as some pretend,
only when the Spirit descended upon Him at his baptism, but
began with the beginning of his human existence ; it was not
like that in the prophets and inspired men, for this was tempo-
rary and " came and went " ; nor was it like the union between
the believer and God's Spirit, for this does not impart divinity,
but only divine aid and grace. But this wonderful union, so
far as we can describe it positively and not merely negatively,
was real, was supernatural, and remains eternal. It is like to
nothing else in the heavens or on the earth, yet it may be im-
' That same Council was careful to assert that the human will was always sub.
ordiuate to the divine in all the acts of this complex person.
424 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
aged by a union of the heavens and the earth. It is not like
to anything we can conceive of God in his infinite and inde-
pendent existence, nor of man, in his purely human nature
but it is a wondrous harmony and combination of the two, such
as may well fill our souls with adoring love !
It is like nothing else we know of, yet is most like the
union between soul and body. For, as in the union of soul and
body, neither loses its distinctive character and both conspire
to the same ends and form one person, and each part is devel-
oped in perfect harmony and fitness with the other, the body
not limiting the soul's thoughts and affections, and the soul
not acting in a healthful state with such intensity as to mar
even the most delicate and sensitive of the nerves with which
it comes in contact; as the one is attempered to the other in
most perfect fitness, so that the soul does not unfold its powers
too rapidly for the body to bear their intense activity, and so
unfolds them as to heighten and enliven the material organiza-
tion in which it is enveloped: so, we may without irreverence
and without detriment conceive it to have been in the Person
of Jesus Christ.
4. Combining together the whole of the Scriptural represen-
tations, we may, perhaps, go one step further in this analogy,
and say, that as in the soul and body there is a process of devel-
opment, so in a limited sense it may be asserted in respect to the
Person of our Lord, that the union was complete at the begin-
ning, yet there was a process constantly going on before the
perfect divinity was united to the perfected humanity, and so
much only of the divinity was imparted at each stage as was
necessary for Christ's mission at that particular stage. There
may be a difficulty here, lest we seem to infringe upon the di-
vinity; but there is also another difficulty, lest we represent
Christ differently from the view given of Him in the Scriptures.
We are warranted, it would appear, in distinguishing three
distinct states of being of our Lord: his primeval glory, his state
upon earth as a man, his present glorified condition. In the
second of these states, by becoming united to human nature,
He put Himself under another law, under the law which rcgu-
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 425
lates the development of human natuie. He came into a con-
dition of humiliation and ignorance, and infirmity and suffering.
It was indeed the Eternal Word, the equal of God the Father,
who came into this state, but yet it is equally true, that into
this state He did come, and submit Himself to the change.
There is indeed a mystery here, and so we might be content
to leave it: but the mystery may be one of two things, and
there may be a choice between them. Either, that as a
child, a youth, a man, He was all the time conscious of being
also an infinite, omnipotent, and omniscient being, and so united
in Himself a double consciousness; or, on the other hand the
mystery may be this : how an omnipotent and omniscient being
could for a time part with the constant exercise and conscious
possession of his divine attributes, and resume them in their
fulness only after his humiliation was completed. Between
these two forms of stating the mystery it has always been held
allowable to make one's choice, and neither of them impairs
either the divinity or the humanity, or the union between them.
There is a difficulty, in understanding how a being who is
really divine co'uld part with the exercise of any divine attribute,
could denude Himself of omnipotence and omniscience. 1 This
may be impossible, yet our ignorance might 2 prevent us from
denying its possibility. We may perhaps say, that his divine
nature was put under the law of human development, was exer-
cised more and more in its growth and progress as it was needed
upheld Him oftentimes often gleamed through in transient
rays of brightness was remembered rather than directly exer-
cised was sometimes increased in its power, as when the Spirit
descended upon Him at his baptism and was expected by him-
1 [This difficulty seems to have been more deeply felt by the author as he con-
sidered it in the later years of his theological teaching. He pronounces emphat-
ically against every form of Kenosis. Yet what is given above is, so far as can be
found, nowhere retracted.]
3 [It ought to be said, that these paragraphs form no part of the author's mature
theological system. It is thought that readers will have an interest in seeing what
turn his speculation took on this point. Moreover, what follows is perhaps the only
sketch we have from him to indicate how he would have written a " Life of Christ."
It can only be said that the view which follows was neither sanctioned nor repudi-
ated in any later utterances.]
426 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
self to be finally and perfectly resumed, only after the travail
of his soul had been fully experienced, only after He had triumphed
over death, hell, and the grave, and through his humiliation and
sufferings purchased our redemption through his mediatorial
cross come to his mediatorial crown. Most certainly this much
may be averred that his divinity was not so fully maniftsied aa
to be recognized and believed in until the very close cf his
earthly career. His disciples did not worship Him until they
saw Him ascending to the Heavens. However it may have
been in his own soul, whatever may have been the state of his
consciousness (and it is perhaps impossible for us to get any
clear conception of what this really was) it still remains on the
face of the record of his life, that the divine nature was not in
any degree so united with the human, did not so affect it as to
prevent the God-man from being hungry and weary and weak,
from bearing all our infirmities, from suffering the intensest
sorrow, from asserting his ignorance, from growing in knowl-
edge, from undergoing real and not apparent death. And all
this, too, after the union had taken place : for the union occurred
with the commencement of the human existence. As a union,
it was then perfect and entire, although there was a process of
growth on the part of the human being, and a gradual impart-
ing of the resources of divinity, according to the progressive
power of the humanity to endure them.
When we compare the Evangelists with the Epistles, we find
confirmation of this view. Considered historically, as of an his-
torical personage, we cannot fail to see how the representation
runs much as though a human being were advanced, through
successive stages, even to divine honor and glory. And the
corrective to any idea as though a man were deified is found in
the constant assertion of his pre-existerit state, as the Eternal
Word, the Creator of all things. Here is the efficient cause and
the only source of the divinity which was ascribed to Him. Un-
less He had been divine by nature, He could not have become
so by any sufferings as a man, or even by any gift of God to a
creature.
But when He assumed our nature He submitted to all its
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 427
conditions. When his divinity entered into its alliance with
humanity, it became conformed to its unparalleled condition.
Gentle must have been the contact between the Eternal Word
and the infant child, feeble the assimilation between such a
glorious being and such a frail tabernacle. He assumed, yet
consumed not, our nature. Flesh and blood could not abide the
full pressure and intense effulgence of the un dimmed brightness
of the Son of God It was a part of the lowly estate which our
Redeemer chose that He should become a very child, an infant
in the weakness of its powers, an infant whom its mortal mo-
Jier might press to her bosom, and love with a most motherly
though most hallowed affection. The Eternal Word became a
child without speech, who was yet to learn to call Mary, blessed
among women, by the name of mother, who had yet to learn to
speak the language of men, though He had through eternity
spoken face to face with God the Father as his co-equal Son.
And under the care of this loving mother and of his Eternal
Father, Jesus grew to man's estate, distinguished, we may well
believe, for every human excellence, yet not manifesting his di-
vine glory, except as a perfect youth and man is all that even
God could be when He became man. He felt the greatness of
his work ; He knew his mission what it was yet entered not
upon it his divine nature fitted not his human nature to enter
upon it until he reached the years in which the maturity of
manhood has begun when the body combines freshness and
strength, and has by nature the matured harmony and unison of
its powers. Then it was that the Spirit of God descended upon
Him; that his miraculous powers were exerted; that He spake
as one having authority; that He began to unfold truth after
truth to his chosen followers, leading them gradually on, step
after step, through the recognition of his mediatorship, to a
knowledge of his divinity. Then it was that by a word and a
look He exercised such gentle and constraining influence upon
all with whom He lived. We may well believe that there was
that in Him which awed the vicious, and which attracted those
who were seeking after the kingdom of heaven ; that a mild yet
powerful influence went out from Him to the hearts of all sus-
428 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
ceptible of such impressions. Almost might we echo the words
of the most eloquent orator of the Oriental church, "that the
heavenly Father poured upon Him in full streams that corporeal
grace, which is distilled drop by drop upon mortal man." But
yet, even among his nearest disciples, He was known only as a
perfect man. They were slow to discern his divinity. Some-
times it seems to break through the veil, like a hardly suppressed
fire, like a light flashing in the darkness, but it is only in
broken words, in sentences that sounded enigmatical, which
were best preserved and most fondly pondered by his beloved
disciple. And He ever seems to speak of his divine glory as
something He remembered, or as something He was still to
attain unto, rather than as an object of present and conscious
possession. Once, and only once, did it break through the veil
of his flesh and irradiate Him wholly when He was transfigured
before the gaze of three of his disciples, and a supernatural bright-
ness environed Him. But at other times few, if any, with whom
He came in contact were led to say that He was divine, unless
indeed they might infer that none but a divine being could be
such a perfect man in the midst of a sinful world. And as Jesus
Christ comes ever nearer to the termination of his earthly mis-
sion, He seems on the one hand to have had a constantly in-
creasing sense of his intimate fellowship with God, yet on the
other to feel more and more the burden which He must bear all
alone. In proportion to his necessities must the resources of his
divine nature have been developed to sustain Him but, though
thus sustained, the agony He endured was beyond all expression.
Through suffering was He to be perfected; by passing through
death was his humanity to be perfectly united with his divinity:
this was the struggle that awaited Him- this the terrific con-
flict through which He passed, and when He had passed through
it, then was the union between them perfected. It is after his
resurrection that his disciples seem to have come to a believing
acknowledgment that He was divine. It was when He led
them forth at early morning, and gave to them his last words
and vanished from their sight, his hands extended over them
in a parting benediction, that they knelt down and worshipped
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 429
Him. The sense and full perception of His divinity had now
taken possession of their hearts. He led them on, step by step;
his nature was unfolded to them, degree by degree, until the
most incredulous no longer doubted, until they were brought to
address to Him their prayers, and look to Him for present and
constant aid. They remember Him as a man, they refuse not to
call Him God. And while in the Evangelists, who tell the story
of his earthly career, the humanity is most apparent, and the
divine nature rather hinted at than disclosed; in the Epistles,
it is the reverse: there He appears in glory and blessedness, as
the Mediator between God and man, as the Head of the church,
as the Life of the believer, as the object of direct faith, as the
Being in whom all things in heaven and on the earth are brought
together and united. There he appears and is revealed to us
as sitting at the right hand of the Father, as worshipped by
angels, as the giver of eternal life, as the Lord of all. There He
appears, still having in inseparable union his divinity and his
humanity, still the Being in whom all of God and all of man
are combined in perfect union, but in whom human nature has
become perfected and glorified; in whom the human nature, in
its glorified state, is no hindrance to the perfect manifestation
of all his divine attributes. No longer, as when He walked the
earth, is it a veil to hidden glories: it is a transparent medium
by which the glories are attempered to the gaze of those who
cannot bear the full splendor of unmitigated divinity. Thus we
are permitted to represent Him to us still a man, ever divine.
In Him is the perfect union of all that is divine and all that is
human. All things in heaven and all on earth are concentrated
in Him. He the center and the sun: there is no need of the
light of the sun, for He is the light of the heavenly places as
He was the light of this our darkened earth ; He who was the
central object in earth's history, the source of earth's redemption,
is also the center of heaven's glory, and the source of such
blessedness as only the redeemed can know.
PART III.
THE WOEK OF THE MEDIATOR
CHAPTER I.
PREI fMINARY STATEMENTS.
1. The General Object of Christ's coming.
The Scriptures declare that Jesus Christ appeared in the last
great dispensation to put away sin, by the sacrifice which He
made for its expiation. 1 This was the great end and purpose of
the manifestation of Christ in the flesh. This is the culminat-
ing point of the Incarnation. The Son of God assumed our
nature that He might bear our sins. Other purposes might be
and were answered by his appearing: He may have come to
give us the model of a perfect man for our daily imitation; He
may thus have manifested the moral attributes of God more
clearly to man than they could otherwise have been exhibited;
He may have thus presented to our adoring love the perfect
union of divinity and humanity in one wondrous Person; but
the chief reason why He was apparelled in the flesh and dwelt
here upon the earth was that He might suffer and die for our
redemption. To this the prophets give witness ; and evangelists
and apostles conspire in representing this as the one great end
of the Incarnation. The Prince of glory came to be humbled ;
the Son of God came to be dishonored; the Lord of life came
to be slain. He lived his sinless life, and so was as a Lamb
without spot and blemish prepared for the altar; He revealed
God to us more perfectly, but chiefly as a God who had deter-
mined to manifest, in the saving of a lost world, the highest of
his attributes in their harmonious action; He united in himself
the two natures, so that the awful dignity of his Person might
1 See especially Heb. ix. 26.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 431
give its full efficacy and value to the work of atonement which
He wrought out.
2. Munus Triplex. Christ's Offices as Prophet, Priest, and King.
I. Idea of this mode of representing his offices as Mediator,
Office is, all that one is and does in a legitimate public rela-
tion; Function: the chief or any special object in a public office.
Christ's office as Mediator embraces all that He was and did in
his public relations as Mediator between God and man.
The idea of the Three-fold Office : The whole work of Christ
is the Redemption of a sinful world: prefaced by instruction
(Prophet), effected by atonement (Priest), carried to comple-
tion in the course and consummation of his kingdom (King).
II. History of this mode of representation.
The Jewish Rabbins and Cabbalists ascribed to the Messiah
a three-fold dignity: "the crown of the Law, the crown of the
Priesthood, and the crown of the Kingdom." l
Three passages in the Old Testament are guiding lights:
Deut. xviii. 15; Ps. ex. 4; Zech. vi. 13. 2
The church historian, Eusebius, speaks of it as a common
view in the early part of the fourth century. 3
It is referred to by Chrysostom and Theodoretus: less fre-
quently employed by the Scholastics, it was used by Calvin in
his Institutes, 4 and has entered into the current catechisms 5 and
common modes of thought of the Reformed churches.
The German rationalists gave it up as tropical.
Later Germans have readopted it. Schleiermacher, Nitzsch
Hase, Rothe, Julius Miiller, all approve it. 6
III. Reasons for retaining it.
1. It must be conceded to have strong claims on the score
of giving a living impression of Christ's whole work, in a form
1 Schcettgen, Horaa Heb. et Talna., Dresden, 1742, ii. 107, 228.
2 Or, Ps. Ixxii. 8. 3 H. E., i. 3. Lib. ii. chap. xv.
8 Geneva Cat. (1545), Heidelb. (1562), Westm. Assembly's, Ques. 23, SLortei
Cat. Even Kacov. Cat. has it.
6 Ebrard, Herz. Encycl., Jes. Christi. dreifaches Amt. Martensen, Dogmatik,
p. 332, has some admirable statements. Krummacher, Prophetenthum, u. s. w.
Deutache Ztschft, 1856.~-Diestel, Jahrb. f. d. Theol., 1862.
432 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
at once adapted to popular use and sufficiently comprehensive.
It calls up vivid images of the whole of the Mediator's functions.
Wo seem to see Him as the Great Teacher, imparting words oi
heavenly truth; as the High Priest, suffering upon the cross;
and as our Prince and King, ruling in divine majesty.
2. But we are disposed to go still further in urging the claims
of these ancient symbols of the wisdom, sacrifice, and power of
our Redeemer. They are valid not merely in figure, but also in
fact. The real Mediator must be all these: Prophet, Priest, arid
King; He could not be a full Mediator unless He bore these three
offices; by them all his work is defined; in them all his work is
comprehended.
3. To illustrate the sense and need of these three offices, we
may refer to the fact that among the most developed, cultivated
nations, both before and since Christ's advent, we find them in
existence. No mighty people is known in which there are not
classes of teachers, priests, and rulers. The instinct of human
nature, in relation to its highest wants, seems to demand this
three-fold form of the highest functions. Even in the midst of
all the sinfulness and degradation of heathenism, there is this
prophetic and typical imaging forth of the grand characteristics
of the Messiah. They must have prophets to teach and to fore-
tell, though their words were double-tongued; they must have
priests to minister at the bloody altars, though no real expiation
followed the sacrifice; and in the mighty despotisms of Babylon,
of Assyria, of Egypt, in Alexander's power and Cesar's sway,
the regal authority reached its height of worldly pre-eminence.
These three, and only these three, are found throughout heathen-
ism, as the highest forms of official rank. They point, in symbol,
to the great offices of the Messiah.
4 As among the heathen, so also among the people of God,
his chosen race, we find the same three offices, yet in a higher
and purer form. The whole of the Old Testament is a preparation
for the New, its divine type, its historical root; and in the whole
of the Old Testament are the institutions of prophecy, priesthood,
and royal dominion, divinely established and set forth. The glory
of the Israelites was in these three offices. Abraham was taught
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 433
and did himself teach, the name of Jehovah ; as a priest he entered
into covenant with God; and as a prince he ruled his patriarchal
house. The whole history of the Israelites centers into these three
words: Moses and the prophets; Aaron and the priesthood; David
and the royal house. Here were the grand institutes of the the-
ocracy. For a thousand years, inspired prophets were commis-
eioned to teach, to rebuke, to encourage, to warn, in the name
of the Lord. In the most degenerate times of Israel they spake
with the greatest boldness ; in its lordliest periods they held up
visions of brighter days to come. A whole tribe was set apart
to the office of the priesthood: the shadow and symbol of the
Great High Priest. Kings, also, Saul, David, and Solomon, ruled
in majesty, yet were only types of one who was to come of the
stock of David. The history of the Jewish people, in short, can
only be understood in the light of the three words: Prophet,
Priest, and King.
5. The wide bearings of this three-fold office are further seen
in the fact that the Messiah promised to the Jews from the be-
ginning was foretold under the same grand imagery. As the
Anointed One, He was to be clothed with these three offices
and none other: He was to be anointed to preach the Gospel to
the poor; 1 as King, He was to be anointed with the oil of glad-
ness above his fellows; 3 his priesthood was to be through an
unction from above, 3 not after the law of a carnal command-
ment, but after the power of an endless life. The whole of the
last part of the prophecy of Isaiah represents Christ as the ser-
vant of God, who was to teach, to suffer and die, and to rule at
last in majesty. Not David, but his root and offspring, was to
sit upon th* throne in universal dominion. 4 He was to be a
priest forever after the order of Melchisedec. He was to beai
our griefs; He was to be led as a lamb to the slaughter. He
was to teach all nations: to bring in everlasting righteousness;
and of the increase of His government there was to be no end.
The heathen were to be his inheritance: from sea to sea, from
the river to the uttermost parts of the earth, was to be his do-
i Luke iv. 18. ' Heb. i. 8; Ps. xlv; Isa. bd. 1.
a Heb. v. 4, 5; vii. 16, 17. 2 Sam. vii.
434 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
minion. In such exalted strains did the prophetic word depict
the coming glories of the Messiah, and the sum of all this is:
Prophet, Priest, and King.
6. In the New Testament, also, we find complete warrant
for this three-fold view of the offices of the Mediator. The testi-
mony here becomes, if possible, more full and distinctive. The
three offices, separated among the Jews, are united in One Per-
son. The carnal Jewish mind expected only a temporal prince
attended with the pomp of earthly magnificence; but their true
king, anointed of old, came first in lowly garb, appeared as a
simple teacher, suffered indignity and death yet showed his
regal power by conquering death. He disappointed every
earthly hope, and fulfilled every divine prediction, (a.) He
was a prophet, acknowledged as such; 1 He spake as never man
spake; He foretold his own death, the destruction of Jerusalem,
the victories of his kingdom; He reveals God; He is the very
Word of God; He is at once the living Law and the living Gos-
pel: the Law appears in Him as an example, and the Gospel
as the truth. His words are life; they are never to pass away.
Never was the law spoken in such purity, never was grace de-
clared with such fulness. He speaks in the name of God; He
knows and teaches all the divine will. He reveals new truths;
the new and perfect revelation has come to the world in his
teachings. He declares the future; the vision of the whole
course of things is drawn by Him in bold outlines. His words
abide ever true and powerful ; they are sources of undying life
and joy. (b.) That the New Testament also describes the Medi-
ator as priest, the Great High Priest priest and sacrifice in one
the only true priest, the only real sacrifice, we do not stay to
argue here. He offered himself without spot, unto God, through
the eternal Spirit. All other oblations are vain and ineffect-
ual. The whole of the Epistle to the Hebrews is one grand
proof, not only that Jesus Christ is High Priest and Sacrifice,
but that He alone is such; all others are but types and shadows,
(c.) And the same Epistle, too, connects his kingly with his
priestly functions. We have such an high priest, who is set ou
i Heb. i. 1; John iii. 2; Luke xxiv. 19.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 435
the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens,
John, in the Apocalypse, sees the four and twenty elders cast
their crowns before his throne. "Worthy is the Lamb that
was slain" is the song of heaven, "to receive power ." His
crown of thorns becomes an imperial diadem. He works the
works of his Father; He declares to Pilate that He is a King;
God highly exalted Him and gave Him a name that is above
every name. All things are put under his feet; He is the Head
over all things to the church.
Thus these three offices are ascribed to Christ in the New
Testament as well as foretold in the Old. And our Lord him-
self, in that most wonderful high-priestly prayer (John xvii.),
brings them all together; for He says, that He has manifested
(as a Prophet.) to his disciples the name of God: (as Priest) He
intercedes for them in his bitter suffering and tender love: (as
King) He claims them as his own, for He has kept them: end-
ing, I declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it; that the
love wherewith Thou lovedst me may be in them and I in them.
7. Other titles applied to Christ, e. </., Head, Surety, Pastor,
io not so distinctly designate different offices, and are not used
with such constancy throughout all the Scriptures. 1
8. There is an inherent propriety in having these, and only
these three, as the offices of the Mediator. If man is to be fully
redeemed, his Mediator must have these three functions and
none others. For Redemption from sin must include theae
three things: it must give knowledge of God's plan in the way
of revelation; it must provide an atonement for sin; and it
must deliver from the power and consequences of sin, in an
eternal kingdom. And these three points are the ones met,
and precisely met, in the three offices of our Lord. As a pro-
phet He reveals; as a priest He atones; as a king He subdues
us unto himself. 2
: See Note in Ridgeley's Divinity, i. p. 494.
2 It might perhaps be also argued that these three offices correspond to the
three great faculties of the human mind: to the intellect, the feelings, and the
will. As Mediator between God and man, Christ must address and be adapted
to the whole man. As a teacher, Christ addresses our intellect; as a sacrifice, He
appeals to the deepest moral wants of the heart and conscience; and as a king.
He guides and rules our wills, making them conform to his will.
436 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
9. The essential and almost organic quality of these three
offices in the Christian system is shown in the fact that they
are necessary to each other: just as much as intellect, heart,
and will are necessary to each other as well as to man. To
feel, one must know; and to will, one must both know and feel.
Even so, Christ could not be a priest, unless He were a prophet;
nor could He rule in a kingdom of redemption, unless He were
also both prophet and priest. His teachings must prepare and
guide his disciples to know the meaning of his atoning death ;
and his sacrificial death is the basis of his claim to our supreme
love as our Head in his mediatorial kingdom.
10. It is only by viewing Christ in all these offices, that we
can be saved from one-sided and partial notions of his work as
a Redeemer. It is true, indeed, that He appears chiefly as a
prophet during his life; chiefly as a priest in the agony of death;
chiefly as king, when ascended to the right hand of the Father.
Bat as a prophet, He teaches us even upon the cross, and still
and ever, by his Spirit, though He dwells in heaven. His whole
life as well as his death, was in his priestly character, suffering
shame and humiliation. And He exercised his kingly functions
while on earth, yea, in the very grave, conquering death and
hell by his mighty power, as truly as He now subdues his other
foes. And the grand error, among all who do not receive Lnrist
in his fulness, is that they take one of his offices, as if that were
the whole, neglecting the rest. They hold to Christ in one or
another of his names, but not in the fulness of his character.
Thus some take Christ only as the Teacher; others dwell most
fondly on his atoning death; and others again view Him chiefly
as the Lord of spiritual life. But He is each and all. And we
do not know Him fully, nor truly, until we know Him in all his
offices as our Prophet to teach us our Priest who atones our
King to rule over and in us.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 437
CHAPTER II.
OF ATONEMENT
AND THE NECESSITY FOR ATONEMENT.
The Priestly Office of Christ is that office in both natures
whereby He makes an atonement. In the same priestly office
and in virtue of his atoning work his Intercession is maintained.
Intercession belongs to Christ as priest: it includes his constant
application of his sacrifice; or, generally, all his agency in re-
deeming mankind, in his glorified state. 1 Of the two parts of
Christ's work as Priest Atonement and Intercession we speak
here only of The Atonement.
I. Usage of the word, and of certain terms which cluster
about it.
1. Of the terms Redemption and Atonement. Redemption
implies the complete deliverance from the penalty, power, and
all the consequences of sin : Atonement is used in the sense of
the sacrificial work, whereby the redemption from the condemn-
ing power of the law was insured.
2. Of the terms Reconciliation and Atonement. Reconcilia-
tion sets forth what is to be done: Atonement, in its current
theological sense, likewise involves the idea of the way, the
mode, in which the reconciliation is effected that is, by a sacri-
fice for sin. 2
1 [This is treated by the author under the Third Division of Theology; as the
priestly side of Christ's office as King.]
2 A writer who became prominent as a controversialist on this subject, wrote,
some years ago: " Every tyro in theology knows or ought to know that atonement
means nothing more than at-one-ment, that is, the reconciliation of opposing
parties." But none but a tyro in theology knows that this is its only sense. Even
admitting the correctness of this etymology, it must be said that this way of re-
ducing the large import of language to the smallest possible dimensions, by means
of etymology alone, and of deciding theological controversies by an appeal to the
primitive sense of words before they had gained their full signification is one un-
worthy of the scholar and the theologian. All the etymology in the world would
never be sufficient to show that atonement means only reconciliation for the
very plain reason, that for hundreds of years it has borne in the English language
an additional sense, that is, it includes a designation of the mode in which the
reconciliation was effected. (Atonement reconciliation, in Sir Thos. More, Shake-
438 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
3, Of the terms Satisfaction, Vicarious, Expiation, Propitiation
(a.) Satisfaction. This is the most specific term, in reference
to the relations between Christ's sufferings and the demands of
the law upon sinners as condemning them: Christ satisfied, by
his work, the demands of the divine law. The word may be
used in a wider sense: Christ satisfied also the divine love and
all the divine perfections; but the specific sense is: He so satis-
fied the claims of the divine law, in respect to sinners, that these,
through faith, are freed from its condemnation.
(6.) Vicarious. The term to designate substitution. Christ's
sufferings were substituted for ours: He suffered in our stead:
what He did is accepted as if we did it. Here, too, there is a
wider sense, in which "vicarious" is understood as meaning
merely in our behalf, for our benefit. Socinians would make
this the only sense. But specifically the word is used to set
forth that Christ was a substitute, as sacrificial victims were.
(c.) Expiation. The act or means of atoning for a crime, so
that in respect to the law its guilt is cancelled. The sense is:
removing guilt, removing the reatus: not, the moral defilement,
but the exposure and obligation to punishment. Expiation,
used in relation to the criminal, " denotes that which is an ade-
quate reason for exemption from penalty " (J. Pye Smith). An
expiated offence does not demand punishment: the "guilt," i. e.,
the obligation to suffer penalty, is removed.
(d.) Propitiation. This ** relates to the ruler, and designates
that which has the effect of causing Him to accept the expiating
transaction.'* The offender is expiated, God is propitiated: not
.hat any change in God's essential mercifulness is effected, but
hat his holiness no longer demands punishment.
4. Sacrifice. Here too we find the wider and the specific sense. 1
This most important term is reserved for another chapter.
II. Of the Necessity of the Atonement.
The necessity of the atonement (not a natural, physical, 01
metaphysical necessity) is affirmed most specifically in opposition
speare, Beaumont and Fletcher, Bps. Hall and Taylor; =expiation, in Milton,
Swift, and Cowper. Waterland (Disc, of Fundamentals, v. p. 82): "the doctrina
of expiation, atonement, or satisfaction, made by Christ in his blood.")
1 " The Scriptural Idea of Sacrifice," by Alfred Cave.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 439
to two views: (a.) that mere mercy on God's part, and (6.) mere
repentance on man's, suffices to meet all the exigencies of the
case.
1. The necessity may be argued on rational grounds.
(a.) God is holy, man is sinful: man's sin is the opposite of
the divine holiness: to bring God and man together, some satis-
faction to the divine holiness is needed.
(b.) Another form: Sin deserves condemnation: that it may
be pardoned, there is needed some mode of removing the con-
demnation, of taking away the guilt of the transgressor.
This mode cannot be the repentance and reformation of the
sinner alone: for (1) if he could become holy, his guilt and de-
sert of condemnation would remain; (2) in order to his becoming
holy, or returning to God, a knowledge of God's righteous favor
or holy mercifulness is requisite. The mode cannot be that of
mere forgiveness: for this would satisfy neither the claims of
the divine holiness nor the necessities of a moral government.
It would show that the law was not law moral law but only
a sequence. 1
Hence, on rational grounds, presupposing God's holiness and
man's sin, there is need of some other way need of an atone-
ment for sin.
2. This necessity may be argued on the grounds of man's
moral nature : an atonement is eminently adapted to man's con-
victions and needs as a moral being.
(a.) Man's conscience assures him of the supremacy, the
absolute supremacy, of righteousness of holiness, and not of
mere happiness of that holiness which is the highest happiness.
This conviction is not responded to by the mere forgiveness of
the sinner. If happiness were the greatest good, then a for-
giveness insuring happiness would meet all of man's wants. But
if holiness be the chief good, then, in the pardon of sin, God
must appear as holy, righteous, answering the highest ends of
his moral government in order to meet our highest wants.
"Mercy is not itself, that oft looks so;
- Pardon is still the nurse of second woe."
Measure for Measure, Act II. ; Scene I.
440 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
(6.) Man's conscience leads Him to feel the necessitj', undei
a moral government, of punishment or a moral equivalent; not
always the necessity of the punishment of the offender, but al-
ways the necessity of that or a substitute which will answer the
same moral end.
(c.) The satisfaction of man's moral nature in an atoning sac-
rifice proves the fitness of it to his moral wants.
3. The nature of the divine law proves the necessity of an
atonement of a sacrifice for sin.
(a.) Law implies, and necessarily sanctions, the punishment of
transgressors, or an equivalent, under it. A law without a pen-
alty is no law. Penalty is not the final end of law, but it is
a means to that end. Hence there must be for transgression
either penalty or what answers the same end which end is the
maintenance of holiness in all its glory. Hence, law from its
very nature demands something which will answer this end as
well as would the specific punishment of the transgressor.
Christ said, " One jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from
the law." He magnified the law in his teachings .and death.
Mere pardon virtually annuls the law sets it aside declares
it needless says: no law.
b. Another form. Sin always deserves, merits punishment.
The inflicting of this is, the distributive justice of God: render-
ing to every man according to his deeds. Holiness, or public
justice, demands this or an equivalent, and an equivalent is
that which will equally satisfy holiness or general justice. An
equivalent cannot be something of a totally different nature,
looking to a totally different end, providing for happiness in
stead of holiness.
4. The necessity of an atonement is seen in the fact that it
has actually been made.
(a.) If such a sacrifice had not been necessary, it would not
have been made.
(b.) The necessity is directly asserted in Scripture: Mark viii,
31; Luke xxiv. 46; John iii. 14, 15; Acts xvii. 2, 3; Heb, viii. 3,
ix. 22.
5. An argument for the necessity of the atonement may alsc
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 441
be derived from the general consent of mankind: everywhere
there are systems of sacrifices.
The prevalence of sacrifices for sins is one of the most won-
derful facts in the moral history of mankind. It is an article
of natural religion more universally held than the unity of God
or even than immortality. This universality proves the follow-
ing points, as the moral conviction of mankind: (a.) That mere
repentance is not enough, according to the natural conscience;
(&.) That some expiation for sin is needed; (c.) That this must
be effected by the offering up of sacrifice in suffering and blood
instead of, to take the place of, the deserved punishment of
the guilty. 1
6. The grounds of this necessity, under God's moral govern-
ment, stated in sum.
(a.) The ultimate ground of the necessity must be in God him-
self: there is that in the divine perfections which requires the
atonement. What is it ?
(b.) The object of the atonement is to reconcile sinful man
with the holy God, under law; or, to remove the penalty from,
and restore favor to, transgressors. Then the necessity must be
this: God as a moral governor could not otherwise pardon and
justify (=be reconciled).
(c.) Why could He not otherwise? Because the end which
would have been answered by the punishment of the real culprit
must be in some other way attained.
(d.) What is that end? Not the punishment of the culprit
itself, for its own sake, as a good: but the punishment as a
means of showing the divine abhorrence of sin and sustaining
the honor of God and his law.
(e.) The atonement, then, has its necessity in this: that the
divine holiness justice (not distributive but general) could not
otherwise be satisfied in the pardon of sinners.
1 Cf. Bib. Sac. vol. i., p. 368 seq., vonLasaulx. John Dav. Michaelis: "Almost
all nations have been unanimous in the idea of bringing to the Deity offerings,
particularly with the shedding of blood, as the means of obtaining pardon of sin
and a restoration to favor. This awful idea, which is the almost universal im-
pression of the human race, even seems to be a product of what the Romans caU
sensus con\munisa natural dictate of the sound understanding of man."
442 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
(/.) An inquiry. Is the divine justice in the way of the par-
don of sinners? (1) Justice is distributive, commutative (not
brought into consideration here), and public (or general). (2 ) If
distributive justice be taken as the whole of justice, or as the
great end of the system, and as requiring the punishment of the
identical offender his specific punishment, then justice would
absolutely forbid pardon. There is no place for mercy. (3) But
distributive justice is subordinate to general justice: it is for
general justice. General justice demands that the honor of
the law be maintained; that the fact that sin deserves suffer-
ing be made manifest; that the great end of the system the
manifestation of the divine glory chiefly as a supreme regard
to holiness should be attained. If this end be gained, then
distributive justice is not in the way. 1
CHAPTER III.
OF THE LEADING SCRIPTURAL REPRESENTATION OP THE ATONING
WORK OF CHRIST THAT IT IS A SACRIFICE.
Preliminary. Terms most frequently used in Scripture to
describe Christ's work.
Redemption as means of deliverance, and not as an accom-
plished work: Eph. i. 14.
Ransom : Matt. xx. 28 ; 1 Tim. ii. 6.
Purchase: Acts xx. 28; 1 Cor. vi. 20; vii. 23.
Offering: Heb. x. 14.
Propitiation: Rom. iii. 25; 1 John ii. 2.
Such expressions, figurative as to means, are real as to re-
1 Upon the question, Is the divine veracity in threatening punishment, in the
way of the pardon of sinners? Dr. Charles Hodge says: threatenings "are not
what shall be, but what most justly may be." This resolves itself really into the
above. The divine veracity is pledged, not to strict distributive, but to complete
general justice. " It was not only the divine mind that had to be dealt with, but
also that expression of the divine mind which was contained in God's making deatl?
the wages of sin." Cave, Script. Doct. of Sacrifice, pp. 361, 362.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 443
suits, that is, as to deliverance from the demands of law upon
transgressors.
Proposition. The grand representation of the work of
Christ is that it is a SACRIFICE a sacrifice for sin a sacrifice in
our stead. This gives us not merely the result of the atoning
work, but the means, viz. by his death as a sacrifice for us.
To know the sense of Sacrifice, we must go to history. There
alone do we get the ideas. The Scriptures also give us history ;
the facts which they set forth are part of what has occurred; the
terms in which these facts are described have a proper historical
sense; such terms are related more or less to the facts and views
which stood within the general experience and knowledge of
mankind. Hence, in order to deal fairly with this great subject,
we must consult four sources. The questions are : What elements
were involved in a sacrifice? and, What are the constituent ele-
ments of* the sacrifice which Christ made? The sources from
which these elements may be derived, from which if we are
to reason historically they must be derived, are these: (1) The
system of.sacrifices prevalent in the Pagan world; (2) The sys-
tem appointed for the Jewish worship; (3) The prophecies re-
specting the work our Saviour was to accomplish; and (4) The
mode in which Christ's sufferings and death are everywhere
spoken of in the New Testament. If all these different sources
of evidence conspire in representing the same leading ideas, then
it would be indeed presumptuous to deny the validity of these
ideas, to- deny that they are involved in the very notion of a
sacrifice.
1. The System of Sacrifices prevalent in the Pagan World.
The evidence derived from this source is preparatory and pre-
sumptive. The sacrifices of the heathen in the form which they
always took, and in the reliance put upon them, were indeed an
abomination. But if, as some hold, the origin of these heathen
systems is to be traced to an original divine appointment, then
even in their perversion and decay we may trace some vestiges
of the divine original: or, if we do not trace them back to God
444 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
but suppose them to be prompted by the instinctive religious
sentiments of mankind, when feeling its guilt and sinfulness,
still they may be of importance in showing us what ideas the
race have always held, as to the mode in which they might be-
come acceptable to their offended deities.
The propriety of deriving an argument from this source may
be still further evinced by the fact, that one reason why the gos-
pel made such progress was, that by the systems already prevail
ing men were in a certain sense prepared for the prevalence of
the Gospel. These false religions, in their corruption, were unable
to satisfy men, and therefore they welcomed anew; but it is also true
that some of the ideas which were at the foundation of their
false systems were seen fully realized and purified in the religion
of the gospel. They recognized the sacrifice of Christ as a true
sacrifice, because they saw in it the perfect form of what they
had so grotesquely mimicked and superstitiously believed in their
own. forms of worship. They were ready to receive a sacrifice
for sin, because they had always believed in sacrifices for sin. '
Such being the state of things, the question now comes up,
what were the leading ideas which these ancient nations always
connected with the sacrifices they offered.
The basis of the sacrifice was the fact of their sinfulness. They
lived under the constant sense of their being in a state of feud
with their gods, and of the necessity of appeasing the wrath of
those terrible beings who had the rule over them. The sacrifice
was the means which they made use of, which they supposed ef-
fectual, in averting from them the wrath of their deities, and in
procuring pardon and favor.
And the sacrifice which they offered for this object contained,
and was designed to express, the following leading elements. In
the first place, it was a substitution of the sufferings of one being
i It is noticeable that just those persons who are most ready to derive an argu-
ment from the consent of nations for the being of God or the soul's immortality are
the ones who assert of the systems of sacrifice prevalent in all the world, that they
are simply the product of superstition and priestcraft. To say this, however, is
to avoid, and not to meet, a difficulty: for the question still remains, Why did
superstition uniformly take this form; why was it that priests found the system
of sacrifices the most effectual way of binding the hearts and consciences of (he
people ?
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 445
for the sufferings due to another; in the second place, it was a
substitution of the sufferings of a being comparative!}' innocent
for one that was sinful; and in the third place, this substitution
of the sufferings of the innocent, instead of the deserved suffer-
ings of the guilty, was supposed to have the efficacy of making
an expiation, an atonement to the gods for the sins committed
was supposed to be of such virtue that the deserved punishment
might be averted.
No one at all acquainted with the horrible rites of heathenism,
whether in ancient or modern times, will doubt the existence of
all these elements in all their bloody sacrifices. And when we
find in almost all the heathen nations not only the sacrifice of
animals but of human victims also, in offering whom all natural
feeling must have been suppressed, who can fail to see, even in
this frantic excess of heathenism, that there mudt have been a
mighty power which held them so entranced, that there was at
the basis of the whole system an unconquerable conviction of
the necessity and efficacy of sacrifices ? However abhorrent such
a conclusion may be to the so-called system of natural religion,
yet in all the actual natural religions of the world we find a sac-
rifice for sin believed in and offered. It is not argued that these
sacrifices were right or in any way acceptable, but it is argued that
we may show from them what means were considered necessary
to win the favor of the deities.
2. In the Old Testament, in the System of Sacrifices appointed
for God's chosen People, we find the same Essential Elements as in tlie
heathen Sacrifices.
The Jews were to be a distinct people, and yet they retained
the rites of heathenism. Well has it been said, that " Moses,
zealous as he was to separate his people in all respects from
Paganism, still retained those sacrifices which made the most
prominent part of pagan worship." The very parts of the
old dispensation, too, which were typical of the new, are to be
found in the victims laid upon the altar. Here are the bloody
sacrifices which give purification. They remind one of heathen-
ism they look forward to Christianity.
446 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
With this system of sacrifices, which had been divinely or
daiiied, the Jews connected the same ideas which we have already
found in Pagan systems. The sacrifice was vicarious. In the
expiatory sacrifices, 'the animal was considered as having become
unclean, and its remains were to be burned without the camp, and
this, as is expressly declared, 1 because it was a sin-offering. When
a man was slain, and it was not known who had committed the
crime, a sacrifice must still be offered, and by the washing of the
hands the guilt was transferred to the victim. 2 The idea of inno-
cence or ceremonial purity was also involved in the whole transac-
tion. The priests who offered it were not only a separate class,
but they must be especially purified before they could present
the offering. The animal offered must be without blemish. The
paschal-offering was a lamb the chosen symbol of innocence.
But in these sacrifices was the third element that of an expia-
tion for sin also contained ? It was contained, yet symbolically
and typically, rather than actually. The peculiarity of the Jew-
ish system is just this, that it did not permit its votaries to rest
in the rites themselves, but ever bade them look forward to the
time of their Great High Priest. Expiation for sin ivas in these
sacrifices, though only symbolically. The solemn rites of the
yearly festival of expiation show this: for, while the goat that
was killed was the sin-offering, by which the sin was represented
as expiated, the sin was laid upon the other, the scape-goat, to
make a visible yet symbolical manifestation of the taking away
of the guilt. Equally applicable to the same point are the words
which, it is supposed, contain the key to the whole system of
Jewish sacrifices the words addressed by Jehovah to Moses,
Lev. xvii. 11: "For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I
have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for
your souls: for the blood maketh an atonement for [or "by
means of"] the soul." The idea of an expiation for sin could
not be more fully expressed than in these words. In all the
statutes by which atonement was to be made for sin, we find
confirmation of the fact that Substitution of the Innocent
in order to Expiation is a necessary element of the religious
1 Exod. xxix. 14 * Deut. xxi. 1-9.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 447
faith of a people which had transgressed the law of God, and
would become reconciled to Him. Under the whole of the
Old Testament economy, sin was not forgiven except as its
desert was exhibited, and its expiation insured, by means of
a vicarious sacrifice.
3. Another Argument for the same Position is derived from
the Old Testament Prophecies of Christ
A distinct argument is drawn from this source, for two reasons.
(a.) The prophets often seem to speak against sacrifices, to rep-
robate the reliance placed upon them ; but if they foretold an-
other sacrifice, then they reprobated only the carnal reliance
put upon those which but prefigured the true expiation.
(b.) The prophets stand, as it were, in the transition stage
between the law and the gospel. They spake of a perfect re-
demption which was to appear. And now if they represent the
new dispensation which was to bring in an everlasting right-
eousness as containing the same essential elements with that
which was to pass away, then they form, as it were, the second
premise in the syllogism of which the law is the first, and the
New Testament the conclusion. What the ceremonies and rites
of the law expressed in symbols, that the prophets expressed in
words ; and both equally referred to Jesus Christ, who was the
substance which the law foreshadowed and the visible fulfilment
of the prophecies, and who thus fulfilled both the law and the
prophets.
Language cannot express the elements which we have found
to be contained in the very nature of a sacrifice more distinctly
than we find them in Isa. liii., and to this, for the sake of dis-
tinctness and conciseness, we confine our illustrations. There
is first the vicarious suffering: Surely He hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows; He was wounded for our transgres-
sions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our
peace was upon Him, and with his stripes we are healed ; all we
like sheep have gone astray, and the Lord hath laid on Him the
iniquity of us all; He bare the sin of many. There is the inno-
cence of the sufferer: He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter
448 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not
his mouth; for the transgression of my people (not his own)
was He stricken; He had done no violence, neither was any
deceit in his mouth. And the sufferings of this innocent victim
procured the expiation of the sins of his people: He shall see of
the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied; by his knowledge
shall my righteous servant justify many; for He shall bear their
iniquities; when thou shalt make his soul (or, when his soul
shall make) an offering for sin, He shall see his seed, He shall
prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in
his hand. Thus spake prophets of the coming Redeemer. They
described Him in terms taken from the sacrifices appointed under
the law. They described Him as they would have described a
victim offered upon the altar only making the victim a mighty
Saviour instead of an animal without blemish only speaking
of the substitution, the innocence, and the expiation as real, and
not as merely symbolical or typical.
4. The New Testament Descriptions of the Sufferings and
Death of Christ repeat the same Ideas, give us in more strict Form
of Assertion the same Elements.
We have seen what were the religious ideas prevailing
throughout the world at the time that the Redeemer came
ideas in which Gentile as well as Jew participated. Every-
where men believed in the necessity and efficacy of sacrifices.
Such was the preparation which God, in his providential govern-
ment of the heathen nations, and in his special revelation to his
chosen people, had made for the reception of his Son, when He
should be sent in the fulness of times to gather together all things
in one, and to draw all men unto himself. The sense of sin, the
need of deliverance, the belief in a deliverance only through
propitiatory sacrifices these are the deepest religious feelings
which we find impressed upon the whole ancient world in
these men all agreed. Every altar proclaimed them, every vic-
tim renewed them. Daily as were the sacrifices, so, every day
these ideas were brought before men's minds, in the blood of
dying victims, in the agonies of departing life.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 449
A strange preparation this, for an economy which was to dc
away with and deny all these things, for a dispensation which,
as some suppose, not only overturned the altars, but destroyed
all the ideas connected with them. Whether it was so or not,
remains to be considered. Whether the essential elements of the
ancient religion were abrogated or confirmed in the religion
which was to supersede all other forms of faith, we are now to
inquire.
Did Christianity abolish, or did it confirm, the sentiments we
have found existing as to the mode in which a fallen world
could become reconciled to its God ? Did it destroy the law and
the prophets, or did it fulfil them V Did it take up the religious
sentiments of the race and purify them, or did it introduce en-
tirely new conceptions as to the way in which man was to be
justified before God? Did it go to a Jew and say, All the ideas
you have had as to the way of pardon must be entirely erased
from your mind, and you must accept a scheme which in its
essential features is wholly different from that which God gave
your fathers by the prophets, or did it present him with the
perfect realization of what was at best but imperfectly exhibited
in all the ceremonies of the law and the rites of the altar ? Did
it go to the heathen, and while it bade him quit his false gods
and atrocious rites, also preach to him that he was to look for
no sacrifice and quit all hope of a proper expiation, that he need
do nothing but amend his life and trust in a mercy which ac-
cepted him without a propitiation ? Did it, in presenting Jesus
Christ as the way and the truth and the life, and his sufferings
and death as the ground of acceptance, carefully abstain from
all expressions which would recall the long-cherished views,
both of heathen and Jew, as to the eflficacy of sacrifices,- or
did- it describe Christ and his death in such a way as involved
all the elements which they believed to belong to a vicarious
expiation ? Did it alter in any essential particulars the views
universally prevailing as to the nature of a sacrifice, on the
ground of which deity was to be made propitious, or did it
describe the superiority of Christ's sacrifice as consisting pre-
cisely in this, that it perfectly realized all that it was believed a
450 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
sacrifice must be and could effect, and that, therefore, all othei
sacrifices were vain and worthless ?
To state the case, to one who is familiar with the mode in
which the New Testament speaks of Christ, is almost to prove
it. It is hardly an exaggeration, when a distinguished apolo-
gist for Christianity 1 asserts "that Christ suffered and died as
an atonement for the sins of the world is a doctrine so constantly
infused through the New Testament that whoever will seriously
peruse these writings and deny that it is there, may with as
much reason and truth, after reading the works of Thucydides
and Livy, assert that in them no mention is made of any facts
in relation to the history of Greece and Rome."
Are the sufferings and death of Christ, then, represented as
endured in the place of others, as a substitution, as vicarious?
What else can our Saviour mean when He says that He gave
his life a ransom for many, 2 and that He lays down his life for
the sheep 3 ? What does Paul mean when he writes to the Gal-
atians, 4 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being
made a curse for us ? Why does the Epistle to the Hebrews de-
clare that Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many ? 5
Why does Peter preach Christ as the one who his own self bare
our sins in his own body on the tree, 6 and also declare that
Christ suffered for sins once, the just for the unjust ? 7 (The words
used, for, instead of, bearing the sin of others, and the like, ex-
press substitution, if any words can do it ; and the variety of
phrases, all of which concur in the same vicarious significance,
forbids us to suppose it was accidental. Had there been only
one word or form of expression for it, it were easier to interpret
it otherwise: but the variety of the forms of expression forbids
such a violence.) Why are these and similar declarations re-
specting Christ's sufferings constantly introduced by the Apos-
tles, when they addressed both Jew and Gentile, if they did not
mean to teach them the necessity and efficacy of vicarious
sufferings? If on this point their previous views had beou
1 Soame Jenyns. 2 Matt xx. 28. 3 John x. 15.
< Gal. iii. 13. * Heb. ix. 28. * 1 Pet. ii. 24
1 Pet. iii. 18.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 451
erroneous, would such descriptions of the death of Christ have
ai:y other effect than to confirm them in their error ?
The second element in the idea of a sacrifice is, the innocence
of the victim: it must be the fairest of the herd, the gentlest of
the flock. We are told that such an High Priest became us,
who is holy, harmless, undefiled. 1 The Apostle Peter speaks of
Him as a lamb without blemish and without spot. 2 And Paul
concurs in this, when He asserts that God hath made Him to
be sin for us, who knew no sin. 3 The attribute of blamelessness,
which the sacrifice must have, was perfectly realized only in
the Lamb of God. His alone was moral guiltlessness; and this
was one reason why his alone was the acceptable sacrifice. An
animal could only symbolize or typify; it could not possess that
moral purity which was necessary in order that the sacrifice
might be available and acceptable, might be a true expiation.
And this is one of the points in which the sacrifice of Christ,
and that alone, realized the full import of the word and the
thing.
These vicarious sufferings of an innocent victim were de-
signed to make expiation for sin to make God propitious, and
as a consequence to free man from the overburdening sense of
guilt and fear of punishment: for both these particulars are
involved in a real propitiation. And in this, in which resides
the very vitality of a sacrifice, Christ's alone fulfilled the office.
While it was ever held as essential to the idea of a sacrifice,
yet it was never realized, whether on Pagan or Jewish altars.
It was symbolized by the one, and both symbolized and typified
by the other. With Christ came the reality, and this is what
chiefly makes his to be the only, the real, the proper sacrifice,
beside which none other may be named. Of all the offerings
ever made his alone was accepted; others were available only as
they spake of his. All others neither purchased the favor of
God, nor brought true peace to man : Christ's did both, and was
therefore an expiation for sin, in the only legitimate, and the
most perfect sense of the words. The sacrifice of Christ, and
that alone, satisfied God, and brought peace to the conscience,
' Heb. vii. 26. 2 1 Pet. i. 19. s 1 Cor. v. 21.
452 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Testimony on these points crowds upon us text after text,
evangelists and apostles, eager to be heard, while they speak in
exulting faith of Him, who hath washed us from our sins in hia
own blood; 1 in whom we have redemption through his blood,
the forgiveness of sins; 2 whose blood cleanseth from all sin; 8
through whom God declares his righteousness in the passing
over of sins; 4 in whom God was, reconciling the world unto
himself. 5 The whole testimony is summed up in a wonderful
passage, which connects the old and new economy, giving the
chkif defect of the old and superiority of the new, and which
contains all the elements of a sacrifice and the whole virtue of
an argument: For if the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes
of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying
of the flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who
through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God,
purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? 6
The conclusion to which we are irresistibly led from such
passages as those we have cited and the number of them might
be greatly multiplied can be nothing less than this: that the
sufferings and death of Jesus are represented as containing all
the elements of a sacrifice for sin, and are so spoken of in writ-
ings addressed to people who had always believed in the neces-
sity and efficacy of sacrifice; and, consequently, that we must
either give up in despair the chief canon for interpreting lan-
guage aright, i. e., the sense it would naturally carry to those
to whom it was addressed, or we must admit that the Apostles
meant to teach an expiation for sin, in the boldest sense of the
words. To this dilemma we are reduced: either we cannot find
out the meaning of Scripture, or it means to teach expiation ; and
consequently, either we believe it and receive the atonement, or,
if we reject the atonement, we reject inspiration also. Archbishop
Magee says: 7 if The atonement by the sacrifice of Christ was
more strictly vicarious than that by the Mosaic sacrifices where-
by it was typified." And the substance of this remark may bs
Rev. i. 5. 8 Eph. i. 7. 3 1 John i. 7.
< Bom. iii. 25. 6 2 Cor. v. 19. Heb. ix. 13, 14.
i On the Atonement. No. LXXIII.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 453
still further applied. All the elements which enter into the very
nature of a sacrifice are represented as more fully exhibited in
the death and sufferings of Jesus Christ, than they are found any
where else. Instead of these elements being any of them weak-
ened, they are all confirmed in strength and emphasis, when ap-
plied to the death of Jesus. The vicarious suffering was more
strictly vicarious,- it was a more real substitution; the substitu-
tion of one moral being for another; the innocence of the sacri-
fice is in Him alone perfectly realized, all others were at the
best only physically blameless, He alone was morally pure; and
as to the propitiation which was intended to be effected by means
of a vicarious death, his alone effects that propitiation, his alone
gives boldness of access to the very throne of the Eternal. We
say, then, still further, that not only are we obliged to admit that
Christ's death is a proper sacrifice, but that we are forced to con-
fess that his is the only proper sacrifice, and that if no other had
ever been known, if men had never heard of the propitiatory suf-
ferings of the innocent for the guilty, yet they would have been
obliged, if they received the Scriptures of the New Testament,
to concede that it was there found and most distinctly expressed.
If the points enumerated do indeed constitute the elements of a
real sacrifice, then does Christ's death, and that alone, correspond
thereto. Not only may it be so interpreted, but it must be so
interpreted; not only does history lead us so to view it, but with-
out history, though we knew of no heathen rites, though we had
read of no Jewish altar, we must still confess that the sufferings
and death of the Son of God were endured instead of ours; were
endured by One wholly spotless ; and were of such virtue that
they purchased the remission of sins and purged the unclean
conscience, 1
5. Consideration of Objections.
Obj. I. Why may we not interpret all that is said about the
gucrifice of Christ just as we should interpret the language when
1 "And this I am sure," sajrs Dr. South, " is spoke so plain and loud by the
universal voice of the whole Book of God, that Scripture must be crucified as well
as Ohrist, to give any other tolerable sense of it"
454 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
it is said that one man suffers for another, a mother for a child,
a patriot for his country and such like where all that we mean
is, that by the suffering some outward good was attained,, or
some evil averted some peril warded off? This would make
the doctrine more intelligible, level to our present associations,
analogous to what is daily seen in God's providence.
But what special temporal good ivas purchased by Christ
for his followers: what special temporal evil did his death avert
from them ? None absolutely none. Such an explanation,
instead of making the Scriptural representations intelligible,
makes them wholly unintelligible. The good He purchased
was a spiritual good, a freedom from the condemnation for sin
and the sense of guilt. Outward good might follow the inward;
but the inward was first. The good He purchased for us had
relation to human sin, and not chiefly to the evils which beset
humanity. He was a propitiation for our sins, and not for
ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. One man
may die for another man: but how can the death of the one
procure from God the pardon of the sins of the other ? Here
the analogy utterly fails.
And besides, this sense of sacrifice so current amongst us, is
a derived sense, and not the direct Scriptural sense, is one
which has respect to human relations and not to the relations
of man to God. Had the Apostles designed to convey this
meaning clearly, the Greek language offered them abundant
facilities, without their resorting to terms taken from the altar
and its victims. If we would faithfully interpret the New Tes-
tament according to the sense of the times in which it was
written times, be it well remembered, in which not only animal
but human sacrifices were offered in almost every nation there
remains but the choice between these two things: that when
the Apostles represented the death of Jesus Christ as a proper
sacrifice, they would either be understood as meaning to assert
that He was a human sacrifice, and thus have perpetuated in
their teachings that direct abomination of heathenism; or else,
<,hat they ascribed to the death of Jesus such efficacy as no
leath of a mere man could ever possess. To interpret the Ian*
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 455
guage in the way in which we now speak of one man's being a
sacrifice for another, is forbidden by the whole spirit of antiquity.
To interpret it as meaning a proper sacrifice, makes it either to be
a human sacrifice the most atrocious of abominations, or forces
us to attribute to it some peculiar value in consequence of the
dignity and relations of the sufferer.
Obj. II. Another mode in which this doctrine is sometimes
drawn down from its high elevation, and left in an indefinite
vagueness, is by saying: it is enough for any man to believe in
the sufferings and death of Christ, to trust to that, and leave all
theories about expiation and propitiation to the care of dispu-
tants. Christ suffered and died, and for us: so much is plain;
here we can all unite. This is plain fact, revealed fact, but
theories about the atonement are not so plain.
The sense of this is, that the position that Christ's death was
expiatory is a theory, a philosophical explanation of the fact,
and that all we need to believe in is the fact that his death was
for us. But if the investigation we have instituted be of any
worth, if it have taught us one thing more than another, it is
this: that the very nature and essence of the sufferings and
death of Christ is, that they are an expiation for sin. This is
the very idea of a sacrifice. It is its exhaustive definition : it
is the thing itself, and not a deduction or inference from it.
This is the fact and not a theory about it. If one does not
believe 'in the expiation, he does not believe in the sacrifice.
We have the shell and not the kernel; we have death and
sufferings and not life and peace. The expiation cannot be
separated from the death without destroying the life that is in
the death. We may form theories about the sacrifice of Jesus,
in its relations to the moral government of the world, or to the
wants of the human soul: but the very essence of the thing
about which we are to form our theory is that it was an ex-
piation for sin. And to represent this as a theory instead of
being the fact, is to confound the whole relation between theory
and fact. To require us to believe in the necessity of the death
of an Incarnate God for our redemption, without making that
456 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
death to be a propitiation for our sins, is to require us to believe
in the most startling of facts, and to close our eyes to any rea-
son or availability of it, is not only to demand an historical faith,
but a faith for which no sufficient reason can be assigned in a
fact at once monstrous and enigmatical.
Obj. 111. It is difficult, if not impossible, to see how one
being can bear the penalty which others have deserved, how
Christ's vicarious sufferings could procure for us exemption from
condemnation. We suppose that those who press this objection
will desire to use care in presenting it, so as not to cut off all
hope or possibility of salvation from every son and daughter of
Adam. If every soul must bear its own sins and penalty, and
if it be a true saying that the soul that sinneth it shall die, and
if conscience alone is to decide the case, we see not but that
conscience demands that the penalty should be carried into full
execution. We also suppose that care will be used not to make
the objection so positive as to conflict with the ordinary provi-
dential dealings of God, where a kind of substitution is to be
seen. It is hard to contest the facts, that the father does suffer
for the son arid the son for the father, and one generation of
men for those that come after. Almost all the civil arid re-
ligious rights we enjoy have been purchased by the blood of
others. Sins are visited upon children. It is possible to carry
this individualism of sin and penalty so far as to conflict with
the plainest facts in God's every day government, and in man's
commonest relations.
But after all care has been exercised in relation to these
points, the objection cannot be conceded to be valid. If the
objection means, that we cannot see how the literal penalty of
the law can be inflicted on any but its transgressor, this is
doubtless true: but the doctrine of a sacrifice for sin does not
involve this necessarily : it says only, that the sufferings and death
of Christ were instead of this penalty. Of course the objection
does not mean that there can never be any vicariousness of
suffering: for this would run counter to plain facts in the ordi-
nary providence of God, If it is meant, however* that we can
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 457
not see just how the sufferings and death of Christ are the pro-
curing cause of the pardon of our sin, then we say, that it is not
necessary that this should be seen in order to a living faith in
Christ as our Redeemer. We do not believe in a bare abstract
plan of atonement, which we can see through and round: we
believe in Jesus Christ, our High Priest, our Sacrifice. And in
his sacrifice there is doubtless a mystery, unfathomaUe to mortal
penetration.
Then in respect to this objection, we say:
1. Here, as elsewhere in theology, mystery is to be admitted,
while facts are to be accepted on their proper evidence; and the
suitableness of the facts to illustrate the glory of God and to
meet the wants of men is to be fully recognized. Mystery in-
vests all reality. It is no objection to a divine proceeding, a
divine provision, that while it comes largely within our appre-
hension, it also goes largely beyond. If there were no mystery
here, we might suspect that there was no divine reality. It
would be an objection to the atonement if there were no objec-
tions to it.
2. On the ground of uniform Christian experience we are
warranted in asserting, that it is a fact of man's spiritual history,
as abundantly confirmed as any fact can be, that faith in the
atoning death of Christ is the constant and only source of the
glad feeling of reconciliation with God ; that this is the procur-
ing cause of the feeling of redemption from the penalty and
power of sin, as much as sin is the procuring cause of guilt, as
much as right is the source of the sense of obligation. If this
be a fact verified by constant experience, then as a fact it stands,
whether wecan penetrate to all its grounds and reasons or not.
3. But further, this objection runs counter, not only to the
religious experience of Christians, but to the religious convic-
tions of the human race. The assertion that there can be no
vicarious sacrifice for sin attacks the religious faith of entire
humanity. It is not modern orthodoxy alone that is thus at-
tacked, the uniform consent of the church of Christ is assaulted;
it is not the doctrine of the church alone that is assailed, it is
the whole tenor of the New Testament: it is not the New Testa-
458 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
ment only, it is the whole sacrificial system and the great pro-
phetic burden of the Old Testament; it is not only the old
dispensation and the new which is undermined, it is the
belief of every nation, where forms of worship have existed.
If we can prove anything from what has always, everywhere,
and by all been received, we can certainly prove the necessity
of a sacrifice for sin. The heathen altar, the Jewish law, the
Christian cross equally proclaim it. It has in respect to the uni-
versality of belief an evidence for itself far above any that can
be alleged to exist for any one of the articles of the so-called
system of Natural Religion. How dim the anticipations of im-
mortality among the heathen ! how floating their notion of a
divine unity! how constant their victims on the altar! how
plain their faith in substitution !
4. While admitting that the objection is made to that re-
lation of the atonement which is veiled in mystery, we assert
that we can see, nevertheless, the fitness of such a mode of
reconciliation as the sacrifice of Christ, on the one hand to
God's character and government, and on the other hand to the
wants of men.
(a.) The expiatory sufferings of Christ are on the one hand
conformable to what we know of God's character and govern-
ment, as a provision for the pardon of the sins of his creatures.
They are thus fitted because they make the most perfect display
of the moral attributes of God, showing us his love as it is no-
where else exhibited, and his justice in its unchangeable per-
fecti-on. The atonement shows how his justice can be immutable,
and yet grace abound. It shows how the apparently conflict-
ing claims of God's justice and love can both be met, and the
being who is the object of a just condemnation can become the
subject of a redeeming love. Nowhere else are these attributes
so perfectly manifested as in the work of our Saviour. This
alone gives it a surpassing glory, and would be sufficient to
vindicate it from every objection. How can the love of God oe
bestowed in its fulness upon any creature, in respect to whom
his justice speaks only of condemnation? The justice of God
must be satisfied, else his love cannot be imparted. Such satis>
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 459
(action the atonement of Jesus bestows. As the representatives
of the race He kept the law, He suffered in our stead its ex-
tremest penalties not the same in kind, as, e. g. f remorse and
eternal death but all those which a substituted sinless being
could suffer: his infinite nature qualified Him to stand for the
race, and made his sufferings available. And all that are united
with Him by faith receive the benefits of his sacrifice: God looks
upon Him who is their shield, and remembers the face of his
anointed, and for his sake spares and adopts them. His justice
is here exhibited, satisfaction is made, the sinner is pardoned,
and the glory of the redemption is shared by Him who through
love gave his Son to die for us, and by the Son who purchased
us with his own most precious blood. This satisfaction to the
divine justice is involved in the work of atonement, and is nec-
essary ; yet it should ever be carefully distinguished from the
work itself. The work consists in the expiatory sufferings of
Jesus, and it is these which do satisfy the divine justice, though
it is sometimes represented otherwise, as though the atonement
itself consisted in such a satisfaction. Not only are God's attri-
butes thus more perfectly and harmoniously displayed: his
moral government also is upheld, his authority as a lawgiver is
fully maintained by it. And here again we say that the main-
tenance of this authority does not constitute the substance or
matter of the atonement: but rather, that the atonement has
this for one of its effects, for one of its relations an important
and necessary relation but still not itself the chief end or ulti-
mate purpose of the atonement. That chief end is, the salvation
of the sinner. The sinner must be saved, if at all, in such a
way as is consistent with the moral government of God, as will
uphold the authority of the law: but still the virtue of the sav-
ing act will consist, not in the upholding of the law, but in the
expiatory sufferings by which the ransom is effected. Beyond
and above all analogies drawn from the relations of men, and
the maintaining of a human law, are the awful expiatory suffer-
ings of our Great High Priest. Not the son of a king suffering
instead of rebels, not a royal father, having the light of one of
his own eyes extinguished, that one of his son's eyes might be
460 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
left unhurt, can fully illustrate the relation of our Redeemer's
sufferings to the inviolability of God's law. The force and im
pressiveness, and we may add, the logical accuracy of the whole
representation is rather weakened than strengthened by resort
to such imperfect analogies. We should rather lay the stress
upon the fact that Christ by his very nature, by his natural re-
lations to God and his assumed relations to humanity was fitted
to be the Mediator, to fulfil the whole law and make it honorable,
and thus to maintain its dignity in the eyes of the universe.
(b.) This atoning work of Christ, on the other hand, is no less
fitted to man's nature and wants, than it is to God's character.
To represent the atonement as designed only to affect man, and
not so to speak to influence the divine mind, to describe it as
a moral spectacle, exhibited chiefly to enlist and arouse the feel-
ings of man, his sense of sin, and his need of redemption is as-
ouredly unscriptural and defective: yet that it has this effect is
scriptural and undeniable. It represents to man the justice of
God in the clearest light, and this meets his own sense of jus-
tice ; and the love of God in its highest form, and this is fitted
to awaken a responsive affection. It is adapted to his con-
science, so far as it upholds the law, and to all his deeper, ten-
derer feelings, since nothing appeals to them so strongly.
In sum, then, we say, with reference to Objection III., viz.,
how can the sacrifice of Christ procure the pardon of sin what
is the rationale, what are the ultimate grounds of the system
which centers here: that there is room for a variety of explana-
tions, and here is where the theories of the atonement come in. But
we should be careful to draw the line between the facts and the
theories. We have endeavored to bring out the great revealed,
Scriptural fact about Christ and his sacrifice, in its simplicity
and in its integrity. That fact we suppose to be embraced in
the statement, that the doath of Christ was a proper sacrifice for
cur sins. We suppose that this is revealed in so distinct a man-
ner that it is a part of the facts of the Gospel. When we say
that the death of Christ was instead of our punishment, and that
it made expiation for our sins, we are not stating theories, but
revealed facts. We suppose that in this fact is contained an
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 461
answer to the question, how can a sinner be pardoned, and that
answer is, by faith in Christ as the sacrifice for our sins: by a
belief in his sufferings and death, instead of ours. We do not
suppose that anything which can properly be called a theory is
involved in any one of the points that we have presented in re-
spect to the doctrine of sacrifices. Theories of the atonement
have for their object to show how this fact, viz., that the expia-
tory death of Christ is the means of pardon to the guilty, is to
be understood in its entire relations to what we know from other
sources about the attributes and the moral government of God,
and the wants and needs of man. It would be a sufficient an-
swer to the objection to show that the fact is proved by evidence
which cannot be invalidated; it is a further answer, that the atone-
ment throws a light upon God's character and government, and
meets the wants of man as nothing else does: to show precisely
how God construes this greatest and most far-reaching of trans-
actions, and to give an account of the whole of its effect upon
the divine mind and the divine government, is a task which we
do not undertake.
CHAPTER IV.
ANALYSIS OF THE SCRIPTURAL STATEMENTS AS TO CHRIST'S
SUFFERINGS AND DEATH.
I. The height of Christ's atoning work, its center, was in
his sufferings and death. These are the matter of the atonement.
Isa. liii. Death: Heb. ii. 9, 14; ix. 15; Rom. v. 10; Phil. ii. 8;
Rev. v. 6, 9, 12. Cross: 1 Cor. i. 23; Gal. iii. 1 ; Eph. ii. 16; Col. i.
20; Gal. vi. 14. Sufferings: Luke xxiv. 26; Acts iii. 18; 1 Pet. ii.
21; iii. 18; Matt. xx. 28. Blood: Matt, xxvi. 28 (Mark xiv. 24;
Luke xxii. 20); Eph. ii. 13; i. 7; Col i. 14; 1 John i. 7; Rev. i. 5;
v. 9.
II. Christ suffered and died for others.
Isa. liii. 5, 6; Matt. xxvi. 28; Rom. v. 6; Gal. iii. 13, 14;
2 Cor. v. 14, 15.
462 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
III. Christ died for gin and sinners.
Isa. liii. 6, 8; John i. 29; Rom. iii. 25; v. 8; vi. 10; viii. 3;
1 Cor. xv. 3; 2 Cor. v. 21; Gal. iii. 13; Heb. ix. 28; 1 Pet. ii. 24;
iii. 18; Rev. i. 5.
IV. As to the necessity of such a sacrifice.
Luke xxiv. 26; Gal ii. 21; iii. 21; Heb. ii. 10.
V. That in what Christ thus did and suffered, He was a
sacrifice for sins ivas really what was symbolized under thia
form in the Old Testament.
(a.) He was Priest, High Priest: Heb. ii. 17; iii. 1; iv. 14;
v. 1, 6, 10; vii. 11, 15, 26; viii. 1; x. 21.
(b.) He was also the pure offering. Lamb: John i. 29; 1 Pet.
i. 19; Rev. v. 12; vii. 14; xiii. 8. Sacrifice: 1 Cor. v. 7; Eph. v. 2;
Heb. ix. 26; x. 12. Offering: Heb. ix. 14, 25, 28; x. 10, 14. Pro-
pitiation: Rom. iii. 25 ; 1 John ii. 2 ; iv. 10.
VI. That Christ is the only sacrifice : He alone makes an
atonement for sin.
Rom. iii. 20-28; Acts iv. 12; Heb. i. 3; ix. 28; x. 10, 12, 14, 26.
1 Pet. iii. 18; Forgiveness only through Him; Reconciliation
through Him alone ; Faith upon Him enjoined.
VII. That Christ's sacrifice was voluntary.
John x. 17, 18; Gal. ii. 20; Eph. v. 2; Heb. ix. 14; x. 7-9.
VIII. As to the relations of his atonement to the race.
(a.) He died to save his own people: John x. 11; xv. 13;
Rom. v. 8; Eph. v. 25; Heb. ii. 13, 14; 1 John iii. 16.
(b.) For many: Matt. xx. 28; xxvi. 28; Heb. ix. 28.
(c.) To save the lost: Mark ii. 17; Matt. ix. 13; xviii. 11;
Luke v. 32; xix. 10.
(d.) For all, for the world. John i. 29; iii. 16; vi. 51; xii. 47;
2 Cor. v. 14, 15; 1 Tim. ii. 6; Heb. ii. 9; 1 John ii. 2.
IX. That what Christ did and suffered for us was under the
law in some sense, for some object to meet its claims.
1. He is represented as a sacrifice: this has no meaning un-
Fees under or in direct relation to demands of law.
2. He is represented as bearing the curse of the law: Gal. iii
13. What is the curse of the law but its penalty ?
3. He is represented as bearing sins: as bearing iniquity and
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 463
sin: the measure of these is the law; if Christ bore sin, it could
only be under the law: Isa. liii. 6, 12; 2 Cor. v. 21; Heb. ix. 28;
1 Pet. ii. 24. It is not enough to say, " Christ bore suffering in
consequence of sin:" this is not hermeneutically just.
4. That Christ's redeeming work was under the law is ex-
pressly asserted in Gal. iv. 4, 5.
5. His obedience was a fulfilling of the law: Rom. v. 18, 19;
x. 4; Phil. ii. 8; Heb. v. 8; Matt. v. 17 (where it\rjp^6ai. meana
not " to complete," but " to fulfil ").
X. Effect of what Christ did in relation to man.
1. Generally: He came as a Saviour, Deliverer, Redeemer:
Matt. i. 21; xviii. 11; John iii. 17; xii. 47; Acts iv. 12; Gal. iii.
13; Tit. ii. 13; 1 John iv. 14.
2. He took away sin: Matt. xxvi. 28; John i. 29; Acts v. 31;
xiii. 38; Col. i. 14; Eph. i. 7; Heb. i. 3; 1 John iii. 5.
3. Propitiation for sin: Rom. iii. 25; 1 John ii. 2; iv. 10.
4. Cleansing from sin : Eph. v. 25 ; Heb. xiii. 12 ; 1 John i. 7 ;
ftev. vii. 14.
5. Reconciliation: Heb. ii 17.
6. Justification: Acts xiii. 39; Rom. iii. 24; v. 9; Gal. ii. 17;
1 Cor. vi. 11.
7. The source of blessings to the universe: John xiv. 13;
Heb. ix". 15.
XI. In relation to God.
1. God's love is the ground : John iii. 16.
2. God's purpose plan in it: John iii. 17; Acts ii. 23; Rom.
iii. 25; viii. 32; 2 Cor. v. 21; Heb. x. 5-9.
3. The righteousness of God in it: Rom. iii. 25; 2 Cor. v. 21.
4. God gives Hirn as an offering: Isa. liii. 10; 2 Cor. v. 21.
5. Christ gives Himself as an offering: Eph. v. 2.
6. God reconciles us to himself through Christ: Rom. v. 11
(through whom we have now received the reconciliation); 2
Cor. v. 18, 19.
XII. Summary from this Scriptural analysis.
This gives us the revealed facts as to the nature and rela-
tions of Christ's atoning work no theory, no hypothesis only
an arrangement and array of the chief Scriptural assertions.
464 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
And it amounts to this, viz., that in Christ's death as a sacrifice
for our sins, He
1 Suffered and died for sin, in our stead, as a proper sacri
fice: that his were the vicarious, substituted sufferings of a
representative;
2. under the law, to answer the ends of the law, in some
way, in our stead;
3. in order to remove its curse from us ;
4. which was done by his substituted sufferings, death,
obedience ;
5. and which had further the effect of a propitiation, de-
claring God's righteousness and reconciling man to God.
CHAPTER V.
THE THEORY OF THE ATONEMENT.
PROPOSITION. The different (imperfect) theories of Christ's
atoning work give different aspects and relations of that work,
and are true in these aspects, while false in the implication or
assertion that these give the only or the ultimate point of view.
Classes of Theories.
1. Those which define the atonement ultimately by its in-
fluence in bringing man into a new, a regenerate state.
2. Those which affirm that the essence of the atonement con-
sists in the direct satisfaction of distributive justice.
3. The governmental theory: The atonement is a satisfaction
of general justice in the sense of expediency and Utilitarian-
ism having respect to happiness.
4 Those which affirm that it consists in the satisfaction of
general justice as holiness and that it incidentally satisfies
distributive justice.
1. Theories which define the Atonement ultimately by its In-
fluence on Man, in bringing to a Neio Life.
I. Christ's atonement consists in so setting forth, by exam
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 4()b
pie and instiuctions, the purity and excellency of the law, that
sinners are thereby moved to repentance and obedience.
Christ did this: this was necessary to the atonement: a high
moral end was answered by it. But the atonement did not con-
sist in this.
1. This fails to account for the emphasis laid on Christ's
death and sufferings.
2. It is inconsistent with the representation of his dying for
us, in our stead and for our sins: in short, with the idea of
sacrifice.
3. It is inconsistent with the included idea, that forgiveness
of sins is procured by and through Christ.
4. Christ's example and instruction are never said to redeem
and save us: Christ himself saves us by his atoning work: the
stress of Scripture is not on that, but on this: Scripture says less
of his life than of his death, in this relation*
II. The theory that the atonement is a symbolical, outward
exhibition of what occurs in each man, in turning to God.
(Kant, McLeod Campbell, in part.)
III. Christ's atonement is defined ultimately with respect
to regeneration, and it consisted in this: by his Incarnation, He
brought in a new life a divine-humanity which is imparted
to believers in regeneration. Suffering is incidental, and a
necessary incident to, an Incarnation of a holy being in a sinful
world. The world is arrayed against Him, and He suffers in
soul and in body, because it could not be otherwise with such
antagonisms. So Coleridge 1 and others substantially.
1 Robertson resolves the Atonement into a work of love. This law of life and
love was adopted consciously by Christ. Christ became voluntarily submissive
t ) this law of suffering. What Christ suffered was the suffering inflicted on Him
b sin because He was opposing it. Bushnell says, Christ by the law of love was
bound to do what He did. Coleridge, however, asserts a Godward as well as a man-
ward aspect, says that the Godward side is the essence of the Atonement, but that
it "is a spiritual and transcendent mystery which passeth all understanding."
Manward, the effect is, regeneration, being born anew : Christ is a quickening, life-
giving Spirit: there are four metaphors of this (compare Bushnell's "altar-forms"):
sin-offering, reconciliation, debt, ransom; all of which describe the effect, not the
nature, of the Atonement. McLeod Campbell: The Atonement is "the vicarious
confession of sins:" "To Christ alone Death had its perfect meaning as the
wages of sin for in Him alone was there full entrance into the mind of God tow-
ards sin." Rothe has a peculiar theory.
466 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
1. This theory is true in respect to one effect of the Incarna-
tion, viz., regeneration.
2. It is false, in denying the whole sacrificial character of
Christ's mediation.
3. It is false, in making the death and sufferings of Christ
merely incidental. Scripture makes these necessary and the
height of his work.
4. It is false, in making the source of these sufferings to be
the sinfulness and rage of man: Scripture represents them, in
part, as from God.
5. The theory thus fails to explain the Scriptural positions
exhibited in the preceding chapter.
6. It is not a theory of the Atonement, but of regeneration
as connected with the Incarnation: it resolves the proper woris
of the Spirit into the work of Christ; explains the nature of that
work by one of its remote effects as if one should explain the
sun's rays by the processes of germination through heat.
2. Theories which put the Essence of the Atonement in Satis-
faction to Distributive Justice.
I. The Mercantile or Quid pro quo Theory. The fundamental
image here is that of a debt and its satisfaction. The theory
asserts the strictest personal substitution. It embraces the fol-
lowing points:
1. Christ is the federal Head of the elect.
2. He took their law-place, their place under the law.
3. Sometimes it is said that He became really and personally
a sinner.
4. He paid the debt of the elect, by suffering just what dis-
tributive justice demanded of them.
5. He obeyed, in the same personal, distributive sense, the
law, for the elect.
6. So that the merits of his active and passive obedience are
directly imputed to the elect, over whom the law has no claima
Remarks.
(a.) Very few hold the theory in this extreme form.
(6.) It is thoroughly antinomiai?.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 467
(c.) It is inconsistent with proper pardon and grace. All is
legal.
(d.) Such a substitution in the way of strict distributive jus-
tice is morally impossible.
(e.) Christ did not and could not suffer the penalty as a sin
ner does, for He was not a sinner, and could not have remorse,
neither did He undergo eternal death.
(/) Up n tQ i s theory, the Atonement is not something sub-
stituted for the deserved penalty of the individual, but simply
the suffering of that penalty by another. 1
II. The modified satisfaction theory. This is the satisfac-
tion theory with its objectionable features removed. It reduces
to general statements what is particular in the mercantile theory
It disregards the distinction between distributive and public jus-
tice. It insists, most properly, that the atonement is a proceed-
ing under the divine law: not a device outside of the law, to
exert moral influence, or uphold the authority of government.
It has respect to law and to the ethical nature of God, which is
the source of law, and so it meets the needs of the ethical na-
ture of man.
This theory maintains that Christ's satisfaction was
1. Legal: rendered to the law and justice of God.
2. Complete, adequate: it had an intrinsic value and suffi-
ciency to the end, i. e., to the propitiation of the ethical nature
of God, and meeting the law's demands.
3. That it consisted in the perfect obedience and the suffer-
ings of his whole life.
4. That it was strictly vicarious for us and our redemption
was not at any point exclusively for himself.
* Anselm was the chief advocate of the satisfaction theory. He considered the
last ground of the Atonement to be the divine justice requiring an infinite equiv-
alent for the infinite guilt of sin, that there was a necessity for it founded in the
infinite nature of God. Abelard, on the other hand, maintained that the Atone
ment exhibits the free grace of God, which, by kindling love in the breast of man,
blots out sin, and with sin its guilt. Baur, Versb'hnungsl. 195. His view, as ex-
pounded by Aquinas in contrast with Duns Scorus (Kedemption not connected with
the sufferings of Christ ex insito valore, sed ex divina acceptilaiione), was main-
tained bv the Keformers, and afterwards the mercantile form of the theory was
developed.
468 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
5. But the penalty of the law cannot be met as its preceptive
demands can. What we owed to the precept was of debt, and it
makes no difference who pays a debt, whether the debtor or some
one else, no difference whether we obeyed or Christ for us. What
his obedience merited, viewed as rendering what the law demands
in respect to conformity, is paid. Bat the penalty for disobedience
cannot be settled by anybody. Distributive justice forbids. The
demand is not only for a penalty, but that the guilty person shall
bear it. How then are we to bring Christ's substituted sufferings
under the strictest idea of distributive justice, and show that the
law is satisfied in its demand for the execution of the penalty?
The theory virtually says, This cannot be done: there must be here
a relaxation of the law. The Sovereign Lawgiver can graciously
accept what He sees 1 to be of equivalent value to the honor
of the law and the satisfaction of his own ethical nature. Thus
antinomianism is avoided. As the Lawgiver is not bound to
accept the substitute for penalty as He would be the payment
for debt, He may prescribe what terms of acceptance He pleases.
The claim of law is not satisfied until the conditions on which
the Lawgiver accepts substitution are complied with: hence,
not until faith and repentance. Moreover, upon faith and re-
pentance pardon is given, and the believer is brought into a
justified state.
Remark:
It is doubtful whether the forms of statement of the mercan-
tile or extreme satisfaction theory should be retained when so
much of its substance has been abandoned. The theory insists
that Christ made satisfaction to the law or justice of God, ful-
filling in our behalf all that the law required in order to accept-
ance; further, that it is necessary to punish sin in the person
of the offender; and says that this is the only view of divine
justice which can be heid. Yet it also adopts the statement that
penalty does not designate either the nature or degree of suffer-
ings, but the kind, and explains that it is the design of the suf-
1 [He does see the equivalent value. Dr. A. A. Hodge, Outlines (Eev. Ed.)
414, gives a careful statement: Christ " suffered precisely that kind and degree and
duration of pain which divine wisdom, interpreting divine justice, required in a
divine person suffering vicariously the penalty of human sin."]
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 469
ferings their relation to the law of God which makes them
penal. In this the theory is right, but in putting the matter
thus, it makes God's justice to be something other than what is
strictly distributive. It brings into view the ends of the law,
the defign of the penalty. In securing that through the sub-
stituted death of Christ, the design of the death denounced by
the law upon sinners shall be fully attained, God's essential jus-
tice is satisfied; but the strictest distributive justice is not sat-
isfied, seeing that as regards that, " the law is relaxed." The
theory is involved in a degree of confusion by insisting that
there are only two positions with regard to the divina justice,
that of distributive justice and the governmental view which
is made to have respect to expediency, to happiness. Thus
it is said, or implied, that the whole of real, essential justice is
seen in distributive justice.
3. Theories which assert that the Atonement consists in the Sat-
isfaction of General Justice, viewing this as having reference to
happiness or expediency, in maintaining the authority of the di-
vine government.
The peculiarity of this class of theories is, the assertion that,
the Atonement meets certain exigencies of moral government,
in distinction from satisfying law. Law is understood in the in-
dividual, personal sense, exclusively.
I. The atonement is designed to produce a moral impres-
sion, not on each individual, but on the universe, to be a sub-
sti-tute for punishment, to honor, not satisfy, the law, to set
forth the truths that God is holy and must manifest his holi-
ness, to exhibit his holiness and hatred of sin. In Grotius, De
$atisfactione, against Socinus, the Atonement is viewed as de-
signed to secure certain governmental not legal ends. 1 The
Arminian position : The Atonement is designed to make it consist-
ent to offer salvation on easier terms terms of *' evangelical
obedience" there is no proper satisfaction.
This is usually, now, associated with the expediency or happi-
ness theories of ethics. (See II.)
1 Cf. in Bib. Sac., April, '52, from Baur. Grotius re tains orthodox phraseology
hut is claimed on the Socinian side (Bib. Fr. Pol.).
470 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Remarks:
1. The theory denies: (a.) That satisfaction is rendered to,
or made under, the divine law, in any form or way; (6.) That sin
deserves punishment. 1
2. The theory fails: (a.) To give a legitimate sense to Priest-
hood, Sacrifice : says, they are figurative ; (b.) To show how Christ's
sufferings and death manifest God's love of holiness and hatred
of sin; (c.) To give a satisfactory account of justification.
3. It is not a theory: it is a mere assertion of the facts of the
case, in an unsatisfactory form.
II. The proper governmental theory. 2
" Justice ... is ... a benevolent disposition on his [God'sj
part to maintain, by the requisite means, his authority as the
necessary condition of the highest happiness of his kingdom." 8
"Atoning justice" " involves a particular disposition to maintain
his authority by means of an atonement." 4
Remarks:
1. This rests on the happiness, expediency theory of morals.
2. Gods authority, as the Moral Governor, is maintained by
legal sanctions: but lioio that authority is maintained by an
Atonement is not shown.
3. The atonement, upon this view, has respect to others, but
not to God; it is designed to maintain authority for the good,
t. e., the happiness, of the universe.
4. The Atonement, ivJiile it indirectly satisfies Distributive Jus-
tice, does not consist in this: it consists in satisfying the Demands of
Public Justice, meaning by that the divine holiness or the holi-
ness of the law, i. e., what the divine holiness sets before itself
as the chief end of the universe, or that which is the end of the
requirement of the law.
In the statements which follow, it is not proposed to give a
1 Not that it is not intrinsically odious and ill-desert ng, but if governmental
reasons do not require its punishment, there is no necessity of punishing.
2 I. e. , as that term has been employed in the theological controversies of this
country.
3 Dr. N. W. Taylor, Lectures, ii. 282.
Ib., ii. 283.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 471
complete theory of the Atonement, but to offer some hints which
may show what the extreme theories are, and which may sug-
gest some points of agreement.
I. Moral Government arid Moral Law cannot properly be
sundered here.
In the popular and even in the scholastic discussions, the
Law of God is often taken and defined, solely from and in view
of its relations to, and its demands on, individuals, and their
personal merit and demerit that is, its whole scope is said to
be fulfilled, its end reached, by the infliction of penalty on the
disobedient, or the conferring of reward on the obedient. The
law taken in this sense it is said, must be fulfilled to the
letter. On this basis, and with these definitions, many have
said, In the Atonement the demands of law are not and cannot
be satisfied strictly: the Atonement is not a legal transaction.
Then, because it is seen that if the whole of moral government
and moral law is simply the carrying out of distributive justice,
the Atonement, which is substitutionary, cannot be brought
under such government and law, ground has often been taken
which logically results in the position that the Atonement is
not under moral government or law at all. Adhering to the
position that the whole of moral government is in and by moral
law, addressed to each individual's conscience and will, many
who would be classed with the "New Schools" of American
theology have involved themselves in the position, that while
the atonement is an expedient of moral government, while it
manifests God's holiness and hatred of sin, it is nevertheless a
transaction out of the strictly moral administration of God. It
has been said that "the satisfaction of divine justice is merely
an established phrase," and that the whole theory of the Atone-
ment is that "it satisfies general justice," in the sense that it is
the expression of, and provides for giving realization to, God's
disposition to secure the highest and purest happiness of the
universe.
In opposition to this the points to be maintained are: (a.) The
Atonement is under moral government and under moral Jaw.
(b.) A moral government is one which is administered by mora]
472 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
law. Moral government is government by moral law. (c.) Ae
there is no procedure on the part of God in his dealings with
his intelligent universe that does not come within his moral
government least of all would the greatest of transactions, the
Atoning Sacrifice of his Son. (d.) His moral law, which is the
expression of what his holiness demands, both in the universe
as a whole and in each individual, is in force at every point
of his government, and must be met and " satisfied " in its re-
quirements.
II. But Moral Law has two main ends.
1. To secure the supremacy of holiness of holy love 1 in
the universe; this is the generic end.
2. To furnish the rule for individuals moral agents exact-
ing conformity to that generic end. 2 This rule is carried out
in distributive justice, in rendering to each according to his deeds.
Here, only personal obedience with the accompaniment of re-
ward, and disobedience, with penalty, can be considered. If it
is insisted that the Atonement satisfies, directly, the law and
justice of God, in this sense, we are driven either to Anti-
aomianism or to " a relaxation " of the demands of law, such as
we have in the modified satisfaction theory.
3. Distributive Justice is subservient to General or Public
Justice: only it must always be understood that general justice
is the real, essential justice of God, that which requires the su-
premacy of holiness in the universe, and not merely that which
seeks to procure the greatest happiness.
4. Hence, if General Justice is fully, directly, gloriously sat-
isfied, Distributive Justice is really and entirely, though inci-
dentally, satisfied.
III. Of the Divine Holiness as related to the Divine Law.
1. The divine law is an expression of the divine holiness:
the securing and maintaining of that holiness is the end of the
divine government; the law is given to secure that end: all
other divine procedures tend to that end.
Divine holiness is a mode of the divine love: viz., Love
' See Lectures on the Nature of True Virtue.
2 "Be ye holy, for I am holy."
THE KEDEMPTION ITSELF. 473
seeks to communicate all good : holiness is, and seeks the
highest moral good = rectitude, of moral beings. Divine love
is, supremely, love of holiness God's own and that of all
others.
2. To secure this end, viz., manifesting and establishing the
divine holiness, the law has its sanctions, chiefly rewards and
penalties. These ore not its ends, but means to its end. To es-
tablish and maintain holiness moral rectitude is the final end
or object of the divine law, is its grand, ultimate end. In this
is the highest good of rational and moral beings.
The law demands personal obedience, and punishes dis-
obedience, in order to holiness. The punishment of the individ-
ual cannot be the final object of the divine government, the divine
holiness: it is final in the case of the impenitent, as far as their
destiny is concerned, but in relation to God, it is not an absolute
end, but a mode of manifesting the divine holiness.
3. Hence, in this discussion, holiness, moral government, and
law are three modes of the same thing: the law having a two-
fold end in view, or, as we may say, the same end undei a
two-fold aspect: the first great end, to manifest and establish
the divine holiness; the second, a subordinate means thereto,' the
personal demands on individuals of their obedience, with re-
ward or if disobedient, of their righteous punishment.
4 Hence, too, the justice which is satisfied in the Atonement
cannot be of a different kind from justice in general: it is the
true, holy justice of God, that which requires the maintenance
of the supremacy of holiness. It cannot be resolved into ex-
pediency, nor into Utilitarianism, nor into the good of the whole
(as happiness) ; but it is that justice which the Law is designed
t enthrone.
IV. The Relation of Christ's Atonement to the End of the
Law.
1. Atonement rests generally on the idea of mediation: ita
most general aspect is that of a mediation between God and
man. The whole mystery of the Incarnation is involved.
2. It rests on the idea of substitution in a moral sense:
474 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
under God's moral government, one, such a One, may stand
and transact for, instead of, others. Here is the mystery of
Kedeinption by God. If it is not a transaction under moral
government, there is no sense in it: if it is not essentially moral,
a part of moral administration then what is it? And if tho
whole of moral government be in and by law, then the Atone-
ment must be under the law. And if the whole of moral gov-
ernment is not by and through law what is moral government? l
3. The Atonement being thus a substitution, from the very
nature of the case it is something done and secured under the
law something which is instead of, which takes the place of,
what the sinner deserved. This is the very idea of substitution,
that not the thing itself is presented, but something else some-
thing which answers the same purpose.
As soon, therefore, as terms are defined, it is impossible to
call the Atonement a matter of pure distributive justice, because
that has respect ultimately and solely to personal desert merit
and demerit. (Yet, as we have urged, distributive justice is
satisfied in the sense that all the ends which it was intended to
secure are met: for the believer, all penal claims are cancelled.)
But it does not follow from this that the Atonement is not a
proper transaction under the divine moral government, under
moral law, a manifestation of the demands of the divine holiness
and justice unless all these terms are restricted to the narrow
sense of distributive justice.
That the Atonement is under God's moral government no
one will contest, however some may take positions which might
load logically to the denial of it. That moral government is in
and by moral law, is certainly true and undeniable. So the
Atonement must be under the law, and that, too, has been
[There is, however, this statement made elsewhere by the author: Moral gov-
ernment is to be taken not in the sense of an administration by pure law, but in
the sense of all the means and instrumentalities which are used to secure the
ends of that government. "Pure law," here, evidently means: law as the pub-
lished rule of action with its sanctions, issuing in strict distributive justice. In
tho text, "law" rather means: the whole requirement of the divine holiness, cov-
ering all procedures in God's moral government.]
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 475
proved from Scripture. That it was not under the law in the
sense of distributive justice, seems plain: it cannot be, if the
standard definitions of that justice be adhered to. What remains
then? It is necessary to say either, that it is out ot the moral
sphere altogether or else, that it is a transaction which answers
the same grand ends as are intended to be answered by distrib-
utive justice, but in a different way.
4. What, then, are the ends answered by distributive justice,
and how does the sacrifice made by Christ secure these ends?
(a.) The ends answered by distributive justice are: the sus-
taining and showing God's supreme regard to holiness, which
He does by demanding the obedience, and punishing the dis-
obedience, of each and all his moral subjects. Punishment, i. e.,
suffering for transgression, is demanded on two grounds: (1) as
the just desert of personal transgression ; (2) to answer the ends
of public justice: penalty relates to both: Atonement has respect
not to the first, but to the second.
(&.) Christ, in his atoning work, answers these same ends:
(1) As He is our Mediator as by his Incarnation, life, and death,
He stands and is in our stead, instead of the whole race; (2)
More specifically, as, standing in our stead, in our place, under
the law, for us, He obeyed and suffered in our stead; (3) Still
more specifically, as his obedience and death in our stead answer
the ends of public justice show God's supreme love of holiness
and hatred of sin since it is thus manifest that only a perfect
obedience and suffering for disobedience can answer the ends of
the divine government. That is, the obedience of each and all
individuals is demanded, in order to the satisfaction of the
divine holiness. Instead of this, we having failed in obedience,
and being subject to penalty, Christ in our stead, in stead of the
demands on each and all, does and suffers what answers the
same, the identical ends. What He did and suffered is not the
same in kind or degree, but the same in essence, nature, and in
its relation to the end or design of the divine government or
law. Are Christ's sufferings penalty, then ? Not in the sense
that distributive justice was meted out to Him, but in the wider
476 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
sense, in which penalty includes suffering under the law, to
show God's displeasure at sin in the sense in which suffering
is demanded to answer the. ends of public justice, which is
holiness.
V. Yet while making these statements as demanded by the
Scriptures, and as not against reason, we must still say, that
there is a background of mystery in the Atonement, as well a in
the Incarnation, and in the Atonement in connection with th<.
Incarnation, which no man can fully fathom, which has not been,
and was not meant to be, fully revealed.
The view given above answers the question, what is the
relation between what Christ did and the demands of holiness,
which the mere governmental view does not: it does not answer
the ultimate metaphysical question, hoiv?
So to speak, the whole ontology and physiology of the sys-
tem of Redemption is not disclosed. It is a theological rather
than an ethical system : it is religious a system of divine re-
alities up to which our theories of moral government do not
reach. It is not a merely moral government at all; 1 it is that,
and more, profoundly more.
VI. In general we may say this: Partial theories of the
Atonement give different aspects of the comprehensive truth.
1. The Atonement of Christ does produce the highest sub-
jective moral impression : but the ground of the impression is,
that we see in it our guilt and the divine holiness; this is the
source of the impressiveness.
2. It also has one of its ends in our regeneration: but it
ehows how, in regeneration, sin and guilt are taken away, and
God's favor is insured. Regeneration is grounded in our union
with Christ. The giving of new life is grounded in the Incar-
nation and the Atonement.
1 [The author elsewhere gives it as his judgment, that an ethical system like
that which Edwards had in view, covering all the points of the revealed system,
would make ethics and theology to be identical, and he asserts, as is seen in this
discussion, that in siich a large sense, the divine government is moral throughout.
The statement in the text must be taken to mean, that the divine government ia
not to be measured and judged in all its scope by any human theory of ethics j
that it all comes, in a divinely perfect way, under the ultimate idea of Bight,
would be strenuously asserted by him.]
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 477
3. It also symbolizes the inward transaction the death to
Bin and living unto God in affecting and eloquent language:
but the essence of that transaction is in the reconciliation of the
soul, its pardon, justification ; and that the Atonement sets forth.
4. A moral impression is made upon the universe, by what
Christ does, which God accepts: but the Atonement gives also
the means by which this impression is produced.
5. The Atonement "renders it consistent for God to pardon
sin and bestow infinite blessings upon those who had committed
sin." It "satisfies general justice " in the sense of benevolence:
it secures the highest "good "of the universe, viewed as true
happiness as well as holiness. But the true theory points out
the specific mode: it shows the ligament between the two things
sacrifice and pardon.
6. Also, the view we have indicated shows that God's justice
is satisfied. Moreover, all his other attributes are satisfied, in
the sense of having here the most glorious exercise and mani-
festation. The view shows how distributive justice is satisfied,
while it lets grace abound.
7. It allows fully, for pardon, for grace, to each. Grace pro-
vided the way. Each sinner who comes to Christ is pardoned
in and through grace. Distributive justice might still take its
course: to all out of Christ, it does: it is satisfied only for those
in Christ.
8. It is a view reconcilable with the offers of salvation to all.
9. It does not make it obligatory to save any but believers,
and the obligation to them is of grace. 1
10. Universalism is not in it: for the simple reason, that it
makes union with Christ necessary to salvation.
NOTE. The real difference between the two chief parties to the controversy on
this matter is on these points: (1) Is distributive justice the whole of the justice,
ihe law, the holiness, the moral government of God, in relation to man? (2) la
ih<* end of the divine government holiness or happiness? Or, is it holiness or
something else ? In other words, Does general justice (= public justice, real,
essential justice) have ultimate respect to holiness or happiness? If general
justice is taken to be, essentially, holiness, and to have supreme respect to that,
there is no need of controversy.
1 The obligation is contracted through grace: the covenant is a gracious "prom
iac suspended upon conditions. '*
478 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
CHAPTER VI.
THE EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT.
1. Statement of the Question.
It is: Did Christ die for all men or only for the elect? Some
who contend for the latter position differ among themse ves: a
part insisting that the sufficiency and efficiency of the Atone-
ment are identical, that Christ suffered what the elect deserved
and only that: others taking the ground that the Atonement
is sufficient for all, yet made only for the elect, that only the
provision for them was in God's design, that the sufficiency for
others is simply incidental. There are also differences among
the advocates of a General Atonement. Lutherans: Christ died
to make such satisfaction that God could offer salvation to all.
Election is denied. Arminians: that God might offer salvation
to all on the ground of a less strict obedience. This also denies
election. Others: to prevent the evils of mere pardon, to sustain
the authority of a beneficent government. This allows election.
There may be points of agreement:
(1) As to the nature of the Atonement; (2) As to its suffi-
ciency and universal applicability; (3) As to its actual applica-
tion to believers only, or, leaving out of view Lutherans and
Arminians, to the elect only.
To the question, then, Did Christ come into the world, suffer
and die, solely for the elect? the theory of Limited Atonement
replies: That was the sole design: all other objects effected
thereby are not of the design, but incidental; the truth of Gen-
eral Atonement says: The Atonement made by Christ is made
for all mankind, is such in nature and design, that God can save
all men, consistently with the demands of holiness, on condition
of faith and repentance.
Explanations:
1. The distinction is to be made between Atonement and
Redemption. Atonement is the provision.
2 4 The design of the Atonement was to save the elect, but not
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 479
merely to save them ; it was also designed to impart some bless-
ings to the whole world, and to make the offer of salvation and
the duty of accepting Christ urgent upon all who hear.
3. Not that it was actually designed to be applied to all, but
to some.
4. Not that it is consistent with all the interests of the divine
government for God actually to save all, but consistent with
the demands of penal justice.
5. The Atonement, as such, does not save any.
2. Proof of General Atonement
1. The key-passage is 1 Tim. iv. 10.
2. God oifers salvation to all men : therefore it has been pro-
vided for all.
Isa. xlv. 22; Iv. 1-3; Matt. xi. 28-30; Rev. iii. 20; xxii. 17.
It is sometimes said that the meaning is: "Some among all
classes" or "in all lands." But (a.) this is an unscriptural dis-
tinction; (b.) we do not know that the offer, in the sense of "ef-
fectual calling," is made to "some in all" these cases: (c.) the
sincerity of God is here at stake : He offers to all a salvation
which He has not provided for all.
3. Special guilt is ascribed to those who reject the atonement.
Matt, xxiii. 37; Luke xiv. 17; John iii. 19; Acts vii. 51.
4. Scripture declares the Atonement to be for all.
John i. 29; iii. 17; xii. 47; 1 Tim. ii. 6; 2 Cor. v. 14, 15;
Heb. ii. 9; 1 John ii. 2.
5. All men receive some benefits from the atonement,
(a.) The offer of eternal life, to many non-elect.
(&.) The knowledge of the divine plan and ways,
(c.) The continuance of probation and many temporal bless-
ings.
6. There is an argument for General Atonement ex concessis.
It is conceded to be "sufficient" for all: then it was designed
to be so: then, it is consistent for God to offer and if to offer,
then to grant, on conditions. To the question, " Is it sufficient
then for fallen angels ? " the obvious reply is, Christ did not come
for them*
480 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
7. Some special arguments.
(1) The parallel between Adam and Christ, Rorn. v. .18
(2) Christ lays down His life for some not saved. Rom. xiv. 1 5 ;
I Cor. viii. 11; Heb. x. 29; 2 Pet. ii. 1.
(3) From the connection of truths, (a.) From the view it
gives of the glorious character of the divine government. God,
the God of grace. (6.) From the effects of the doctrine on men
the high moral influence, (c.) From the view it gives of the
final condemnation of the lost. God's mercy provided a way:
they refuse: their condemnation is just resisting grace, (d.)
Christ's relations to the universe are consistent only with General
Atonement.
3. Objections to General Atonement.
1. It supposes different and inconsistent purposes in God.
Not so : one purpose is, to make the salvation of all possi-
ble ; another is, to save some ; what inconsistency ?
2. God makes provision for an end, which He determines
never to effect.
Not so: God makes provision to make the salvation of all
men possible.
3. It is inconsistent with the doctrine of election.
Not, if election is on this basis. The condemnation at
least of some non-elect is, in part, on the ground of refusal.
4. The divine holiness demands the salvation of all for whom
provision is made.
Not if other good reasons forbid.
5. The Scripture says, Christ died to save his people.
It also says, Christ died for the whole world. Christ's special
design does not exclude a more general design. To say, Christ
came to save, redeem, deliver, sanctify his people, is most
certainly true, but is, in this argument, a petitio principii; it
assumes that Christ in his work had only one design. The doo-
trine of General Atonement does not assert that the purpose of
God in Christ's death had equal respect to the elect and the non-
elect, in the sense that God intended to apply it equally.
6. From the union of Christ and his people. All that Christ
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 481
did, it is said, He did for those who are united to Him by
faith.
This is most true, but is irrelevant here. The doctrine of
General Atonement does not assert that all that Christ did
and does, He does for all mankind.
CHAPTER VII.
THE INTERCESSION OF CHRIST
Here we make the transition to the Third main Division ot
Theology. The Intercession of Christ has both a Priestly and a
Royal side.
I. The general view : the super-historical l relation of Christ
to the world.
When earthly heroes, patriots, statesmen, poets, orators, phi-
losophers, philanthropists, and even saints pass away, from the
scenes of their wars, their sacrifices, their counsels, their elo-
quence, their wisdom, their beneficence, or their spiritual con
flicts, they leave behind them, it may be, a lasting memory and
an imperishable renown; but they themselves are taken away
from all conscious and direct and living intercourse even with
their dearest friends and their most devoted adherents. Imagi-
nation and memory may linger upon their words; their praises
may be rehearsed in eulogies and song; their image may be
recalled by sculpture, by painting, and in poetry; their deeds
may be transmitted from sire to son in a long and grateful tra-
dition ; their lives may even be depicted as an embodiment and
summary of the whole century in which they lived, and thus
handed down from generation to generation. But their living,
personal presence is neither felt nor known, unless it be in the
mere fancy of some materializing spiritualist, confounding the
fiction of a disordered imagination with the facts of a supernat-
ural sphere.
1 See Martensen, Dogm., p. 365.
482 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
But in startling contrast with all others, we find that a be-
lief in the real and living presence of Christ, after his departure
from the world, remains the constant heritage of his church.
We come to Him daily, as to a Personal Friend, for succor, for
wisdom, and for strength. His Presence, at the right hand of
the Majesty on high, greets the eye of faith, as it looks upward.
In the hour of contest, of anguish, of death, we see that loving
eye, we lean upon that mighty arm. We have not an High
Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
Our Advocate is not deaf to our petitions. If any man sin, we
have an Advocate, a Paraclete, with the Father. In that He
suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are
tempted. He is able to save to the uttermost all that come
unto God by Him, seeing that He ever liveth to make interces-
sion for them. Between the Christian and death the wages
of sin is the divine Deliverer: between the Christian and God
is the divine Mediator: and who then shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect, seeing it is Christ who maketh intercession
for them?
It is this loving care and presence of the God-man, this con-
stant activity for his kingdom, which is denoted in Scripture
and handed down in the faith of the church, as his Intercession.
His work of Intercession is that of a King to whom our souls
have been committed, as well as that of a Priest by whom our
sins have been expiated.
II. The Qualifications of Christ for this work.
His nature is allied to God and knit with ours in inseparable
bonds.
His sacrifice alone is the basis of his moving petitions.
His dignity gives them their authority.
By his rights they are made effectual.
Only He is qualified so to intercede, that his intercession
shall be always effectual, and for all, and for each thing that
He may ask. He alone, the only-begotten Son who is in the
bosom of the Father, knows the very mind of God, and knows
the Father as the Father knoweth Him.
He, the High Priest, holy, harmless, and undefiled, can inter-
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 483
cede with perfect holiness, so that no earthly desire shall mar
the purity of his request.
He can stand before the eternal, holy Majesty, as Sponsor
and Advocate, having satisfied the divine justice, and thus
transferred the sovereignty of justice into a sovereignty of love.
His work of intercession can be coextensive with the race
and with the utmost stretch of history. He can intercede for
all men, in all times, for barbarian and Scythian, bond and free,
for the lettered and the rude, for the prince on his throne, for
the savage in his forest, for the patriarchs and prophets of the
old dispensation, for the apostles, martyrs, and heralds of the
new. His intercession is as eternal and unchangeable as the
priesthood on which it is based, and as the kingdom in which
his regal petitions are the sum of all other prayers, and give
their virtue to all other forms of interceding. He ever liveth
to make intercession.
There arises from all parts of the world, at the morning and
the evening, and through the labors of the day, a perpetual in-
cense of adoration and of petition ; it contains the sum of the
deepest wants of the human race, in its fears and hopes, its
anguish and thankfulness; it is laden with sighs, with tears,
with penitence, with faith, with submission; the broken heart,
the bruised spirit, the stifled murmur, the ardent hope, the
haunting fear, the mother's darling wish, the child's simple
prayer: all the burdens of the soul, all wants and desires, no-
where else uttered, meet together in that sound of many voices,
which ascends into the ears of the Lord God of hosts. And
mingled with all these cravings and utterances is one other
voice, one other prayer, their symphony, their melody, their
accord deeper than all these, tenderer than all these, mightier
than all these the tones of One who knows us better than we
know ourselves, and who loves us better than we love ourselves
and who brings all these myriad fragile petitions into one
prevalent intercession, purified by his own holiness, and the
hallowing power of his work.
III. In what does his Intercession consist ?
1. His Intercession, in its largest sense, may be said to con
484 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
sist in all his agency, at the right hand of the Father, foi the
final and complete redemption of man. Whatever He does, on
the basis of his sacrifice, now and ever, in the way of mediation
between God and man, is comprised in this intercession, taken
in its fullest scope. It consists not in words alone, but also in
deeds : his succor, his pity, his care, his love for each and all his
followers ; his guardianship in the hour of temptation, his aid in our
spiritual conflicts, his grace imparted according to our need, the
balm of his consolation, his strength in our weakness, the answers
to all prayers put up in his name: all belong to, and make a part
of, his intercession.
2. We need not be embarrassed by the suggestion, that be-
cause He is one with God, therefore to talk of intercession is as
if we spoke of a man's interceding with himself. For even between
the divine Persons of the Trinity, there is doubtless converse as
well as community; communion as well as oneness; converse in
thought and reciprocity in love. Moreover, all these acts of in-
tercession are in Christ's human nature and in his mediatorial
office; they belong to Him as the God-man, and the federal head
of the race ; so that there is no more difficulty about conceiving
of the Intercession, than of the Incarnation, in connection with
the Divinity of Christ.
3. From its very nature the Intercession has a two-fold aspect
and relation; it looks both Godward and man ward; it is for us
and is unto God. It embraces in its comprehensive scope what-
ever pertains to the application of redemption. 1 Thereby our
imperfect prayers are made perfect; our daily transgressions
pardoned; our penitence is made available; our feeble desires
for holiness are enlivened; our faith is emboldened; our weak-
ness is strengthened; our darkness illumined; our righteousness
made blameless; our sanctification insured. And so, in this In-
tercession, we have a constant and living access to the Father,
by that new and living way. The mere sense of duty disquiets
v us as we think of our sins; the power of philosophy reaches
1 Schneckenburger, Christologie, pp. 124, 129, thinks it would not embrace,
strictly speaking, the regeneration itself, but all that belongs to the perseverance
and sanctification of the children of God.
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 485
chiefly to the discipline of the intellect; we may strive even for
sanctification, and if it is in our strength, the striving reveals to
us chiefly our sinfulness and weakness. But when we think of
Christ as a living and personal Intercessor, duty in Him becomes
persuasive, truth vivid to the heart, and sanctification a reality
and a power; we know then what He meant when He said, For
their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified
through the truth.
IV. How is Christ's Intercession conducted ?
1. According to Heb. viii. 1, and ix. 24, the eternal reality
of Christ's sacrifice is found in the procedures in heaven, and
not merely in the transactions of earth. As a Priest, He offers
the sacrifice in the outer court, on this foot-stool of earth, and
then goes within, to the Holiest, into heaven itself, there to ap-
pear in our behalf before the face of the Father; and this is his
Intercession. There is one sacrifice, once for all; yet also a con-
stant Interceder.
2. He intercedes as our High Priest, and therefore still
clothed upon with his human nature. In that very human
nature which allies Him with all of us, making Him our elder
brother, and the consummation and crown of humanity, in that
human nature, spotless though fiercely tempted, holy though
weighed down by the burden of others' sins, victorious though
crushed by Jewish hatred and Pagan power and the devil's mal-
ice and wiles, most glorious when wearing the crown of thorns,
most triumphant when nailed to the accursed tree in that very
nature, raised from the dead and ascended to the right hand
of the Majesty on high, He appears as our Advocate before
the Father's throne the Lamb slain from the foundation of the
world, making intercession for us. He is an everliving High
Priest, though exalted to rule and to reign.
3. The representation of Him as an Advocate is taken from
the forms of human tribunals, where the accused appears by his
attorney, who, it is supposed, can plead his cause better than He
can himself. We have an example of his Intercession in John
xvii., where we see the objects which are sought, the grounds on
which they are asked for, and the confidence with which the pleas
486 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
are made. The plea reaches its culmination in the utterance.
Father, I will 1 that they also whom thou hast given me be with
me where I am. Here the right which He has acquired and
which is most freely accorded in fulfilment of -the eternal coun-
sel of the Father, comes into view; and here, too, He touches the
deepest and loftiest aspiration of the redeemed soul : to be with
Christ, to see his glory, to gaze upon the reality the archetypes
of all our hopes, the substance of our faith, the Person of our
Lord.
4. Does He, then, plead and ask in words, in speech as we
do one to another? The only answer that can be given is that
He pleads in celestial places arid with celestial speech. If it is
not like our speech, it is because it is better and truer; if it is not
in mortal tones, it is with immortal meaning: if not articulate
in the air, it is articulated in the very plan of God; if not ex-
pressed in sentences, it is wrought into the counsels of the Fa-
ther of all.
5. Does He plead minutely, for each and every need and
gracious blessing? We might ask in reply: Does God's provi-
dence feed the ravens; does divine beauty clothe the lilies; does
infinite wisdom number the very hairs of our head? And is
grace less careful than providence? Does redemption extend
to the whole man, and the whole life to body, soul, and spirit;
who then will put limits to the prayers of our Great Advocate ?
6. Is his prayer limited by ours, repeating only what we utter?
This is to ask, Does Christ know us, only as we know ourselves?
Alas for us if this be so. He asks for what we need, and not for
what we vainly wish. We ask for prosperity, and our Advocate
asks that we may have prosperity through adversity. We ask
for more light, and He interprets our petition aright and implores
that we may be refined in the fire. We ask for day while it is
yet midnight, and He gives us not yet day but songs in the
night.
V. The Fruits of his Intercession.
These are to be considered in the Third Division of Theology.
They consist of Justification, Kom. viii. 33, 34; the Adoption of
1 John xvii. 24,
THE REDEMPTION ITSELF. 48?
sons, Rom. viii. 15; the boldness of access to the throne of a holy
God, Heb. x. 19; the daily cleansing from sin, 1 John ii. 2; anrl
the whole direction of our affairs unto sanctification and com-
plete redemption, 1 Cor. i. 30.
SUMMARY OF THE SECOND DIVISION AND TRANSITION TO THE THIRD.
We have seen in this Division, that the ancient history of
our race pointed to Christ, and the modern has received its law
from Him ; that the insignia of divine power and the best human
influence attended his earthly career; that He has enlarged
and purified our views both of human nature and of God, and
of the intimate alliance between the two; that He was fitted as
God-man for the solution of the greatest problem of our destiny,
and by his death reconciled us to God ; that, having conquered
death, He now, in his glorified humanity, gives the most blessed
and sure hopes to all who trust in Him, that they too shall be
like Him, and thus robs death of its sting and eternity of its
awful forebodings, delivering us from the fear even of our last
enemy. Jesus Christ, the God-man, is the center of a grand and
real economy which is within the world, and above the world,
and reaches out beyond the world ; all the great points in the
history arid destiny of the race are made to converge in Him, so
that the central truth of his Person is seen to be the center of
the whole divine economy. And thus it appears that the In-
carnation in its practical bearings is as wonderful as it is in its
inherent sublimity: for the most comprehensive of purposes is
thus seen to be vitally connected with the most comprehensive
of doctrines. These practical bearings are now to be considered
in the Third Division of the system.
DIVISION THIRD.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION.
DIVISION THIRD. .
THE KINGDOM OF EEDEMPTION.
We have divided Christian theology into three parts: The
Antecedents of Redemption ; The Redemption Itself; The Con
sequents of Redemption. But there is a better, a more Scriptural,
title for this last part, which we here adopt. And before pro-
ceeding to the outlines of discussion on the topics which belong
to this Division, we shall bring together some statements as to
the general nature of that KINGDOM OP GOD which Christ is carry-
ing forward according to the counsel and will of the Eternal
Father, and through the immediate agency of the Divine Spirit.
In this last part of theology, we are especially to emphasize the
Work of Christ applied ~by the Holy Spirit in bringing man anew
into the union with God which he has forfeited by sin. This
part contemplates God in Christ as renewing and sanctifying
man and bringing him into a new kingdom, through the work
of the Holy Spirit. The general underlying idea of this part of
the system of theology is that of a union between Christ and
the believer, through the work of the Holy Spirit. By the su-
pernatural influences of the Divine Spirit, man is united to Christ
and through Christ to God. The union between Christ and the
believer is the fundamental conception.
The whole of this Third Division would comprise three main
parts: I. The Union between Christ and the believer as effected
by the Holy Spirit; II. The Union between Christ and the
Church. The Doctrine of the Church and the Sacraments.
III. The Consummation of the Kingdom of Redemption in time
and eternity; or The Eschatology of the system.
Here we have come to the proper place for giving to the
492 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Kingdom of God a fuller consideration than it has previously
had in these lectures.
This general position is to be affirmed and illustrated, in any
system of theology which undertakes to meet the wants and
questions of our times, viz., that the Christian system gives us
the noblest and most complete and most animating view of what
man is and is to be; and that in that system, and not out of it,
the great problems of human destiny are to find their solution.
And it does this in what is sublimely called the kingdom of God,
a kingdom in which the divine purposes of wisdom and love are
to be fulfilled, in which God and man are reconciled, in which
the true basis and bonds of a real brotherhood are found, a king-
dom in which all men are to be reconciled with each other, by
being united to the Father, through the Son and by the Holy
Spirit, so that heaven and earth are joined in entire fellowship.
In contrast with schemes of human device, which look mainly
at the temporal, the social, and the political welfare of mankind,
this kingdom, while favorable to all these and intended to pro-
mote them, puts them also in their just relations. 1
I. The fact that Christianity, in its very nature, looks for-
ward to the realization of such a kingdom, is one of the striking
and grand peculiarities of the Christian revelation.
1. The lowest view which any religious mind can take of
Christianity is, that it is a grand scheme designed to give him
personal happiness, to give him hope for the future. The idea
of such a one is, that he is in a lost condition, is converted by
God's grace, is to go on trying to improve his heart, is to live
that others may be brought into the same condition, and is at
last to be transferred to the eternal mansions, where he shall be
forever blessed: and that is what religion is given for, for that
Christ came into the world. Now this may all be right, as far
as it goes ; religion is good for this, but this is not the measure
of its real good. There is something that is worthy of regard
besides our own salvation. When we become Christians, we
1 This is in accordance with the spirit of Christ's promise: "Seek ye first the
kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall bo added unto
you."
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 493
enter into a divine kingdom, where the highest wisdom and
the grandest thoughts and the most far-reaching purposes of
God Himself are concentrated: we are translated into a sphere
in which all our thoughts and purposes are to find full employ
in their largest measure, and out of which they cannot find such
employ.
2. Nor is the true idea of Christianity exhausted when we
conceive of it as limited to our churches and denominations,
and working in them for the spiritual building up of their mem-
bers. Many stop here. They make the church quite separate
from the world, having only external points of contact with it.
Its object is to cultivate right internal affections, to indoctrinate,
and to gather new members for the same object. And mean-
while all the other interests of society move on independently.
The church has one object, to convert men and prepare them
for heaven: but there are other and almost independent objects
in the world likewise. There is not only religion, there are
politics and trade and the sciences and the arts and reforms
of all kinds, and each one of these makes a separate bat-
talion in the march and progress of our race. The main care
is the prudential one, not to have them jostle against each other.
And what all these separate organizations are for, and whether,
and how, they are to unite together, are unvexed or deferred
inquiries.
3. To one having such an idea of Christianity there comes
some speculative reformer, who propounds a scheme in which,
he says, all these different interests are combined and harmo-
nized, and that he can so adjust the desires and passions and
aims of man as to make them all concurrent; and though he
may neglect man's eternal interests, yet he tries to systematize
all his present interests: and though he may not satisfy the in-
tellect, yet he inflames the imagination ; and though he may not
beget the conviction that his scheme is sufficient, yet he may
weaken the confidence of those who give to Christianity only
an intellectual assent in the sufficiency of a system which holda
itself aloof from such general views of society and the socia]
state.
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Jut such a view of the nature and intent of Christianity ia
entiaUy erroneous, and such human speculations are in reality
only feeble imitations of that more comprehensive view of human
nature, interests, and destiny which was prophesied in the Scrip,
tures of the Old Testament, and limned with a divine hand in the
perfected revelation of the New, and which is to be consummated
in the Kingdom of God. It constitutes one of the most striking
peculiarities of the Christian faith.
It is a wonderful fact that, while the wisest men, as Plato
and Aristotle, among the most cultivated nations of ancient
times, in their conceptions of the true condition of man, never
rose above the idea of a single state or community, the Jewish
people so unlettered and remote, looked forward under pro-
phetic guidance to a divine kingdom, centering in a glorious
Head; into which all nations were to flow, and in which all
strifes and conflicts were to be adjusted. Their prophets dwelt
upon this hallowed vision with inspired exultation with faces
not turned backward to a golden age already past, nor forward
only to a ruinous catastrophe but backward to read the prom-
ise made from the beginning, and forward to see its fulfilment
in Him who was to bring in a time of freedom and joy, of recon-
ciliation between man and God, and man and man, and who
was to gather unto himself all the nations of the earth.
In the apostolic church, the signs and powers of this kingdom
of God become still more marked; for here are its conflicts and
victories, its establishment and progress among the mightiest
nations and to the remotest climes. A few men went forth, and
what they did was to preach the words of this kingdom and to
seal their testimony with their sufferings: they proclaimed the
advent of a realm which was to subdue all nations unto itself;
the weapons of their warfare were not carnal, but spiritual ; they
prophesied the downfall of states and states have fallen ; they
proclaimed that the kingdoms of this world were to become the
kingdoms of our Lord and this proclamation, so daring, so vi-
sionary, so utterly unknown to all other nations has been in a
course of constant fulfilment even until now. Nation after na-
tion has since perished, not one which then had an historic influ
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 495
ence now remains: but that kingdom continues, wider spread,
more diffused in its influence, more penetrating in its power,
with every century; and all the changes of its outward form are
only illustrations of its inherent spiritual might, are only signs
of the expansive and resistless energy of the Spirit that dwells
within it. It has subdued nations, reformed institutions, over-
turned philosophies, changed the current and the. objects of
human thought, given to mankind the highest notions of justice
and feelings of benevolence, been at the foundation of their con-
tests for civil and social rights and this in a continuous and
progressive course. If anything true and real is to be learned
from human history; if permanence in spite of the greatest ob-
stacles, if victory over the mightiest foes, can give any assurance
of divine vitality in that which thus endures and conquers ; then
has this kingdom of God unrivaled claims upon our faith.
It is not only the fact that in the idea of such a kingdom
the Christian religion stands alone no other religious system
knowing anything about it. But the idea which it contains is
more comprehensive and satisfactory than any other scheme
than even those which have borrowed from it their impulse,
when not their outlines.
II. The contrast of the way in which human nature and
destiny are spoken of in this divinely revealed kingdom with
that presented by the most ambitious theorists who neglect or
would supersede the Christian faith.
1. They differ in their radical conception of human nature.
The Utopias and Republics of human invention take human
nature as it is, and show, not the necessity of a renewal, but
the need of an adjustment of human passions. One passion is
to check another passion, and the passions of one man the pas-
sions of others. While the theorist himself acts in daily life
just as really on the supposition that men are depraved, as do
those who do not hesitate to avow it, yet when he speculates
about man's nature and destiny, he becomes unwilling to lift
the veil. For were the extent of the evil fully recognized then
were also seen the need of a divine aid, of which nothing but an
avowed revelation can give to man any assurance. This neg-
496 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
lect of the great fact of human depravity, and the consequent
reliance on natural powers and agencies, is a fatal defect in any
system, in its adaptation to human wants. Man's general con-
dition is one of selfishness and hostility, of alienation from God.
To reconcile man with God, in any rational view, must be the
first great object. To counteract depravity is the first great
necessity. To organize human passions is not to correct human
nature. There is not here a force sufficient for the emergency.
To put the body in a decent posture does not stay the progress
of corruption. But in contrast with this in the kingdom of
God the depths and nature of our evil are fully disclosed, and the
first great object proposed is the reconciliation of man with God.
2. Equally contrasted are the respective systems in the
means to which men's thoughts are directed as the efficient
' agencies of reform. In the one our attention is first turned to
education or the deliberate re-organization of society; in the
other, while the influence of human wisdom and education and
of all right methods and organizations is not neglected, they
are made to be wholly secondary to those spiritual and internal
influences which are the gift of God, in answer to prayer,
through the energy of the Holy Spirit. The intercourse of the
soul with God this, in the kingdom of God, is the cardinal
means of renovation and growth. To work from within out-
ward is the law of God's kingdom; to work from without in-
ward is the weakness of human schemes. To feed upon eternal
and spiritual truths is the first aim of the Christian: to make
eternal and spiritual things, seem shadowy and distant is the
bane of mere human reforms.
3. The sense of this contrast will be still further increased,
if we look at the ends which they respectively propose, as well
as at their means of efficiency. The kingdom of God views men
primarily as immortal beings, subject to an immutable law, and
having an eternal destiny. And so it makes prominent just
what in human plans is kept subordinate, 1 and it keeps sub.
1 Chalmers calls that "the grand practical delusion, the bane and bewilder-
ment of our species, whereby eternity stands before us in the character of time,
and time wears the aspect of eternity, whereby the substance appears to be the
shadow, and the shadow the substance."
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 497
ordinate that which man naturally exalts. Nothing is more
striking in the history of the best human speculations upon the
destiny of man than the limited sphere which is assigned to it.
To regulate the material interests of society, the production and
exchange of wealth, to bring justice into our social and political
relations, to educate in useful knowledge, in sciences and the
arts, in short, to promote temporal well-being these are their
highest aims. And they are noble and worthy aims, but riot
the highest or best. And never can they be pursued with a
fitting earnestness, never so without extravagance, and never
so without danger, as when they are viewed only as subordinate
parts of a grander and more comprehensive economy, by which
man is to be carried through the changing scenes of life to the
unfolding of all his capacities and the attainment of his enduring
well-being in that perfected kingdom of God, of which this life
is but the preparatory theater. That which is the very fruit
and blossom of human Utopias is but a subordinate scene, an
initial act in the sublime unfolding of the kingdom of God.
4 This divergence in their respective views about human
nature, and the means of its advancement, and the ends which
are held before it, has its ground in a still more fundamental dif-
ference between the two schemes, viz., in their professed origin.
The kingdom of God is revealed to us as grounded in the direct
purposes of the Most High, and as containing the counsels of
infinite wisdom for the Kedemption of a lost world. Its origin
and efficiency are from above. It has not its basis in our physi-
cal constitution, as has the family, nor like the state is it for the
establishment and protection of natural rights, of property, and
of temporal justice ; but it is established upon the word of God,
and upon the deeds of the God-man. It looks at man not as a
denizen of this planet, but as an heir of immortal treasures, as
subject to a law which shall never pass away. Human systems, on
the contrary, profess to be only the result of human speculation,
and are restricted to our temporal interests. Whether they put
our social condition, or our freedom, or science, or art, as the
great end and object and under all these four points of view
speculations have been framed still, they are for this world
498 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
and for this alone, for the seen and temporal, and not for the
unseen and sternal. And the origin of these systems is suffi-
ciently attested by the very shape in which they are brought for-
ward. They contain deliberate plans of reorganization, carried
out in all their minutiae. But something more than a specula-
tion or a plan is needed for the reform of the race. hat some-
thing more is given us in those sublime facts and realities which
lie at the basis of the kingdom of God; for this kingdom is re-
vealed to us, not as a theory or speculation, but in just the sim-
plest way, in just the most unpretending form, as something
which God has done and is doing. This simplicity in the an-
nouncement of the kingdom of God is one of its most sublime
characteristics: just as nature is most unobtrusive in her greatest
works, just as great men are most simple in that which consti-
tutes their greatness. The kingdom of God came in simple words
and energetic deeds. There was much less speculation about it
than there is about many a modern plan for reforming the na-
tions. To really reform mankind, we need the deepest convic-
tion that the m.ind of no man has fashioned the scheme, and that
the power of One more than man is enlisted for its accomplish-
ment: that the ends which it proposes are eternal, and that the
means it has at its command can reach and rectify the heart of
our disorders, and combine all our interests in one harmonious
and perpetual kingdom.
III. Some of the more prominent characteristics of the
kingdom of God, both as to what it is, and what it is to be.
1. The most striking fact in respect to it is, that this king-
dom is described as established and gathered together central-
ized as we might say in One Person, the person of Jesus
Christ. It is one of its prime glories that it has for its head and
center a being in whose wonderful person are united the attri-
butes both of divinity and humanity, and who is thus fitted to
be the Mediator between God and man; a person who laid the
foundations of this kingdom in the most stupendous sacrifice,
by which the highest Jioral problem of the race was solved; a
being fitted to all our human wants our wants as sinners so
near and gracious that the vilest and lowliest may come to Him,
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 499
and so majestic and mighty that He can welcome and save aU
that come unto Him ; a being beyond the glories of whose per-
son and the wonder of whose work, human thought in its lar-
gest speculations has never reached, and to whom human love
in all its tenderness and trust may ever turn, and who is near-
est to us with his richest blessings when our misery is most real
and our needs most urgent. Faith in Him is the beginning of
the new creation, and glory with Him is its consummation. In
such a person is the kingdom of God centralized and knit to-
gether.
2. Another of its peculiar characteristics is, that the truths
which center in Christ are described as applied to the human
heart by a subtle, mighty, and persuasive influence that of the
Holy Spirit, whose power reaches to the very thoughts and in-
tents of the heart, and who subdues our sinfulness by implant-
ing new and* higher principles of action, and who so acts upon
the soul that its freedom is not impaired, but enlarged. Thus
at the very foundation of this kingdom we have the agency and
working of God, in his three-fold personality, as Father, Son,
and Spirit, and from them go forth the influences which give
it shape and perpetuity. The anatomy of this kingdom is found
in the Triune Godhead.
3. This kingdom is one which, from its very nature, is adapted
to enter into and remould all other institutions in the highest
and best conceivable manner. It does this by its spiritual na-
ture, making the laws and principles of all other institutions
gradually submissive to its own higher spirit and laws, giving to
all that is lower its fitting place and its moral worth. It is able
to do this, as is nothing else. When the lower prevails over
the higher, it is oppression ; when the higher prevails over the
lower, it is law. The kingdom has already done this in countless
instances ; it is still doing it, in such an increasing extent that,
were we not familiar with it, and did we judge it as we judge
other things, we could only wonder at it. There is no doctrine
of philosophy, no scheme of man, no other organized influence,
which has gone as has the kingdom of God, to all men of every
name and degree from the most brutish to the most civilized
500 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
and found entrance and made conquest. And this is because
its principles and influences and teachings are not only most sub-
lime but also most simple, simple in the sense of being directly-
adapted to human nature and human wants, for this is the only
real test of the simplicity of a doctrine.
4. Not only is it thus adapted to man's most urgent wants
but it also affords the most efficient means for developing the
whole of human nature, giving to all our powers their highest
energy and noblest motives. It ennobles love and dignifies the
very love of self; it opens to the deepest and most luminous
knowledge, it gives the strongest incentives to increase in wis-
dom. It brings the highest motives to bear upon the perform-
ance of all our social and political duties, and to all the virtues
of the character it adds grace and strength.
5. That it is thus fitted to all our relations and institutions,
and gives them their highest character, is proved by the fact
that a Christian family, a Christian community, and a Christian
commonwealth are felt to be the highest forms which the family,
society, and the state can assume. ^
6. When we would labor for the reform of the race, what
teachings can we put in the very van of the contest in preference
to the Christian view of the equality and -brotherhood of man-
kind, of the evils of the inordinate love of wealth, of the terrible-
ness of war, of the necessity of justice, and to its exhortations to
the love of our neighbor and our brethren. All true reforms
can only be the carrying out of the spirit and the injunctions of
the kingdom of God. Moreover, the safety of reforms is best
argued on the ground of the permanence and victories of that
kingdom. And patience in the midst of discouragement and
defeat is made more serene by our conviction that this kingdom
must finally prevail, that the triumphs of sin and the maxims
of expediency are for the day and the hour only, while the tri-
umphs of truth and righteousness are for eternity.
7. Philosophy, science, and art, in their deepest and truest
principles, are in harmony with God's kingdom, are advanced
by it, and approximate to their perfect form as they receive and
enthrone its truths.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 501
8. That view of our future destiny, which is contained in
sure promise and definite description only in the kingdom of
God, is the only view which answers perfectly to all man's most
enlarged and developed capacities, and to his highest and most
hallowed aspirations.
9. It is for this kingdom that God has been ever laboring,
it is his great, his grandest work, it contains the wealth of His
wisdom, the crown of his purposes. 1 It will be the very embodi-
ment of what is most grand and glorious in divinity, so far aa
it can be revealed to man. And in it man too has his part.
Human achievement in carrying out divine purposes will have
its eternal fruit and reward in this kingdom.
10. How far it will be perfectly realized upon the earth is a
question of secondary importance. It is a kingdom the very idea
of which when once embraced can stimulate human powers to
their highest energy, human love to its noblest self-sacrifice,
oven to forgetfulness of self. That it will go on until the ful-
ness of the seas is gathered in, until on the tops of the mountains
the Lord's house shall be established, until every kingdom shall
become Christ's, until all war and oppression and unrighteous-
ness shall cease, until the very glory and fulness of the nations
shall be given to Immanuel this we know, for it has been
declared. Whether its fullest glories are to be revealed on the
very theater where sin has so long reigned, or in another sphere
that we know not fully. And whether we know it or not
is of little moment compared with what we do know, and that
is, that this kingdom of God will be perfectly consummated in
glory and beauty somewhere and at some time.
1 In this light the doctrine of Election should be viewed.
PART I.
THE UNION BETWEEN OHEIST AND THE INDIYTDUAL
BELIEVER, AS EFFECTED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT.
THIS EMBRACES THE SUBJECTS OF JUSTIFICATION, REGENERATION, AND SANCTIFIOATION; 'WITH THS
UNDERLYING TOPIC, WHICH COMES FIRST TO BE CONSIDERED, ELECTION.
BOOK I.
PREDESTINATION, ELECTION, THE EFFECTUAL CALL.
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.
I.- The topics now coming up are known as the doctrines
of grace. Grace, in its widest sense, means, any favor bestowed
by a superior on an inferior. All our gifts in this sense are
grace. But it is here used in a specific sense as favor bestowed
upon the individual, fallen man, through the influence of the Holy
Ghost. Man's entire sinfulness is presupposed, and Christ's aton-
ing work, and here we consider the operation of the Holy Spirit.
II. This operation must be traced back to the purpose of
God, as part of the decrees of God. These have been already
considered in part. It was stated that they included all events
in Providence, as thej take place. As events are in fact, so
they are eternally in the purpose of God. The doctrine of de-
crees is simply that of divine providence considered as an eternal
plan in the counsels of God. Any objection to decrees is an
objection to the course of Providence. These decrees form one
decree, one plan. All are connected with the main decree, or
the great end for which God made and governs the world. That
portion of the divine decrees which has respect to the final con-
dition and destiny of moral beings, especially of man, is called
Predestination.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 503
III. The doctrine of Predestination has to do simply with
God's purpose or plan, as that includes the final condition of
each individual, just as it comes to be. It contemplates the
final condition of each individual as a part of the divine decree;
not of course without respect to what has gone before, but in-
cluding the whole life of the individuals, of which this end is
the consummation.
IV. In further elucidation of what is meant by Predestina-
tion, we make the following statements:
1. Predestination is not fatalism. Fatalism views all events
and all actions as a mere matter of necessity, springing from
natural causes and ultimately from blind causes. But Predes-
tination refers all events ultimately to the purpose of a wise and
holy God.
2. The doctrine of predestination is not to be confounded
with supralapsarianism. In many objections to it, it is so con-
founded. Supralapsarianism views the fall of the human race
as directly decreed on the part of God, in order to the divine
glory. The sublapsarian view is, that evil was permitted and
not efficiently produced, and that in the order of decrees the
permission of evil goes before the decree for redemption.
3. Predestination is not the same as the doctrine of the divine
efficiency. This latter doctrine, when carried out strictly, says
that each event has for its cause a direct divine agency, that
God by immediate power brings into being every act of moral
agents, that his action in the matter of sin is as distinct as in
the matter of holiness. The doctrine does not give heed to the
distinction between what is decreed as part of a plan, and what
is decreed by itself.
4. Those who hold to predestination are not the only persons
who hold to the eternity of God's decrees. Many Arminians
hold a doctrine of eternal decrees, while they deny predestina-
tion. Those who, believing in regeneration, believe also that
man's free will goes before, while God assists, can also believe
that from all eternity God determined to assist, and therefore
they can hold to eternal divine decrees.
5. Predestination is not arbitrary, in the common usage of
504 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
the word arbitrary. The doctrine implies that all the divine
purposes have wise and holy reasons. Predestination is arbi-
trary in the sense that God is not dependent on any will but his
own for his purposes and plans; in the sense that He acts from
mere will and mere power, it is not arbitrary. We may not be
able to see the reasons: these are for the divine will and not for
ours; but God would forfeit his rational nature if He ordained
anything without a good and sufficient reason.
6. The theological systems which include predestination do
not differ from other systems, e. g.> the Arminian system in its
modifications, in respect to the grounds of God's final judgment
upon men as to their final condition. In both cases the ground
is wholly moral. It is the relation to Christ, involving the good
or bad character of respective individuals, in regard to which
this destiny is fixed.
7. The systems which include predestination differ from the
Arminian systems in their view of the nature of divine grace,
and of the way in which that grace operates. The latter say,
and must say ultimately, that grace only assists, and is depend-
ent on the human will for its use, grace aids human volitions.
The former say that grace ever precedes and directs the human
will, while the will is free. The term in Arminianism is assists :
in Calvinism grace precedes and directs. This is sometimes
expressed in the formula : Grace is irresistible. This term is not
to be approved, because it suggests an idea which is not intended
to be conveyed. Irresistible, usually means, that which cannot
be resisted or overcome even if the will be opposed to it, e. g., in
the case of natural force : but this cannot be the meaning in this
case, because the divine purpose always carries the will with it.
8. The ultimate principles on which the assertion of the di-
vine predestination rests are two: (a.) All events must have a
sufficient cause; (b.) Of all true religious life God is the cause.
The doctrine of original sin is presupposed, which makes the
need of God's causative energy in the new life still stronger and
more imperative.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 505
CHAPTER II
ELECTION AND REPROBATION.
The doctrine of Predestination runs into the doctrine of
Election. Election is a part of Predestination. Election is the
expression of God's infinite love towards the human race, re-
deeming man from sin through Christ, and by the Holy Spirit
bringing him into this state of redemption, so far as it is consist-
ent with the interests of God's great and final kingdom. It is
the divine love in its most concrete and triumphant form. It
is called in Scripture the riches of divine grace.
1. Statement of the Scriptural Doctrine of Election.
Westm. Shorter Cat, Q. 20. In Larger Cat., Q. 13, more par-
ticular statements are given: that the election is in Christ that,
it is eternal and includes the means thereof.
1. Election may be said to be: God's eternal purpose, as a
part of his whole plan, to save some of the human race, in and
by Jesus Christ. Election to eternal life is the end of all the di-
vine purposes, including the means. The order of time is in the
execution of the decree, and not in the decree itself. The fol-
lowing statements form no part of the doctrine of Election:
That God created some men to damn them : That Christ died
only for the elect; That the elect will be saved, let them do
what they will; That the non-elect cannot be saved, let them do
what they can; That the non-elect cannot comply with the con-
ditions of salvation through natural inability. These positions
we have considered elsewhere: whether in themselves they are
true or false is not in question now: what we here say is, they
form no part of the doctrine of Election.
2. The Scriptural statements.
(a.) The fullest passage is Eph. i. 4, 5, which gives the doc-
trine in its connections.
(&.) Election has reference to individuals and not to nations
or classes. Luke xiii. 23: "Few" is individualizing, and so
506 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
in the verses which follow. Mark xiii. 20; Rom. viii. 20-30:
" Foreknew " includes a purpose as well as a knowledge. It is
not a mere vision of knowledge. John xv. 16: "Ye" must
mean individuals: John vi. 30-39; Acts xiii. 48; Rom. ix. 11.
(c.) It is to eternal life. The object of the whole plan of re-
demption is to bestow eternal life upon the lost: Acts xiii. 48;
1 Thess. v. 9, 10 ; 2 Thess. ii. 13 ; John xvii. 2. So that it is not
a call to external privileges.
(d.) It is not of works. Although it is through and by the
gracious acts of the individual. The works are the election it-
self in its carrying out. They are not the basis of it, but a part
of it: 2 Tim. i. 9; Rom. ix. 11; xi. 6; Eph. i. 4, 5; 1 Pet. i. 2. In
short, the election is to faith and holiness, and is not of persons
as holy.
(e.) The election is ultimately to be referred to God: Matt.
xi. 26; Rom. viii. 29; ix. 11; Eph. i. 11; Rom. xi. 5.
(y.) The election is in Christ: Eph. i. 4; John xvii. 2.
(g.) The election is eternal and unchangeable: Eph i. 4;
Rom. viii. 29; John vi. 37; 2 Thess. ii. 13; Rev. xiii. 8.
3. Proof of the doctrine from other doctrines.
(a.) It results from the doctrine of the divine sovereignty.
(b.) It results from the fact that salvation is of grace: Eph.
ii. 5, 8.
(c.) It results from the doctrines of depravity and original
sin. By nature we are in such a state that only divine grace
can rescue us.
(d.) It results from the doctrine of regeneration.
(e.) It is confirmed by the experience of believers. They all
confess that the new life within them is of grace.
4. Theories of Election.
I. The theory of Nationalism. This is, that nations are
elected; God sends the gospel to certain peoples; Election is not
to eternal life, but is a national call. It is, living among a peo-
ple where God's grace is proclaimed. Some non-elect in this
sense may finally be saved: in nations where the gospel is not
preached, some may be saved through an accidental hearing of
the word, or through a special calling of divine providence.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 507
Remarks:
(a.) This theory concedes the principle. God may make a dis-
crimination in regard to nations on a large scale, and be just
arid benevolent in doing it.
(6.) It is impossible to see or show how God can elect nations
without electing individuals. The general demands the specific,
the universal the particular. In the order of thought the generic
comes first and the specific next, but in the order of history the
specific comes first and the general afterwards.
(c.) The argument of the apostle in Rom. ix., which is relied
upon, is against the theory. He has before shown (chaps, v.,
vi., vii., viii.) that in Christ alone are justification and sanctifica-
tion : then he encounters the objection from the Jew as being
the seed of Abraham: the promise to Abraham, he says, is not
frustrated by the calling of the Gentiles, leaving Jews to perish :
God has always thus shown his sovereignty: Isaac only was
called, 7-9; Esau and Jacob are instanced, 10-14; Pharaoh,
verses 15-18. This is not unjust to those whom He condemns on
account of their sins. Israel is passed by because they sought
righteousness not by faith but by the works of the law. Verse
22, vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, gives the substance
of the doctrine of Reprobation.
(d.) The arguments already given to show that Election
is of individuals, and that it is to eternal life, disprove this
theory.
II. The theory of Ecclesiastical Individualism: God calls
individuals, but only to the external privileges of his church.
This is advocated by many of the divines in the Episcopal
Church, in order to unite Arminianism with their theory of the
church. As many of them interpret u regenerated " in the bap-
tismal service as meaning, united with the church in an external
way, so election is understood as election to the external privi-
leges of the church.
Remarlcs:
(a.) The theory is true as far as it goes.
(6.) It includes the principle of election. If God discriminates
externally, He may internally.
508 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
(c.) It excludes the divine agency from the most important
part of the whole work the internal and spiritual.
(d.) Scripture testifies to the election of individuals to faith,
holiness, and salvation.
III. The Arminian, and in part the Lutheran, and in part
the Pelagian, theory.
This asserts that election is not external, nor national, but
is election to salvation: it is, however, an election of those who
repent and believe not of individuals, but of that class of per-
sons who repent and believe. It is of all those who comply
with the conditions. God foresees that such and such will ac-
cept the conditions, and therefore elects them on the basis of
his seeing that they will of themselves repent and believe.
Pelagians say that one man repents and believes and another
does not, and election and reprobation are based upon these
facts. Arminians say that God has given to all men sufficient
grace, that there is no urgency of that grace, no specific effi-
ciency of it, but one accepts it and another does not.
Remarks:
(a.) This makes God!s agency to be dependent on that of man.
Man chooses God first, and then God chooses him to blessedness.
The Scriptures say: According as He chose us in Him .... that
we should be holy and without blemish before Him in love,
Eph. i. 4.
(6.) The doctrines of sin and grace show that there is a moral
inability in man which only God's grace can or does overcome.
(c.) The theory is against Christian experience. No Arminian
or Pelagian can pray according to this doctrine, however much
he may preach it.
2. Reprobation.
This includes two parts, Praeterition and Reprobation (Final
Condemnation). The Praaterition is a sovereign act; the Repro-
bation is a judicial act. The predestination in this case does
not refer to the sinful state as coming from God (the supralap-
sarian view), but to the divine act which is consequent upon the
sinful state. In the prseterition, the divine agency is simply
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 509
negative a not interfering. The reprobation is judicial and in
that sense positive. If any are finally lost, there must of neces-
sity be a divine 'purpose in respect to the loss: otherwise there
is that in the fact which was not taken into the plan. It is not
Calvinistic to say that God created men to damn them, or that
He made them on purpose to condemn them, in order to show
his justice. That position has never been accepted in this coun-
try, and in the school of Edwards it was effectually demolished.
The end of God in creation is not to illustrate his justice in con-
demning some to eternal torment. The condemnation is sim-
ply incidental to the great end of the divine government, which
is the securing of the supremacy and triumph of holiness. In
regard to those who do not submit to that government, this end
is attained, as far as it can be, by their destruction; but that
destruction is not the end or object. The chief objections to
this part of the doctrine of Predestination almost all arise from
viewing reprobation as something by itself, and not as a part of
God's whole plan. The representation often made is that God
chose the punishment as though He delighted in it, but God
delights in holiness. Another objection comes from supposing
reprobation to be without reference to character or desert: but
it is the final condemnation on account of the desert.
1. The Scriptural proof.
(a.) The doctrine of Election involves Prseterition.
(b.) All passages that prove the final condemnation of some
imply the doctrine of Keprobation. More particularly, Rom. ix.
18; 1 Cor. i. 26; 1 Pet. ii. 8; Jude 15.
3. Objections to the Doctrine of Predestination.
First Class. Objections on philosophical grounds. 1 The ob-
jections are to the two main statements: Every event must
have a cause, God is the cause of all spiritual life.
Obj. I. The more consistent Arminians object that the law
of causality does not apply to the production of our religious
states. They assert that the law of causality does not apply to
all events in time, that events produced by the power of the
' Well stated in Bledsoe's Theodicy and Mozley's Predestination.
510 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
human will are not under the law of causality, as respects their
origination in the will.
Remarks:
1. The law of causality is not, in any consistent thinking,
understood to be that for every event there is wholly an external
cause. This notion of it is derived from the sphere of mechanics
and dynamics, and not from the sphere of life, still less from
psychology. A stone cannot move without an external power
acting upon it, but everything having life, besides the external
agencies which bear upon it, has also an internal energy. So
it is in the human soul. There is a principle of spontaneity, of
origination. That however does not exclude causality. It is a
proper causal power or energy. The law still applies, only we
have here a new causal power given in the will itself. Unques-
tionably there is such spontaneous force or power in man, so
that he is the proper author of his own acts. He is not the sole
author, but he is the proper author, and the law of causality
covers this spontaneous energy as much as it does the external
influences.
2. Bat, besides this internal force of the will, there must be
some object in view of which the will is exerted ; else there can
be no choice. Mere will cannot of itself produce choice. Choice
implies an end or object, which is as necessary to the choice as
the possession of will. It enters into the choice as a part of the
whole effect. Volition is made up of two elements : the action
of the will and the thing chosen. These two together make up
the cause of the volition, as the effect. 1
Obj. II. (Mozley.) It is not to be affirmed that God is the
proper cause or source of all religious life, because if God be such,
1 [The above is found only in students' notes. The fuller view is given in Faith
and Philosophy, p. 359 seq. Perhaps the author's statements might be thus
summed up: Into choices there must perforce enter, not merely the form of per-
sonal agency but also its vital substance. The feelings and affections can no more
be kept out of the will than out of the man. Self-determination is essential to
freedom, but self-determination is a procedure of the man, and not of the will
viewed as mere capacity of choice. What is in the man as affection, etc., as well
as what he reaches out to as object of desire, etc., goes to the self-determination,
and hence it is vain to say that human spontaneity is not covered by the law of
causality. Like everything else in the successions of time, the originations of
the human will have their limitations, their processes, and their lawr.]
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 611
there cannot then be first, i. e., proper and real, causes of the ~e-
ligious life in the action of the human soul.
Remarks:
1. There may be good and sufficient second causes working
under the first, and having their proper sphere not absolute,
but relative not independent, but dependent yet still proper
causes, not mere modifications of the first cause, but having
force of themselves.
2. The very notion of God makes Him to be the author of
all religious acts. Religion is inconceivable without divine in-
fluence. There may be morality without divine influence, but
not religion.
3. All the more is such influence necessary in the case of de-
praved beings, where the moral power is lost. If God must be
the source of holiness in the angels, He must be the source of it
in human beings where the soul is alienated from Him.
4. The Scriptures expressly refer holy acts and states to God :
Eph. ii. 10; Phil. ii. 13; Rom. xii. 3; John vi. 44.
5. The Scriptures make a difference in respect to the divine
agency as to sin, and as to holiness : making it direct in regard
to holiness, and permissive in regard to sin.
The Second Class of Objections. Objections brought against
the divine. justice and benevolence in Predestination.
Obj. III. God is unjust, or at least not benevolent, towards
the non-elect.
Remarks:
1. We have the apostle's reply, in Rom. ix. There is that
in the divine dealings which is inscrutable, in this as in other
matters.
2. The objection is one against actual facts; because God
does actually bring some to eternal life, while He passes by
others, and must have purposed to do what He actually does.
3. The objection involves the assumption that God ought
to treat all men alike, which would apply against discrimination
in providence as well as in grace.
4. If the non-elect are sinners, it is just to treat them as
sinners. Sinners cannot establish a daim upon God for the
612 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
highest measures of grace. If they are and continue to be
sinners, they deserve punishment as a simple matter of justice
5. But is it benevolent to pass them by ? It is, we must
say, the procedure of a benevolent being: of course we do not
*Tgue that the benevolence is illustrated in the prseterition.
(a.) If we cannot see how the benevolence is consistent with
the prseterition, still we must admit both the facts; God is in-
finitely benevolent, and there are some whom He does not bring
to eternal life; inasmuch as each is established by its own evi-
dence, (b.) Benevolence, in its highest sense, has supreme re-
gard to holiness, and not to happiness. Holiness is the ultimate
term with God even as a benevolent being, (c.) If it is right
for God to leave any to perish as sinners, it is right for Him to
purpose to do so, because this is simply the same thing over
again, (d.) God shows his benevolence to all men, in various
ways. The sparing of their lives in a state of probation, the
provision of an atonement for the whole world, the offers of
eternal life under the sound of the gospel, are all proofs of be-
nevolence, (e.) Perhaps some weight is to be allowed to the
suggestion of Bishop Butler, 1 that the election of all might be
hazardous to the interests of the divine government. The be-
lief of Universalism certainly has no tendency to keep men from
sin. (/.) For aught that we know, the amount and kind of
divine influence necessary to secure the salvation of all men
might be inconsistent with God's moral government.
Obj. IV. From the effect of the doctrine upon those who
are not yet Christians, i. e., those who cannot be said to be non-
elect, their case being not yet decided. The doctrine of election
is said to be formidable to them.
But, (a.) The doctrine of election and preeterition concerns
the final state of men, which no man can absolutely know be-
forehand. A man cannot know so that the doctrine shall deter
him. (b.) The doctrine of election is, still further, that men are
elect in Christ. It is on account of a general atonement, of a
provision for all men. What a man has to do is not to deter-
mine who are the elect, but to come to Christ, (c ) The divine
1 The suggestion is approved by Chalmers.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 513
purpose of election runs through the human will, and it is with
the conscious action of this that man has to do. The question
of salvation conies up in the form, Will a man accept or reject
Christ? (d.) Election comprehends the means as well as the
end, and not the end without the means. It is the whole of
God's plan in respect to each individual. Almost all the objec-
tions against the doctrine of predestination rest on the hypothesis
that God, by a merely arbitrary choice, has consigned individuals
to a final state. That is not the doctrine. The objections also
rest upon the hypothesis that an individual can and may know
that he belongs to one or the other class. But even the elect
cannot certainly know their election, or at all events, not until
they come to assurance, which is the gift of God in their highest
sanctification.
Obj. V. The effect of this doctrine on those who sup-
pose themselves to be of the elect must be to make them
presumptuous.
But, (a.) It is the saints' perseverance which is set forth in
the doctrine of election. If any are living in presumptuous sins,
they cannot claim that they are in the course of such persever-
ance, The elect are those, too, who persevere. The objection
rests on the notion that one can be assured of election without
holy exercises, while the doctrine is that he can be assured only
in such exercises. The objection assumes that the end may be
known without the means; the doctrine is that the end can be
attained only by and through the means, and the certainty of
the attainment can be judged of only in the light of the means
of the attainment. A kindred form of the objection is that the
elect are led to believe that they may be saved whatever they
do. The answer is that the doctrine has respect to God's pur-
pose about the final state of believers. No man can know any
thing about the divine purpose regarding his salvation, except
as he is practicing the Christian virtues.
Obj. VI. God cannot sincerely make the offer of life to all,
when He knows that there are some who will not accept.
The marks of sincerity in any offer are the following:
(a.) That the blessing offered is in existence and at the dis-
514 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
posal of the one who offers it. (6.) That he is willing that it
should be accepted, (c.) That it is offered on terms that can be
complied with by the individual to whom it is offered, so that
all that is needed on his part is willingness.
Such is the case with respect to the offer of salvation to all
men in the gospel. It is a blessing which really exists, because
a general atonement has been made; it is a blessing which God
is willing to bestow; He is not willing that any should perish.
It is within the compass of man's natural capacities to comply.
No addition needs to be made to his powers and faculties, to en.
able him to comply. Acceptance or rejection is the action of
his own voluntary nature.
There is an ambiguity in the discussions of this subject in
the different uses of the word will. It is used sometimes in the
sense of a general desire, sometimes of a specific purpose, (a.) It
is undeniable on the ground of Scripture that God desires the
salvation of every man as, in itself considered, the best thing
for him. He offers salvation to all, and pleads with them to
accept it. He offers that which is provided, and which they
may accept, and urges it importunately. (6.) God's decree of
praeterition is not that some shall not believe, but is simply not
to use certain means of moving them to belief All things con-
sidered, He has chosen to pursue his purpose of having a people
to his praise, to the extent of insuring belief in some instances,
but not in all. (c.) All of God's reasons for this course we do
not know. Some reasons are intimated. Blindness of mind,
hardness of heart, resistance of light, of grace offered, of the
influences of the Spirit, are given as characteristics of many of
those who are not included in God's purpose of election. It may
be that many of the finally impenitent resist more light than
many who are saved.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 515
CHAPTER III.
THE GOSPEL CALL.
Election is carried out through the proclamation of grace,
through the call to repentance and faith, issuing in the effectual
calling of those who are finally saved. This call is both external
and internal. The external is in the preaching of the gospel,
and the internal is the call to the spirit or soul. This internal
call, considered in its results on the elect, is called efficacious or
effectual grace. The election results in the call, both external
and internal, and in the formation of the elect into the church.
Some of those who are opposed to the doctrine of election, e. g.,
the Lutherans, make 'the call to be universal, and make it to
consist in the whole of divine providence towards all nations.
The Lutheran formula asserts very strongly that a special call
addressed by the Divine Spirit to the soul must be maintained
to be universal, even though experience seems to run counter
to it.
1. Of the External CaU.
This is an invitation on the part of divine grace to sinners
to accept through grace the blessings offered to them in Christ,
addressed generally through the preaching of the word, al-
though it may also be by the printed page or personal conver-
sation. It is as wide as the proclamation of the gospel in any
form. It includes the announcement of the fact of salvation in
Christ, an invitation to accept that salvation, an invitation which
rises to a command, including a promise and a threat John
iii. 16, 18. This external call is to be addressed to all. It is
part of the function of the church to see that it is addressed to
all men Rom. x. 14, 15. Still further, this call, as thus ad-
dressed, is binding upon all men. Men are bound to accept
this gracious invitation. Not to comply is the great sin. In
a state of ruin, invited to accept of everlasting life, their guilt
is heightened if tbey reject. It is not addressed to the elect
516 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
alone, but is addressed to and binding upon all men. 1 This ex-
ternal call has for its characteristics that it is sincere on the
part of God that it may be resisted and that it is adapted to
lead to conversion.
2. The Internal Cad.
The internal call of God to eternal life is a call of divine
grace made by the word, applied by the Spirit, in part by his
direct agency, upon the soul. This divine influence upon the
soul is not exercised upon one of its faculties, but upon all the
faculties of the mind, illuminating the understanding, rousing
the feelings, and leading to right acts of the will. Still further,
this call is made under these influences in view of two grand
facts: on the one hand, the condemnation of law and knowl-
edge of sin under the law; on the other hand, the presentation
of Christ as the Redeemer from sin.
3. Under this general Statement, some Questions and Difficul-
ties are raised.
I. Is the knowledge of the word, the Scripture, the revealed
truth, of Christ as the center and source of salvation, always
necessary in order to salvation ?
The extreme positions: (1) Except as Christ is known the
soul cannot be included in the electing love of God; there is no
salvation except through and by a distinct and explicit knowl-
edge of Christ. (2) Under the light of nature alone and with-
out Christ, men may be saved by complying with the demands
made in conscience and by reason.
Observations: (1) It is a matter of fact that the knowledge
of Christ is given and is necessary to be given where men are
saved. There is, humanly speaking, no probability of salvation
apart from such knowledge. (2) It is equally undeniable that
such a knowledge of Christ is necessary to full, explicit, confident
trust. There cannot be the peace of believing, or a full knowl-
edge of salvation, a personal conviction in the case full and
1 This is one of the great points in the controversy against the Antinomian
position. See Fuller's " Gospel Worthy of all Acceptation " and Bellamy's " True
Religion Delineated." It was such preaching as this against a dead orthodoxy
which led to many precious results in revivals.
THE KINGDOM OP REDEMPTION. 517
round, unless there be such knowledge of Christ. Without this
there must always be doubt in the individual's personal experi-
ence. (3) Yet there may be, under the influence of the Holy
Spirit, renewal of the soul without this explicit knowledge.
That follows from the secret nature of the divine agency, and
from the position that infants dying before actual transgression
are of the elect. (4) Yet such internal renewal, if it be genuine,
will always lead to a belief in Christ as the only Saviour, when
He is made known. The test of the reality of the new birth
would be, that as soon as Christ is presented the soul will
welcome Him. This is in conformity with the position in the
Westminster Confession, chap, x., 3.
II. Are the Scriptures the only efficacious means of such a
renewal? The purport of this question is: whether the Script-
ures considered as light and illuminating influence, as addressed
only to the intellect excluding the direct operation of the
Holy Spirit on the soul are the only efficacious means of salva-
tion ; or whether, besides the Scriptures there is in the case of
renewal a direct influence of the Holy Spirit, which is not re-
stricted to the word, which is not simply by and through the
word. Whether the entire efficacious influence is the Script-
ures and the Holy Spirit, or the Holy Spirit in and through
the Scriptures.
The various forms of opinion: (1) The Pelagian view. Mere
truth, a vivid presentation of the truth is enough, and is the
only means about which we can know anything definitely. It
has been said by some one, that if he was as eloquent as the
Holy Spirit, he could so preach as to convert souls. (2) Another
opinion. That in some way, to us unknown, the word of God
as preached is made clear and mighty by the Spirit, and becomes
an effectual motive yet without the direct operation of the
Spirit on the soul. The Spirit operates through the word, so
that the word forms the influence and motive, and the Spirit in
the word gives it efficacy. The word is the sword, and the
Spirit wields the sword. (3) The third view is, that besides the
truth and the Spirit in the truth, there is also a direct operation
of the Holy Spirit upon the soul.
518 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
As to the first opinion. It is conceded by this that the Spirit
is the author of the truth, that the gospel truth is the highest
kind of truth, but it is said that there is 110 other operation of
the Spirit than that which is given in the word through the
truth.
We say : (1) This revealed truth is ordinarily necessary and
essential. (2) It is the instrumental cause. (3) But the question
remains, Why is this truth so much clearer and brighter at some
times than at others ? Why are the feelings roused so strongly
by the truth on certain occasions, and left dead at others ? This
must be attributed to the influence of the Holy Spirit. (4) It is
difficult if not impossible to conceive of an operation of the truth
without an operation on the soul. Here are the words of Script-
ure: at one time they are without influence, at another they be-
come effectual. The Holy Spirit is said to work through the
truth, but how can He do so without affecting the soul?
(5) The Scriptures distinctly recognize a direct operation of the
Spirit.
As to the second opinion. This asserts that the truth is
made clear and potent by some unknown efficacy of the Spirit,
yet the operation of the Spirit is confined to this, and is not a
direct influence upon the affections and the will. The Holy
Ghost is necessary, wherever the word is uttered, to give it in-
fluence, yet through the word alone does He operate on the af-
fections and will. A modification of this view is seen in the
doctrine of moral suasion that the Spirit operates on men as
men do upon each other.
Remarks:
(1) The truth is doubtless the instrumental cause, ordinarily.
We are begotten or brought forth by the word of truth
(James i. 18). (2) The truth is brought to bear upon us in
greater light and power through the influence of the Spirit, in a
supernatural way by an operation kindred to moral suasion.
(3) But unless the feelings are also enlisted by influencing them,
how can the truth affect them ? The sensibilities to religious
impressions are dormant through depravity. They are tc bo
excited and roused, in order that the truth may be felt. Through
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 519
this excitation of the feelings, the truth becomes clearer and
more efficacious, and only through this. A supernatural in-
fluence must be conceded here. (4) Nobody can deny that there
are other kinds of operation besides that through the truth. It
is natural from what we know of God's working, that there
should be other modes through which the Holy Spirit shall in-
fluence the soul. God works in all and through all. In the
sphere of divine providence, the divine energy attends the
working of all second causes. Much more in the sphere of
grace. The divine agency doubtless attends as much the opera-
tions of the feelings as the intellect, and as much those of the
will as the feelings. It is impossible, in any rational view of
the divine agency, to exclude it from any part of the work. The
view under consideration excludes it from every part except the
intellect. The fact that we do not know the mode of the Spirit's
operations should admonish us not to limit them.
As to the third position. This is, that besides all that can
be put under the head of moral suasion and of supernatural in-
fluence through the truth, there is in the renewal of the soul,
according to Scripture, a divine, secret, and direct influence.
This is shown by the following considerations: (1) The Script-
ures distinguish between the two, and assert the need of both :
1 Thess. i. 5, 6; 2 Thess. ii. 13, 14; John vi. 44. (2) The Script-
ures also speak of the inward working of the Holy Spirit:
Phil. ii. 13; Heb. xiii. 21; Acts xvi. 14. (3) The descriptions
of regeneration imply this. It is spoken of as a new creation
and a resurrection to life. The working of the Spirit is com-
pared for its might with the working in Christ when He was
raised from the dead: Eph. i. 19, 20. (4) The Scriptural view
of depravity, of man's natural state and need, makes such an
internal working of the Spirit needful : 1 Cor. ii. 14. Depravity
leaves the affections dormant. The spiritual affections are
asleep. They need to be roused most of all. The most power-
ful outward means are resisted until God brings the soul into
subjection. (5) Prayer implies more than an operation of the
word. We ask God for grace not only to understand the truth
but to sanctify the soul, purify the affections, guide the will, and
520 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
change the will. In the struggles of renewal, every soul feels
that divine grace working within, and working mightily, can
alone save it. We have examples of this in the prayers in
Scripture: Col. i. 9-11. To this may be added the good effects
of the doctrine, the ascribing to God our holiness, and the
cleansing and purifying of the affections and dispositions, and
the constant sense of our dependence on divine grace for all
advances in sanctification.
III. Is there a common, as well as effectual, grace? The
affirmative is the correct reply, on the following grounds:
1. From the experience of the impenitent, and of ourselves
while impenitent. The influence of the Holy Spirit is much
wider than we are apt to suppose. Probably there is always
more or less influence of the Spirit by and with the word. Be-
lief in such common grace is the strength and confidence of the
preacher, and it is very probable that all moral good in the
world is ultimately to be ascribed to this, even in the lower
spheres of humanity, i. e., to the influence of God's grace in the
course of his providence. It is much more scriptural and much
safer to extend the sphere of the Spirit's influence than to ex-
tend the scope of human ability. The influence is so wide that
probably we cannot extend it too far, i. e., in respect to the com-
mon methods in which it is exerted.
2. The Bible speaks of a resistance of the Spirit, a grieving
of the Spirit, which implies that there is a common grace as
well as that which effects the conversion of the soul. All that
precedes the renewal of the soul the conviction of sin, any
feeling or desire leading towards renewal or a better life, is
properly to be ascribed to the influence of the Holy Spirit in the
way of common grace.
3. This common grace passes over into effectual grace in
proportion as the sinner yields to the divine influence, so that
the work is God's, not man's.
IV. How does effectual differ from common grace ?
1. Effectual grace is the grace which effects that which
common grace tends to effect.
2. Its efficacy, in the last analysis, is owing to the divine
THE KINGDOM OP REDEMPTION. 521
influence. It is God's sovereign power, and is applied according
to his purpose to save the elect. The pressure of the divine in-
fluence is what causes the efficacy. All that man does in the
case is removing the hindrance.
3. In consciousness, psychologically, we cannot distinguish
the difference between the two: we can ascertain it only from
results. We cannot distinguish the divine grace from the good
produced by it, or our own act, because it is only in our act
that that divine grace is known. That which is immediately
presented to the soul is its own acts, feelings, and thoughts.
That these come from God, we say on the ground of Script-
ural testimony, and because they are leading to that which
is well pleasing to God renewal and sanctification of the
soul. We are conscious of the reality of the influence only
after the act.
4. This effectual grace is irresistible in the sense that it
carries the will and affections with it. No counter influence is
supposable in the case, because what it does is to engross the
affections and change the will. The word irresistible was
applied to it first by the opponents of Calvinism, but is ex-
plained by Calvinists in this sense that the will goes with
the divine will and influence, and there is no thought cf
resistance.
622 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
BOOK II.
OF JUSTIFICATIONS
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS.
1. If considered in the historical order, the order of time ) tLe
justification of the sinner before God comes after regeneration.
Our discussions tend to it naturally here. But regeneration, in
the Christian sense, presupposes a possible justification; it in-
cludes justification as possible and actual, in the case of each re-
generated person. When regenerated, believers are, for Christ's
sake, justified. Regeneration is not a mere change of inward
state, but of external relations, through union with Christ.
Being freely justified for Christ's sake, man is brought into
a state of pardon and acceptance with God. The law no longer
condemns the sinner is justified.
2. The question, How can man be just with God? is at the
heart of all religions. The Pagan systems abound in mortifica-
tions, etc., by which a justification is sought.
3. In the doctrine of justification, the gospel is most radically
distinguished from a merely legal system, and from any moral
system which rests on merely legal ideas. These make personal
obedience, conformity to the law, to be the only ground of accept-
ance. In justification, acceptance is on the ground of what
Christ has done, of his merits, of what another has done for
us, in our stead. The doctrine of justification is a central one;
it modifies all the rest ; according to the view taken of this, the
entire system is distinguished.
4. Views of the atonement determine the views on justifica
1 References. Owen, one of the ablest treatises in the English literature. The
view of the Anglican Church is in Bishop Bull's work on the Harmony between
Paul and James. There is a good exposition of the Scholastic view in Dr. Hamp
den's Bampton Lecture, V. One of the best expositions of the subject is in Dr
Richards' Lectures.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION, 523
tion, if logical sequence is observed. We have to do here, not
with views of natural justice, but with divine methods. 1
5. Justification by Faith alone is the distinguishing article
of the Reformers' position against the Roman Catholic system.
Romanists make justification and sanctification to go hand iu
hand, personal holiness to be the ground or reason of justifica-
tion, and hence works are mixed up with grace. The Reformers
insist on the direct relation to Christ, justification for his sake,
union with Him, trust in Him. It is " the gift of the giver, and
not the reward of the worker."
6. Nor are justification and pardon the same in Scripture.
The view of Emmons (Works, vol. v.) is: that justification u is
no more nor less than pardon," that " God rewards men for their
own and not Christ's obedience."
(cr.) But the words as used in common life relate to wholly
different things. 2 If a man is "declared just" by a human
tribunal, he is not pardoned, he is acquitted, his own inherent
righteousness as respects the charge against him is recognized
and declared.
The Gospel proclaims both pardon and justification. There
is no significance in the use of the word "justify," if pardon be
all that is intended.
(b.) Certain expressions of Scripture are opposed to the view
that justification is simply pardon: Rom. v. 1, 2, 17, 18, 21; 1 Cor.
i. 30.
(c.) Justification involves what pardon does not, a righteous-
ness which is the ground of the acquittal and favor; not the
mere favor of the sovereign but the merit of Christ, is at the
basis, the righteousness which is of God. The ends of the law
are so far satisfied by what Christ has done, that the sinner can
be pardoned. The law is not merely set aside, but its great ends
are answered by what Christ has done in our behalf. God might
pardon as a sovereign, from mere benevolence (as regard to hap-
1 If we regard the atonement simply as answering the ends of a governmental
scheme, our view must be that justification merely removes an obstacle, and the
end of it is only pardon and not eternal life.
58 See on this point a sermon on Justification by J. F. Stearns D.D., before the
Synod of New York and New Jersey, 1853.
524 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
piness), but in the gospel He does more He pardons in con-
sistency with his holiness upholding that as the main end of
all his dealings and works.
(d.) Justification involves acquittal from all the penalty of
the law and the inheritance of all the blessings of the redeemed
state. The penalty of the law : spiritual, temporal, eternal death,
is all taken away, and the opposite blessings are conferred in
and through Christ: the resurrection to blessedness, the gift of
the Spirit, and eternal life.
(e.) If justification is forgiveness simply, it applies only to
the past. If it is also a title to life, it includes the future con-
dition of the soul. The latter alone is consistent with the plan
and decrees of God respecting Redemption his seeing the end
from the beginning. 1
7. Justification is not a merely governmental provision, as
it must be on any scheme which denies that Christ's work has
direct respect to the ends of the law.
Neither does it find its ground, where some extreme Prot-
estant views would place it, in our internal state of repentance,
faith, or love, or any inward works (this being made the distinc-
tion from the Roman Catholic ground external works), as the
meritorious basis of our acceptance. That ground is Christ,
what Christ has done faith is the instrument. An internal
change is always a sine qua non of justification, but not its meri-
torious ground.
8. Union with Christ is the capital idea here. Edwards : "What
is real in the relation between Christ and the believer is the foun-
dation of what is legal." Dorner (his own summary of his doctrine
in Neue Evang. Kirchenzeitung, 1867, p. 744): (a.) The Actus Fo-
rensis in God becomes also transeunt, seen in the " Friedensruf
Gottes," in the believing soul; (&.) By this, peace and joy flow
into the soul; (c.) From the consciousness of the forgiveness of
1 The reason why justification has been taken as pardon is two-fold, (a. ) It does
involve pardon: this is its negative side, while it has a positive side also the title
to eternal life, (b.) The tendency to resolve the Gospel into an ethical system.
Only our acts of choice as meritorious could procure a title to favor, a positive re-
ward. Christ might remove the obstacle, but the title to heaven is derived only
from what we ourselves do.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 525
sins, and the blessedness given therewith, are developed the de-
sire and love of the good; (d.) Man becomes partaker of that
peace and joy, and conscious of his justification, in that Christ ia
laid hold of by faith, and thus the union or the marriage of God
and man is completed; (e.) The renewed man, even in his sanc-
tification, can never derive (deduce) his gracious estate from
the sanctification, but only and always the sanctification from the
grace.
9. The statement of the doctrine in the Confession, Q. 33,
Shorter Cat. : "Justification is an act of God's free grace, wherein
He pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his
sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and re
ceived by faith alone."
Observations:
" Imputation " means, reckoning to one's account that which
he has not treating one as if he were that which he is not.
It does not mean, transferring of personal righteousness.
The relation to God consists in his exercise of " free grace,"
his u pardoning" and "accepting as righteous."
The relation to Christ is seen, in his righteousness being that
" for the sake " of which the justification is made. The right-
eousness is "imputed," what is his is set to our account. And it
is "righteousness" which is imputed: the transaction is a moral
one.
The relation of justification to ourselves is seen, in the fact
that it is received by "faith alone." ("Yet is it not alone in
the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other sav-
ing graces." Confession, chap. xi. 2.) Faith is the instrument
by which justification is received, and it is the only instrument.
A further statement in the Confession of Faith, chap. xi. 4:
u God did, from all eternity, decree to justify all the elect; . . .
nevertheless, they are not justified until the Holy Spirit doth, in
due time, actually apply Christ unto them."
626 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
CHAPTER II.
OF THE TERM AND IDEA: JUSTIFY JUSTIFICATION; THE GENERAL
AND SCRIPTURAL SENSE.
1. The general term dixaiotfvr-q, righteousness, means, (a )
The righteousness which the law demands, holiness. It applies
to the internal state. It is, the state of man as corresponding to
the divine law not merely the outward relation, but also the
internal state. This is not justification. But the Scriptures
distinguish (b.) That righteousness which is the ground of
our justification, not of works, but of God, through faith: Rom.
i. 17; iii. 21, 22, 26; iv. 3, 5, 6, 9; Gal. iii. 6.
The classic sense of diHaio6vvrj is, state of righteousness, jus-
tice (without reference to what is due to a personal God), whereas
the general Christian sense of the word is, the state of a man
corresponding to the divine will (or law).
AmcLioGvvri is the general term for conformity to law: the
property of those who belong to the kingdom of God. It is,
their whole state as conformed to the divine law; it is sus-
ceptible of degrees; it also includes sanctification. (That it in-
cludes the internal state as well as the objective relation is seen
from Rom. ix. 30; Gal. v. 5; Rom. vi. 16; xiii. 1 seq. ; xiv. 17;
1 Cor. i. 30; Gal. iii. 21; Cf. Gal. v. 5.)
Aoried$at ets 8iKato<5vr^v (Rom. iv. 3, 5, 6, 9, 22; Gal. iii. 6;
James ii. 23, all from Gen. xv. 6) designates the contrast to the
personal diHaiotivvrj (that k^epyoov): and means that righteousness
which, without merit of ours, is declared to be ours by God, for
Christ's sake.
2. The terms Sinaiou), dixai&dis, are always used of the actus
forensis, the declaration of righteousness, whether made in view
of the present state or of the future, of dmoaotivvr} rov So, or of
full personal righteousness. They set forth Justification in dis-
tinction from Sanctification. (The only exception is Rev. xxii.
11, " He that is righteous, let him be righteous still," diuaiGo^rca
ert'j but the best reading is, SiKauotivvrjv icoiytia'roo en. Which-
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 527
ever be adopted, the variation shows that dixaiGo^'roD in the
sense of: let him maJce himself or continue to be righteous, was
44 intolerable to a Greek ear.")
dixaicojiia is used in both senses: as a righteous deed, Rom.
v. 18 ( = r?7? vitaKorjs, v. 19); and as a justifying act, Rom. v. 16
(where it is opposed to Hardupma).
3. The whole question about the Scriptural terms rendered
"justify," "justification" is do they mean, declare righteous, or,
make righteous.
(a.) In common speech, to justify one's self, to justify God, etc.,
is not to make just. " Ye are they which justify yourselves
before men " (Luke xvi. 15) is, Ye are they which assert your
righteousness before men; "he, willing to justify himself" (Luke
x. 29) is, wishing to make it appear, to have it declared and ad-
mitted, that he had not put an unnecessary question.
(5.) The whole reasoning of the Epistles to the Romans and
the Galatians proceeds on this understanding.
(c.) It is the concession of Biblical scholars, that to use
Wieseler's language 1 "leaving out the contested passages (such
as Rev. xxii. 11), there is not a passage in the New Testament,
where Sinatovv means aught but declare."
Wieseler says: "dinatovv in the Septuagint means 'make
just' only in Dan. xii. 3, Isa. liii. 11, Ps. Ixxiii. 13, (Sirach xviii.
22)." " In Rom. iii. 20, ' by the deeds of the law shall no flesh
be justified before Him,' Gal. ii. 16 (same as Rom. iii. 20, omit-
ting trooTttov avrov, and both from Ps. cxliii. 2,) and Gal. iii. 11,
'and that by the law no man is justified before God,' the
meaning cannot possibly be, make, just."
"So too Sinaiovv is declared to be the same as Xoyt6^ffvai ets
ZiKcaotivvrjv in Rom. iv. 3, 5, 9, 23, 24; Gal. iii. 6; i. e., justitia
imputata, non infusa."
"Even in James the two phrases are used as equivalent: viz.
diKcaovtiSai in James ii. 21, 24, 25; and \oyi6^iijva.-L si$ dwaiotivvtjr
in James ii. 23."
1 Galaterbrief, 1859, pp. 176-204. He cites Clem, of Home in 1 Cor. ch. 32;
Chrysostom, as so interpreting Bom. viii. 33; Theodoret, Kom. iii. 24, and Au-
gustine, De Spir. et Littera. c. 16, "justum habere," though afterwards "justum
facere" (Cf. on this, Nitzsch, Theol. Stud. u. Kritik., 1834, p. 481ff)
p )28 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
"Again in 1 Cor. i. 30, vi. 11, a.yia.6^ and rtytd^^rs are
named with and distinguished from dtxaiodvrjj and idiKaiGoSrjze"
Justification involves acquittal from all the penalty and
inheritance of all the blessings which come under the law.
CHAPTEK III.
Justification (SiHai&ti-iS) involves a righteousness (S
as its ground.
This is the reasoning of Paul in Eomans and Galatians.
That it does so is evident :
1. From the nature of the case, (a.) If justification be not mere
pardon; (&.) if the believer is declared just and admitted to the
favor of a holy God; (c.) if God is a moral Governor, having
supreme regard to holiness as the end of the law; (d) if no one
can be saved unless as righteous in God's sight.
2. From Scripture. If it is not so, there is no significance
in the term dmcaovv, the Scripture need only have said "pardon."
Rom. x. 4; Phil. iii. 9; Rom. iv. 6; 2 Cor. v. 21; Rom. v. 18, 19;
Rom. iii. 26.
" God will not justify without a righteousness, nor without
a righteousness which does honor to his law and sets its author-
ity high in the sight of the universe " (Dr. Richards, p. 390)
CHAPTER IV.
This righteousness which is the ground of justification is not
that of the sinner, personally fulfilling the demands of the law.
It is not a legal justification, by which each is treated according
to his personal deserts not a legal justification in the sense of
distributive justice.
1. It cannot be so, on account of the sinner's moral state.
(a.) As a matter of fact, he is in a sinful, guilty condition, liable
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 520
to the just condemnation of the law. All men know this. (6.) If
he should repent, he could not wipe out the past, the condemna-
tion remains, (c.) So great is the power of sin in him that he
lies morally unable to turn, his natural ability does not avail
for this, on account of the strengtn and power of sin. (d.) God
cannot consistently merely pardon, (c.) Men cannot justify
themselves by any denial of guilt. God accuses them, and
God's law demands perfect holiness of them, (y.) Nor can
man's faith, as evangelical obedience, be taken, on lower terms
than those which demanded obedience in full. For if so, the
obedience would still be our righteousness.
Man is in such a state, then, that he cannot merit heaven by
the deeds of the law. (Even Pelagius could say, " lex ita mittit
ad regnuin coelorum ut evangelium," only upon the understand-
ing that the works of the law were external works.)
2. The Scripture declares that the personal righteousness of
men cannot be the ground of their justification. The Law is
always the same, always binding in its full extent. " All have
sinned and come short of the glory of God." (a.) The Scripture
declares that all are under condemnation, (b.) The "works of
the law " of which the Apostle speaks are, the whole obedience
which the law requires. They are contrasted with justification
by faith alone, and not with mere legal performances, (c.) Ex-
press statements of Scripture: Rom. iii. 20, 28; Titus iii. 5, 7;
Eph. ii. 8; Rom. iii. 24; Rom. iv. 5, 6, 7; Phil. iii. 9; Gal. iii. 10,
22; Rom. xi. 6.
CHAPTER V.
THE GROUND OF JUSTIFICATION.
Our justification can rest only upon one of two grounds.
Ultimately, there are only two religions: that of works and that
of faith in Christ.
The ground of justification must be a righteousness. It can-
not be ours. Where and what is it ?
530 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Or: There must be a meritorious ground, under God's moral
government, for our justification. It cannot be our merits.
Whose merits, then ?
Or: Justification is a procedure under God's moral govern-
ment, not of his mere sovereignty. It is not a procedure rest-
ing on the personal merit of the justified person. It must be
something taken instead of that, answering the same ends. That
something is the Atonement of Christ, his work for us.
1. Statements of Scripture as to the Ground of Justification.
(a.) General Statements.
Rom. v. 18. "Even so through the righteousness of one
.... upon all men unto justification of life."
Rom. v. 19. " So by the obedience of one shall many be
made righteous."
Rom. x. 4 "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to
every one that believeth." (This is the most decisive statement
of Scripture.)
2 Cor. v. 21. " For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who
knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God
in Him."
Phil. iii. 9. " And be found in Him, not having mine own
righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through
the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by
faith."
(5.) Justification is spoken of as an imputation.
Rom. iv. 6. "the blessedness of the man, unto whom God
imputeth righteousness without works."
Cf. Rom. v. 18, 19, above.
Rom. iv. 5. " To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him
that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for (loyi^srai)
righteousness."
The meaning of impute is seen most distinctly in the usage of the
compound eMoyeao. As in Philemon, verse 18, "if he hath wronged
thee in anything . . . rovto knoi tXlioyei,) put that on my account."
So, Rom. v. 13, " but sin is not imputed (kXXoyeiTat) when there
is no law/'
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 531
"To impute" does not involve the idea of a transfer of per-
sonal righteousness.
The imputation concerns the laying of our sins to the account
of Christ as well as of his righteousness to our account.
(c.) Justification is spoken of as the result of Christ's obedience.
(The distinction sometimes made between his active and pas-
sive obedience is not to be commended. It is said, that by his
active obedience Christ satisfied the demands of the law for holi-
ness; and by his passive, its demands for suffering. This dis-
tinction has not a Scriptural basis. The obedience of Christ's
whole life, all that belongs to his work, is imputed, reckoned to
our account for righteousness. It is thus that we "become the
righteousness of God in Him."}
2. How Christ can be the Ground of our Justification.
1. We are justified by what He did in, and in view of, a con-
stituted relationship to us. 1
2. The doctrine of union with Christ is fundamental as to
the mode in which He can be the ground of our justification.
The Doctrine of the Vital or Mystical Union. Larg. Cat., Q. 66:
"The union which the elect have with Christ is the work of
God's grace, whereby they are spiritually and mystically, yet
really and inseparably, joined to Christ as their head and hus-
band; which is done in their effectual calling."
Short. Cat, Q. 30. "The Spirit applieth to us the redemption
purchased by Christ, by working faith in us, and thereby uniting
us to Christ in our effectual calling."
This is the mystical union in the Calvinistic sense; it is found
similarly expressed in other Confessions of the Keformation. It
is something real, and not a mere figure; as real as the union
between the branch and the vine. Though the branch and the
vine be only a figure, yet the fact illustrated by the figure is
not figurative.
The discussion proposed will state, I. The Scriptural Proof,
II. The Proof derivable from other Doctrines and Analogies,
1 This relationship is involved in a divine plan and is sometimes calkx? ti
covenant of redemption.*'
532 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
III. The Nature of this Union, IV. The Difference between
the Calvinistic and other Modes of Viewing this Union.
L The Scriptural Proof.
The term " mystical," by which this union is denoted, is from
Eph. v. 32. " This is a great mystery : but I speak concerning
Christ and the church." Verse 31 clo'ses with " and they two
[husband and wife] shall be one flesh," and then follows the
above, declaring that the union between Christ and his church
is as close, as intimate as that between husband and wife; that
the union between husband and wife is but the image, the lower
realization, of the union between Christ and his people.
John vi. 56. " He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my
blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him." The reference is not to
the sacrament to be instituted. The meaning is more than
sacramental, viz., real.
John xiv. 23. " If a man love me, he will keep my words ;
and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and
make our abode with him."
John xvii. 22, 23. "And the glory which thou gavest me I
have given them ; that they may be one, even as we are one : I in
them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one."
The union between Christ and his people is like that between
Christ and the Father. If the real union between Christ and
his followers is denied, then that between Christ and the Father
must be denied also.
1 John ii. 5. " But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily
is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in
Him." Verse 6 : " He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself
also so to walk, even as He walked."
1 John iv. 12. " If we love one another, God dwelleth in
us, and his love is perfected in us."
The assumption of our nature is also part of the proof. John
i. 14: " The word was made flesh."
Paul, as well as John, sets forth the mystical union.
Eph. v. 23-32, referred to above.
Rom. viii. 10. " And if Christ be in you, the body is dead be-
cause of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." (It
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 533
is also shown, from the context here, that the union with Christ
is mediated by the Spirit: verse 9, "if any man have not the
Spirit of Christ" verse 11: "But if the Spirit of Him that
raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you.")
Col. i. 27 " what is the riches of the glory of this mystery
among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.''
Eph. iii. 17. "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by
faith."
Gal. iii. 27. " For as many of you as have been baptized
into Christ have put on Christ."
1 Cor. vi. 14, 15. "And God hath both raised up the Lord,
and will also raise up us by his own power. Know ye not that
your bodies are the members of Christ ? " Also, v. 17 : " But he
that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit."
There may also be cited:
2 Peter i. 4: "that by these ye might be (rerrjtiSe) partakers
of the divine nature."
The figure of the branch and the vine, John xv.
Results from the Scriptural Evidence.
(a.) As a matter of fact and reality, there is as truly a union
between Christ and his followers, as between Christ and the
Father, the husband arid the wife, the trunk and the branches.
(6.) This union is not sacramental but spiritual: not imme-
diate, but through and by the Holy Spirit uniting us to Christ
our head. This makes the distinction between the Calvinistic
view and that of the mystics and of the Sacramentarians.
(c.) The union extends to the body, so far as this that through
the life-giving Spirit, we, like Christ, are to be raised from the
dead : because He lives we shall live also.
(d.) This union is on the basis of the covenant of grace, and
through it the blessings of that covenant are imparted to us.
(e.) The life given by this union is none other than the life
which the Holy Ghost imparts yet it is a life, not of mere gen
eral divine influence, but in union with Christ.
(/.) This life is given through faith as the instrument of
our justification; it is a life not excluding, but including
justification.
534 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
II. Proof from other sources of doctrine and analogy.
(<?.) From the doctrine of Justification by faith alone. In
our effectual calling, by the Spirit through faith, we are
justified; i. e., on the ground of what Christ has done, we are ac
cepted in Him, "elect in Christ" There must then be some
peculiar bond or tie, on the ground of which we can be thus
received and accepted in another.
(6.) From the parallel between our death in Adam and our
life in Christ: Kom. v. 12 seq. The race is one in Adam, and
hence could sin in him and fall with him; human nature be-
came corrupt in him. We are condemned thereby: the natural
union with Adam is the ground of this procedure. In like man-
ner, the spiritual union with Christ is the basis of our being
accepted, and justified in him.
(c.) From the truth of the intimate, secret, unseen, yet real
influence of the Holy Spirit in regeneration in our effectual
calling, uniting us to Christ by these sacred influences, reinstat-
ing us in the moral image of God. These influences are confess-
edly mysterious; they are the bond of our union with Christ.
This union is at the ground of regeneration and justification.
(d) From the nature of love to Christ, faith in Christ, im-
plying the closest personal relationship between Christ and
ourselves a union.
(e.) From the analogy of other works of God, and facts in
our other relations.
Through al. rature, if we are theists, we believe in a per-
petual presence of God, everywhere, not merely in power, but in
reality. Through all second causes the great First Cause is ever
at work. Acts xvii. 28.
In each of the several tribes of creation there is a special,
common character, whereby the tribe is made one, though also
each individual is distinct from every other. There is a mystery
and a fact here. The common nature and descent from one pair
have a background of mysterious union, which is a background
of fact also.
It is natural then to conclude from analogy, that in the new
and higher kingdom of God's grace, for which all other things
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 535
were made, there would be a real union in one head. This is
given us in our union with Christ, through the influence of the
gracious Spirit.
Thus, through the influences of the Holy Spirit, we are led tc
faith in Christ: to trust in Him; and in consequence of that we
become partakers of all that Christ has done for us are justified,
{. e., are both pardoned and adopted.
Now, as in the family there is a union of members, parents
and children, so that all have the same liabilities, on the ground
of the union ; as in the race having its headship in Adam there
is a union, with the same liabilities; so in our union to Christ
through love and faith, a like union is implied.
III. The nature of this union: (rather negatively than
positively).
A general union with God is at the basis: Acts xvii. 28.
It involves also a union with the whole Trinity : John xiv. 23;
xvii. 23; xvii. 21.
(a.) The union is not physical but spiritual.
(b.) It is not through the sacraments, but by the Spirit,
through faith.
(c.) Not that the substance of Christ passes over into us, so
that our natures are made divine with his divinity (Cf. Calvin's
Instit. III. xi. 10).
(d.) Not that his theanthropic life, considered as his specific
substance, or nature, is infused into us.
(e.) But, it is a vital, personal union: mystical, because it
cannot be further defined than as a fact, and by the consequent
benefits. But though mystical, yet real.
(f.) Hence it is more than
(a 1 .) Union of affection and aim. This is included, but this
is the consequence of the union and not the union itself.
(6 1 .) Than a merely external, constituted, arbitrary relation
than a mere union of compact; though this is also included.
Just as with Adam the moral headship is based on the physical,
the covenant is carried out through the natural relationship, so
is the covenant of grace through this spiritual union.
(a.) The effect of faith in uniting to Christ is thus stated by
03 G CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Augustine (Serrn. 144): "Qui ergo in Christum credit, credendo
in Christum, venit in eum Christus, et quodocmmodo unitur in
eurri, et membrum in corpore ejus efficitur." (The credere in
Christum he shows to be very different from, credere ipsum esse
Christum, and, credere de Clirislo, devils may do this). Further :
" Ille enim credit in Christum, qui et sperat in Christum et dili-
git Christum. Nam si n'dem habet sine spe ac sine dilectioiie,
Christum esse credit, non in Christum credit."
IV. Classification and criticism of opinions as to the nature
of our relation to Christ.
The great difference of theological systems comes out here.
Since Christianity is redemption through Christ, our mode of
conceiving that will determine the character of our whole the-
ological system.
1. The humanitarian (Socinian) view. Christ is an example
and a teacher. There is no other relationship than there is be-
tween us and other examples and teachers, excepting that He
is the highest and best. There is between Him and us no living
bond or tie. (Socinus admits that Christ confers immortality.)
This is a bare, ethical, natural system, with no supernatural
elements.
2. The other extreme is, Transubstantiation : through the
sacraments, by transubstantiation of the elements of bread and
wine, the very body and blood of Christ are received. (This
view has a greatly modified form in the Lutheran doctrine of
Con substantiation . )
3. The Sacramental Theory (particularly of the Oxford
School). The Sacraments are an extension of the Incarna-
tion, and vehicles of grace. Through the Sacraments we re-
ceive, not the very body and blood, but the theanthropic life
of Christ. The Holy Spirit works in the bestowal of this life,
but works through the Sacraments. There is a real, spiritual
reception of the very substance of the Logos. (See Mercersb
Rev., Oct. 1854).
4. The Spiritual Life Theory. This drops the Sacraments
We receive r rom Christ a new, spiritual life; the communica
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 537
tion of such a life is the great end of the Incarnation. The
Atonement is merged in the Incarnation ; the object of the In-
carnation is the giving of life, rather than making atonement
(Schleiermacher, Coleridge).
5. The general Calvinistic view. The union with Christ is
mediated by his Spirit (it is not direct, not through sacraments),
whence we are both renewed and justified. The great fact of
objective Christianity is, Incarnation in order to Atonement:
the great fact of subjective Christianity is, Union with Christ,
whereby we receive the Atonement. The Sacraments are ex-
pressions, not vehicles of grace.
Our new life is hid with Christ in God. The Incarnation
has the same relation to the new life that Creation has to the
old. Yet this new life is by the distinct operation of the Holy
Spirit. We stand in as close a relation to the second as to the
first Adam though it be spiritual and not natural.
Calvin (Works, Brunswick ed., 1870, vol. ix. p. 30, on the De-
fence of the Doctrine of the Sacraments) says : " The flesh of Christ
is life-bringing. . . . We coalesce with Christ in a sacred unity, and
that same flesh (caro) breathes life into us. ... by a secret virtue
of the Holy Spirit, we have, implanted into the body of Christ, a
common life with Him. For from the hidden fountain of Deity,
life is wonderfully infused into the flesh of Christ, that thence
it might flow to us "
6. The Governmental Theory. This denies the reality of
such union with Christ, takes the expressions of Scripture re-
lating to it as metaphors, and denies also the reality of justifi-
cation on this basis. We become like Christ by choosing the
same end that He did. His atonement removed the obstacles,
so that we can now go directly to God. Justification is pardon
only, for Christ's sake: or, if more, we are justified on the ground
of our inherent state of love, or, because it is foreseen by God
that we shall become wholly just by and by. Christ presents
to us an exhibition of God's hatred of sin and love of holiness ;
and this moves us to be and do right more than anything else.
1 [If any one hesitates over this expression, there may perhaps be substituted
for the term "flesh " the term " humanity," with no detriment to the force of the
argument]
538 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
All this is true enough as far as it goes. But it condemns
as a figment, as visionary and unreal, the grand fact of personal,
vital union with Christ, through faith, as the basis of our justi-
fication, and the beginning of our new life.
In fine and sum the question being, How can the lost favor
of God be restored ?
The first theory says: It is enough for God to come and help
us somewhat.
The second says : We are restored by partaking of Christ's
very flesh and blood.
The third says: We are restored by partaking of the divine
humanity though not of the literal flesh and blood through
the Sacraments.
The fourth : by partaking of the life of Christ, not necessarily
through the Sacraments.
The fifth : only through justification and regeneration, effected
by the Holy Spirit, uniting us to Christ.
The sixth: through justification, i. e., pardon, not including
a real union with Christ, to produce effects, influences on us.
3. In what Way does what Christ has done avail to the Believer
through this Union, for his Justification as a Righteousness?
How does it avail ?
1. Not legal justification in the sense of distributive justice
as defined Not under the law in the restricted usage
that it demands works as the condition of life. " The ungodly "
are justified (" Legal justification occurs when one accused is
vindicated by showing either that he did not do the act or had
a right to do it." Barnes, p. 74).
Justification is contrasted with this expressly. The law
requires uniform obedience: Rom. iii. 21. The law, of itself,
has no provision for justification. Not as excluding all right-
eousness or merits, as the ground of justification. Proved in
Chap. III.
2. Not a transfer of personal righteousness Christ's right-
ousness to the believer: the believer and Christ being consid
ered as separate.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 539
3. But that Christ having satisfied the end of the law for
righteousness, in man's behalf (made an atonement as already
explained) i. e., secured holiness, we, through union with Him.
become partakers of all the benefits of his work. Here is the
mystery of the work.
4. Though the demands of distributive justice are not di-
rectly met (i. e., as the ultimate point of view in our justifica-
tion *), yet the end to be gained by distributive justice, i. e.,
the maintenance of holiness, is secured.
Considered in themselves, out of Christ, men are guilty,
deserving condemnation.
5. For Christ's sake because we are one with Him we are
treated "as if" righteous: but we could not be so treated un-
less there were in Christ a sufficient ground for this "as if":
his merits.
CHAPTER VI.
THE INSTRUMENTAL CAUSE OF JUSTIFICATION.
1. Faith, and Faith alone.
The Roman Catholic view is that justification is through
the sacraments as well, i. e., by baptism and by penance
as restoring the forfeited grace of baptism. The Arminian
view: the means of justification is faith as including love
and future holiness. God perceives, in the act of faith, love
and holiness following, and declares the person just, not on
the ground of Christ's merit, but of the foreseen merits of
the believer.
The Scriptures declare faith to be the only act of the soul on
which justification is conditioned. Rom. i. 16; v. 1; Gal. ii. 16;
1 If tenpence is due a man and he is paid a dollar, the tenpence is more than
satisfied. Christ's work more than satisfies distributive justice, while directly and
in the strictest sense, it does not and cannot "satisfy" it. Its end is more fullj
reached holiness is made supreme and triumphant.
640 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Phil. iii. 9; John iii. 18 asserts that faith is necessary to the ob
taining eternal life.
2. The Idea of Faith.
(a.) In a loose popular sense, Faith is belief in any truth on
any ground.
(&.) In a general and somewhat abstract sense, it is belief in
what is beyond the sphere of the senses.
(c.) It is belief, on the ground of testimony, in what we have
not ourselves seen or known belief on the ground of authority.
The same truth may be known in different ways by reason
and by testimony too, e. g., immortality.
(d.) More particularly, in a general Scriptural usage, Faith
is trusting in God's testimony receiving all that God has re-
vealed to us. Roman Catholics say: It is belief in God's testi-
mony, as witnessed by the church: it merits grace, of congruity,
through the sacraments; being "formed" by love, it is directly
meritorious and accumulates merits.
(e.) The special sense of Faith, the sense in which it is used
in the doctrine of justification is, the receiving, resting in, and
trusting upon Christ Not mere abstract truth, but Christ is its
object. It is not merely relying upon what God has testified in
regard to all truth, but trusting in and receiving Christ as our
Saviour relying upon Him.
As such
1. It is an act of the whole soul not of the intellect, nor
will, nor sensibilities, alone, but of all combined. The whole
soul goes out in the act of faith in Christ. Faith is one of the
most concrete of acts, yet in direct consciousness is an act per
fectly simple.
2. It also includes in germ all other graces. It does this
because it is an energy of the whole mind. " Worketh by love,"
Gal. v. 6. It involves repentance. "Show faith by works,'
James ii. 18.
3. It is itself a holy act, involving trust and love, yet it is
not as holy that it is the means of justification, but as being
the act in which we receive Christ.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 541
4. Thus it is properly called the instrumental cause of justi-
fication. The meritorious ground is Christ. Faith is not the
highest of the virtues, but love is. Justification is not without
works, yet not by works, not without love, yet not by love,
not without assent, yet not as though the assent were
meritorious.
3. Some Questions in regard to Faith.
I. Does faith always involve explicit, in distinction from
implicit, knowledge? Must there always be a full and defined
knowledge of what Christ is ?
Some degree of knowledge is involved in every conscious act
of faith. This is essential to it. Roman Catholics contend that
faith may be implicit to a large extent, i. e., a man may have
saving faith without knowing specially anything about the work
of Christ. Faith may be simply general trust in God and be-
lief in the Bible and especially in the church. Thus a man
may say he believes what the church says, even if he does not
know what that is, and he is to be considered as having faith in
what the church holds.
But (1) We really assent only so far as we know the meaning
of the statement which we accept. We may be ready to receive
whatever else can be shown to rest upon the same authority.
(2) The Scriptures interchange faith and knowledge.
II. Whether the act of faith be a moral or intellectual act?
The question here is between those who affirm that it is solely
intellectual, and those who affirm that it involves the affections
and the will (in part) as well as the intellect.
(1) It is an act of the soul in respect to moral and religious
truth, accepting it, trusting it, and resting in it. If so, it must
have a moral character. It is not mere perception, but involves
assent. (2) Hence, it cannot be exercised without the affections.
There is no possible element of trust entering into an act where
the affections are not involved. It involves something of love.
It is giving the soul to that which is presented. (3) A mere
traditional or historical faith cannot be enough. As an intel
lectual act, it would be historical faith or receiving what came
542 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
down in the way of tradition. But we have to do here with
something more than historical evidence. There is the influence
of the Holy Spirit, the assent of the soul to divine truth. The
Scriptures speak of those who believe, as taught of the Spirit.
All the effects of faith are such as to show it to have a moral
character as well as historical. They impose an obligation in
respect to it, and this implies a moral, spiritual character belong-
ing to it. Unbelief would not be a sin unless it involved that
which is immoral.
III. (Involved in the preceding.) Does trust belong tc
faith ? This is denied by Romanists.
(1) Not, as applied to abstract doctrines, e. g., the divinity of
Christ. (2) But saving faith rests ultimately in persons, in God,
in Christ. Most specifically, it is a direct reliance on Christ for
salvation.
IV. Does faith involve the assurance of personal salvation ?
Does such assurance belong to the essence of faith, to the es-
sence in distinction from the products of faith ?
Sir Wm. Hamilton (Discussions, p. 493), arguing against Arch-
deacon Hare on Luther's doctrines, has affirmed very boldly that
the doctrine of assurance the feeling certain that God is propi-
tious to me that my sins are forgiven, was long held by the
Protestant communities to be the criterion of a saving faith.
Luther says, "He who hath not assurance spews faith out," and
Melancthon makes it a distinction between Christianity and
heathenism. Hamilton further says that this position was main-
tained by Calvin, by Arminius, and by all the Protestant Con-
fessions down to the Westminster, when assurance was for the
first time declared to be not of the essence of faith. He adda
that then one of the great distinctions between Protestants and
Roman Catholics was obliterated. These statements show that
a great philosopher may be mistaken in departments where he
is not well acquainted. By some of the earlier Reformers, as by
Luther, it was undoubtedly asserted that faith involves assurance,
and this was urged in part against the Roman Catholic view,
which leads to the conclusion that no one can be assured of his
salvation in this life, because salvation is dependent upon sancti-
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 543
fication ; in opposition to which Protestants argued that in faith
itself was the ground and assurance of our salvation, and that
we might have from the simple act of faith assurance of personal
salvation. Calvin speaks guardedly. He says that there are
doubts and difficulties, and that it is not necessary to have as-
surance in order to be a believer. Even the Synod of Dort did
not include this among its decrees. It is not explicitly asserted
in any of the Reformed Confessions, except in the Heidelberg
Catechism, not in the French, nor in that of Basel, nor in the
Helvetic. The Westminster Confession, c. xviii. 3, says, "This
infallible assurance doth not so belong to the essence of faith,
but that a true believer may wait long, and conflict with many
difficulties before he be partaker of it." Turretine draws the dis-
tinction clearly. It is said to be not the essence of faith but its
ripest product. This doctrine of assurance has been revived in
Switzerland through Dr. Malan, whose tract has been published
by the Reformed Dutch Board. He makes assurance to be not
merely necessary to gospel peace, but to belong to faith, so that one
cannot have faith without having assurance of faith. President
Edwards met this point in a letter to Ebenezer Erskine of Scot-
land, where the controversy had been started in connection with
the publication of the " Marrow of Divinity." He puts it sub-
stantially in this form : " Faith is belief, in its general sense, of
what God has revealed to us in the gospel. He has revealed to
us that all who beliere will be saved, and we must believe that
on the ground of the gospel assertion: but He has not revealed
to us in the gospel that I, Jonathan Edwards, of Northampton,
shall be saved, and therefore that does not belong to the essence
of faith. The essence of faith consists in receiving what God
has revealed."
4, Is Man responsible for his Belief I e., for his Unbelief?
Those who assert that man is not responsible, do it because
they hold that faith is a merely intellectual act, and depends on
the amount of evidence which is brought before the mind, so
that if a man has sufficient evidence, he cannot help believing!
and if he has not, he cannot attain to belief. They argue thf
544 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
question on the ground of a general definition of faith assent
to testimony: and say, where the testimony is present, assent ia
compelled, and where it is not, assent is impossible.
The general position to be taken in respect to the matter is,
that man is responsible for his unbelief so far as sin in any form
or way keeps him from believing. If there is a want of oppor-
tunity or of natural capacity, he is not to be held responsible.
But so far as any selfishness, any worldliness, any pride, any
evil desire, any wrong affection, keeps him from submitting to
the righteousness of God, just so far he is responsible. This ia
applied as follows: (1) To the evidence for the being of God.
Faith, reliance, trust in the divine existence, is not a merely in-
tellectual act; it is an act of the whole soul turning to God.
Wherever there is atheism, the fact shows that the moral nature
is benumbed. (2) To the evidences of Christianity. These are
addressed partly to the intellect, but chiefly to man's moral
wants, because Christianity presents itself as a remedy for man's
moral disorders, and all that prevents any from receiving it is
the absence of the sense of need of salvation. It is a moral hin-
drance. (3) To faith in Christ. This is essentially a moral act,
an act of the whole soul. It is not merely an act of the intel-
lect, but it is from a conscious need of redemption; and that
which keeps any one from trusting in Christ is his lack of a
proper sense of his sinfulness and need of a Saviour. (4) To the
final condemnation of the sinner. In perhaps almost all minds,
that which keeps from the acknowledgment of this, is the want
of a proper sense of sin and of its just desert. 1
5. Why is the high Office assigned to Faith of being the instru-
mental Cause of Justification ?
1. It is not because faith is the highest of the virtues:
1 Cor. xiii. 13.
2. It is because faith is the only way in which man can
receive Christ. The act of the soul trusting Christ is the only
mode in which the soul can be saved. Faith is the only con*
1 Wardlaw, in reply to Brougham, has written on the question, Is man re-
sponsible for his belief? See Princ. Rev., vol. xviii. p. 53.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 545
ceivable act by which the sinner can be united to Christ. It
brings us to rest in God, to renounce self, to turn from self to
Christ, and it is the only act of the mind by which this can
be achieved. Both the simplicity and the power of faith are
to be taken into consideration. 1
CHAPTER VII.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT
VIEWS OF JUSTIFICATION.
They agree in holding that justification is the consequence
or result of the sinner's return to God under the influence of
the Holy Spirit. They differ in their notion of justification, in
their view of the point at which justification takes place,
in their view of the nature of faith, of good works, and of
works of supererogation.
1. The difference in the notion of justification. The Roman
Catholic says, that this includes not only forgiveness and adop-
tion, but also sanctification, that it involves the internal change
of the sinner into a just person an infusion of divine justice as
the property of the soul. Sometimes they call it a physical act.
This is connected with their view of the primitive endowments
of man. They hold that man was endowed with all the capacities
of human nature, and that in addition grace was imparted or
infused superadded to the primitive endowments; that by the
fall, superadded, infused grace was lost; that the object of the
gospel is to restore that lost grace, and that this is effected
through the sacraments baptism, penance and the Lord's
Supper. It is restored substantially physically to man, and
it is on account of this restored grace that man is justified, and
this grace includes faith and sanctification. The Protestant view
i Faith in relation to Justification, Edwards, ii. 628. Faith in relation to
Perseverance, Ibid. iii. 510. Sermons on Justification, Ibid. iv. 64, cf. 36, (N. Y,
Edition, 1868).
646 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
is, that justification in its essential notion is not the making
just, but the declaring just, on the ground of faith alone. It is
a forensic act, {. e., an act in the form of a declaration before a
judicial tribunal, and not in its first aspect declarative of
character.
2. The difference as to the point at which justification occurs.
They agree that justification is grace " per Christum," but the
Eoman Catholic says that God is moved by the faith, repent-
ance, good purposes, and good works of man to make him just;
that God makes him capable of doing good works, and in pro-
portion to the amount of good works he does, justification ad-
vances, so that the justification is gradual, is constantly
increasing, is never completed until sanctification is complete.
The cause of justification is admitted to be Christ's merits, but
the necessary condition is man's acts, man's works, man's sancti-
fication. The Protestant view is that justification is in and by
a simple act of faith. Man trusts in the pardoning grace of God
through Christ, and good works are the fruit of that.
3. The question whether justification is by faith alone. Ro-
man Catholics deny this. In doing this they give a different
idea of faith. Faith, they say, is the assent by which we receive
those things which are divinely revealed and promised, espe-
cially that the wicked are justified by the grace of God and the
redemption of Christ. This is necessary to justification, but is
not all that is necessary, it must not be found alone. The
Roman Catholic ground is: (1) God is the efficient cause of jus-
tification. (2) Christ is the meritorious ground. (3) Inherent
righteousness, or our sanctified state, is the formal cause the
necessary condition of it. (4T) Merit of condignity, in repentance,
penance, good works, is necessary to justification. (5) The
means by which all this is applied are the sacraments of the
church, especially baptism. The Protestant view is, that the
faith by which we receive Christ involves no mixture of our
own works, that the simple faith and trust is the sole instrument
of justification. In the Protestant view, justification is a single
act of trust; in the Catholic, it is a process, and a long one.
4. The difference as to the relation of good works to justi
THE KINGDOM OP REDEMPTION. 547
fication. They agree that good works are not to be separated
in re from justification, but differ as to their relation to it. The
Protestant view is, that good works bring no merit or desert in
respect to salvation or the title to eternal life. In every other
point of view they insist upon good works, which are the fruit
and consequence of justifying grace. Roman Catholics hold
that good works bring an increase of grace, an increase of title
to eternal life and heavenly felicity, and that in proportion to
the amount of good works is the strength of the title to eter-
nal life.
5. The difference as to the so-called works of supererogation.
Roman Catholics hold that the regenerated may not only keep
the commands of God entirely, but that they may keep more,
not only what is enjoined in the law but also the " evangeli-
cal counsels," things recommended but not binding poverty,
vows of chastity, etc. They may attain to a higher moral per-
fection and merit before God by these works. This is carried
out in the whole system of monasticism, which has here its
theoretic root that in it a higher degree of religion 1 can be
practiced. These monastic saints in this way go through life,
obeying their voluntary vows and laying up a treasury of merit,
which is committed by Christ to the keeping of the church.
These are the works of supererogation, the merit of which is
dispensed by the church in dispensations, etc., from the treasury
of grace laid up from its departed supererogatory heroes. The
general Protestant view is, that so far from there being any works
of supererogation, not even the renewed can perfectly keep the
commands of God, and the whole monastic life is rejected so far
as it claims a higher perfection and special degree of merit.
1 This goes so far that in the Roman Catholic system the word religion if
restricted to the monastic life.
548 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
CHAPTER VIII.
HISTORICAL STATEMENTS RESPECTING THE DIFFERENT THEORIES OP
JUSTIFICATION.
Each theological system and party must have its view of
justification, and that view is modified by the fundamental pe
culiarity of each system. In the early Christian church, to the
time of the Augustinian and Pelagian controversy, there was
for the most part a simple Scriptural statement of the doctrine.
It had not yet been brought out through controversy. The ele-
ments of it were not analyzed. In the anthropological contro-
versy, between Pelagius and Augustine, the doctrine was
brought to a statement, in connection with the doctrines of
grace. The Pelagian view was, that our moral state is the only
ground of justification, corresponding to the general ethical
tendency of Pelagius. In the Mediaeval theology, among the
Scholastics, originated the theory that justification, means to
make just in distinction from its being a declarative act based
in part on the etymology of the word justification, as used in
the Latin language. This continued to be the prevalent doc-
trine until the Reformation controversies. It was then that the
doctrine first came to a full discussion and articulate statement.
Some of the Reformers speak of justification as equivalent to
pardon, and use the terms pardon and justification as synony-
mous. But that was not in view of controversies like ours; it
was with reference to the Roman Catholic position. This was,
that justification consisted in pardon and sanctification. Luther,
Melancthon and Calvin said, justification consists in pardon, but
without ever denying that it likewise includes the title to eternal
life. This is involved in the doctrine of assurance which they
held, though statements which seem to make it merely pardon
may be extracted from the writings of Calvin, etc. In the
course of the Arminian controversy in Holland, at the beginning
of the seventeenth century, coming to its consummation at the
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 549
Synod of Dort, 1618-19, the doctrine of justification was thor-
oughly debated, and the position of the Arminians was substan
tially as follows: Justification is declarative, the sinner is not
made just inherently or relatively in the eye of the law, but ia
restored to his standing through God's favor; that, however, the
ground of justification is not Christ's righteousness imputed, but
is personal faith, including what was called evangelical obedi-
ence a lower obedience than that required by the law, which
is accepted instead of legal obedience. While asserting that
faith, as including this evangelical obedience, is the proper ground
of justification, they had no scruple in saying that the justifica-
tion was gratuitous, on the ground that God for Christ's sake
was willing to accept this imperfect, instead of perfect, obedi-
ence. This included the position that faith holds in its grasp
all the future good works of the justified person. According to
this system, it is quite apparent that the law of God in its strict-
ness is virtually set aside. Christ does not act under that law,
but outside of it, and the sinner does not obey that law, but
renders an evangelical obedience; so that the law is simply set
aside as far as Christ is concerned in his obedience, and the
sinner in his obedience. Under this system sinners were told
to do as well as they could, and trust God's mercy.
There have been some modifications of the doctrine in the
discussions in our own country. The elder Edwards held to the
doctrine of justification in the sense of the Protestant symbols
The only modification which he made which is not a departure
from the symbols but simply from one form of Calvinistic the-
ology was in emphasizing the statement that our real union
with Christ is the basis of the justifying process, that our
union with Christ is the ground of the legal procedure. The
younger Edwards, in a sermon before the Conn. Association, 1786,
on the subject, " Christ our righteousness," enters into an expla-
nation of the nature of the union with Christ as vital in affection,
making us one with Him or causing us to be treated as if one,
on the ground of that union, and then he proceeds to consider
the notion of justification itself. Of this he makes pardon to be
an essential part, not limiting justification, however, to that, and
550 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
then he goes on to say that it is the act of the sovereign, beside
and above the law, and not the act of the judge, which latter
position, he says, subverts the grace of the gospel. He is ex-
plicit in the statement that the satisfaction and obedience ol
Christ is the meritorious cause of justification. When he denies
that it is the act of a judge, he must be understood to mean that
it is not under the law in the strictest sense of distributive jus-
tice. He should not be taken as meaning that justification has
not respect to the great ends of the law. By the act of a judge,
he means simply a legal declaration as to the personal desert of
each individual, and then of course justification cannot be the
act of God as a judge. This subject has entered into later dis-
cussions, and by some writers of the so-called New School bodies,
justification was made to be simply equivalent to pardon. Dr.
Richards, however, (p. 389 seq.) takes a different ground and
the ground on which the New School in general may be said to
stand. He also says that the law is not made the rule of judg-
ment, and the declaration of justification is not according to
law, that God acts above the law : but he evidently takes law
and judicial proceeding in the same sense with the younger
Edwards: law means simply what is incumbent on each and
what may be demanded of each. There is another modification
in respect to the ground and the conditions of justification, in
Mr. Finney's lectures on theology. (1) From the ground of
justification he excludes Christ's obedience in our stead and
our own obedience whether under the law or the gospel, and
anything and everything in the Mediatorial work, including the
Atonement. The Atonement itself is not the fundamental rea-
son of justification. The simple ground is the disinterested and
infinite love of God. All Calvinists say that the source of justi-
fication is to be found in God's infinite love. By the ground of
justification is usually meant, the specific reason of pardon and
acquittal. (Mr. Finney uses the word ground in the sense of
source.) (2) As to the conditions of justification, he holds that
the Atonement is one condition, i. e., is a sine qua non, and that
faith, repentance, and sanctifi cation are all conditions equally. .
In making these to be just as important as the work of Christ,
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 551
he destroys justification as a specific doctrine. His position re-
solves justification into sanctification or regeneration, and leaves
it no validity of its own. He is consistent in requiring entire
sanctification.
CHAPTER IX.
OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION.
Obj. I. It makes good works unnecessary. But good works
are excluded only in one aspect, i. e., in relation to justification.
They are as much as ever necessary in our holiness and Christian
life. We are created in Christ Jesus unto good works.
Obj. II. Justification makes salvation to be a matter of right
and debt, on the ground of Christ's obedience in our stead; and
this excludes it from being an act of grace. But this can be
maintained only on the ground of the mercantile theory of the
Atonement that Christ, in dying for the elect only, paid for them
an exact quid pro quo. The fact is that salvation comes entirely
from grace. It is God's grace which is made glorious by the
Atonement.
Obj. III. Justification is a merely external transaction. But
we are justified by faith, and faith is not external but internal.
Obj. IV. There is a conflict in this matter between Paul and
James. But James commends faith as holy. What he is speak-
ing against is a dead faith merely intellectual and he enjoins
upon the disciples to show their faith by their works, so that
faith is the primitive thing even with him. He starts (ii. 24)
from morality to find its roots: if there is no morality there is no
root. Paul goes from the faith to the works. With him the sap
is first, with James, the fruit. James reprobates a dead faith,
Paul urges a living faith. 1
Obj. V. Righteousness is not transferable. We assent, and
1 See Dr. Woods, and his citation from Wardlaw, that Paul is speaking of the
justification of the sinner, and James of the justification of the believer.
552 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
say that Christ's personal righteousness is not transferred. On
account of his righteousness we are treated as if righteous.
Obj. VI Christ's obedience can be no part of our justifica
tion, because He owed his obedience for himself. But Christ
did not owe an obedience for himself unto death, and He did
not owe for himself to take the place which He took in the
moral administration of the world, but He took it in our stead.
Obj. VII. Believers although justified are still punished.
They are not punished in the strict sense, but in the sense in
which punishment is necessary for reformation. Their punish-
ments become chastisements.
Obj. VIII. The Scriptures declare that in the Last Judg
ment, works will be made the basis of adjudication. But there
must be a proper conception of the Last Judgment. It is not
the declaring of the sentence of the law, but is the final sentence
itself. It is for the manifestation of character and state. , It has
not to do with our condemnation under the law immediately,
because we are condemned under the law all along. That view
which makes the Judgment parallel with a human tribunal,
where the guilt or innocence is first pronounced, is not the view
of Scripture. It cannot be reconciled with the view that all the
world is already under condemnation. The Last Judgment is
the winding up of the present sphere of things. It is the as-
signment of all who have lived to their final condition, and
what that is to be is manifested in their works.
Obj. IX. The Scriptures speak of other grounds of accept-
ance, besides the merits of Christ such conditions as our for
giveness of others, our repentance, etc. But they do not speak
of these in the same relation that they do of Christ's work.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTIuJ. 553
BOOK III
REGENERATION AND REPENTANCE.
We combine these, because they give us respectively the
divine and the human side of the new life. The original usage
of the term regeneration is of the new life as ascribed to Christ.
Eepentance refers to the new life as it comes into human con-
sciousness. The new life is a life in Christ, and regeneration
involves union with Christ and not a change of heart without
relation to Him. In this doctrine we come into the sphere of
the direct influences of the Holy Spirit. Kegeneration is the
Spirit's work in man, turning him from sin to holiness, from
self to Christ.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY STATEMENTS.
1. The Doctrine as held in some of the different Systems.
Each ecclesiastical and theological system has its doctrine
of regeneration, the statement of which is determined by the
fundamental principles of each system. The central point of
each system will define the doctrine of regeneration. Each
system must have it in some form, because it is contained in
the Scriptures so plainly.
1. The Roman Catholic system makes regeneration to be
through the church and sacraments. It is effected by sacra-
mental grace, which can be conveyed only through the channels
of the church. Baptism has an inherent efficacy in removing
moral pollution. It infuses what is called in the technical lan-
guage of theology a new habit, 1 what we now call a new state.
2. In the Church of England, in conformity with the liturgy,
the doctrine of baptismal regeneration is maintained. In the
order for baptism, the minister, after the service is performed,
is to say: "this child is regenerate ." This, however, is
1 Habitus, something which one has.
554 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
inconsistent with, the XXXIX. Articles. Accordingly tie evan-
gelical portion of the church define regeneration in an external
sense. They distinguish it from conversion, and define it as a
change of external state, as an introduction into the church ae
an external body, as we put a cadet into West Point. This
takes from it its spiritual import, and substitutes the outward
for the inward.
3. The Pelagian view puts regeneration solely in an executive
act of the human will. It makes regeneration to be the result
of an act of choice. Holiness is conferred by the choice or
preference of the individual. This runs into
4 The rationalistic theory, which reduces regeneration to
a conformity to moral requirements, and chiefly to those which
concern our relation with our fellow beings. The change is
a natural one, is explained by the laws of the human mind.
Moral improvement is regeneration.
5. Some theories of parties in this country.
(a.) The strict exercise scheme, as held by Dr. Emmons.
Regeneration is an act or choice or volition, one of a series;
of such series a moral being is made up, there being nothing
behind these. Moreover this volition is in every case, whether
it be sinful or holy, by direct divine efficiency : God creates it.
It is an exercise, but the product of an immediate divine change.
The later exercise scheme is different. It makes the exercises
to be not the result of the divine efficiency, but of the man's
agency. It puts in a soul behind the volitions, which is their
source, and a will which brings the exercises into being.
(b.) The taste theory. Hopkins, Bellamy, D wight and Bur-
ton make regeneration to consist not in an exercise, but in a
new relish implanted. The heart, the affections are essentially
involved in it.
These two opinions divided the older Hopkinsianism.
(c.) The theory that regeneration consists in a change in the
governing purpose. This asserts that all that is moral is found
in the governing purpose. The change in this is what makes
the renewal of the soul. It is a choice. There may be rnctives
and feelings and the action of the heart, but the renewal is ic
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 555
the governing purpose. This theory takes two forms: (1) That
this governing purpose involves essentially an affection, and is
not an act of bare will, not a mere purpose, but a purpose
which includes an affection, so that it is a combination of the
sensibilities and the will. The purpose is a preference or love.
(2) Others hold that the governing purpose may be without
the affections, that the affections lead to it, but are not com-
prised in the purpose. Psychologically, the difference would
be this: Man is made up of intellect, feeling, and will. All agree
that there must be presentation of truth to the intellect, that
there must also be an awakening of the susceptibilities, and that
this must lead to a new governing purpose. They differ as to
whether this purpose takes the affections with it, or whether it
may have the affections outside of it. Those who hold this lat-
ter position have always said that that purpose may be formed
without any affection appearing in it, that all the affections
may be towards the world, while the purpose is towards God.
And this is the logical result of the system.
(d.) The "self-love" theory, presented in an article in The
Christian Spectator, 1829. It advocated the self-love theory of
morals in connection with the subject of regeneration. The
object of the article was to show how the sinner is regenerated,
as far as this is psychologically possible. It says that in self-
love is the prompting to all action, meaning by this our natural
desire for happiness. There cannot be any moral action which
is not from and for self-love, because such self-love is instinctive,
and enters into all our moral acts. We are happy in loving
God, and that is the ultimate subjective motive for loving Him.
We love the world because we are happy in the world. On this
basis, the article proceeds to the theory of regeneration. The
first thing is to arouse in the mind this desire for happiness,
and to fix it on some future good, on heaven, to represent the
Christian scheme as the only one which can confer happiness,
and to make that the radical motive. Then all the doctrines
and motives of the gospel are brought up the feelings are
aroused the aroused feeling produces a sharper view of truth-
that again stirs the feelings more and more, and thus the play
556 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
is between the intellect and the feelings, until the sinner is
brought to the point where he suspends the rushing tide of evil
desire, and then the Holy Spirit comes in and renews the soul.
Remarks on this Theory. (1) Why would it not be as well to
introduce the operation of the Spirit just before and indeed all
along before as well as at the nodus ? Why is it not more
Scriptural to say that at all the points the Spirit operates ? (2)
Self-love, presented here as the ultimate motive and that which
is to do the work of renewal, can never account for regeneration.
If the ultimate decision be made in view of self-love exalt that
to what height we may if that be the ultimate motive, then the
soul is still in sin, because the ultimate motive has been the de-
sire after its own happiness, and that is of the essence of sin.
(3) It is equally difficult to see how this suspension of sinful
activity is brought about or can be. How can the sinner, with
his heart still unrenewed, be induced to suspend the tide of evil
desires ? He must do this, in order to get a chance for the put-
ting forth of a holy volition. Suppose it suspended: it was from
a motive good, bad, or indifferent. If the motive was good, the
thing had been done already; if bad, it involves sin; if indif-
ferent, there could be no suspension. (4) There is another sup-
posable case: the person decides without a motive. Then the
decision could not have any moral character. To suppose that a
man can for a moment suspend his sinful nature, and remain
for an instant without any character, is an inconceivability.
(5) It might be added that even in unrenewed human nature
there are better elements than self-love or desire for happiness:
conscience, spiritual and moral susceptibilities, which are ap-
pealed to.
6. The general evangelical doctrine of regeneration. We
give here the several heads which are to be debated in what
follows.
(a.) Regeneration is a supernatural change of which God is
the author, which is wrought by the Holy Spirit.
(6.) In its idea it is instantaneous, although not always so in
conscious experience.
Cn. > In adults it is wrought most frequently by the word of
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 557
God as the instrument. Believing that infants may be regen
erated, we cannot assert that it is tied to the word of God
absolutely.
(d.) It involves the renewal of the whole man not merely
of one of his faculties. It gives a new direction to all hia
faculties.
(e.) There is no antecedent co-operation on man's part in the
change itself. The efficiency in the change is not human, it is
in the Holy Spirit. The act of the will on man's part does not
produce, but indicates the change.
(/.) Regeneration, in the New Testament sense, is on the
basis of Christ's work, and consists essentially in the application
of what Christ has done, to the human soul, through the Holy
Spirit.
((/.) This new state shows itself in faith, repentance, and good
works.
Negatively
(A.) Regeneration is not a physical change but a change in
the moral state. It does not impart new faculties, it gives di-
rection to our faculties.
(i.) It does not consist in the executive acts of the will as
distinguished from the immanent preference, but it is essentially
found in the latter. Nor is it in the conscious, as distinguished
from the unconscious, moral states of man. We know it in its
results, not in its essence.
2. Of tJie Terms employed.
1. Repentance is used often as synonymous with conversion.
It implies a change of mind as conversion also denotes an act
of turning. Regeneration is usually employed most strictly to
denote that divine agency, in and upon the human soul, which
insures a certain mode of action in man's powers in the direction
of holiness. Regeneration is thus the divine side of the whole
event, and if the divine agency alone is regarded, man may
be said to be passive; but when it is viewed as upon the soul, it
involves an activity of the soul. It cannot be said that man is
passive in the change, because if there is a change it, implies an
658 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
activity; but in the origination of the change, in the efficient
cause, man is not the agent. The Holy Spirit is the agent, but
as soon as the Holy Spirit acts, there must be activity in the
soul. If regeneration is confined to the divine agency simply,
without including its effect in the soul, man is said to be passive,
because he is not the author of the act; but so soon as that agency
is exerted there is activity in the soul, which is usually called
conversion or repentance. The controversy in respect to activ-
ity and passivity is really one without much significance when
explanations are made, if the parties are agreed on this point
that the Holy Spirit is the dominant cause and factor. The
controversy is of importance if the agency of the Holy Spirit
is denied.
2. The term Regeneration, in its strictest sense, may be said
to signify or have reference to an instantaneous act, an act of
the Holy Spirit in a moment of time, whereby the soul is re-
newed, changed from the love of sin to the love of holiness; and
as such an instantaneous work of the Holy Spirit, it is distinct
from conversion and repentance, and also from sanctification,
which is the continued development of what is begun in
regeneration.
3. Regeneration is often used in a much wider sense. In the
writings of the Fathers it is equivalent to baptism the sign
being taken as equivalent to the thing signified. This was easier
to be done at a time when the profession of Christ required of a
person to forsake everything in the world, and when willingness
to be baptized constituted a good evidence of true regeneration.
The term is also used, as we have seen, by evangelical Angli-
cans, but by a forced interpretation, made to enable them to
accept their liturgy. It is also used as designating the whole
Christian life in its beginning and effects, including sanctifica-
tion and the final glorified condition.
4 Some Scriptural representations of this renewed life : It is
described as a renewal after the image of God; a being in Christ;
a new creature or creation ; a resurrection from the dead ; light
in contrast with darkness ; life in contrast with death ; a transla-
tion into a new kingdom, into the kingdom of God's dear Son; a
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 559
being born again of the Spirit; a new heart. Ezek. xxxvi. 26;
John iii. 3; Deut. xxx. 6 in connection with Rom. ii. 29; Eph.
ii. 1-10; i. 18; 2 Cor. v. 17; Gal. vi. 15; Eph. iv. 23, 24
3. Connection of the Doctrine of Regeneration with otJier Truths,
1. The term regeneration is often used in an abstract way,
as designating the general element of the renewed life. Some-
times it is reduced to a single affection or purpose or feeling.
There is undoubtedly such a general element, which can be
stated in an abstract form. We can single out the term holiness
as expressing the nature of the new state as contrasted with the
term sin as expressing moral evil and can then say that regen-
eration is a change from the love of sin to the love of holiness.
But in doing this, we ought to be careful not to sever regenera-
tion from the other truths, so as to leave the way open for the
inference that there can be a real regeneration which does not
involve faith in Christ, a belief in his atoning work, and the
renewing agency of the Holy Spirit. 1
2. Regeneration includes, and in a Christian sense cannot be
used without reference to, the relation to Christ, to the union of
the soul by faith to Christ. The union with Christ is vital, and
is what constitutes the new life. The Spirit which effects the
change is the Spirit of Christ. There need not always be a
conscious apprehension of Christ at the time. Calvin defines
regeneration as coming to us by participation in Christ. The
Scriptural statements are such as the following: 1 Cor. i. 30;
Col. iii. 9, 10; Eph. ii. 10; Rom. viii. 2; 2 Cor. v. 17.
1 Dr. Samuel Hopkins, who was one of the most orthodox of men, defined the
new state resulting from regeneration as disinterested benevolence. He held
strongly to the Trinity, the Atonement, and indeed to the highest and most pun-
gent Calvinism. Dr. Channing, who was brought up under him, took his definition
of the new life. Channing' s mind worked upon it thus: That which is essential to
a Christian is to have such benevolence. If I have that, of course I am a Christian.
What essential need is there then for my believing also in the Trinity, Atonement,
and Justification? With any other abstract definition of regeneration such a re-
suit might be reached. It has been defined as the choice of the highest good.
But the pantheist makes choice of the highest good from his point of view. Such
statements may be taken as good abstract statements, but not as including the
whole truth.
660 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
CHAPTER II.
THE NECESSITY OP REGENERATION.
1 The doctrine of depravity proves the necessity of regener-
ation If the depravity of man be such as we have seen it, then,
in order that he may attain to a holy state, he must be born
again. There is no way of his coming into this new condition
except by regeneration of the soul.
2. Regeneration is necessary if men are to enjoy what is per-
fectly holy here and hereafter. To be in the presence of the glo-
ries of heaven with a depraved heart, would.be no joy to the sinner.
3. It is necessary in order that the atoning work of Christ
be applied and received. This takes effect upon us only through
regeneration. The receiving of his atoning work is the renewal
of the soul.
4. It is necessary for the exercise of the specific graces of the
Christian character. All the graces of the Christian life flow
from this birth, all true happiness, peace, and humility.
5. The Scriptures assert emphatically the necessity of re-
generation: Matt, xviii. 3; John iii. 3.
CHAPTER III.
THE SUBJECTIVE CHARACTERISTICS OP REGENERATION.
1. Regeneration is not a physical change. The term phy-
sical, as used in respect to regeneration, is differently defined.
It may mean what belongs to the external material world, or
what belongs to the essence and faculties of man. Regenera-
tion is not physical as implying a change in the essence or fac-
ulties of man. There is no dispute about this. Besides the
essence and faculties, what else is there in man ? Where does
regeneration come ? Those who hold strictly to the exercise
scheme reason thus: There are in man, (1) the essence, (2) the
faculties, (3) the acts or exercises of the faculties. Regenera-
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 561
tion is not in the 1st or 2d, therefore it must be in the 3d. A
better analysis gives this statement: There are in man, 1st, the
essence, 2dly, the faculties, 3dly, the generic tendencies, 4thly, the
actions. The regeneration then will take effect in the 3d and
4th, not merely in the specific acts, but in the ground or source
of those acts. Take, e. g., the case of Adam before he acted.
He had the substance or essence of humanity in all the faculties
of human nature. He acted. We will suppose that his first
act was an act of trust in God. Now was there in him anything
between the faculties and the choice of the acts ? Advocates of
the exercise scheme would say, No; but it is more Scriptural
and philosophical to say, that before any act there was a bias or
principle on the ground or basis of which his choice was made;
and that this principle or tendency is not a faculty, but a state
or direction of the faculties; and that was expressed in the first
holy act or choice. In the child now there is not merely the
essence with its faculties, but also a bias or tendency.
2. Regeneration does not have to do with the executive acts
of the will, merely. The executive acts of the will are the de-
termination to do something. They have respect to something
to be achieved. They carry out the underlying preference.
The freedom in these acts is the freedom from constraint, but
they all presuppose a motive or bias or tendency. They are not
the true seat of character, but express character.
3. Nor does regeneration consist in an immanent preference
as the product of an executive act. This seems to be impossi-
ble, although many of the exhortations to repentance appear to
imply the possibility of forming an immanent preference by an
executive act. A man is told that he can repent as easily as
he can walk. A man walks because he has made a determina-
tion to walk and the walking follows the choice, but the act of
repentance cannot follow a choice. It is in the choice itself.
There is as much difference as between love and the motion of
the hand. The change is the choice and the choice the change,
4. Regeneration does not have to do with the heart, to the
exclusion of the will and the other powers of man. It is not
merely in the sensibilities.
562 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
5. Regeneration has to do with the immanent preference
We have seen that the will has two main and very different
functions: (a.) The immanent preferences, (b.) the executive
volitions. In the immanent preference is the seat of true mor-
ality, spirituality, and it is this which when brought into a right
stato discloses the great end of man. In order to its renewal,
there are necessary the vision of divine things, and then the
love for divine things as the ruling principle. Love, which is
the immanent preference, itself includes both the affections and
the will. In love to God, for instance, there is the strongest
current of affection and the most undoubted preference or
choice. This of course has for its result the living for the end
chosen, and the highest delight in it. In short, regeneration in
its full measure and extent involves a new direction of all the
human powers from the world and towards God, an illumina-
tion of the understanding, a current of the affections, and a
choice of the will. This position is fully sustained by the
Scriptures: Jer. xxiv. 7; xxxi. 33; Ezek. xi. 19; Eph. iv. 24; John
iii. 6; Eph. iv. 22, 23; 1 Cor. ii. 14; 2 Cor. iv. 6; 1 John ii. 10;
John xiv. 15. The Scriptures also represent this renewal as
shown in all the life as well as in all the faculties: John xiv. 23.
6. According to the Scriptural statements and what we de-
rive from experience, it is evident that the deepest ground in us,
on which the influence of the Holy Spirit is exerted, does not
come into immediate consciousness. The work can be known
by its fruits and results; and not by immediate consciousness:
John iii. 8.
7. It is still further apparent that this work must be instan-
taneous, not in conscious experience, but as the work of the
Spirit. In conscious experience it may be far from instantaneous.
The reason for insisting upon its being instantaneous, is the utter
difference between sin and holiness. We cannot make the tran-
sition from the one to the other, because they are opposed to
each other. There must be some point in the movement of the
soul where it turns from darkness to light. We may not be
able to discern it, but from the nature of the case there must be
such a time. This alone is conformable with the Scriptural
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 563
statements: the account of the conversion of Paul, the expres-
sions, " new life," " new creation," " being born again," and the
like. The reasons why other views have been held are: (a.) The
word regeneration is used by some in a broad and loose sense,
as including all that God does in bringing man to himself
prevenient grace, providence, but this is not the Scriptural
sense of regeneration. (&.) What precedes is sometimes taken
as a part of the renewal, e. g,, the conviction of sin, which may
be very deep where there is no renewal of the soul, which may
be conviction from a sense of fear rather than from a sense of
holiness, (c.) There is sometimes an unwillingness to ascribe the
work in its utmost essence to God. There is a tendency to the
viewing it exclusively in its human relations, and as it comes
out in man's experience, (d.) Regeneration is made to be en-
tirely analogous to changes in moral character, which are often
gradual. But in the renewal of the soul, there is more than a
moral work, there is a spiritual process. There- is more than
the operation of man's faculties, there is a divine agency. From
the sphere of morals we can derive only a partial analogy, in-
complete as to the central point. Mere prudential motives are
enough to produce a moral change, but they cannot produce a
spiritual change. They do not reach the heart, the root of the
matter. -
CHAPTER IV.
THE AUTHOR OP REGENERATION.
The Scriptural representation is that regeneration is the work
of the Holy Spirit, a proper efficient cause, setting in motion all
other occasional influences and causes.
1. The positive Scriptural statements: Ps. li. 10; Jer. xxiv. 7;
Eph. ii. 10; John i. 13; James i. 18.
2. Scripture represents that in this God acts not arbitrarily
but as a sovereign: Rom. ix. 16; 1 Cor. i. 30, 31; iv. 7.
3. Scripture represents that a special power of God is exer
cised in the renewal of the soul, a power which is supernatural
564
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
rather than miraculous. A direct agency of God is implied in
the whole phraseology of a new heart, new birth, and the as-
cription of the holiness in man to God : 1 Cor. ii. 14.
4. To confirm this the doctrine of divine providence leads to
the inference that all the circumstances and influences, in respect
to regeneration, are under the divine agency and control. The
whole of providence, so far as that has to do with the work, is
the work of God.
5. It is rational that God should be the author of regenera-
tion. This highest work in man is most naturally ascribed to
Him. The analogy of all the other works and ways of God leads
to the inference. His power works in all nature, much more in
the spiritual realm. Here is the highest good, the chief blessing.
CHAPTER V.
HOW DOES THE SPIRIT REGENERATE THE SOUL ?
All God's modes of action are mysterious in the kingdom of
nature and providence, and it is especially probable that there
will be mystery in his highest and deepest work, in the realm of
grace. Any theory of regeneration which explains it all must be
false, because it assumes that the finite can compass the ways of
Omnipotence. As far as any statements can be made with proper
reserve, the following are probably most in accord with Scripture :
1. In all regeneration, whether of infants or adults, there
must be essentially the same operation of the Spirit. There
cannot be two kinds of regeneration, although there may be a
diversity of modes.
2. The work of the Spirit is properly called supernatural
rather than miraculous. Miraculous implies a divine interven-
tion against the ordinary methods of God's working, both in the
kingdom of nature and of grace. A supernatural work implies
that the cause is above nature, but that it may and does work
through natural channels in the order of providence, according
to appointed methods in the kingdom of grace. In a super-
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 565
natural work there is a use of means through which the su-
pernatural element courses. Although the influence itself is
beyond means, yet it is through and by means. In the king-
dom of God's grace there are ordinary methods or channels
through which that grace courses.
3. These means may be various as far as consciousness ex-
tends: the course of providence, crises of life, sorrow, even joy.
Often some of the means least valued are those which God uses.
In many cases, perhaps in almost every case, of the revival of
God's work, the means used for bringing it about are what were
not anticipated. This has been exemplified in the history of re-
vivals in our own country.
4. The ultimate act in regeneration is without instrumental-
ity. That is, it is a direct influence of the Holy Spirit. If there
be renewal of infants, this must be the case. Infants are saved;
therefore they must be regenerated by an act which is without
any apparent instrumentality. And if regeneration be always
the same, there must be the same essential element in all other
cases. It is sometimes made a test question whether a person
can be regenerated in his sleep. If it is made a question whether
God can renew a soul when that soul is unconscious, we should
say, Yes, and any other view than that would imply that the hu-
man element is the prime factor. But we also say, that while
the divine influence may work upon a mind which is uncon-
scious, it will express itself when the mind becomes conscious
in a change of preference, and that that will be the first con-
scious act of the individual.
5. The ultimate regenerating act is not properly to be called
resistible, because it secures the will. The will is with it. The
very word resistible implies that the will is undecided, All that
precedes the renewing act can be called resistible, and so can
what most persons call regeneration. But if we come to the
central point the influence of the Spirit securing the will we
cannot speak of its being resistible any more than we can speak
of the possibility of a person making a different choice from one
which he is making. He might do it the instant before, but
now the will is secure.
566 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
6 The nature of activity and passivity. Both active and
passive elements are involved in regeneration. The active ele-
merits, however, are to be viewed as the result of the Spirit's in-
fluences. The great law of action and reaction applies here.
The activity of the sinner is the result or manifestation or the
index of the influence of the Holy Spirit.
CHAPTER VI.
THE MEANS OF REGENERATION.
1. External providential Means.
There is, in God's providence, a large mass of external means,
including the church and the ministry their instructions and
all their influence.
2. Acts of tlie Sinner as among the Means.
There are also certain acts of the sinner himself, to which he
is to be exhorted, as coming among the means.
I. He is to be exhorted to fix his attention upon the truth
as it is presented to him in the Scriptures, religious books, or
preaching. In the essay in the Christian Spectator to which we
have referred, this and similar exhortations are drawn out so as
to give the whole conscious process of the soul in renewal, and
the matter is there stated thus: There are certain acts in them-
selves neither right nor wrong. The sinner is to be exhorted to
make use of certain parts of complex acts, particularly to fix the
mind upon those motives which come from self-love or the in-
stinctive desire of happiness, and that is to be the main working
element. The attention is not to be mainly on the truth, but on
the truth as related to the sinner's happiness; and the love of
happiness being instinctive, the sinner can feel the force of that
motive and make use of it. That motive is neither holy nor sfn-
ful ; it is indifferent, because from it either a holy or a sinful be-
ing may act. Out of all his other acts, the sinner is to single
one desire of happiness, self-love, and the mind is to be
THE KINGDOM OP REDEMPTION. 567
fixed upon it until the future life with all its weal and woe is
brought into vision. In order that this may be done, one other
point is necessary, viz., that the tide of evil desires be sus-
pended, and the sinner is to do this in order that he may fix his
attention on his future happiness so that it may act properly.
On this representation we make the following remarks:
(1) The proposal that one part shall be separated from the
mind's complex acts would cause the acts to cease to be com-
plex, and would present a single motive before the mind. That
would be all that the mind had in view. The desire of happi-
ness will be a single motive, not a part of the complex acts of
the soul. (2) When thus singled out and separated as the sup-
posed effectual motive, it must have either a holy or sinful char-
acter. It is inconceivable that it should remain indifferent. As
it is in his mind, it must be either holy or sinful, because his
own mind is in a certain moral state all the time, and we cannot
single out a motive from the mind's activities, and say that that
motive in the mind shall remain indifferent, any more than one
can cast a stick into a current, and say that it shall remain sus-
pended. The accompanying project, therefore, of suspending
this sinful current, so that we may get an indifferent motive, is
impossible to be achieved. No one ever did or can do it.
(3) The proper exhortation in the case is, that the mind fix its
attention not upon its own act at all, but upon God, and so turn
to Him. Attention is to be fixed not on what the soul is doing,
but upon God; not upon one's own interest, but upon the divine
command; not on one's own will, but upon that to which the
Holy Spirit influences; and so alone can the effectual and suffi-
cient motive be found. The thoughts must be upon the object.
II. Another mode of exhortation used is, that the sinner
shall perform certain acts, which are in themselves indifferent,
with his present motives: shall read the Bible, attend church and
religious meetings, etc., with the motives which at present influ-
ence him. This is an exhortation which cannot be consistently
allowed. These acts are right, but with sinful motives and de-
sires one cannot perform them aright. All that can be said is.
that in doing this he is more likely to be brought under the in
568 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
tiuences of the Holy Spirit. These acts may be urged, not
as if they themselves would lead to regeneration, but simply in
the view that possibly by these acts the soul may come under
renewing influences. 1
III. The exhortation to the sinner then should be this: to
perform any arid all acts with a right spirit. He should never
be led to feel that he can be content or at peace, or that he is
not in great and increasing guilt, until his acts are performed in
a right spirit. Thus almost any of the acts, to which it is
natural to exhort him, may be the turning-point. Any act per-
formed in the right spirit is the turning-point. It may be the
reading of the Scriptures, but it is more generally prayer, and
this is the safest exhortation, because there the soul is brought
face to face with God. The two elements the divine and the
human coalesce: the human element turns to God.
3. Of the Truth as a means of Regeneration.
The representations respecting the truth as a means of re-
generation apply in their strictness to adult regeneration, or to
the regeneration of those who have come to an age to under-
stand the truth.
1. The truth is almost always the means, the occasional cause,
of regeneration, in what precedes and leads to the regenerative
act. The Spirit employs the truth in the previous processes.
2. It is also the fact that the truth is before the mind as mo-
tive in choosing, in the act of choice in which the conversion is
consummated yet it is not there as merely abstract, intellectual
truth, but as truth in the Scriptural sense, in its fulness and
power. It is not truth as belonging to my intellect alone, but
as revealed by God and accompanied by the divine illumination
1 There was a long controversy between the old Calvinists and the Hopkin-
sians on this point. The former were in the habit of exhorting the sinner to read
the Bible, go to church, etc. and there the exhortations stopped, with the im-
plication that G-od might come to his aid. The Hopkinsians made the staple of
their exhortation to be, the call to immediate repentance on the ground of imper-
ative obligation. They did not say that a person should not employ these means,
but that he should not rely upon them, and that the exhortation should be as to
the right spirit in which they should be performed. This, more than anything
else, was the source of the success of the Hopkinsians at the beginning of the
present century. It had also formed a part of the discussion which led to the
first schism of the Presbyterian church in 1740.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 569
3. The truth then may be called the chief occasional cause
of regeneration in the ordinary course of divine providence.
4. The Scriptures thus represent it: James i. 18; 1 Pet. i. 23;
1 Cor. i. 18; Eph. vi. 17; Heb. iv. 12.
5. Regeneration by the truth does not make truth the efficient
agency. God is the ultimate efficient agent in the case. It is
the truth as wielded by the Spirit leading to the choice.
6. Truth in itself, bare and abstract, except as the instrument
of the Spirit, cannot have moral efficacy sufficient to regenerate
the soul. In the unrenewed heart there is no love for the spe-
cific truth of the gospel, but rather opposition to it. Truth as
moral suasion is inadequate, as we have seen. As a general
fact men resist the truth and life.
7. In speaking of the truth as a means of regeneration, we
should be careful to use it in its specific Scriptural sense. The
Scriptures never disjoin it from Christ and God and the Holy
Spirit. Christ is the Truth. It is truth in the sense that truth
and reality are one the truth proclaimed and enforced by the
Spirit as a living power unto salvation. To talk of man's being
renewed by the truth without the Spirit, is the same as to talk
of a man's being killed by a sword when the sword is in no-
body's hands. There is this connection between the divine and
human agency, and we cannot separate the two.
CHAPTER VII.
THE EXHORTATION: MAKE TO YOURSELF A NEW HEART.*
1. It is obligatory. It is an enforcement of the command
or injunction of the divine law, that each one should love God
with all his heart.
2. It is within the possible extent of man's natural capacities.
It is no more than what his capacities may reach unto. It is
within the compass of natural ability, using natural ability in the
1 Ezek. xviii. 31.
570 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
sense of the possible extent of man's natural capacities, not as
what the will of man itself may do without the other faculties,
not as power to the contrary, but what is in the possibility, as
to extent, of man's constitution and faculties.
3. The only obstacle in the way of obeying the invitation
and command is in the sinner's depraved heart.
4. The exhortation does not assert or imply that the sinner
can comply without divine grace. It no more implies that a sin-
ner can do this without divine grace, than that a Christian can.
5. The exhortation must be interpreted in harmony with the
petition, "Create in me a clean heart, God; and renew a right
spirit within me." These two are counterparts.
6. The injunction must be preached so as to make men feel
the obligation, the necessity, and the reasonableness of it.
7. It must be so preached that men shall feel that their re-
liance is not to be upon their own act, but upon divine grace, for
the doing of what is enjoined, so that they shall yield to divine
grace, and not attempt the work without it.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE CONSCIOUS PROCESSES OP THE SOUL IN REGENERATION.
These vary somewhat according to the particular state of mind
and the previous education, and some changes will be more
marked and violent, and others more gradual. There will be,
usually, serious meditation on the truth of God ; the thoughts
will be called in from the world and fixed upon divine truth ;
then there will be a feeling of want, of need, a feeling that the
soul lacks that which is most important to it, the sense of the
need of coming into a different moral state, of turning from the
world and unto God. Accompanying these there will be a
conviction of sin, coming from the view of the sinner's own na-
ture and character as opposed to the divine holiness, a wrest-
ling of the soul under that conviction, and that conviction rising
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 571
to a sense of moral pollution. Then, in almost- all experience,
there will be found the endeavor to renew one's self, to trans-
form one's self into a righteous and holy condition by one's own
strength and power. The result will be a feeling of helplessness,
running back into the main points on which it is grounded, viz.,
(a.) The impossibility of atoning for the past by one s own works,
which will continue to be a ground of condemnation. The help-
lessness there is entire and absolute, (b.) The conviction of
moral helplessness. What he would that he does not, and what
he would not that he does. This is what is known as the work
of the law, the law as a schoolmaster leading to this condition,
and in this condition Christ is offered as all that the soul wants,
the call to turn and yield is made, and the turning-point will be
the yielding to Christ, receiving Him as the personal Saviour,
so that the object before the mind is Christ.
Practical Remarks:
1. The preacher should always be careful not to intimate that
anything which precedes giving the whole soul to God is right,
or can be rested in, or affords any ground of hope. I. e., in the
language of the old controversy between the Presbyterians and
Congregationalists, " unregenerate doings are not to be allowed."
2. The preacher should likewise never say that any or all
the acts the sinner can perform can be rightly performed with-
out the aid of the Holy Spirit. It must always be claimed that
all that is good is from the moving of God. We must ascribe
all that tends to renewal to the working of the Divine Spirit in
the soul. This is the great point of relief in the preaching of
regeneration. It is the hope we have, that if there are any good
influences within the soul, this is the work of the Holy Spirit,
and that if the sinner will yield to them he may be saved,
There is a co-operation of the human and divine elements, and
religious safety lies in exalting the divine influences, and saying
that what the sinner has to do is to yield to those influences.
This gives a stronger basis to press an exhortation than the
exaltation of human ability or of the power to the contrary.
3. The guilt of remaining in a convicted state should also be
enforced. The helplessness which the sinner feels is the proof
572 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
of his guilt. The greatness of this helplessness shows the great-
ness of his guilt. This was the chief service of the Hopkinsian
preaching to insist that the helplessness was guilt.
4. The ability of the sinner should be preached and pro-
claimed so far as to show his guilt and the greatness of it, but
not as the ground of his reliance internally. That reliance
must be on God and on divine grace.
5. In preaching there should be a constant observance of,
and reference to, the great psychological law, that the mind is
not to be fixed upon its own acts, but on the object in view
of which it acts.
6. No precise order of experience should be insisted upon as
absolutely necessary no one emotion or experience as the turn-
ing-point. This may be different in different minds. The re-
ceiving of Christ and resting in Him will be, after all, the
grand test.
7. The exhortation to the sinner should be, to yield, to sub-
mit to the divine influences, to come to Christ, to yield to the
grace that comes from Christ. How he can do this is the last
question, and the answer is, he can do it by yielding. As to
the how, it is in the act itself.
CHAPTER IX.
REPENTANCE.
This is the human side. The principal word translated re-
pentance in our version (nerdvota) signifies change of mind, the
process of renewal viewed from the human side, and culminat-
ing in the human act. Accompanying it there is a feeling of
the evil of sin and godly sorrow, but these do not make it. It
is the act of renouncing the old and putting on the new.
One of the great differences between the Roman Catholics
and Protestants is on this article of repentance. The whole of
Protestant theology makes it an inward work. In the Roman
Catholic system it is combined with external works, and repent-
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 573
ance comes to have the significance of doing penance. The
sacrament of penance is instituted to restore the grace of bap-
tism lost by subsequent sin. In baptism the guilt of original
sin is taken away. If a person sins after that, falls, I. e., into
" mortal sin," the sinful state must be amended by the sacra-
ment of penance. In this, different parts are distinguished: Con-
trition, which with most is the imperfect antecedent purpose;
Confession, which* must be to the priest and must be a partic-
ular confession of mortal sins; 1 Satisfaction, 2 which is to be by
meritorious works, giving money to the church, saying prayers,
etc. The works of supererogation of deceased saints can be
made over to help in this satisfaction ; then, finally, Absolution, 3
as the act of the church, the judicial declaration that the soul
is free from the guilt of these sins. So that the simple Scriptural
doctrine of repentance runs through all these processes, binding
each sinner to the church and to its sacraments.
1. /SWe general Statements of the Protestant View.
1. Repentance is an internal change.
2. As the human side of regeneration, it implies regeneration,
whenever it is real and true. It implies that there is in it the
regeneration of the soul. To say that a person can repent
without grace who cannot be regenerated without grace, is to
state an anomaly; for if there be real repentance there is regen-
eration, and if a person may repent of himself he may regener-
ate himself.
3. Some of the elements which are reckoned to repentance
as conviction, sorrow for sin may exist before there is actual,
conscious renewal of the soul: though if the conviction be real
and godly, the soul in that conviction is renewed although not
conscious of it, and there is doubtless often a renewal before
there is peace in the soul.
1 The confession of venial sins is "useful."
2 Christ does not free from temporal punishment. Meritorious acts are coun-
seled, not absolutely required.
3 Absolution is (a.) not merely declaratory, but judicial and effective, (b.) not
a prayer, (c.) not conditional as to the future, (d.) in it the priest represents God.
In what goes before, however, if there is not contrition, at least in the form of
attrition, natural sorrow, "the matter of the Sacrament of penance is wanting,'
and the form absolution does nbt avail.
574 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
4. Repentance, in the common usage of the term, is the ex*
ercise of the soul iri view of all sin, turning from it and unto
God; and hence, Christians should daily repent. Here, of course,
it is not used in its highest, strictest, central sense.
2. Repentance should be immediate.
1. This is implied in the Scriptural exhortations.
2. It is an immediate inference from the impossibility of a
neutral state.
3. It is involved in the obligatory character of repentance.
Duty obliges at every point always.
4. The contrary supposition would allow a man to continue
in sin, more or less.
5. As the turning from self to God, it must be immediate.
Insisting upon repentance being immediate does not imply
that it can be without grace. On the contrary, the most effect-
ual preaching should ever imply the present grace of God's
Spirit. Even if there were no grace, repentance would still be
a duty, because it does riot surpass the extent of man's natural
capacities, because the only hindrance to it is man's sinful heart.
3. Some special Works and Signs of Repentance.
1. It is in view of the divine law, acknowledging its justice
and holiness and the.justice of the sinner's condemnation under it.
2. It is not only in view of the law, but of God: Ps. li. 4.
3. There is a sense of the futility of all the sinner's pleas in
extenuation of his guilt.
4. It includes the sense of moral pollution which comes from
the conviction that the sinner as a sinner loves the worst thing
in the universe.
5. It includes the sense of one's helpless condition, of which
we have spoken.
6. It includes confession of sin, with petition, under the sense
that our only help is in God and in his sovereign grace.
7. It issues in, and is, the turning to God, in view of his sov-
ereignty and grace.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 5*7 5
BOOK IV.
8ANCTIFICATION AND PERFECTION.
CHAPTER I.
SANCTIFICATION.
Sanctification is the carrying to completion the work begun
in regeneration. It is the completed union of the soul with
Christ, so that as face answereth to face, the renewed soul an-
swers to Christ. Christ is said especially to be made unto ua
sanctification : 1 Cor. i. 30. In short, sanctification is the work
of overcoming the old man by the new. 1 It is the victory of
the spirit over the flesh, of grace over sin. It is putting on
Christ, becoming wholly like Him.
1. The Nature of Sanctification according to the Scriptures.
There are two general descriptions in Scripture: the reinstat-
ing of the divine moral image, and the becoming like to Christ;
and these two are one, the perfection of our moral being. The
divine image in man was lost by the fall, so far as the divine
image involves holiness, righteousness. The whole of the di-
vine image is lost, because that image comprehends our spirit-
ual capacities as our spiritual perfections. The capacity, the
possibility of perfection remains, notwithstanding the fall. But
in the strict and complete sense of the divine image, it was lost
when original righteousness was lost, and it is the reinstating
of this which is the work of sanctification.
But apart from these general statements the Scriptures havo
more explicit positions.
1. They represent sanctification as a work upon and in the
human heart: Ps. li. 10. There is a continued dependence on God.
2. As far as the Persons of the Trinity are concerned, sancti-
fication is the special work of the Holy Spirit, as regeneration is,
although the whole Trinity is concerned in it.
1 It is "the expulsive power of a new affection " (Chalmers).
576
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
3. It is of God's free grace, still and ever, not by our merits
or deserts.
4. Yet it is through our agency: Phil. ii. 12.
5. Sanctification differs from merely moral reformation (a.) in
that it is from God, and in a peculiar sense, of grace, (b.) in that
the whole course of sanctificatioii implies our constant depend-
ence on Christ.
6. Sanctification is of the whole person, intellect, heart, will;
the body also becomes the temple of the Holy Ghost, and, through
union with Christ, is raised again glorious and incorruptible.
7. All the means of grace are means of Sanctification : Faith,
the Word, Prayer, the Sacraments.
2. The Difference between Justification, Regeneration, and San**
tification.
L Justification precedes:
is judicial:
is an act:
is once for all:
Sanctification results;
is moral;
is a work;
is gradual;
causes change of
state:
sins are pardoned:
is equal in all:
is from guilt:
Christ's righteous-
ness is imputed:
gives title to hea-
ven:
IL Regeneration gives
spiritual life:
the seed:
the babe in
Christ:
In
In
of
causes change
character;
sins are subdued;
is unequal;
is from defilement;
inherent righteous-
ness is given;
gives fitness for hea-
ven.
Sanctification gives
spiritual growth;
the development;
the perfect man in
Christ.
3. Of good Works and Sanctification.
(a.) Good works are involved in Sanctification: Eph. ii. 10
(b.) They are both internal and external, (c.) Good works are
relatively such ; they are not perfectly good, unmixed with sin.
(d.) They are necessary: (1) As the proof of faith. They are
not necessary to justification, but necessary to the working out
of the faith which justifies. (2) They are necessary to the ac-
complishment of redemption in us, If there are no good works.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. >77
there is no evidence of our being Christians. (3) They are ex-
pressly commanded to believers, in the Bible. (4) But eternal
life is not merited by them. Eternal life is given for Christ's
sake. Good works fit us for eternal life. This again is in con-
trast with the Roman Catholic view, which makes the merit of
good works to be a part of the title to everlasting life.
4. The Means of Sanctification.
All the means of grace are likewise means of sanctification.
^1) The Word of God. Truth controls and guides the sanctifi-
cation. This position is in contrast with the pretentious of fa-
natics and mystics who make their inward light to be above the
Word. (2) Prayer. In its most general aspect, prayer includes
praise to God, confession of sin, petition for grace, and supplica-
tion for benefits, with submission to the divine will. " Not my
will, but thine be done" is the essence of every petition. In a
more restricted sense, it is the utterance of holy desires before
God. No prayer is possible except to a personal God. Those
who pray otherwise are in a state of reverie and not of prayer.
Some say that all prayer is in works. While it is true that there
is no right prayer which does not lead to works, and that in
Avorks there may be petition, yet the two things are entirely dis-
tinct, and those who find prayer in works are without prayer.
(3) The exercise of the virtues of the Christian character.
(4) Works of beneficence and charity. (5) The observance of
the ordinances of the church, especially the sacrament of the
Lords Supper.
As to the Objections to Prayer. These are two. (1) It is
said that as we cannot stay the course of nature, which is uni-
form, prayer is needless in respect to all external objects. There
is a settled order in regard to all physical cause and effect, with
which prayer cannot interfere. In regard to this: (a.) What is
meant by the course of nature? It is a certain order of natural
phenomena, antecedent and consequent, in the natural world.
The formula for the natural world is: The same causes, in the
same circumstances, will produce the same effects. But when
prayer comes in, then, besides the causes in external nature, there
578 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
may be another cause introduced. The course of nature has
reference simply to facts. If new influences come in, the course
of nature is no objection, as far as these influences may go, be-
cause a new influence may produce a new consequence, even in
the arrangement of the physical order, as the mere external con-
sequences of phenomena may be interrupted by our actions. 1
(6.) This position is still further strengthened by considering
that nature is under and for divine providence. Nature is not
ultimate. It is guided by divine providence for the ends of that
providence, and the natural world is made subservient to the
moral world. Divine Providence may use the same laws and
give them different combinations and directions, in order to se-
cure moral ends. This must be admitted if God and his provi-
dence are admitted, (c.) Any given prayer in the course of
that providence may be a part of that series of causes which
will issue in certain effects. It may have been appointed by
God in his plan. If man can interrupt the course of nature, i. e.,
can make new combinations, so that what nature would have
done is not done, much more God may. And if God may in his
plan embrace the prayer of any individual as one of the causes
leading to certain effects, then there is no objection at all, from
the course of nature, to the possibility of prayer and the answer
to prayer. (2) The second objection is made on the ground of
the unlimited promises of Scripture. This objection is sometimes
in the form of an assertion as to the prayer of faith. Many in-
terpret the prayer of faith as unlimited, on the ground of the
promises, and then the objection comes, that such prayer secure
of the answers would interfere with the divine order. A strong
poetic way of stating it is, that prayer moves the hand that moves
the world; but the theological order would be, the hand that
moves the world moves prayer. The promises in question are
such as that in Luke xvii. 6, which probably refers to miracu-
lous works, and John xiv. 13, 14 In respect to such assurances,
we need to make a distinction between a merely personal private
desire and prayer as it is the matter of the promises. The prom
1 If there were not a roof to a house, the rain would come in, and in thip sens-
the course of nature is interrupted.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 579
ises of Scripture are to be understood in harmony with all the
rest of Scripture. Promises are not to give what each individual j
may ask for himself, but what is asked in faith and in the name
of Christ. The question then is, What is real prayer? And
here it must be said: (a.) The soul of prayer is the desire for the
union of man's will with God's, (b.) It is based on God's word
and promise, (c.) It is of the whole soul, expressing its inmost
desire, (c?.) It is and must be in trust and submission. The
prayer to which the promise is given is not the mere individual
wish, desire, and petition, but that wish, desire, and petition as a
part of the plan of God, with ultimate respect to God's will and
kingdom. " In the name of Christ " includes the meaning, In the
spirit of Christ. " In faith " includes, In submission to God. 1 _
Practical Suggestions. (1) The habit of prayer should be that
which leads us to engage in it daily and hourly. /. e., the state
of mind, in which we are as Christians, should be one of constant
supplication, looking to God for his guidance and blessing.
While there should be stated seasons for prayer, prayer should
go with us all the day. (2) It is well to cultivate a habit of
ejaculatory petition^', e., in any pauses of intercourse or of study,
to look up to God with petition for guidance and blessing. /
CHAPTER II.
PERFECTIONISM.
The question here is not whether it is conceivable that a
man might become perfect. It is not what is the possible ex-
tent of our natural capacities, aided by grace whether they might
not attain unto perfection ; for that theoretically must be con-
ceded. Nor is it on the point of our obligation to be perfect.
1 In the well-known case of Monica, the mother of Augustine, whose prayer
that her son might not go to Borne on account of the dissipation there, was an-
swered by his going to Rome and being converted, we have a striking instance of
the answer to the soul and purport of prayer. Spiritual blessing is the soul and
ultimate aim of every particular prayer.
580 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
The question is simply this: Are we authorized by experience
and the word of God to expect perfection in this life ? Perfec-
tion is nothing less than the complete sanctitication of the whole
man in the intellect, heart, and will, so that he is in all hia
powers perfectly conformed to the will of God, so that even the
spontaneous desire for what is sinful is excluded. It may be
defined positively and negatively, i. e., as entire conformity to
the will of God, and as entire freedom from sin.
1. The older Theories.
1. The Pelagian. This asserts that man's native capacities
and powers are not injured by the fall. They may be weakened,
but are not morally injured. There is no sin but actual trans-
gression, and man is fully able to keep the divine law. The
existence of divine grace is granted as a matter of fact, but it is
made to be external rather than internal. Though it is not the
general fact that men do it, yet it is true that they may live free
from sin. In respect to the prayer, "Forgive us our debts,"
Pelagius said it did not apply to saints.
2. The Arminian. This makes perfection or complete sane-
tification to be loving God as much as He requires us to do in
the gospel. It is a perfection which is simply proportionate to
our present powers, and to the present demands of the law upon
us under the gospel. Under the gospel dispensation, the demands
of the law are relaxed. It does not demand perfect holiness,
but as much as man can attain to, with his present powers in
their present state. The older Arminians do not claim absolute
sinlessness, but a state in which there should be no voluntary
transgression. Imperfections may remain, but these they call
infirmities. 1
3. The Eoraan Catholic. This is connected with their gen-
eral view of the sacraments and of sacramental grace. That
original sin, which is the heritage of the human race, is taken
away in baptism. The demand made upon those baptized and
i Fletcher disclaims perfection as demanded by the Paradisiacal law, and views it
as only love to Christ constantly in the soul; whatever else comes tip in the soul
being regarded as imperfection simply, because it is not of the nature of the pal-
ing principle in the heart
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 581
thus received into the church is, obedience to all external moral-
ity. There is also a higher grade of virtue which may become
the possession of some elect ones. That higher grade is found
in yielding obedience to the " evangelical counsels " in the New
Testament. Voluntary poverty, separation from the world, etc.,
are declared to be a higher degree of virtue and to be, in the
eminent sense, religion. And by such obedience not only may
perfection be reached, but also works of supererogation may be
performed.
2. The 'modern View of Perfectionism.
Some forty years ago this was the subject of earnest discus-
sion among our Western churches. This view differs from the
Pelagian, in allowing for a depravity of nature, though it is not
decided whether that shall be called a moral state or a physical
condition. It differs from the Arminian view, in denying gra-
cious ability. The ability relied upon is not gracious, but man's
natural capacity. The perfection to which man can attain con-
sists in this: the choice of the highest good, and, as the result
of that choice, the full and perfect discharge of all our duty.
The perfection, however, is ultimately to be resolved into the
choice. It is a choice which is according to our ability, in the
present circumstances, as we now are. The perfection is not an
absolute, but a relative perfection, a perfection which is just on
a line with our present ability, so that the ability becomes the
measure of our obligation, instead of the obligation being the
measure of the ability. The main point in the theory, how-
ever, is this, that there is no moral character in anything in
man, but the choice of an ultimate end, that all except that
does not come under the sphere of what is moral. The whole
of character is in the governing purpose. In the discussions in
respect to obligation and ability, matters have taken a singular
turn at different periods of the controversy. The old New Eng-
land position said that man had both natural ability and moral
inability, that the obligation is the prime thing in the case,
and that the obligation is to the full possible extent of our natu-
ral capacity. In the later speculations, natural ability is taken
582 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
to amount to this: what a man can do in his depraved, diseased,
and corrupt condition, just as it is; and the view carried out
comes to the position that there is no moral inability at all, that
that is a vicious phrase, and the perfection is that which man
can attain by his natural powers.
I. The Arguments for this View.
1. On the ground of ability. The command to be perfect
implies the ability, and not only the possibility but the actuality
of perfection. We are as much bound, on the ground of the
command, to preach perfection as we are to preach repentance
to the sinner. Perfection is as much attainable by the Christian
as repentance by the sinner. If the doctrine of natural ability
be held without the check of moral inability, we do not see but
that this argument is valid. Those who hold that the sinner
can repent without divine grace must, on the same ground,
preach absolute perfection, and that it is attainable in the case
of every Christian. The only escape from this conclusion is
by modifying the statement of natural ability in regard to
repentance.
2. From the promises of God. It is said that God promises
the perfection of his children. But it is to be considered that
the promises of God are conditional, and run through all time.
They are not fixed to any particular time, or to this life dis-
tinctively. They relate to complete and final sanctification.
3. From the provision of the gospel. It is said that this
is such for sanctification or entire holiness, that we may expect
it in this life. The argument proves too much. The fulness of
the provision would not be our warrant for expecting entire
sanctification, any more than the general atonement is a warrant
for expecting a universal redemption. The provision in the
divine order is always beyond what it is applied unto.
4 From prayer. We are to pray for entire sanctification.
Our prayer, however, is to be with trust. We are warranted, on
the ground of the promise, in expecting entire sanctification, but
that does not involve that it will come to us in this life.
5. An appeal to facts as certified by Scripture. This is tc
be viewed as part of the statement under the next head.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 583
6. From Scripture. 1 John ii. 5; iv. 17; iii. 5 and seq. ; Col.
li. 10. These passages however set forth what is the true nature
or character of Christians, what it is they are regenerated for,
i. e., for entire perfection, and do not declare or announce the
fact that Christians themselves are at the present time perfect,
although they ought to be so. The declaration is in respect to
the idea of the Christian, rather than of the actual Christian life
or experience. The Apostle John says, " If we say that we have
no sin, we deceive ourselves" (1 John i. 8), and the other pas-
sages are to be interpreted in harmony with this. He proceeds
to give the true idea of a Christian, but he does not say that
Christians are actually conformed to this. The case in which
perfection would be most likely to be found, if anywhere, is that
of the Apostle Paul, and it is said that he claims perfection foi
himself in such passages as Acts xx. 26; Gal. ii. 20; 1 Cor. ii. 16;
2 Cor. i. 12; 1 Thess. ii. 10; 2 Tim. i. 3. But these are to be
taken as statements of Paul's general position and character. The
"holily and justly and unblameably " of 1 Thess. ii. 10, is in reference
to his conduct in the world, and not to his inward sanctification.
The same Apostle says, Phil. iii. 12 : "Not as though I had already
attained, either were already perfect." Advocates of perfec-
tionism interpret him as speaking here of the resurrection, and
understand him to say that he had not yet attained unto the
resurrection of the body. But that was a very needless thing
for him to say. Other passages cited are: Phil. iii. 15 but
here "perfect" means, thoroughly instructed in divine things;
1 Cor. ii. 6 but here again "perfect" means, having knowl-
edge of divine things. Luke i. 6 would be a much stronger
passage. If any one was perfect, Zacharias was ; but even per-
fectionists interpret this of outward conformity, because it was
a perfection under the old economy.
II. Objections to Perfectionism.
1. On the ground of the radical theory of this modern per-
fectionism, if any Christians are perfect, all are perfect. Perfec-
tion, they say, consists in the choice of the highest good, and
whatever else there may be in man is not of a moral sort. Then,
as all Christians have chosen the highest good, and as all else
584 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
that is in them is not moral and has nothing to do with the ques-
tion, it follows that all are perfect.
2. Even if anybody was perfect, he could not prove the fact.
Who knows his own sinfulness? Who can know his secret
sins ? The one fact of secret sins alone should prevent any one
from asserting that he is perfect. There may be sins which are
sinful in the eye of God, which are not disclosed to us in their
vileness. 1
3. The effect of the doctrine, as held and preached, is to lower
the standard of the divine law. In order to make the doctrine
consistent, it is necessary to bring down that law to our present
actual capacities, and in doing this it is lowered and made to be
different in its demands upon each one.
4. The doctrine has, in the same way, a tendency to lower
our view of the nature of sin. Its constant tendency is, to lead
us to look for sin only in deliberate acts, in volitions.
5. The Scriptural argument against it is very strong: Job ix.
20; Ps. xix. 12; James hi. 2; John iii. 7, where a process is indi-
cated; Phil. iii. 12; 1 John i. 8; Gal. v. 17-23; Heb. xii. 7; Ps. xvii.
15, showing where perfection is to be looked for; and especially,
Eom. vii., throughout which chapter Paul speaks in the present
tense, and has for the object of his argument to show that un-
der and by the law no human being can be justified or obtain
peace or salvation. Even to such a Christian as Paul, the law is
such a condemning power as is set forth in verses 13, 14. We
judge that in this chapter neither the regenerate nor the tin-
regenerate is distinctively and exclusively in view, but that
the chapter contains this general position, that no member of
the human family, even one who is saved by Christ, can, when
judged by the divine law, obtain peace by conformity to its
requirements.
6. The manifest faults of Christians in this life are arguments
against this doctrine. The tendency of those who hold it is
to palliate these faults, and to say that they do not come under
1 It may be supposed that if ever any one approached perfection, it was the
wife of Jonathan Edwards, yet her holy exercises were mingled with the strongesi
wrestlings with sin.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 585
the term sin they are excusable imperfections. Some who have
been wild and fanatical have said that for them, as Christians,
there is no sin. Some perfectionist communities have run riot
in the indulgence of fleshly lusts, on this ground.
7. The tendency of the doctrine is still further to lead to re-
liance upon conformity to law, and not upon the pure grace of
God as the ground of peace and hope. The very claim of per-
fection implies that we measure ourselves by the law as a
standard, and that withdraws us relatively from simple trust in
Christ.
8. The doctrine rests in theory upon a delusive psychology,
viz., that in one act or one governing moral state is the whole
of character, and that everything else which is in us does not
belong to character, and does not come under the categories
either of sin or holiness. This is against Christian conscious-
ness, and is practically delusive and false.
9. Christian experience, as a whole, is opposed to it. We
have the confessions of the best men in the church, that they
have had to struggle with sin.
10. Opposed to it likewise are the prayers for perfection which
are enjoined upon us in Scripture as our duty : 1 Thess. iii. 10-13 ;
v. 23; Heb. xiii. 21; Matt. vi. 12, in respect to which it may be
asked, Into what state in this life can a Christian come in which
the prayer " Forgive us our debts" may not be repeated ?
11. The Scripture represents Christ as the only perfect man.
CHAPTER III.
PERSEVERANCE OP THE SAINTS.
The doctrine of the saints' perseverance is this: that those
who have been really and truly renewed will persevere unto the
end through a progressive sanctification. This sanctification is
the^work of God. The perseverance is through divine grace,
The doctrine expresses a fact and not a mere theory. Persever
586 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
ance is presented in Scripture as a duty incumbent on the saints
There is also contained a promise, on condition of the perform-
ance of the duty, and the promise culminates in the assurance
of the fact that all true saints will perform the duty, and so per-
severe to the end.
1. Arguments in favor of the Doctrine.
1. The promises of God to Christ as our Head: John vi. 37,
39; xvii. 2, 12.
2. God's promises to his people : Ps. xxxvii. 28 ; Jer. xxxi. 31 ;
xxxii. 40; 1 Pet. i. 5.
3. From the nature of grace. It is implied in grace that
there is an everlasting covenant, and is so described: Isa. Iv. 3;
Jer. xxxii. 40. It is exhibited as showing God's great love to
the human race, and a gift which, from its nature, He would not
be likely to withdraw. There is a union with Christ on the
ground of the covenant, and from his love who shall separate us ?
4. From the nature of the eternal life which is promised.
Christ is to give eternal life to as many as the Father gives Him.
Now what is eternal life? It is the continuance to eternity of
what is given here in the seed and the germ. The life already
begun is an eternal life: 1 John v. 11-13; John iii. 16.
5. From Christ's intercession: 1 John ii. 1; John xvii. 24,
where the " I will " is emphatic, implying Christ's purpose.
6. It is implied in the doctrine of decrees as including elec-
tion. Heb. vi. 17-19. " The immutability of his counsel."
2. Explanations of the Doctrine.
It involves two elements : on the one hand, God's agency in
preserving; on the other hand, the saints' agency in perse-
vering. Neither of these by itself is the doctrine, but both to-
gether constitute it. It does not imply that salvation is given
without conditions, but that the conditions of salvation are
to be fulfilled. It is not meant that true believers shall bo
saved at any rate, without their own continued activity. The
doctrine is that of the perseverance of the saints, that their
activity shall be continued. It does not imply that true be-
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 587
lievers may not fall into sin. It asserts that though they may
fall into sin, they will not abide therein and be lost : Matt. xxiv.
24, if possible, the elect, but it is not possible. Phil. i. 6.
Believers are not to be saved because they deserve salvation : it is
of grace. Nor yet is the doctrine that those about whom it is
doubtful whether they are Christians will be saved, but that
those whom God has truly renewed will be. In order then to
disprove the doctrine, it must be shown that some real saints
have apostatized, not that some church members have, or some
apparent saints, but some whom God has called.
3. Objections to the Doctrine.
Obj. I. From passages of Scripture representing apostasy as
possible. The argument here is unsound, in that it infers a reality
from a possibility. Ezek. xviii. 24 is a statement of possibility
and consequence. John xv. 2 is to be understood of such as
are united to Christ simply externally, and do not receive of the
sap of the vine. Their not bearing fruit is a proof that they are
not really united to Christ. The sense of Gal. v. 4 is, that any
who depend on the law for justification cannot rely upon grace.
Their depending on the law shows that they have not a part in
the grace which alone can save them. In the parable of The
Virgins, the five who were foolish probably represent those who
make false professions, rather than apostates. The strongest pass-
age is Heb. vi. 4 seq. This is a statement of an impossibility. In
case those once enlightened should fall away, there is no possibility
of their being brought again to repentance. This is to be taken
a? literally true. If any one does that, he cannot be saved. The
door of salvation will be shut to him entirely. But the passage
does not declare what is needed in order to prove the objection,
and so disprove the doctrine, that any who have been thus en-
lightened have actually fallen away. 1 Heb. x. 29 ; 2 Pet, ii. 20, 21,
are general warnings, and do not include the point necessary to
refute the doctrine. In Rev. xxii. 19 "taking away his part
i In the sense in which the Methodists hold to falling away and subsequent
restoration, this passage is directly against them, for it says that if any do thus fall
away, they cannot be renewed.
588 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
out of the book of life " is to be understood of the part which
he would otherwise have had not of what he actually had.
Obj. II. On the ground of free agency. Man, being free,
may fall away. But here, again, all that can be deduced from
free agency is possibility, while what must be proved in order
to refute the objection is actuality. It is admitted that falling
away is possible so far as man is concerned: the doctrine is that,
through God's faithfulness, it is certain that the falling away
will not occur.
Obj. III. On the ground of the effects of the doctrine. It
is said that it tends to make Christians careless. But the doc-
trine is that of the perseverance of the saints in a holy life, and
if Christians are over confident and careless, it is in spite of the
doctrine and against its precise terms. It is a perversion of the
doctrine to put it in the form which Cromwell is said to have
done that he knew he would be saved because he was once
a Christian ; because if a man lose present evidence, it casts a
doubt on his previous experience.
Obj. IV. That Adam and the angels fell, although holy.
This is no objection to the doctrine, for we do not know that
any promise was made to them that they should be kept. The
promise is to those who are redeemed and regenerated out of
a sinful state.
Obj. V. On the ground of certain instances mentioned in
Scripture, as Hymeneus and Philetus, Alexander, etc. The
probability is that these were not real Christians.
Obj. VI. The instances of David and Peter are cited. But
these prove the doctrine: in spite of their sins they persevered,
so far as we know.
Practical Eemarks. (1) No past experience of the Christian
can be taken as absolute, as giving him the unqualified certainty
that he will be saved. (2) The evidence of any one being in
a gracious condition must be found chiefly in his continuous
sanctification, in his growing in grace and in the knowledge
of Christ. (3) The doctrine calls upon us in preaching to em-
phasize the danger of deception in relation to one's being in a
gracious state. (4) The doctrine is a source of great comfort
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 589
to those who are in spiritual despondency. It may be the means
of raising up those who are bowed down. (5) The ground of
the doctrine is in God's promise and grace, and not in what
man of himself can be or do: and therefore the application of
the doctrine, or our right to apply it, will be in proportion
to our reliance upon the divine promise and grace. (6) Warn-
ings to Christians are useful and necessary. The doctrine does
not prevent our uttering the most solemn warnings on the dan-
ger of falling away. (7) The assurance of perseverance can be
had only by those who persevere. The perseverance itself is
the only ground for putting ourselves individually under this
doctrine. Rom. ii. 7; 2 Pet. i. 10; 1 Cor. ix. 27; Heb. iv. 1.
PART II.
THE UNION BETWEEN CHEIST AND HIS CHURCH.
[The author gave no lectures upon this part of the theolog-
ical system. His general view, however, can be seen in the
following statements, which are drawn from other parts of his
manuscripts.]
1. Of the fundamental and germinant Idea of the Church of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
We derive this most fully from Eph. i. 22, 23. The church
is the body of which Christ is the soul, the organism of which
He is the life, the outward form of which He is the inward and
formative principle. It is said to be the fulness of Him who
filleth all with all things. That is, the church is filled up by
and with Christ, with all his blessings, all his grace, and all his
glory. And Christ being the one who in the universe filleth all
things with all things, being the Word, the Creator, the Head
and the End of all, His church filled with Him is filled with all.
The plenitude of spiritual being and beatitude is poured forth
from the eternal throne where He ever reigneth in regal do-
minion, and vitalizes, shapes, and guides that church, wherever
found, in heaven or on earth. The church is the veritable mys-
tical body of Christ. The union of soul and body is at once the
most mysterious and the most patent fact about man's own na-
ture. The sacred image of God is not only appareled in, but
united with, the fragile vestments of mortality, and the immortal
soul doubtless shapes, fills, and governs the transient tabernacle.
And even thus it is with Christ in relation to his church. He
who filleth all things who made, preserves, and governs the
universe, also, and in an eminent sense, fills his church, replen
ishing it with the abounding riches of his grace, and imparting
to it that spiritual life which is the source and pledge of a bliss
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 591
ful immortality. This is indeed the divine side of the church,
but then the divine side is the real side.
This intimate alliance of the church with its Head is set forth
and reiterated in varied modes throughout the Scriptures, and
always in images that express the closest espousal, the most
tender and yearning love : Isa. xliii. 1-7 ; xlix. 15 ; John xv. 5 ;
Eph. v. 25, 29. Expositors in all ages have taken the Song of
Songs, which depicts as does no other lyric the intense longing
of the most chaste earthly affection, and applied all its oriental
luxuriance in a supereminent and spiritual sense to celebrate the
hymeneal union of the celestial Bridegroom and the terrestrial
bride, whom the Bridegroom himself ransomed and clothed in
white raiment, that she might share in his ineffable and divine
love. And of earthly wedlock itself, the most logical of the
apostles tells us that it is only a fugitive image of the eternal
union between the Redeemer and the redeemed. And this is
the real basis, and so gives us the true formative, organic idea
of the Christian church: it is the body of Christ, the fulness of
Him that filleth all with all.
2. Of the Nature of the Church as seen in the Light of this
radical and central Idea.
I. The distinction between the invisible and the visible
church. This distinction is not Protestant alone, but essentially
Christian. The vital union of the soul with Christ is the forma-
tive element of the church. Wherever that is found, there the
church is ; where that is not, the true church is not. And this
union is essentially spiritual, and so invisible. The invisible
church is the true church the only church to which belong
prophecy, promise, victory, and full and final redemption. This
and this alone has the three grand marks or notes of the church
of Christ catholicity, infallibility, and sanctity.
II. The unreal and nugatory character of all prelatical claims.
The church is made up of believers; the visible church is made
up of all who are baptized; the invisible church of all who be-
lieve, whether baptized or not. The indwelling Spirit of Christ
alone makes, alone can make, a Christian. A bishop cannot dc
592 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
it; a minister cannot do it; baptism cannot do it. They may
help in it: but the work itself is God's work, his divine preroga-
tive. If man could do it, there would be no need of God; and
if God does it, man is only an instrument and not the real agent.
The pretence that anything external, outward, and visible can
make the internal and spiritual, that any outward form and
means can directly impart inward and spiritual grace, is, in the
last result and analysis, a materialistic hypothesis. It amounts
to saying that mind can be the product of matter. The believer
must always be left in the position of coming directly to Christ
for salvation. What is external may be a means, a help, a stim-
ulus, but can never be that mystic bond which unites the soul
with its Lord and Master. This principle cuts deep and sharp,
but it is the irresistible logic of the Divine Logos that Christ
may be all in all.
III. This principle must shape our theory as to the nature
and functions of the visible church organization. Any attempt
to locate the essence of the church in bishops or even in the minis-
try, or in presbyteries or associations and the like, is utterly in-
consistent with the radical idea and fact of the Christian system.
The Spirit of God does not dwell peculiarly or exclusively in bish-
ops, ministers, or presbyteries ; and where the Spirit acts, there
is the true church-building power. Any particular visible church
is a company of believers (and their baptized children) united
by covenant, where the Word is truly preached, and the Sacra-
ments, as occasion serves, are duly administered. As to its
particular constitution, much is left by the Word of God to
the fitness of times and places the general principles being
duly cared for. These points are not finally settled by any jure
divino warrant. The local church is doubtless the unit of the
system; and the principle of unity, among those who have the
same faith and order, must aisc in some way be secured. But
when any such organization calls itself, by way of emphasis, the
church, it emphasizes the wrong word, and so changes the vital
sense of the other word. It is an arrogant claim, without Script-
ural warrant, especially when it puts the essence of the church
in some figment of an apostolical succession, which no texts can
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 593
prove or history verify. The church is made by Christ and not by
man. Where Christ dwells, there and there only is the church .
for it is his body.
IV. From the same principle that the church is the body
of Christ it follows, that the church has and guards his truth,
that it jealously preserves and defends whatever is essential
and fundamental in Christian doctrine, as well as what is need-
ful for the Christian life. For in Him are hid all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge. He is the King of Truth. The
doctrines that center in Him are not mere theories, abstract
opinions, but they express the essential facts about his person
and work. The church can no more thrive without them, than
morality can prosper without precepts and prohibitions. The
attempt to separate Christian doctrine from the Christian life
is vain. The two are as vitally connected as are the principle
of life and the formative principle in the case of every seed or
embryo. In the last analysis, perhaps, the truth is a reflex of
the life, because the life is a manifestation of the truth. The re-
lation is akin to that of the Scriptures and the Spirit; the Spirit
works through and by the word ; we are begotten of the truth.
Hence all churches have felt the need of public, authorized,
and authentic confessions of faith, as a declaration of truth, a
protest against error, a bond of union, and a means of instruction
and growth. And in the midst of the incessant conflicts of mod-
ern denominations, especially in our own land, and of the insur-
gent pressure of all forms of error and infidelity to call upon
us to strike down our symbols is like calling on an army to strike
down its flag in the face of the foe. No one can overestimate
the influence of such a document, for example, as the Westmin-
ster Assembly's Shorter Catechism. It has made our church
members strong in definite thought upon the weightiest themes.
It has given them a consistent body of divinity in the midst of
the fluctuations of opinion. It has been a spiritual and catholic
bond of union, especially in connection with the theological
treatises of the elder Edwards, between two of the most intelli-
gent and powerful bodies of Christians in our country, the Con-
gregational and Presbyterian, differing indeed on sundry un-
594 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
essential points of church order, but radically one in the common
professed faith. It has done more to shape and train this land
for its high evangelical mission than anything else except the
inspired Word of God, which is the only divine rule of faith and
practice.
The church, as the body of Christ, has the deposit of divine
truth as its most sacred charge to keep, defend, and propagate.
Its very life depends upon its faithfulness. To yield it is apostasy.
V. The principle that the church is the body of Christ in-
volves also this: that the church contains within itself the law
and the means of its own growth. As a body, an organized so-
ciety, in the midst of the human race, if it is to live, it must also
grow. And unless it is to remain virtually stationary, its growth
must be always gaining upon its loss. And there are two modes
in which, in the divine order, this growth is to advance ; it grows
from within, by birth and infant baptism, and from without, by
conversion of the unbaptized (or by reclaiming those who have
forfeited the grace which baptism was designed to signify and
seal). Apart from the Scriptural and historical argument for in-
fant baptism, its fitness and necessity result from the very idea
and nature of the church, as a form of human life, of human
history, of human society. In a sinful race, the church is an
exotic. That it may take root and thrive, it needs to make use
of the strongest ligaments that bind man to man. The closest
earthly bond, uniting the physical and moral, is found in the
parental and filial relation. The family is the native root of the
state; no less should the church be rooted in it. It is fitting
that the mightiest human ties should be enlisted in the service
of the church, that the church should begin in the household.
And this is one reason for infant baptism. We must consider
also the fact, that by their natural descent from the first parents
of the human race, all mankind are involved in the penal evils
of the first apostasy. The law of sin and death, which rules in
the race, is mighty and universal because it takes in the law of
birth. If now an economy of redemption is to be provided, it ia
eminently fitting that, so far as is possible, the same law should
be turned into the service of redemption. Why should sin have
THE KINGDOM OP REDEMPTION. 595
all the advantage in appropriating the deepest instincts of the
human soul ? Why may not redemption, as well as sin, be con-
nected in some way with the family constitution ? Why may
not the church receive the full benefit of those native and hal-
lowed ties by which the successive generations of men live ono
life ? Your children were unclean, argues Paul, if you were un ?
believing, but because you believe now are they holy. And
here is the profound meaning of the Abrahamic covenant. /
The children of a believing parent or parents are to be bap-
tized. Baptism is the sacrament whereby the subject of it is \
received into and made a member of the visible church. Bap-
tized children are members of the church even as all children
belong to the country in which they are born ; they are under its
watch and care, to be trained for its service. The name of God j
has been named upon them. They are included in the cove-
nant. The covenant antedates and is the ground of the bap-
tism; and this baptism makes them members of the visible,
not necessarily of the invisible, church. Baptism incorporates
into the external form and order of the body of Christ. Re- |
generation is not external but internal, so that there is no
proper baptismal regeneration, any more than there is a material
soul. Regeneration may or may not accompany the rite which
is its sign arid seal ; it is not tied to it.
There are three theories on this point. One, the Baptist,
view is, that baptism is to be applied only to the regenerate; a
person must be regenerated before he is baptized. Another, the
sacramental theory, says, that baptism is, or involves, regenera-
tion ; baptism regenerates and so admits into the visible church.
The third view, that of the Reformed churches, neither confounds V
baptism and regeneration, as does the latter, nor sunders them,
as does the former; it recognizes the fact, that baptism, on the
ground of the parental relation, admits the child into the external
order of the church, and that it is also a sign and seal of the in-
grafting into Christ, who said, Suffer little children to come unto
Me. And many of the Reformed Confessions expressly admit,
that the grace of baptism is not tied to the moment of time when
it is* administered ; but that whenever conversion takes place, it
596 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
is connected with the grace signed and sealed in the baptismal
covenant.
The church is to grow from without as well as from within.
By the faithful preaching of the Word and all other duly ap-
pointed and wise methods, it is to strive to win those that have
wandered from it, or thoso that never knew it.
VI. The church, being the body of Christ, is rightfully in-
dependent of the civil power or the state, in respect to its proper
spiritual functions, whether these concern doctrine, order, or dis-
cipline. The true relation of the church to the state is the un-
solved problem of human history. The Hebrew nation identified
the two ; for it was a theocracy. The early Christian church had
no recognized relation to the state; for it was a church in the
catacombs, though in the catacombs it undermined the throne
of the Caesars. The mediaeval Roman church tried to solve the
problem by so enlarging the spiritual power as to bring princes
and nations under its domination; but in doing this, it became
corrupt, despotic, and anti-Christian. Modern Protestant Europe
has tried to solve the problem by establishing national churches;
but this brings the church into pecuniary and political depend-
ence upon the powers that be. The heart of the present con-
flicts of Europe is in this struggle; England is now passing
through it: Scotland's Free Church Presbyterians- have done
manful battle against this Erastianism. In this country our
Puritan fathers attempted in some sort a revival of the old Jew-
ish theocracy ; but the course of events and our Revolution dis-
solved this unchristian marriage, by which the church lost its
inherent rights, while the state had too much to do. And the
influence of this separation is seen and felt in the beneficent and
increased activity and power of both church and state, each
having its specified and proper functions.
VII. The principle that the church is the body of Christ
leads to the position that his kingdom must have ultimate uni-
versality and supremacy. He who filleth all with all must needs
fill his own body with all the riches of wisdom, grace, and glory.
The vision of the redeemed church as the body of Christ and of
the resplendent glories of its final consummation is at once tho
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 597
most ideal and the most real of all the hopes and prophecies of
the future. That to which the church is destined is a fulness
of wisdom, of faith, and of love. Of wisdom: for when we know
the truth as it is in Jesus, we know all other truth aright. Rea-
son and faith are at one. Of faith: that faith which allies the
soul to God, that justifies the soul, that gives the victory over
the world. Of love: such as binds together all holy beings and
makes a universal brotherhood, an eternal kingdom, the love which
is the sum and last name of all the virtues, and abideth forever.
And because this fulness of the church is a fulness of wisdom,
faith, and love, it also must be a fulness in power and dominion.
The most inspiring hope for the human race is in the sublime
victories of Christ's kingdom. All power, said our Lord, has
been given unto me, in heaven and on earth, and this imperial
claim to universal dominion has been going into fulfilment ever
since. In comparing the church with other forms of organized
social life, we see that every human empire, state, republic, shall
and must at last pass away, and that the church of Christ is the
only institution which is to pass uridissolved through the gates
of death. This church is the only form of human society that
has existed in the world from the beginning: it has seen the
downfall of the hoary despotisms of the East; it witnessed
the youthful glories of Greece and also its decline; it was in
being when Romulus built the walls of Rome, and was mightier
still when the last Roman Emperor was driven from the eternal
city; it assisted in the formation and also in the destruction of
the Germanic Empire; it laid the foundations of the civilization
of France. England, Russia, and America; it has given all the
strength they have to all these nations: they have prospered in
proportion as they have served Christ's kingdom, and if they
will not obey the law of Christ, they are like to be dashed in
pieces or crumble in decay. All this is not theory but historic
fact. The prophecy is on the basis not only of God's word, but
also of all the past facts of the annals of our race: it is of the
consummation of what has been going on from the beginning,
the complete outworking of the one principle, that the church
is the body of Christ, the fulness of Him that filleth all with all.
PART III.
THE CONSUMMATION OF THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION
IN TIME AND IN ETEENITY. THE ESOHATOLOGY.
CHAPTER I.
OP DEATH AND IMMORTALITY.
1. Death.
As waking and sleeping mark our temporal life, so death
and the resurrection are spoken of in regard to the eternal life :
John xi. 13; Ps. xiii. 13. The departed are called souls in Scrip-
ture: Rev. vi. 9; xx. 4; Ps. xlix. 19. Hence, death is, separation
of soul and body. The violence of the rupture is the fruit of
sin. 1 Yet it is introductory to another state. 2 Its chief terror
for man lies in its being the symbol of future penalty. 3
2. Of Immortality.
I. Scriptural Arguments.
1. The Old Testament view. Some Socinians interpret the
Old Testament as denying immortality, or as not containing the
doctrine. Warburton, in his Divine Legation of Moses, endeav
ored to construct the system on that basis. His argument is that
Moses had and must have had a divine mission, because he did not
enforce his religion by the rewards and sanctions of a future
life. The intimations of immortality are undoubtedly less full
and definite in the Old Testament than in the New; but they
increase in definiteness in the progress of the Old Testament
dispensation. Christ against the Sadducees, Matt. xxii. 23-33,
uses an argument which implies, if it implies anything, the
1 "Der Tod 1st nicht der rein negative abstracte Gegensatz des Lebens, er ist
der positive, concrete Gegensatz desselben: . . . . er ist Aufldsung des gottgesetzten
Sein." (Delitzsch, Apologetik, s. 133.)
2 " Appropinquante morte anima multo est divinior." (Cicero.)
s The fear of death, when dying, is rare. (Sir Benj. Brodie, Psychol. Inq's*
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 599
revelation of a future life in the Old Testament. " God is not
the God of the dead, but of the living." That alone would be
sufficient. The translation of Enoch, Gen. v. 24, supposes a
continued existence. 1
There are the taking away of Elijah, 2 Kings ii., and the
miracles of Elijah and Elisha, restoring the dead, 1 Kings xvii. ;
2 Kings iv. Whence could the soul return ? The vivification
of the dead, Ezek. xxxvii., " implies knowledge of the resurrec-
tion." Isa. xiv. 9; Ps. xvii. 15; xlix. 15; Ixxiii. 24, .recognize
immortality. There are also passages which imply and involve
the notion of a resurrection, which of course implies immortality.
Isa. xxvi. 19 ; Dan. xii. 2 ; Job xix. 25 (this is a contested pass-
age; some refer it to the resurrection; the least that can be made
of it is confidence in God's vindication, not merely in the present,
but in a future life) ; Eccl. xii. 7.
2. The New Testament view. Here there is no doubt about
immortality. Matt. x. 28; John xi. 25; 2 Cor. v. 8, are specimens
of the testimony.
II. Philosophical Argument.
[Only the heads of argument are given.]
(1) The consensus gentium. It is the presumption among all
nations. (2) The simplicity of the soul takes away any counter
presumption. (3) The moral argument: (a.) Retribution, which
is not completed in this life. (&.) The educability of man: his
powers are not completely unfolded. His highest powers as a
moral being are not reached in this life. His is an incomplete
destiny, if there is not an immortality. He has been made in
vain as to the ultimatum of his existence, (c.) In the distinct
conscious personality of man. there is the strongest metaphysi-
cal ground for the position of his immortality. Brutes have not
that personal moral being. They have individualized existence,
but not moral personality. And so far as analysis can reach,
this is absolutely simple. To this may be added the natural
longing of mankind for the continuance of existence, which is
inexplicable if man is not to live forever. (4) There is a moral
1 Warburton finds difficulty in disposing of this case. He suggests that Moses
knew about Enoch and kept it veiled from the people.
600 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
system ; tnere is a God; He will bring the system to its complete-
ness: hence, immortality.
3. Annihilation.
The theory of annihilation has been brought forward in mod-
ern times, especially in connection with the theory of future
punishment. It has been supposed to do away with some of
the difficulties of that doctrine. The position has been taken
that the impenitent dead are annihilated, and that death spoken
of in relation to them means a literal cessation of being. As far
as the Scriptures are concerned, the whole plausibility of the
position arises from the use of the word, death. It sometimes
means a cessation of conscious being in a certain condition.
This is applied analogically to future existence. There is no
instance, however, in which any other word can be found which
implies this absolute cessation of being. And against this rep-
resentation, and in favor of the ordinary view of death, in the
future life, that it implies suffering, all the passages that prove
di stinct future punishment stand. Matt. xxv. 31-46. The parallel
in verse 46 implies the continued existence of both righteous
and wicked, and what is asserted is, bliss for the one and pun-
ishment for the other. The parallel would not hold at all, if,
with the wicked, it were to be a cessation of all being. More-
over, the very notion of punishment and suffering which is in-
volved in the use of the word fire, verse 41, implies continued
consciousness. So the description of the judgment, 2 Cor. v. 10,
implies perpetuity of being. In Rom. ii. 6-11, the expressions,
tribulation and anguish, cannot be taken at all for annihilation.
In Rev. xxii. 11, the continuance of moral pollution implies the
continuance of conscious being.
Other arguments adduced for annihilation are simply theo-
retical and metaphysical possibilities: e. </., that the soul is not
naturally indestructible, that God could annihilate it. That
may be granted, but the question is not one of possibility, but
of fact; and there is nothing better settled in Scripture than that
death means penal suffering. 1
1 See Pres. Bartlett, Theory of the Extinction of the Wicked, New Eiiglander,
Oct. 1871. Also, Life and Death Eternal.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 601
4. Objections to Immortality.
Obj. I. From the analogy of the vegetable and animal
world. Vegetables die ; they lose not only their present form,
but the distinctive principle of life is apparently evaporated,
when they cease to be. So of the animal creation. There is no
evidence of the continued existence of the animal soul. On this
basis an analogy is framed; if other living beings thus die, man
may. The analogy, granting it the fullest application, would
hold only in respect to the material portion of man what might
be called the animal soul in man. The power of the analogy as
to any further application is broken by the fact that man is also
a moral, personal, spiritual agent, which the brutes are not, and
it is entirely unwarrantable to apply from a lower to a higher
sphere an analogy which has place only in the lower.
Obj. II. From the decay of the faculties in old age.
As we come to the term of being here, the faculties appar-
ently decline in vigor. On this point what is said in Butler's
Analogy is fair and conclusive. The faculties of the bodily
constitution decay, i. e., the body decays. The means of exer-
cising the soul in this world die out. That is all that can be
proved. As far as the higher faculties of the soul are concerned
its spiritual discernment, its reasoning powers all that most
concerns man as a spiritual being, the facts are not according to
the statement. That decays which is to be laid aside. Still
further, most of the human race die before any such change is
at all apparent. The large majority die in infancy; very few live
to the decline of their faculties; and any such argument would
at the best have a very limited application.
Obj. III. Immortality is a fact, and cannot be proved by mere
reason. All that we attempt to do by the use of reason is to
attain a probability and moral certainty. Everything looks that
way as far as reason is concerned. We do not establish it as a
fact by reasoning, but as a moral certainty, in view of which wo
are to act. As far as it is a question of fact, we appeal to that
which establishes the fact, the testimony of Christ and his apos-
tles the revelation of God.
Obj. IV. It is said that as far as the moral argument goes, its
602 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
demands are met by the continued existence of the race, that
it would only prove the continued existence of a race of moral
beings here, and does not reach to the conclusion of a personal
immortality, and that any judgment upon individuals is not
fair. Judgment upon men is simply their character handed
down. This is the general pantheistic position of Fichte, Strauss,
etc. A moral argument for immortality is granted, but is re-
solved into the immortality of the race. The judgment is made
to be the moral judgment of posterity upon those who have gone
before. But this is doing away with the proper sense of moral
retribution, which, in its specific form, is the rendering to each
according to his deserts. To resolve it into the retributions of
human opinion is to do violence to the utterances of conscience.
The righteous deserve more thon a good name, and the wicked
more than a bad name.
Obj. V. It is said that the longing for immortality is satis-
fied by such continued fame among men. But that is to dis-
connect the longing for immortality from personal being and
personality, and when this is done, the essence of the longing
is destroyed. What men desire and long for is, continued ex-
istence, not that they may be spoken of after death. This sug-
gestion is from the pantheistic policy of resolving specific
doctrines into general ideas. 1
CHAPTER II.
OF THE INTERMEDIATE STATE.
By the intermediate state is meant the state of departed
souls between death and the resurrection. That there is such a
state, all believe who believe in the resurrection and final judg-
ment. The differences of opinion are as to the character of the
1 This is the whole of the skill of the pantheistic reconstruction of Christian
truth. As it deals with the Christian doctrine of immortality, so it does with the
doctrine of redemption. That is, the doctrine of the redemption of the individ-
ual soul. The pantheist says, it is the redemption of the soul from its lower ancl
sensual form of existence, bringing it into its higher spiritual relations, etc.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 603
state itself: chiefly, in controversy with the Romanists, whether
it is of a purgatorial character ; also in part in controversy with
those who maintain the sleep of souls ; and also in part there is
involved the question of the possibility of repentance for those
who die impenitent.
1. Historic Fads as to the Doctrine.
In the Old Testament the general name for the place of de-
parted souls is Sheol ; in the New, Hades. It is represented in
other forms of expression as the place to which the fathers are
gathered, and 1 as the under-world. It is sometimes used in con-
trast with heaven. The departed are in a state where the dead
are not yet in a blissful condition, but one of comparative dark-
ness and silence. In the later Jewish speculations, after the
Maccabees, we find a division of this under- world into the two
abodes of Gehenna, a place of torment, and Paradise or being in
Abraham's bosom a place of happiness. 2 In the time of the early
Christians, next after the Apostolic age, we find in Marcion the
first definite statements, with the avowal of the position that
Christ went to the under-world and preached. Subsequently,
Irenseus and Tertullian began to say that the object of Christ's
going to the grave was to preach to the just patriarchs, etc., who
had not known fully of salvation, but had died with only a dim
knowledge of Christ. These views are soon connected with the
phraseology, liiribus patrum, liiribus infantum, L e., a restricted
abode 'of the fathers who died not having known Christ fully,
and of infants who died, not being yet redeemed, but in a con-
dition in which they would receive Christ when offered to them.
The object of Christ's going was to reveal himself to them,.
That going was not yet connected with the notion that those
who died in iniquity could be redeemed by Christ's labors among
them. The simple view was, that there were those who did not
know Christ, but awaited the proclamation of Him. Clement
of Alexandria and Origen extended the doctrine so as to include
the Gentiles and Christ's announcement of himself to them ic
1 As in the Egyptian mythology.
See Dr. Geo. Campbell, "The Four Gospels," Prelim. Diss. VI., PartIL
604 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Hades. 1 In the process of development in the third century,
the doctrine becomes somewhat enlarged; it is extended so as to
represent Christ descending into the grave in order to have a
personal contest with Satan, and to rescue souls that were held
captive. Some thought that Satan did not yet know about
Christ's having made satisfaction for sin, and that Christ an-
nounced it in the contest. Augustine, in the fifth century,
though receiving the opinion that Christ goes to the under-
world, makes no reference to the possibility of any repentance
there. Punishment and reward in his view begin at death.
Some of the arguments for the doctrine are framed to account
for what Christ did between his death and resurrection: to show
that He was not in an unconscious state. Another reason was,
that they might hold to the view that those who depart without
conscious faith are saved, and yet connect their salvation with
Christ. The clause in the Apostles' Creed, He descended into
hell or the world of departed spirits came into the creed in
the fourth century. It has received a variety of interpretations.
Some, as the Westminster Confession, understand by it, simply,
death: others connect with it the whole doctrine of the interme-
diate state. In the development of the Roman Catholic system,
the doctrine assumed the further form of the complete purgato-
rial system. Luther in several passages seems to imply a literal
conquest over the realm of the dead by Christ in his entering
Hades. The view of Calvin is peculiar. He says, Inst. II. xvi. 10,
that the descent into hell means that Christ suffered the torments
of hell really and truly, that his object was not to deliver others
but himself, to suffer the full extent of the divine wrath.
2. PROPOSITION. There is no sufficient Scriptural Warrant for
such an Intermediate State as described, i. e., a state in which des-
tiny is not yet decided, and is to be decided.
The only Scriptural passages are :
Eph. iv. 9, 10; but the object here is simply to show that
1 They cited Ps. Ixviii. 18. Origen is the first Christian writer who quotes 1 Pet.
iii. 18-21 as setting forth Christ's work in the under-world. The appearing of tha
saint* at the time of Christ's crucifixion, Matt, xxvii. 52, is also applied to thii
view
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 605
Christ is Lord of ail of the realm below as well as the realm
above, that He conquered death in death. Nothing more can
be fairly deduced from the passage.
Eph. iv. 8 (Ps. Ixviii. 18) ; but this means nothing more than
taking his enemies captive, not, delivering others from penal
suffering.
Matt. xii. 40. This merely expresses the fact of death.
Acts ii. 27 (Ps. xvi. 10). This simply declares that death
should not prevail over Christ, but that He should prevail over it.
1 Pet, iii. 18-21. "Being put to death in the flesh; 11 there
is no doubt about that. "Quickened in the spirit;" this, with
the foregoing clause, asserts in respect to Christ a fleshly state
and the beginning of a spiritual state : " in the spirit " sets forth
the complete domination of the spiritual and cessation of the
fleshly as far as connected with this life. "In which" spirit,
i. e., "He went and preached unto the spirits in prison." When ?
The passage does not imply that He did it while in the state of
death. "When they were sometime disobedient." Not that
He preached to them in the interval of his death, which is not
asserted. It is only said that it was "in the days of Noah." If
the preaching referred to was the preaching at this time in
Hades, why are Noah's times mentioned? The object of the
passage is, to connect the two facts that Christ, the Being who
is now put to death in the flesh and quickened in the spirit, by
that same spirit has been always preaching. He preached even
in the days of Noah. "Those who were disobedient: " the mass
rejected his preaching, but he preached so as to save eight souls.
" And by the like figure, baptism, we are saved now." The ob-
ject is, to connect the work of Christ with the whole mediatorial
scheme. The other view compels us to say that the reason why
Christ preached in Hades to these persons was because they re-
fused to obey in Noah's time; which is a very singular reason for
Christ's going to preach to them. Even if this other interpreta-
tion were allowed, all that could be got from it would be merely a
proclamation of truth to them, without any mention of its effect. 1
1 [This interpretation of 1 Pet. iii 18-21 is found only in a note-book. There
are no hints in the manuscripts to aid in making a fuller statement of the author'!
view.]
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
3. Of Purgatory.
The Roman Catholic Church has built up a doctrine of purga-
tory on a few passages of Scripture. As fully developed in
the later dogmatic statements, the doctrine is as follows: That
before Christ no one was in heaven. All were in an intermedi-
ate state. This had two regions: Paradise or Abraham's bosom
for the perfect, Purgatory for the imperfect, including the dif-
ferent divisions of the limbus patrum and the limbus infantum.
The doctrinal position connected with this is, that though
Christ made full redemption for man so as to deliver from eternal
woe, yet there is a class of sins from which persons are to obtain
deliverance and pardon by means of ecclesiastical satisfactions;
that the church has laid up a treasury of grace from the merits
of Christ and the saints, which she may dispense ; and that she
dispenses these in order to relieve men from the temporal pen-
alties of sin, the eternal penalties, as they grant, being taken
away by Christ. During his life a man may accumulate hundreds
of thousands of years of suffering, by his sins. The church may
deliver him, by passing over to his credit merits from the store
which she has in charge.
The only Scriptural basis which is suggested for this doctrine
is Matt. iii. 11; 1 Cor. iii. 15; Jude 23. None of these has any
bearing upon the doctrine. Newman presents this doctrine as
one of the clearest instances of "development" from a slight
Scriptural germ, but it is really an instance of the development
from a germ of what was never in it, as if from a mustard seed
one could develop an apple.
4. The Sleep of Soids.
In the early church there were some who held the doctrine
of the sleep of souls. Origen is said to have refuted certain ad-
vocates of this opinion at a council in Africa. Tertullian argued
against them. One of the earlier works of Calvin, 1534, was
against this doctrine. Many of the earlier Anabaptists and
Socinians maintained the view. Luther shows a proclivity to it
in some of his writings, but is undecided upon the whole. In
later English literature, a somewhat similar doctrine has beer?
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 607
taught by Isaac Taylor and by Archbishop Whately, that be*
tween death and the resurrection there is a semi-conscious or
serai-unconscious state of the soul, and that only at the resurrec
tion are the full powers of the soul called out. Time, they say,
is all annulled between death and the resurrection. The phil-
osophical attempt to defend this has been on the ground that the
soul cannot act without the body, and that therefore it must wait
for the body.
Against the doctrine lie such considerations as the following:
(1) The nature of the soul, implying constant activity. Sleep
is in connection with the exigencies of the bodily constitution:
when the soul is delivered from these, we should expect a more
intense activity. (2) The doctrine has a cheerless aspect. Ifc
makes the future to be a blank and would cause a total loss in
the instances where persons are taken from the earth in the
height of their career, from a condition where they are per-
forming good service, and carried to a state where there is no
activity. (3) Christian experience in the article of death is
opposed to it: the bright visions of the future, apparent converse
with the forms of the blessed, ardent expectations of immediate
bliss. All Christian experience, as far as it reaches, is of an
immediate entrance into a state of higher activity than mere
slumber. (4) The Scriptures are against it. The representa-
tions of the life of the Christian here, John v. 24, everlasting
life is already begun ; Phil. iii. 20, we are partakers already of
the heavenly citizenship. The passages which speak of an im-
mediate blessing, Acts vii. 59, i. e., Receive it now; Phil,
i, 23, If he was to depart and be in unconsciousness, he would
not be willing to give up his glorious labors for Christ; 2 Cor.
v. 8, "Absent from the body" and "present with the Lord" are
equivalent, and " present with the Lord " is not unconsciousness,
To these may be added Heb. xii. 23, Luke xxiii. 43.
l>08 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
CHAPTER III.
THE SECOND ADVENT.
1, The Millenarian Hypothesis.
Some advocates of this include more particulars, some less;
the Millenarians best known as such, maintain substantially the
following: 1 (1) Christ's personal advent precedes the millennium,
(2) the resurrection of saints occurs at this advent, (3) the saints
are to reign with Him, while mankind is still in the body, subject
to disease and death, (4) this dispensation is to continue one
thousand years, in which Jews and Gentiles are to be converted.
The doctrine involves these positions: (a.) The millennium is
not an expansion of the present, but a new dispensation; (6.) It
is not to be introduced by present agencies; all will wax worse
and worse: the gospel will not convert the world; (c.) The Son
of God will have a visible reign and majesty in the world.
Christ and his saints will dwell in a new Jerusalem, of which
Rev. xxi. gives the description, over and on the earthly Jerusa-
lem ; the temple will be rebuilt, the Jews restored, the center of
worship will be at Jerusalem; (d.) There are two resurrections,
one, of the holy dead, at the beginning, another, of the wicked
dead, at the close of the millennium; (e.) There will be no gen-
eral Judgment; the Judgment is in two parts, one before, and
one after, the millennium; (/.) Then the world is to be refitted
and forever inhabited.
The Scriptural basis is Rev. xx. 4 A period between the
Ascension of Christ and the Second Advent is intercalated and
said to be overlooked in Old Testament prophecy.
II. Objections to this hypothesis.
1. The end of the world is not viewed as near in the Ne\*
Testament.
2. Christ remains in heaven till the end of all. Acts iii. 21 ;
Heb. x. 12, 13;Lukexix. 13.
1 Lord, Lit. and Theo!. Journal, July, 1850; see also Prine. Rev, Jan. 1853.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 609
3. The Bible brings into view only one final Judgment. Matt,
xiii 39; xxiv. 36; xxv. 31-46; 2 Thess. i. 6-10 (the judgment
of the righteous and of the wicked simultaneous).
4 The connection of the coming of Christ, the resurrection,
and the judgment, is too explicit to admit their separation by the
millennium, (a.) The connection of the second coming with
the end of the world: Matt. xxiv. 3; 2 Pet. iii. 3-7. (6.) The
connection of the second coming with the resurrection : 1 Thess.
iv. 16, 17; John v. 28; Phil. iii. 20, 21; 1 Cor. xv. 22. (c.) The
connection of the second advent with the judgment: Matt,
xvi. 27; xxv. 31; 2 Tim. iv. 1; iv. 8; 2 Thess. i. 6-10; 1 Cor.
iv. 5 ; Kev. i. 7 ; xxii. 12 ; Jnde 6. (d.) The connection of the end
of the world with the resurrection. John vi. 39 ; xi. 24. (e.) The
connection of the end of the world and the judgment. Matt.
xiii. 36-43; xiii. 49; John xii. 48. (/.) The connection of the
resurrection and the judgment. Dan. xii. 2; John v. 28, 29;
Rev. xx. 13.
5. The resurrection is to be of a spiritual body, 1 Cor.
xv. 44; but the pre-millennial resurrection is to a reign in the
world as now constituted.
6. The kingdom of Christ has already come. Acts ii. 30, 31 ;
iii. 15; iv. 26; v. 30, 31; Heb. x. 12; Rev. iii. 7; Matt. xiii. 31.
("Comings" 1 are (a.) General exertions of God's power: Isa.
xix. 1; Dan. vii. 13; (6.) End of age or aeon:* Matt. xxv. 28;
2 Thess. ii. 8; (c.) Death: Phil. i. 6; 1 Thess. v. 23; (d.) The
final coming to judge the world and end the present state.)
'[This remark on " Comings " is found only in the author's papers; it was not
given in the lectures in class. There is some doubt whether it contains his view
or a view which he reserved for consideration.]
2 Three seons reckoned by the Jews: before the law under and the time of
Messiah.]
610 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
CHAPTER IY.
RESURRECTION OF THE BODY.
The words translated resurrection to awake from the dead,
to raise up are sometimes used to denote coming to life after
death, but they are used distinctly with reference to the resur-
rection of the body. The doctrine was a common one among
the Jews at the time of Christ. The Pharisees believed, and the
Sadducees denied it. The doctrine is of prime importance in
connection with the system of redemption in its wide applica-
tion. Redemption is completed with the resurrection. Redemp-
tion is of the whole man, body as well as soul, and is not merely
pardon or deliverance from spiritual suffering.
I. In the Old Testament, the doctrine is anticipated rather
than clearly defined. There is an intimation of it in Isa. xxvi,
19, where the restoration of the Jewish people is compared
to a resurrection from the dead. Ezek. xxxvii. 1-14, implies a
conviction of a resurrection. Dan. xii. 2 asserts the doctrine.
From Job xix. 25, the Vulgate, Luther, and the English version
teach the doctrine. The difficulty about it is in connection with
the history of its interpretation. The Jewish teachers and Christ
did not refer to this passage. 1 Perhaps the rendering in our
version makes the reference more distinct than the Hebrew will
warrant, but in our judgment the passage at least looks forward
to a resurrection. Otherwise it would refer only to Job's recov-
ery from sickness, which makes it rather tame in its connection.
II. The New Testament. There is here a general and a
specific recognition of the doctrine.
1. The general recognition. Matt. xxii. 23; Luke xx. 27;
Acts xxiii. 6, speak of the opposing beliefs of the Pharisees and
Sadducees; John xi. 24; v. 21, 25; 1 Cor. xv. 22; Acts xxiv. 15.
2. The specific statements. These lead to the definition of
the modus, as far as that is possible. 2 Cor. v. 1-4; 1 Cor. xv.,
* Some of the later Jewish interpreters explain it of the resurrection. See
Notes and Queries, 1854, p. 428.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 611
here the resurrection of the body is compared with Christ's
resurrection; this is the most important point in the whole doc-
trine ; the doctrine is to be constructed in view of that compar-
ison; 1 Thess. iv. 14; Acts iv. 2; Acts xxvi. 23; 1 Cor. xv. 20;
vi. 14
III. As to the modus of the resurrection.
The Scriptures treat this in the way of comparison and anal-
ogy, which is perhaps the only way in which it can be treated.
There are only two passages and a third one illustrative from
which anything in regard to the mode can be derived. Phil. iii.
20, 21, here the comparison is with the resurrection of Christ.
If He arose with the same body, we shall arise with the same
body, but changed by the working of a mighty power; John xii.
24, this suggests the analogy which is further carried out in
1 Cor. xv. 35-49, here the question, How? is directly put and
met. The response is, Death is necessary in order to this resur-
rection, and as the seed though the same is raised in a new form,
so is it with the resurrection of the dead. From this passage all
that can be stated is this : That it is the same body which is put
in the grave which shall be raised, but it shall be raised in a dif-
ferent form, not necessarily with identity of particles any more
than there is identity of particles in the plant which grows from
the seed. The difference is described by the difference between
corruptible and incorruptible, between that which is a natural
body and that which is a spiritual. The objection which may-
be raised is on the question of identity. What is the identity ?
What is identity in any living and organized being? It implies
a comparison of the being in one state with the being in another
state. The identity consists in the following particulars : (1) The
same central, identical principle of life remains. (2) There is,
connected with this, the same formative principle. In connec-
tion with the principle of life, there must always be supposed the
nisus formativus, that which makes the particular individuality
of any particular plant or animal. These two gather abou*
themselves whatever may tend to develop or nourish the body.
The identity of a plant or human body is thus entirely different
from that of a stone, which is the identity of the same particles.
012 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Therefore the principle of life and the formative principle may
remain the same, and yet gather around them other particles
which may serve to form the new spiritual body. This view
avoids the grossness of the merely sensuous view of the res-
urrection, and also avoids evaporating the doctrine into the
simple statement that the same person continues to live after
death.
IV. Remarks.
1. The whole doctrine of the resurrection is resolved into the
doctrine of immortality by the Swedenborgians. 1 This is refuted
by two points: (a.) The Scriptural assertions that the resurrec-
tion is future, is to be at the Last Day, in connection with the
Judgment. Immortality is immediate, but the resurrection is
future. (6.) All the illustrations given in Scripture imply that
it is the same body that is raised, and that Christ, to whose
resurrection ours is compared, was raised with the same body.
2. The doctrine of the resurrection meets a deep-seated long-
ing in human nature, the identity as to form as well as in re-
spect to soul.
3. It is on the basis of this doctrine that we may look for a
renewal of our knowledge of the persons we have known, in the
personal aspects.
4. The doctrine gives us a more living view of our eternal
state than we should otherwise have.
CHAPTER V.
THE LAST JUDGMENT.
The Scriptures teach that there is a resurrection to judgment.
Socinians and Swedenborgians view the last judgment as figu-
rative, as equivalent merely to the final awards to each, with no
scene, no congregation. Millenarians generally teach a judg-
ment of nations, before the particular judgment of individuals
1 See also the later writings of Bush.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 613
According to the Scriptures, the judgment follows the resurrec-
tion and is contemporaneous with the end of the world.
Scriptural passages on which the doctrine rests: Rev. xx. 12;
Acts xvii. 31; 2 Thess. i. 7-10; Matt. xi. 24; xxv. 31-46. In
2 Pet. iii. 7-13 the judgment is connected with the end of the
world.
The circumstances of the Judgment: (1) Christ is to be the
Judge: John v. 22-25; Acts xvii. 31; Matt. xvi. 27. (2) The
time is not known: 2 Pet. iii. 10; 1 Thess. v. 2; Matt. xxv. 13.
(3) The sentence is to be passed on all: Matt. xxv. 32; Rom. ii.
6; 2 Cor. v. 10. And even the angels are reserved for their
doom. . (4) The judgment is final : Rev. xxii. 11.
This Judgment is not the first passing of judgment, but the
final manifestation of it. It is the end of a mediatorial kingdom,
the consummation of an economy. The position that at The
Judgment the first passing of judgment will occur, uproots the
Scriptural doctrine of sin and of the penalty of death which has
already begun to be inflicted upon men.
CHAPTER VI.
THE AWARDS OP THE LAST DAY.
Eternal blessedness is to be assigned by Christ to the right-
eous, and endless punishment to the wicked.
The first marked controversy on the doctrine of endless pun-
ishment was between Doctor Chauncey and the younger Edwards.
The reply of Edwards is one of the ablest metaphysical discussions
we have on the subject. Joseph Huntingdon, settled for a time
in Rhode Island, left a work which was published after his death,
entitled Calvinism Improved. The improvement consisted in
denying the endlessness of future punishment. Almost all the
earlier Universalists were of Calvinistic stock. Such were Mur-
ray and Winchester, under whom began the Universalist move-
ment in this country. In later times Universalists have tended
614 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
to become Unitarians, and to say that the Scriptures do not
reveal anything at all about the future state, that all the expres-
sions about it refer to the ason or age which is now existing.
This, by the way, is the only defensible position on the Univer-
salist side. 1 Maurice to Jelf argues that eternal implies a
moral condition, and not a future state. Theodore Parker ac-
knowledges that Christ taught the doctrine of endless punish-
ment, and makes this one of the arguments in proof of the
position that Christ was not perfect, but still had the Jewish
prejudices lingering about him.
The question here is primarily one of fact and not one of
theory. It is a fact about which our only means of knowing is
the declaration of One who knows the future and what will be
man's condition hereafter. It is a solemn, alarming, fearful
truth: but to hold it is essential to the integrity of the whole
system of faith, and also to the taking Scripture as the rule
of faith. The denial of it leads to the undermining of the
whole doctrine of sin and redemption. Universalism, in its
theoretical grounds, all runs back into the ethical position that
happiness is the great good and suffering the great evil in the
universe. This is its proper philosophical basis. As soon as
holiness is made to be the great good and sin the great evil, the
basis of Universalism is undermined; because where there is
sin there must be punishment, for the maintenance of the divine
holiness. In fact, the chief objections to the doctrine of endless
punishment are made on theoretical and not on exegetical
grounds. The chief effort has been to show that Scripture may
possibly be so interpreted. 2
1. The Scriptural Testimony as to Endless Punishment.
We do not now argue of future, but of everlasting punishment.
I. The doctrine of endless punishment is a natural inference
1 Prof. Stuart's Essays, 1830, republished in 1867, give the best philological
reply to the Universalist positions. Article also by Prof. Barrows, Bib. Sac., July,
1858. Andrew Fuller's tract on Endless Punishment is a good discussion.
* Kg., John Foster's famous letter: it contains no Scriptural argument, but
is a general statement on the ground of the divine benevolence. See Woods, in
his Lectures; Oheever, in Bib. Sac., viii. 471, x. 544.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 615
from the fact that in the Scriptures there is not a hint of the pos-
sible future salvation of those who die impenitent.
II. It is involved in the awards of the Last Day, as final:
Matt. xxv. 41-44.
III. It is an inference from the position that Christ's medi-
atorial kingdom is described as coming to an end, when of
course all hope and possibility of recovery must cease. 1
IV. There are also special declarations.
1. The class of positive declarations as to the duration of de-
struction and torment: 2 Thess. i. 8, 9, where we have oheQpov,
destruction, at&viov, eternal, and and xpodwitov rov uvpiov, from
the presence of the Lord; Rev. xiv. 11.
2. Descriptions of suffering. Mark ix. 43 ; Luke xvi. 19-26 ;
3. The case of the devil and his angels. If a condition of
endless punishment by suffering is established in their case, the
theoretical argument against its possibility is overthrown. Rev.
xx. 10; Matt. xxv. 41.
4. The description in Rev. xxii. 11, where the history of the
world is carried to its consummation, and the last scenes are in-
troduced. This involves the position that in the consummation
of the whole order of things there is a final separation between
the just and the unjust.
5. The second death is spoken of an intensive way of de-
scribing the penalty. 2
6. To these positions and statements must be added what
is said of the sin against the Holy Ghost, Mark iii. 29 3 (Matt. xii.
31, 32 ; Luke xii. 10). The argument from what is said of the sin
against the Holy Ghost is perhaps one of the most conclusive. 4
Forgiveness is excluded in the world to come from those who
sin against the Holy Ghost (ovre kv T& utTJ^ovn, Matt. xii. 32).
The force of this statement does not depend upon what we may
1 Prof. Stuart regarded this as one of the very strongest Scriptural arguments.
2 [Rev. Vers. : " This is the second death, even the lake of fire." Rev. xx. 14.]
3 [djLiapr?}/ii<xro / s accepted as the reading. Rev. Vers. "hath never forgive-
ness, but is guilty of an eternal sin."]
4 Tholuck, who once was inclined to accept the doctrine of restitution, came
Dack to the Scriptural faith in wrestling with the passages in regard to the sin
the Holv Ghost.
61 G CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
say the sin against the Holy Ghost is. (There are four leading
views. (1) It is a single sin, an impious word which bias
phemes the Holy Ghost, implying that the sinner has come
to a state in which he resists God's last influences. Doderlein,
Cramer, Reinhard, Michselis, Bretschneider, Harless, etc. (2)
Any actual sin against a conscience which is illumined by God's
Spirit. Weiss. This is making it too general. (3) Some one,
in the general class of " mortal sins." Lucke, Bohmer. (4) The
most common and perhaps the best view: it is an internal state
of the highest sinfnlness which cannot be changed and which
shows itself in speech or action, resisting or deliberately setting
the soul against the influences of the Holy Ghost. Stier, Tholuck,
Olshausen, Hahn, J. Muller, 1 Hofmann. 2 )
Also there must be added what is said in 1 John v. 16,
<5nv dfiapria. rtpds Qararor. There is sin for which prayer can-
not avail.
7. It is to be noted, that these strong passages as to eternal
perdition are in the New Testament and not in the Old. 8
V. The doctrine of final condemnation and eternal punish-
ment is implied in other Scriptural doctrines. The theoretical
possibilities here :
1. The doctrine of the nature and desert of sin includes the
position that the punishment is to be everlasting. Sin as the
worst thing is to be accompanied by that which will show it to
be the worst. If there is any case of continued sin, it is a just
inference that there will be continued punishment. Hence, in
order to disprove the doctrine of eternal punishment, it must be
shown that sin will be extirpated absolutely. Unless this is
done, it cannot be shown that punishment will cease. The final
Judgment shows the continuance of sin.
2. The doctrine of repentance as necessary to salvation in-
volves theoretically the possibility of final and everlasting con-
demnation. If there is no repentance, there cannot be salva-
1 Siinde, ii. 598, ed. 5.
2 Schriftb., ii, 2, 315. Augustine: " Duritia cordis usque ad finem hujus vitse,
vel impoenitentia finalis, quse ipsa cum irremissibilitate necessarie conjuncta est."
So, Luther.
3 Urged by Dr. John Owen. See Maurice, Essays, p. 336.
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 617
tion. If any remain impenitent, they cannot be finally saved,
and must be punished forever. Those who preach the neces-
sity of repentance also preach that if men do not repent, their
final and everlasting condemnation will be just.
3. The same is the case with respect to the kindred point
salvation through Christ alone. If any do not believe, they must
be lost. The necessity of believing in Christ in order to salva-
tion implies the position that if any continue unbelieving their
everlasting punishment is just and right. In order to escape
from the theoretical possibility, we must escape from the abso-
lute necessity of repentance and of faith in Christ. Admitting
these to be absolutely essential, the inference is clear that in
case there is not repentance and faith, there must be punishment
as long as the absence of them continues. Consequently, the
Universalists come off these Scriptural grounds.
There is, in fact, no sense in salvation, as the bestowal of
eternal life, unless it be a fact that without the salvation there
would be eternal death. If the eternity of future punishment
is not rational, eternal life as a gift of grace is irrational. If it
be not just to condemn men to everlasting death for sin, it is
not an act of grace to confer upon them endless blessedness.
No one can believe in redemption unto endless beatitude, unless
he believes in a state of condemnation which must be eternal,
were it not for that redemption.
2. Objections to the Doctrine of Endless Punishment.
The objections, being mostly on theoretical grounds, are not
adequate to overthrow the testimony as to fact.
Obj. I. That the word atoonos does not signify time, but in-
tensity. It designates a state rather than continued being. 1
The position cannot be sustained from the usage. 2 A state is
included, but duration is implied. If we do not infer from the
word the endless punishment of the wicked, we cannot infer the
endless blessedness of the righteous.
1 Maurice's position.
2 Stuart, p. 46, enumerates the cases in ^hich at&vtoS occurs. The propel
translation is everlasting, not "asonian."
618 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Obj. II. To the eternity of punishment, as if that were a
particular kind of punishment. It is simply the continued ex-
istence of what is already begun. If penal suffering for trans-
gression now is justifiable, it is justifiable as long as sin exists.
If it is not justifiable hereafter, it is not justifiable here.
Obj. III. From the power of God: his power is adequate to
take away evil and suffering, and therefore He will ultimately
exclude them from the universe. But the power of God is not
mere omnipotence, but power in connection with a moral gov-
ernment. It is in the service of his wisdom and holiness : to
promote the holiness of his subjects is his great aim. Besides
the argument would prove too much: it would prove that He
should exclude sin and suffering now as well as in the future.
Obj. IV. From the divine benevolence. As we have already
shown, God's Benevolence has ultimate respect to holiness, and
not to the production of happiness. It is shown in providing a
way of salvation. If this be rejected, no impeachment of the di-
vine benevolence can remain.
Obj. V. That sin is a negation, an imperfection, which will
be thrown off in the progressive development of mankind. This
is the Pantheistic view, and is the heart of all objections to the
doctrine, i. e., that sin is not the violation of a known law of
holiness, but that it is a part of education. We have already
considered this. If carried out, it overthrows the whole doctrine
of sin and redemption and the entire Christian scheme. All be-
comes a mere process of development.
3. Of the Restitution of all Things.
Some who deny everlasting punishment, rest their denial on
the assertion that the Scriptures teach the restitution of all
things, and the final reconciliation of all moral beings to God.
The previous argument refutes this. It only remains to consider
some of the passages quoted in favor of this particular view.
The position to be taken here is, that all these passages can be
interpreted in harmony with the doctrine that there are some
who will be forever punished, while, on the other hand, the pas-
sages which teach final condemnation cannot be interpreted in
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 619
harmony with the position that there is to be such a restitution
of all things. Some of the passages taken alone and without
their connections might teach restitution ; but we have to inter-
pret the Scripture harmoniously.
Rom. v. 18. This is to be interpreted as a comparison of the
two systems as systems. As by the one system judgment
comes upon all, so by the righteousness of One (or by one right-
eous deed) the free gift comes upon all. It satisfies the connec-
tion to interpret this of a superabounding provision in Christ
for all, a provision generally for the whole human race.
Rom. viii. 19-24. Here all that is created is represented as
looking forward to a time of redemption. The economy of re-
demption is contrasted with the economy of sin. " Creation " is
most naturally interpreted, not of Christians, nor of moral be-
ings, but of the who'e creation, in consequence of sin, appointed
in regard to a redemption, which is the grand issue. It is not
inconsistent with the fact that some will not come under these
provisions.
Col. i. 19, 20. This also is general; it brings into view the
grand effects and results; it does not deny that there may be ex-
ceptions. Christ's triumph is also said to consist in " putting
under foot," destroying, punishing.
1 Tim. ii. 4. Here we must understand, not the " will " of
efficient purpose, but of benevolent desire, as shown in pro*
vision, plan, and arrangements.
Heb. ii. 9. Universality of provision l is asserted.
Phil. ii. 9. This is one of the strongest passages, because it
is distributive : " Every knee," etc. We think it is a fair inter-
pretation that the passage describes the issue of Christ's kingdom
generally, and has respect to the honor to be paid to Him, the
glory to accrue to Him rather than to the universality of hearty
and loving allegiance. The burden of the passage is that He shall
be glorified. It is fairly interpreted of those who are under
his dominion. Especially is this true when we take with it
1 Cor. xv. 24, which, describing the end of his mediatorial king-
1 If all for whom Christ died are to be saved, then this passage would teach
universal salvation. It does teach a general atonement.
620 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
dom, speaks of the enemies under his feet, implying that there
are those who are in a state of punishment.
It follows that the interpretation of Acts iii. 21, diroxarcujra*
<5eaos navrcov, as teaching universal salvation is not sustained by
the Scriptures.
4. Position and Relations of the Doctrine of Future Punishment.
1. The principles in the case are not made or altered by the
fact of the eternity of the punishment. If proper strict punish-
ment be admitted punishment not as reformatory or disciplinary
but penal the principle is admitted. And then
2. The question is one of fact, of Scriptural interpretation:
Whether the Bible really teaches that all will be saved.
3. The denial of the doctrine leads to other denials, and ulti-
mately, if those who deny are logical, to doing away with the re-
demptive system; because the redemption is from eternal death;
and if so, eternal death was right and righteous, as redemption
is of grace. Hence
4. Denial of the doctrine leads to the denial of strict moral
government as well. Sin is taken as negative, punishment as
corrective. Naturalism is the consequence. These practical
effects are seen as a matter of fact.
5. As to the numbers of the saved and lost we have no
revelation.
6. The orthodox evangelical system exhibits much more of
God's benevolence and mercy than does this universalism. It
sets forth a system of grace, to all that hear the gospel offer. If
any such are lost, it is because they refused the proffered grace.
7. The doctrine is to be preached always with solemnity and
awe; and so as to give the strongest motives and power to the
offer of salvation, which it is the office of the preacher to make
to all.
5. The Award of Eternal Blessedness to the Righteous.
The King shall say unto them on his right hand, Come ye
blessed of my Father. The gates of the Paradise of God are
opened wide to the redeemed and reembodied soul. Christ
THE KINGDOM OF REDEMPTION. 621
sees then of the travail of his soul, and is satisfied. Those who
suffered with Him shall also reign with Him. They are heira
of God and joint-heirs with Christ.
This blessedness is in the vision of God; 1 Cor. xiii. 12;
2 Cor. v. 7 ; Matt. v. 8 ; 1 John iii. 2. God will then be revealed
to the soul, as now the world is to the senses.
It is in the fellowship with Christ. Phil. i. 23.
It is in the complete indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
The creation will be transformed into its final condition of
glory: Rom. viii. 19-32; 2 Pet. iii. 13; Rev xxi. 1.
The glory of human nature will be fully attained : the image
of God will be perfectly realized, as it cannot be here on earth:
1 Cor. xiii. 12; 1 John iii. 2.
All created spirits will be united in one vast spiritual empire- -
a harmonized universe. As Jew and Gentile were brought into
the unity of the Christian church, so human and angelic beings,
all ages and all histories, are brought to a headship and eternal
unity in Christ.
Of this the new song is the testimony and expression.
Rev. v. 13: And every created thing which is in the heaven,
and on the earth, and under the earth and on the sea, and all
things that are in them, heard I saying, unto Him that sitteth
on the throne, and unto the Lamb, be the blessing, and the
honor, and the glory, and the dominion, for ever and ever.
In the eternal melody of that song, resounding for evermore,
making heaven vocal with praise deeper and tenderer than any
other, in and with that melody, Christian Theology forever
closes.
D E X
Abbott, Ezra, 393.
Abelard, 21, 467.
Ability, natural, 326-336; moral, 328.
Adam, his headship, 344-34=7.
Advent, Second, 608, 609.
Alexander, Dr., 214.
Ambrose, 167.
Angels, 98, 99; evil, 99-101.
Annihilation, 600.
Anselm, 307, 363, 467.
Antecedents of Redemption, 3 et seq.
Anthropology, Christian, 160 et seq.
Anthropomorphism, 9.
Anthropopathism, 9.
Apollinaris, 396.
Apologetics (vol.) 3, 4, 8.
Aquinas, 82, 83, 104, 143, 174, 180, 307,
363.
Arian objections to Divinity of Christ,
63-65.
Arianism, 73, 74, 77, 397.
Arians, 5, 392.
Aristotle, 162, 196, 205, 226, 240, 277,
298, 307, 363, 494.
Arminian controversy in Holland, 548;
position on justification, 539, 549.
Arraiuianism, 239, 242, 243.
Arminians, 198; question between them
and Calvinists, 119.
Arnold, Dr., 360.
Assurance of salvation, 542, 543, Sir
Wm. Hamilton, Luther, Melanc-
thon, Calvin, Arminius, on, 542.
Athanasius, 74, 390.
Atonement, the, 437^77 et seq. ; usage
of the word, and terms clustering
round it, 437, 438; its necessity,
438-442; represented as sacrificial;
442-461; theories of, as a moral
influence, 464-466; a satisfaction
to distributive justice, 466-469; to
general justice, 469, 470; to public
or essential justice, 470; remarks
on these theories, 471-476; views
of Kant, Kobertson, Bushnell, Cole-
ridge, Campbell, and Kothe, 465;
of Anselm, Abelard, 467; of A. A.
Hodge, 468; extent of, 478-481.
Attributes, divine, 12-47.
Augustine, 6, 167, 255, 256, 259, 298, 322
350, 362, 363, 390, 536, 604, 616. '
Austin, Samuel, 127.
Awards of the last day, 613-621.
B.
Baptism, 595 ; of infants, 594, 595.
Bartlett, Pres. , 600.
Beecher, Edward, 7, 303, 310, 313.
Beecher, Lyman, 322.
Beings, created, different orders of,
98-101.
Bellamy, Dr., 215, 257, 305, 516, 554.
Benevolence, divine, 38-43; definition
of, 38-40; sources of proof of, 40;
objections to and theories, from
existence of evil, 40-43.
Bengel, 388.
Bentham, 205.
Berkeley, 5, 103.
Bernard, 390.
Birks, 158.
Bledsoe, 124, 240, 509.
Blessedness, Eternal, of the Bighteous,
620, 621.
Boethius, 18, 82.
Bonaventura, 143.
Brandis, 298.
Breckinridge, Dr., 16.
Bretschneider, 127, 144, 252.
Brodie, Sir Benj., 598.
Brown, 179.
Brown, Bishop, 5.
Brown's Theol. Tracts, 126, 191.
Brown son, 0. A., 322.
Bull, Bishop, 252, 522.
Burke, Edm., 178.
Burton, Dr., 127, 554.
Bush, Dr., 612.
BushneU, Horace, 48, 194, 247, 465.
Butler, Bish., 179, 180, 512.
C.
Cabbalists, 431.
CaU, the gospel, 515-521; the external,
515. 516; the internal, 516.
Calvin, 11, 23, 29, 102, 124, 143, 307,
350, 363, 367, 431, 543, 548, 606.
Calvinistic bodies, 397; theologians,
143; theology, 31; its two princi
624
INDEX.
pies, 377, 378; view of our union
with Christ, 537.
Calvinists, their questions with Armin-
ians, 119, 239, 213; with HopMn-
sians, 568.
Campbell, Dr. George, 98, 603.
Campbell, McLeod, on Atonement, 465.
Candlish, K. S., 89, 361
Carlyle, 277.
Cartesian philosophy, 104, 164.
Catechisms, Westminster, see Westmin-
ster.
Cave, Alfred, 438, 442.
Chalmers, Dr., 360, 496, 512, 575.
Channing, Dr., 559.
Chase, Prof., 113.
Chauncey, Dr., 613.
Chemnitz, 396.
Christ, his divinity, 53 et seq. ; his di-
vine attributes, 53-56; designated
as divine, 56-60; the object of re-
ligious worship, 60-62; Arian ob-
jections, 63-65; his person and
work, 341 et seq. ; the perfect man,
354-358, teachings of Scripture
concerning, 386-396; his divinity,
387-389; miraculous conception,
389-392; complete humanity, 392,
393; both divine and human, 393,
394, 421 ; one person and his person-
ality from the divine nature, 394, 395,
421, 422; early heretical views con-
cerning, 396; later objections and
differences 397-421; general object
of his coining, 430 et seq. ; Prophet,
Priest and King, 431-436; his suffer-
ings and death, sacrificial, 447-461,
vicarious, 450-453; Scriptural state-
ments of, analyzed, 461-464; his In-
tercession, 481-487; union between,
and the believer, 529-538; union
between, and the church, 590-597.
Christian Cosmology, 91-159.
Christianity, superiority of, to Panthe-
ism, 375.
Chrysostom, 431.
Church, the, fundamental and germi-
nant idea of, 590; visible and in-
visible, 591 ; prelatical claims unreal,
591, 592; nature and functions of
its organization, 592, 593; preserves
and defends the truth, 593, 594;
law and means of its growth con-
tained within itself, 594-596; inde-
pendent of the state, 596; its ulti-
mate universality and supremacy,
596, 597.
Cicero, 26, 298, 598.
Clark, Adam, 26.
Clarke, Samuel, 16.
Clarke, 199.
Clement of Alexandria, 60S.
Coleridge, 179, 182, 298, 465, 537.
Conception, miraculous, its proof from
Scripture, 389-392; in it the Logos
assumed a true and complete hu-
manity, 392, 393.
Confessions of Faith, importance of.
593.
Conscience, 178-190; definitions of, 178,
179; elements of, 179, 180; Scripture
testimony concerning it, 180, 181;
proof of a moral law, 181 ; implies
an immutable morality, 181, 182;
feeling of obligation, 1*83; involves
moral approval or disapproval, 183;
personal accountability, 184; its do-
main, 184-186; is it right in its de-
cisions, 186-190; its possession does
not confer personal righteousness,
190.
Consciousness, 171.
Consequents of Redemption, 491 et seq.
Continued Creation, theories of, 103-105.
Continuity of the mental states, 172.
Cosmology, Christian, 91-159.
Cosmos, the divine, 54, 91, 92.
Covenant of Life, 258, 259; of works,
378; of redemption, 378; of grace,
378.
Covenants, the, 377, 378, 388.
Crawford, 318.
Created beings, different orders of,
98-101.
Creation, theories in regard to, 93-95;
relation of God to, 95; a plan not
a development, 95, 96; preservation
of, 102-105; continued, 103, 104.
Creationism, 167, 169.
Creator and Creation, 91-96.
Cudworth, 5, 164, 199.
Cyril, 167.'
D.
Day, Pres., 124, 126, 133, 138, 178,
238, 246, 252, 331.
Dalgairns' Theory of the Soul, 165.
Death, 598; temporal, 266, 267; spiritual,
267-271; eternal, 271-273.
Do Bow, 261.
Decrees of God, 114-126; characteristics
of, 117-119, proof of doctrine of,
120-122; objections to considered,
122-126.
Delitzsch, 598.
Depravity, universal, 275, 276; total,
276, 277; native, 277-282; objec-
tions to, 278-280; physical, 309-312.
Descartes, 246.
Designations, Scriptural, of divine na-
ture, 10, 11; Theological, 11, 12.
De Wette, 281.
Dichotomy, 163.
Distinctions in the Godhead, 50-73
these essential, 73-90; personal,
79, 80.
INDEX.
625
Divine, Benevolence, 38-43; Efficien-
cy, 103; Holiness, 34-36; Image,
255-258; Justice, 44-47; Knowledge,
objects of, 24, 25; Love, 37-43; Na-
ture and Attributes, 3-47; Pre-
science, 26-28; Providence, 106-114;
Reason, 28, 29: Unity, 50-53; Ve-
racity, 43, 44.
Hivinity and Distinct Personality of the
Father, 51-53; of the Son, 53-65;
of the Spirit, 65-72.
Divinity of Christ, cumulative proof of,
53-63; Arian objections to, 63-65.
Docetse, 392.
Docetism, 396.
Dorner, 59, 287, 294, 299, 363, 524.
Dort, Synod of, 117, 543, 549.
Douglass, James, 107.
Duns, John, 261,
Dwight, Pres., 127, 134, 208, 210, 218,
252, 257, 554.
E.
Ebionitism, 396, 397.
Ebrard, 66, 127, 144, 252, 287, 387, 431.
Edwards, Jonathan, 6, 350, 364; on
Adam's primitive state, 257; divine
benevolence, 38, 39; divine decrees,
120, 123; end of God in creation,
126, 128, 131, 132, 133, 138, 140, 141,
145; imputation, 308, 317; justifica-
tion, 524, 543, 545; natural ability,
327, 329; nature of virtue, 127, 141,
198, 206, 213-218, 230; necessity,
250, 252; original sin, 259, 260, 277,
380, 287, 317; redemption. 384; the
will, 120, 124, 174, 233, 236, 238-240,
213, 246-248, 250, 252.
Edwaids, Jonathan, Jr., 39, 123, 124,
14(5, 251, 304, 545, 549, 550, 613.
Efficiency, divine, theory of, 308, 309.
Elect infants, 318, 322.
Election, doctrine of, 501, 505-514;
theories of, 506-508.
Ellicott, 281.
Ellis, George E., 312.
Emmons, Dr., 103, 234, 257, 263, 308,
309, 312, 319, 523, 554.
End of God in creation, 126-146.
Epicurus, 146.
Episcopius, 85.
Eschatology, 598 et seq.
Essential Trinity, 73-90.
Eutyches, 396.
Eusebius, 431.
Evil angels, 99-101.
Exercise scheme, 554.
F.
Faith, the idea of, 540; questions con-
cerning, 541-544; the only way of
receiving Christ, 544, 545; Is man
responsible for want of? 543, 544.
Faith and Philosophy, (vol.), 239, 243,
310, 330, 510.
Fall, the, historically viewed, 260-26*.
Father, the, divinity and distinct per-
sonality of, 51-53.
Finney, Dr., 206, 550.
Fisher, George P., 311.
Fletcher, 589.
Flint's Philosophy of History, 109.
Florke, W., 362.
Fonseca, note, 25.
Foster, John, 614.
Franciscans, the, 363.
Free-agency, does it account for flint
149-153.
.Fuller, Andrew, 516, 614.
G.
Gennadius, 167.
Gerhard, 29.
Gess, 398.
God, knowledge of, 3-6; definition of,
7; mode of our conception of, 7-9;
Scriptural designations of, 10, 11;
theological definitions of, 11, 12:
attributes of, 12-16; as Pure Es-
sence or Being, 16-23; as the Su-
preme Reason or Understanding,
23-29; his Will, 29-32; his Omnipo-
tence, 32-34; his Holiness, 34-37;
his Love, 37-43; his Veracity, 43, 44;
his Justice, 44-48; Trinity of, 48-90;
as Creator, 91-96; his Providence,
106-114; his Decrees, 114-126; his
end in Creation, 126-146; his Law,
audits requirements, characteristics
and ends, 191-195.
God-man, the, Person of, 385 et seq.
Gonzales, 390.
Good, the highest, 195-198.
Governmental theory of our union with
Christ, 537, 538; of Atonement, 469.
Grace, effectual, 520, 521.
Greek Fathers, 255.
Gregory Nazianzen, 143.
Gregory of Nyssa, 167.
Grinfield, E. W., note, 54, 92, 252.
Grote, John, 209.
Grotius, 469.
Giider, 180.
H.
Hahn, 12, 16.
Hall, Robert, 216.
Hamartology, 260 et seq.; the fa] I,
260-264; its penalty, 264-273; its
consequences, 273-283; original sin,
283-302, 323-325; counter repre-
sentations in Scripture and experi-
ence, 302-304; theories for solving
the problem of sin, 304-325; power
of sin over the human will, 326-336.
Hamilton, Sir Wm. v 237, 246, 252. 542,
826
INDEX.
Hampden, Dr., 522.
Happiness theories, 205-214.
Harless, 281.
Harris, John, 127.
Hase, 16, 431.
Havernick, 10.
Headships, the two, 344-352.
Hegel, 4, 15, 136, 162, 251, 298.
Hegelians, 398.
Hengstenberg, 10, 259.
Heraclius, 397.
Hickok, Dr., 203, 326, 395.
Highest good, 195-198.
Hilary, 167-
Hodge, A. A., 468.
Hodge, Charles, 284, 320, 325, 398, 442.
Hofmann, 252.
Holiness, 234, 236; divine, 34-36; defi-
nitions of, 34; questions raised,
35-36.
Holy Ghost, sin against, views concern-
ing, of Doderlein, Cramer, Rein-
Imrd, Michselis, Bretschneider,
Harless, Weiss, Liicke, Bohmer,
Stier, Tholuck, Olshausen, J. Mtil-
ler, Hofmann, 616.
Holy Love, theories of, 214-218.
Holy Spirit, the, divine and a distinct
Person from the Father and the
Son, 65-72; objections, 69-71.
Hopkins, Dr. Samuel, 308, 309, 312-319,
554, 559.
Hopldnsian School, 31, 103.
Hopkinsianisin, 234, 308, 309, 346, 554.
Bortensius, 298.
Howe, John, 293.
Huntingdon, Joseph, 613.
Hutterus Redivivus, 252.
Hypostases, 79.
Idealism, 164.
Ignatius, 384.
Immaculate Conception, 390-392.
Immediate Imputation, theory of, 304-
308.
Immortality, 598-600; Scriptural argu-
ments for, 598, 599; philosophical,
599; objections to, 601, 602.
Imputation, 283-316; immediate, 284-
286, 304-308; mediate, 284, 285,
314-323.
Inability, moral, 326-336; natural, 327,
328.
Incarnation, the, 341 et seq. ; in its re-
lation to sin, 343-352; possible,
from the constitution of the divine
nature, 352; fact and not doctrine,
353; its relation to man's needs,
354-362; gives us the model of a
perfect man, 354-358; gives us ac-
cess to God, 358-360; in order to
redemption, 3P>0-382; on the part
of God, 362-368; different views o
369-372 ; Socinian or Humanitarian,
369; Roman Catholic, 370; Oxford,
370; Arrrtinian, 370; general Prot-
estant, 371; outside of Christianity,
371; historical, 369-372; philosoph-
ical, 373-377; related to divine sov-
ereignty and the covenants, 377,
378; as unfolding the possibilities
of human nature, 379-384.
Infants, elect, 318, 322 ; salvation of, 322.
Intercession of Christ, 481-487; both
kingly and priestly, 481, 482; his
qualifications for it, 482, 483; in
what it consists, 483-486; its fruits,
486, 487.
Intermediate State, 602-607; historic
facts as to doctrine of, 603, 604;
no scriptural warrant for, 604, 605;
purgatory 606; sleep of souls, 606,
607; views of Marcion, Irenaeus,
Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria,
Origen, Augustine, Roman Catholiu
Church, Luther, Calvin, 603, 604.
Interpreting Scripture, right mode of,
402, 406.
Introduction to Christian Theology,
(vol.), 341, 353, 374.
Irenaeus, 362, 363, 603.
J.
John of Damascus, 79, 390.
Jerome, 167.
Judgment, the last, 612.
Justice, divine, 44-47; general idea of,
44, 45; proofs of, 45; distinctions
in respect to, 45; punitive, why ex-
ercised, four theories, 46, 47.
Justification, 522-552; preliminary ex-
planations, 522-525; general and
scriptural sense of the term and
idea, 526-528; involves a right-
eousness, not personal, as its
ground; 528, 529; Christ its ground,
529-531; how, 531-538; through
faith, 539-545; difference between
Roman Catholic and Protestant
views of, 545-547; historical state-
ments of 548-551; objections to
doctrine of, 551, 552.
Justin Martyr, 143.
Justinian, 167.
K.
Kant, 127, 128, 137, 144, 179, 187, 203,
298, 465.
Kenosis, 398, 418, 425.
Keil, 388.
King, Arch., 150.
Kingdom of Redemption, 491-621; lit
consummation in time and iu
nity, 598-621.
Knapp, 26.
INDEX.
G27
Knowledge, divine, objects of, 24. 25.
Krabbe, 268.
Krummacher, 431.
Kurtz, 3C3.
L.
Lactantius, 146, 220.
Lasaulx, 168.
Last Judgment, 612.
Launoy, 391.
Law, moral, its two main ends, 472;
in relation to divine holiness, 472,
473; to Christ's atonement, 473-476;
of God, its requirements, charac-
teristics and ends, 191-195.
Liebner, 363, 398.
Leibnitz, 150, 154, 164, 248, 298.
Leighton, Dr., 360.
Leo the Great, 167.
Lewis, Tayler, 231.
Liberty and Necessity, 250-252.
Limborch, 102.
Locke, 246
Logos, the, 28, 73, 74, 75, 87, 88, 392,
393.
Love, divine, 37-43; definitions of, 37;
proofs of, 37: divisions of, as to its
objects, 38; modifications of, 38; as
benevolence, 38-43.
Love, Holy, Theories of, 214-218.
Luther, 11, 124, 167, 307, 542, 548, 606,
616.
M.
Mackintosh, 179.
Maclaurin, John, 206.
Magee, 452.
Malan, Dr. Caesar, 543.
Man, as a moral being, 161-191 ; his re-
lation to the Creator, 161; to the
rest of the material creation, 161;
to the spiritual realm, 161, 162;
to his race, 162; his individuality,
163; union of his body and soul,
163, 164; his soul's origin, 166; his
personality, 170; powers and facul-
ties of his soul, 173-176 ; its original
tendencies, 176-1 78; his conscience,
178-190; his highest spiritual ca-
pacities, 190, 191 ; as a moral agent,
his personal relations to the law of
God, 232-236; his primeval moral
state, 252-258; his destination if he
had continued obedient, 258, 259;
as fallen, 273 et seq. ; his redemp-
tion, 341 et seq.
Manning, Archb., 238, 240.
Marcion, 603.
Marsh, Pres., 300.
Martensen, 169, 252, 363, 431, 481.
Martin, (B. C.,) his Via Futura, 322.
Martin, -John, 127.
Martyr, Justin, 167.
Materialism, 164, 346.
Maurice, P. D., 171, 614, 617.
McCosh, Dr., 220.
Mediate Imputation, 284, 285, 314-323,
Mediator, the, person of, 385 et seq.;
work of, 430 et seq.; three-fold
office of, 431 et seq.
Melancthon, 167, 307, 543, 548.
Messiah, the, 379, 381, 382, 383, 431-434.
Methodists, 26.
Mill, John Stuart, 209.
Millenarian hypothesis, 608; objections
to, 608, 609.
Modalism, 73.
Molina. 25.
Monophysites, 396.
Monothelites, 396, 397.
Moral, ability, 328; character, seat of,
236-250; inability, 326-336; law,
472-476; Science, Wayland's, 179,
193
Morell, 164.
Mozley, 509, 510.
Mtiller, Julius, 124, 192, 194, 221, 229,
240, 241, 243, 252, 260, 268, 281,
282, 287, 310, 313, 333, 365, 390,
431, 616.
N.
Natural ability, 326 336.
Nature and attributes, divine, 3-47.
Neander, 287.
Necessity, Natural, 250; Moral, 250;
Metaphysical or Philosophical, 250
Nestorianism, 396.
New Platonists, 93.
Newton, note, 19.
Nicene Creed, 362.
Nitzsch, 431.
Norton, Andrews, 322.
0.
Omnipotence of God, 32-34; idea of,
32; definition of, 32; proof of, 32,
33; limits of, 33; Schleiermacher'a
definition of, 33, 34; objects of, 34.
Orders of created beings, 98-101.
Origen, 143, 167, 395, 603, 606.
Original sin, 283-323; objections, 323-
325; Tendencies of man's soul,
176-178.
Owen, John, 317, 364. 522, 616.
P.
Paley, 40, 206.
Pantheism, 136, 346.
Parker, Theodore, 614.
Pascal, 89, 352, 382, 383.
Payne, Dr., 317.
Pelagian, views, 279, 312, 517.
Pelagianism, 255, 267.
Pelagius, 167, 322, 529; his 3ontroveray
with Augustine, 548.
628
INDEX.
Penalty of sin. 264-273.
Perfectionism, 579-585 ; Pelagian theory
of, 580; Arminian, 580, Roman
Catholic, 580; modern, 581-583; ob-
jections to, 583-585.
Perrone, 322, 390, 391.
Perseverance of the saints, 585; argu-
ments for the doctrine, 586; expla-
nations of, 586-587; objections to,
587.
Person of Christ, 341 et seq.; (See
Christ); Savoy and Westminster
Confessions concerning, 385; here-
sies, objections, and difficulties con-
cerning, 396-421; entire result as
to, 421-429.
Personal distinctions in the Trinity,
79-90; identity, 171, 172; relations,
man's, to the Law of God, 232-236.
Personality, 170.
Philo, 4, 167, 344, 369.
Philosophy of Christianity, 73, 373-377.
Plato, 4, 11, 93, 167, 168, 297, 494.
Power to the contrary, 329, 330.
Povv'ers and faculties of the soul, 173-176.
Prayer, 577-579.
Predestination, 501-504, objections to,
509-514.
Pre-established harmony, theory of, 164.
Pre-existence, 167; hypothesis of, 313,
314.
Prentiss, George L., 322.
Preservation of Creation, 102-105;
sources of proof of the doctrine,
102; its purport, 102, 103.
Primeval state of man, 252-258; of in-
nocence, 253; of the divine image,
253, 254; not of confirmed holiness,
552.
Principia, Newton's, 19.
Prophet, Priest, and King, 431-436.
Providence, divine, Geoeral statements
in regard to the doctrine, 106, 107;
proof of, 108-110; distinction as to
general and particular, 110, 111;
modes of, 111-114.
Prudentius, 167.
Punishment, endless, 614-618 ; rela-
tions of doctrine of, 620.
Quenstedt, 127.
Quintilian, 277.
R,
Realism and Nominalism, 288, 319.
Realists and Nominalists, 13.
Reason, divine, 28, 29.
Redemption, antecedents of, 3-337; it-
self, 341 et seq. ; Kingdom of, 491-
501; Christianity looks forward
to its realization, 492-495; con-
trast between this and human in-
ventions, 495-498; =iome of its
characteristics, 498-500; its glory
and beauty, 500.
Reformation, the, 256.
Reformed Confessions, on assurance of
faith, 543.
Regeneration, 553-574; Roman Catholic
view of, 553; Church of England, 553;
Pelagian, 554; Rationalistic, 554; ex-
ercise scheme, 554; taste theory,554;
change in governing purpose, 554;
self-love, theory of, 555, 556; evan-
gelical view of, 556, 557; Scriptural
representations of, 558, 559; its
connection with other truths, 559;
its necessity, 560 ; its characteristics,
560-563; its author, 563, 564; its
method, 564-566 ; its means, 566-569 ;
obligatory, 569, 570; conscious pro-
cesses of the soul in, 570-572.
Relations, personal, of man to the law
of God, 232, 236.'
Renan, 383.
Repentance, difference between Roman
Catholic and Protestant views of,
572, 573; Protestant view stated,
573, 574.
Reprobation, 508, 509.
Resurrection of the body, 610-612.
Reubelt, 398.
Richards, Dr., 240, 252, 528, 550.
Ridgeley, 435.
Robertson, 465.
Roman Catholic view of faith, 541, 542,
548; of grace, 256; of justification,
539; of regeneration, 553.
Rothe, 26, 221, 366, 431, 465.
S.
Sabellianism, 73, 74; remarks on, 77-79.
Sacramental view of our union with
Christ, 536.
Sacrifices, pagan, 443-445; vicarious,
446 et seq. ; Old Testament, 445-447;
Old Testament prophecies of sacri-
ficial sufferings of Christ, 447, 448;
New Testament witness to, 448-453 ;
objections stated and answered,
453-461; Scriptural statements of,
analyzed, 461-464.
Sanctification, 575-585; its nature, 575,
576; its means, 577-579.
Sartorius, 258.
Satan, 99-101.
Saumur, 308.
Saybrook, Wm. Hart, 218.
Schelling, 251, 398.
Scheme, selfish, 206, 207; of tendency
to greatest happiness, 207-210; self
love, 210-213.
Schleiermacher, 13, 14, 15, 33, 100, 251
390. 398, 431, 537.
SclMEttgen, 431.
INDEX.
629
Scholastics, 104, 167.
Schneckenburger, 484.
Schweizer, 127, 144.
Scientia Media, 25, 26.
Scotus, 363.
Scripture, right mode of interpreting,
402-406.
Second Advent, 608, 609.
Self-existence of God, 16, 17.
Selfish scheme, 206.
Seneca, 297.
Sensibilities, the, 176.
Servetus, 363.
Sin, permission of, 146-159; is it the
necessary means of the greatest
good, 147-149; does free agency ac-
count 1'or it, 149-153; reasons for
its permission are beyond our
knowledge, 153-156; definitions of,
234-236; doctrine concerning, see
Hamartoloqy, 260 et seq. ; original,
283-325.
Smalley, 191, 257, 326.
Smith, Henry Boynton, reference to,
his Christian Apologetics, 3, 4, 8;
Faith and Philosophy, 239, 243,
310, 330; Introduction to Chris-
tian Theology, 109, 341, 353, 374;
Bealism and Nominalism, (art.),
319; Kev. of Whedon on the Will,
239.
Smith, John Pye, 24, 438.
Socinian view of our relation to Christ,
536.
Socinians, 397, 598.
Socinus, 363.
Socrates, 297, 379.
Son, the, Divinity and distinct person-
ality of, 53-65.
Sophocles, 297.
South, Dr., 258, 453.
Sovereignty, divine, 377.
Spinoza, 4, 14, 375.
Spiritual Life theory of our union with
' Christ, 536, 537.
Spring, Dr., 126, 133.
Stapfer, 144, 308, 317.
Stearns, J. R, 523.
Stewart, Dugald, 180.
Stier, 268.
Strauss, 127.
Stuart, Moses, 308, 320, 614, 615, 617.
Sublapsarian view, 263.
Supererogation, 547.
Supralapsarianism, 117, 263.
Swedenborg, 9.
Swedenborgians, 612.
Synesius, 167.
Synod of Dort, 543, 549.
Tabte theory, 554.
Taylor, Isaac, 607.
T.
Taylor, N. W., 149, 150, 210, 281, 296,
310, 312, 336, 470.
Temptation, the, 260, 264.
Tendencies, original, of man's soul,
176-178.
Tennyson quoted, 213.
Tertullian, 9, 167, 390, 603, 606.
Theodicy, the, 146-159.
Theodoretus, 167, 431.
Theology, Christian, Introduction to^
(vol.), 341, 353, 374.
Theories, Holy Love, 214-218.
Tholuck, A., 281, 284, 287, 615.
Thomasius, 170, 252, 287, 362, 398.
Townley, H. C., 322.
Traducianism, 168, 169.
Transubstantiation, 536.
Trichotomy, 166.
Trinity, 48-90; preliminary remarks on,
48-50; outline of course on, 50;
manifested, 50-73; permanent, 72;
essential, 73-90.
Turretine, 543.
Twesten, 22, 101, 127, 131, 287.
Tyler, B., 252.
Tyler, William S., 297.
U.
Union between Christ and the believer,
502 et seq., 531; its proof from
Scripture, 532, 533; from other doc-
trines and analogies, 534, 535; its
nature, 535, 536; opinions con-
cerning classified and criticised,
536-539.
Unitarian view of depravity, 312.
Unitarians, 56.
Unity of God, 48-51.
Universalism, 613, 614.
Universe, the, created, as set forth in
Scripture, 96-98.
Upham, Prof. T., 248.
Utilitarianism, 209, 210.
V.
Veracity, divine, 43-44.
Vestiges of Creation, 95.
Vicarious sufferings and death of Christ,
450-453; objections to considered,
453-461.
Virtue, nature of, formal theories con-
cerning, 198-218; acting according
to fitness of things, 198, 199; pro-
moting the end of our being, 199;
conformity to relations of things,
199, 200; conformity to the Will
of God, 200, 203; Kant's theory,
203; Hickok's, 203, 204; happi*
ness, 205-214; holy love theories,
214-218; hints as to a theory o{
218-231.
Von Lasaulx, 441.
Von Orelli, 388.
630
INDEX.
W.
Warburton, 598, 599.
Wardlaw, 544.
Waterland, 438.
Wayland, 179, 193, 199, 208, 209.
Wendeliu, 144.
Weasel, 363.
Western Church, 255.
Westminster standards, on assurance,
542, 543; divine providence, 106;
elect infants, 318; election, 505;
the fall, 260, 263, 273; foreordina-
tion, 250, 252; Hades, 604; justifi-
cation, 525; liberty of choice, 243;
mystical union, 531; new birth,
517; person of Christ, 385.
Whately, Arch., 150, 359, 607.
Whedon on the Will, Eeview of, 239.
Wieseler, 527.
Will, the, 176, 230-250; idea of, 237,
238; power of, 238, 239; its self-de-
termination, 239; its modes of ac-
tion, 240, 241; its liberty or free,
dom, 242-245; motives, 245-250
Divine, attributes of, 29, 32; idea
of, 29; definitions of, 29, 30; distinc.
tions of, as to its objects, 30; othei
distinctions, 31, 32.
Wisdom, divine, 28; proof of, 28; defi-
nition of, 28, 29.
Wisner, W. C., 126, 127, 130.
Wolff, 11.
Woods, Leonard, 104, 240, 551.
Xenophon, 297.
Zwingle, 143.
Z.
INDEX OF SCf^IPTUHE PASSAGES.
GENESIS.
DEUTERONOMY.
iv. 35
21,50
; f.f.
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51
vi. 4
21,50
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xviii. 15
43 1
1U ^> -"oj* ^^
xviii. 18
388
} 2 9
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2C3
xxi. 1-9 ...
446
/ 6 l
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xxix. 29
3*
tfi7
xxx. 6
559
1U /
2C2
302
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2^7
ii. 2C..
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I SAMUEL.
iii. 7.
.2c;7, 267
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iii. 14-10
264
xxiv 10 . ...
180
iii. 15
..^88, -?QI
iii. 22
268
II SAMUEL
v
292
471
V. I
253
65
287'
V. I, 3. . ,
.2CJ4
v. 3 .
168
v. 24
599
180
VI. 2
99
ii- 44
vi. 5
275, 276
180
viii. 21
(2) 276
viii. 38
27C
ix. 6
254
'/J
x
292
^99
xv. 6.
C26
I
xvii. i
. . W
II KINGS
xxii. 8
.... 38
xxxv. 18
166
iyy
xlix. 10
38
206
v - */
xxiv. 4 .
282
EXODUS.
vii. i.
^7
II CHRONICLES.
xix. 7
45
xx. 5...
2I > 5 OI
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xxix. 14
446
NEHEMIAH.
ix. 6
102
xxxiii. 23
*y
. . "5
xxxiv. 6
44
OB.
i 21
167
.268
NUMBERS.
. 4C
xiv. 18..
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271;
xxxfii. 10. . .
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ix. 12...
.. 11
631
632
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE PASSAGES.
IX. 2O
584
ciii.
civ.
civ.
cvi.
cvi.
ex.
ex.
cxiv.
cxv.
cxix.
cxxxv.
cxxxv.
cxxxvi.
cxxxviii.
cxxxix.
cxxxix.
cxl.
cxliii.
cxliii.
PROVERI
iii.
vii.
viii.
xiv.
xvi.
xvi.
xvi.
xvi.
XX.
xxi.
ECCLESI
vii.
vii.
ix.
xii.
ISAIAH.
ii.
vi.
vi.
vi.
vii.
viii.
ix.
ix.
X.
xi.
xi.
xiv.
xiv.
xix.
XXV.
xxvi.
xl.
xl.
xl.
xl.
xl.
IQ
1 08
xi. 7
xii. 6
28
27
1 08
xii. 10
167
38
282
xii. 13
23
xiv. 1-4
268
45
388
xiv. 4
275
4
43 J
xiv. c,. . .
122
17
xv. 14 . .
xix. 25
. . . 275, 282, 291
7"" II^
..5qq, 6 10
64
xxvii. 6..
. 180
21
xxxvi. 26
18
6
I 08 115
xxxvii. 23
45
I q
xxxviii xii
1 08
c
PSALMS.
ii. 7.
. . .21, 23
14, ic
276
v
276
2
IO
7O
Vlll
viii. i
388
3S.
iq
2 8
viii. 5
132
*~
22
xiv
28
8
277
xvii i c
A 5
j
1 08
5 4 599
4.
q
...; 108
166
33
I IO
q
27C
I0 8
xxxvi. . .
276
A.STES.
xxxvi. 6
102
xxxvii 28
586
xxxviii
1 80
2Q
xl
388
3
"54
276
xiv
j
433
xiv. 6 7
C7
xiv. 7
"65
xiv. 8.
C7
xlix i ?
I
c8
xlix iq
c 8
8
li
180
10
...276
li A
280
58 85
li. c
168 2qi
I 2
li 6 7
c8
li. 10
li 12
275,563,575
7O
5
r
1 08
Ixvi q
I O2
3X8
Ixviii 1 8
604. 60 S
2
6 70
Ixxiii i "
c
! !8
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j
-600
1 08
wwy
-7
iq
18
61
56
r 7
3.
58, 76
J/
C7 eg
76
cm. 13..
51
13
Is
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE PASSAGES.
633
*ll A
iS 6*
vii. 13
388, 609
vii 14 18
7Q5
167
xii 2
i-. j
5 '
xliv. 8
61
181
xlv. 5
55
61, 108
xi. 8
19
xlvi. 10
121
JOEL.
ii. 28 32
66
xlvi. II
31, "8, 121
277
JONAH.
IV. II
282
xlix. 15
liii
388,461
liii C
461
MlCAH.
V. 2
388
liii 8
462
liii II
HAGGAI.
n. 7
388
Iv I 2
4 U j
j-yr
Iv. 13 . .
. .470
ZECHARIAH.
ii. 10
76
I Y - 3
lix
276
vi. 13
43 1
lx 9
Ixi I
. .70, 4TI
MALACHI.
Ixi 3
iii. i
. . co, 388
Ixiii IO II
7O
iv C 6.
387, 388
Ixiii 16
Ixv 2 ....
7O
MATTHEW
Ixvi. I
21
i t 8
g
i 21
58 463
JEREMIAH.
i 21-23
387
xin. 23
335
xvii. I
1 80
i- 2 5
39 2
xvii. 5
62
iii. 2..
HI
xvii. 9
276
f,Q >7~
xvii. 10
56
os > 7 2
*x. 9
1 80
iv. I
iv. 4
39 2
177
xxiii. 23
xxiv. 7
21
562,563
iv. 10
(2) 61
XXX. I
.67
Q
xxxi. 31
586
5> 621
xxxi. 33
67, 562
v. 17
43
xxxii. 17
33
v< *7 *9
94
xxxii. 18
296
v. 45
37
xxxii. 40
(2) 586
y. 40
cXc
vi 25 ..
1 66
Cfi-2
vi. 26
108
5 02
177
3 02
vii. 12
221
cfin
ix. 13
462
XXI 27
59
1 08
x. 28
166, 599
xi. 24
613
559
xi. 25
5
599
xi 26
506
DANIEL.
xi 27
5, 54, 56
.. 396
479
iv. -u. W . .
. 108
xii. 20...
. 33?
634
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE PASSAGES.
xii.
71, 72...
68,
615
LUKE.
xii.
4O
605
,.
C&2
xiii.
31, 39
6oq
16 17
53
60 ->87
xiii.
76-47, 40 .
600
28
xiv.
19
SQ2
.*
72
&
XV.
IQ. .
276.
30?
a*
22
xvi.
16
(2) 86,
276
33
i 5y u
xvi.
21
3Q2
i
47
xvi.
24
2 7 6
72
78
xvi.
27
,..609,
613
..*
7O2
xviii.
3
28?;
560
oy^
z8
xviii.
10
99
3"
xviii.
n...
462,
46}
4
v 2 ; 39^
OQJ
xix.
4
?.92
xix
13
282
4/
7Q2
XX.
18
380
h&
XX.
28
. .442, 450, 461,
462
2
7Q2
xxii.
23
610
18
7O d.7^
xxii.
23-33
SQ8
/ w > too
462
xxii.
37
IQ3
7C
xxii.
37-39
221
OD
ee
166
xxiii.
37
479
jj
21
7Q2
xxiv.
24
oy
xxiv.
3, 36
6OQ
*/
C27
xxiv.
64,
302
2 9
66
XXV.
13
613
5
I IO
XXV.
28, 31
609
6K
XXV.
31-46
. . 389, 600, 609,
xiv
17
.. 479
XXV.
32
613
177
XXV.
41-44
615
27 *I27
xxvi.
2S
461, 462,
463
61 c
xxvi.
77.. .
(2)
392
O7
xxvi.
38
5
v/
IJ78
. xxvi.
39
.64
17
282
xxvi.
54, 64
S8q
7 I
789
xxvii.
CO
302
o 1
O"7
4.62
xxvii.
52
604
608
xxviii.
18
^4
7Q2
xxviii.
IQ .. .
68, 72
,86
4 l
6 10
xxviii.
2O . .
. ss
2 7
66
xxii
20
461
xxii*
77. .
389
MARK.
xxii
i.
j
788
xxiii.
97, 607
i.
10
"68
xxiii.
46
64, 166, 392
ii.
8.
434
ii.
17. .
462
xxiv.
26
. . 46 1 , 462
lii.
2Q
615
xxiv.
27. .
:: ...389
vii.
.177
xxiv
IQ AQ
392
viii.
71
44O
46 '
.. 440
ix.
12
7.89
xxiv
47
.....276
ix.
2 "
.6K
61
xii.
28-34
xii.
2Q.
21
, CI
JOHN.
xii.
2Q 7 1
221
i
.... 57, 61
xiii.
2O
rc6
i.
I, 7. . ,
xiii.
22
.64
392
i.
I 14
74, 388, 393.
xiv.
24
.461
i.
3
54, 9 2
277
xiv.
34
36..,
64
i.
12, 13
27*
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE PASSAGES.
635
J...
14 ,
C7 ?6, 86 781; C72
xi
4
' 'i59
.
i 18
86
XI
13.
coX
j.
18
xi.
24
609, 610
i.
23
58
xi.
25
cog
29. .
(3) 462, 463, 479
xi.
26
268
ii
xi.
2Q
86
ii.
IQ. . .
64
xi.
. .(2) 392
ii.
24. . .
..56
xi.
38 41
iii.
2
434
xii.
24.
611
aii.
3
559, 560
xii.
25
276
iii.
5
66, 276, 295
xii.
27
'
OA, 3Q2
iii.
6
168, 276, 280, 291, 295, 562
xii.
28
. ..132
iii.
7. ...
. . 2760 584
xii
37 41
58
iii.
8. .
C.62
xii
4O
"276
iii.
13. . . .
C7
xii.
47
462, 4.6^ 47Q
iii.
14, ic
xii
48
600
iii.
f
16
58, 75, 86, 352, 462, 586
xii
4Q
iii.
16, 18
xiii.
2 1
3Q2
iii,
17. .
. .463, 479
xiv.
3
7O
iii.
18...
540
xiv.
1 ;: ;
iii.
19. .
0277,, 318, 479
xiv.
13 14
578
iii.
78
. . 59
xiv.
14
62
iii.
31 ...
...:.;.. 5 4 , 7 6
xiv.
Jt
..562
iii.
34. ..
70
xiv.
16
71
iv,
6. ...
..302
xiv.
16 26
66. 67. 68
iv.
24
71
xiv.
18
70
v.
17. . . .
60, 86
xiv.
23
v.
18
52, 59, 86
xiv.
28
g-
v.
19. . . .
60
XV.
2
587
v.
21, 25
610
XV
c
..77C. CQI
V.
22-25.
613
XV.
i::.:..::
v.
23
52, 6l
XV
462
v.
24 . . . .
607
XV.
v.
26
..17,65, 88
XV.
26
.. 68
v.
28. (2)
2Q. . .6OQ
xvi.
7
66
V.
39, 46
.389
xvi.
13. 14 .
68
VI.
33, 38
. 7C
xvi.
l6, 22
70
vi.
36-30.
C06
xvi.
28.
. .74, 76, 352
vi.
37. .
xvii.
435
vi.
37, 3Q
.586
xvii.
52
vi.
38.
53
xvii.
2
506, (2) 586
vi.
39. .
609
xvii.
21, 44, 52, 64
vi.
44
. 335, 511, 519
xvii.
132
vi.
.462
xvii.
. o53 74, 352
vi.
56
532
xvii
. . 60. 367
vi.
67
. 53 74, 394
xvii.
12
586
vi.
69
;. 5 _ 86
xvii.
132
vii.
37
xvii
21
367, 535
vii.
70
22
. .367, 532
viii
21
;;; 2 68
xvii.
23 .
367(2), 535
42
74
xvii
24
. .352,486, 586
viii .
44
268
xvii
26 .
..c, 367 (2)
viii.
8 "
. c?_ 74. -204
xix.
7
59
ix.
2
167
xix.
3O
392
ix
xix
34 . .
39 2
X.
' *
462
XX.
17
65,86
TC
.53. 54 45O
XX
392
17 l8
462
XX.
28 ......
57
X.
30...
. .52, 60
xxi.
17.-
..56
636
INDEX 02' SCK1PTURE PASSAGES.
ACTS.
i.
ii.
ii.
ii.
ii.
ii.
i !!'
n.
ni.
hi.
iii.
iv.
iv.
iv.
iv.
i iv.
iv.
v.
Vo
v.
V.
vii.
vii.
vii.
vii.
vii.
X.
xiii.
xiii.
xiii.
xiii.
xiii.
xiii.
xiv
XV.
XV.
xvi.
xvii.
xvii.
xvii.
xvii.
xvii.
xvii.
xvii.
xvii.
xix.
XX.
XX.
XX.
xxiii.
xxiii.
xxiv.
xxiv.
xx vi.
xx vi.
xxviii.
24
r6
ROMANS.
i.
i.
i.
i.
i.
ii.
ii.
ii.
ii.
ii.
ii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
iv.
iv.
iv.
iv.
iv.
iv.
iv.
IV.
v.
v.
v.
V.
v.
V.
V.
V.
V.
V.
V.
V.
v.
v.
V.
V.
v.
V.
V.
V.
V.
1,3,4
66
16
66,
389
122
609
392
, 76
609
620
6n
66
4- -
23
108,
4. ...
16
u
539
266
.38
613
600
281
277
292
276
276
292
462
526
4
5 2 9
530
529
527
276
527
57
461
(2)
463
461
3 I2
253
294
344
313
g
523
527
619
119
523
25
1 7
27
2O
18 33
7O, 31..
24
31 .
33
.60
6
,
6-1 1
l8
"So
7
21
. . .60, 608,
14
181.
2.
1C.
181 (2\
8
IQ
i \*f
12
.276 462 %
463
92
2Q
K .
C
276,
26 . .
609
122
67
IO 12
27.. .
JO-I8
IQ
3, 4
276, (2)
.64
60 9
463
02
2O. . . .
2O-28
21
276, 303, 36l, 527, (2)
31
/-
C.O..
22
5 j
ci. .
. 7o,
479
8
61
24. . . .
. .463,
56
2C . .
.442, 4^2, 462, (2)
CO
1 66
26
C.Q, 60 . ,
28...
** '
38
70
2
^26
2, 4
60
C. .
^26 C27 S2Q*
27, 32
389
85
6
^ /-' 28* C2Q
73. .
7 . .
O 9>
38...
463
463
^66
60
Q .
C26,
39
48 (2)..
22 .
57. .00..
108,
23, 24
26
2Q3,
28
j
. . C23,
519
440
132
162
108
292
$
613
60
2
2, 3
6. .
24
8
37, 462
24-26
25
Q2,
IO. . . .
26
ic8,
12
12-14
12, 15
12-19
12-21
I2,seq
13. .
159, 162, 1 68, 305, 391,
28
. . . .102, 161, 534,
3O, 31..
31 (2).
276 2Q2
2
. . 146,
IO II
166
583
442
181
610
.610
268
26
28
c.7 e.8.
14.
I
16., .
3O2
6
17
'
14
18 ...
. . . 276, 463, 480, 523,
16 ...
181
389
611
.67
IQ
[528, 530,
'4.63 C.23 C27 28
22
23..
2O
25
21..
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE PASSAGES.
637
vi.
vi.
VI.
vi.
vi.
vi.
vi.
vii.
vii.
vii.
vii.
vii.
vii.
vii.
vii.
vii.
viii.
viii.
Vlll.
viii.
viii.
viii.
viii.
viii.
viii.
viii.
viii.
viii.
viii.
viii.
viii.
viii.
viii.
viii.
viii.
viii.
viii.
viii.
viii.
viii.
viii.
viii.
ix.
ix.
ix.
ix.
ix.
ix.
ix.
ix.
X.
X.
X.
xi.
xi.
xi.
xi.
xi.
xi.
::i.
xi.
xii.
xiii.
xiii.
xiii.
xiii.
xiv.
xiv.
xiv.
XV.
xvi.
I COR i IN
i.
i.
i.
i.
i.
ii.
ii.
ii.
ii.
ii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
iv.
iv.
V.
V.
V.
vi.
vi.
vi.
vi.
vi.
vii.
vii.
viii.
viii.
viii.
viii.
viii.
viii.
ix.
X.
X.
X.
xi.
xi.
xii.
xii.
xii.
xii.
xii.
xiii.
76
4-6
.276
9, 10
76
b l l
Tn y
10
462
i sea
c?F>
16
"526
5 ...
5 2
181
21
272
8, 10
23
159, 268
12
. . . 266, 300, 302, 507
1C.
3 02
480
6
272
17
C2 6
13, 14
584
6
i zu
14
. . (2) 276
27
o^
I4-2C. . ,
27C
THIANS.
2
^*> z o
62
I 5 -2 5 -
27$
18
280 77C,
22 27
177
24
268
CQ7
18
. 160
I-I I
27C
21
o^y
67
2.
CCO
23. . . .
"j
4,61
3. .
559
462
26
. 509
6
266 280
30 487,523,
r. 1.1 ,
526,528,559,575
c67
7
2QI 7.7C.
8
^y 1 * JJD
77C
:"..::..:
J^J
... . c,87
Q
; jjj
207 C.77
8
7.Q4
O II.
6Q
IO, II . .
67 68
10
^y
C72
14 . . .277,
519, (2) 562, 564
.t;87
II
C77
16
14.
5 gg
15
606
1C . .
: uw
487
16
..67, 60
16
68 69
21-23 .
177
18 2C,
I C.Q
c.
IO-24
*->?
619
7.
"jy
C67
IQ-7.2.
621
7, C. .
166
2O 70
co6
7
462
2O 2 1
Q7
21
21.
71
ICQ
II
. . 467, 528
26
68 69
17 .
. . 177
27. .
.68
14
611
28 .;:..
*59
14, 15, 17
. ,C,7>
29
M
. ..120, 367, 506 (2)
86 }QI
2O
14
282
7 '5 54.
486
27. .
442
oo o-+
.(2) 108 en
4
21, 51
c
$7 (2\ 7Q7 7Qd
6
7 is"'
C.O7
7
.. (2) 181
1 1
282 co6 (i\
10
181
16
Vn
n
480
18
j^j
no t;oo
12,
..(2) 181
22
38 CO7
27 .
c.8o
TO
yt
C26
4
J y
76
467 CI28 C.7.O
2C,
181
34 IS,
,(2\ CIC
71
21
7O
. .6c,
5, 6, ii. ..
eo6
7
.(J2Q
..66
8
22
38
3-6
72
22. .
, io8, no. 146
68
73 .
. ..2^, 71, I4Q
n .
68
34
5
.... ...221
638
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE PASSAGES.
xiii. 12
..c. 621 (2)
iii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
iv.
iv.
iv.
iv.
iv.
v.
v.
V.
V.
V,
V.
V.
V.
v.
VI.
vi.
vi.
vi.
EPHESI/
i.
i.
i.
i."
i.
i.
i.
i.
i.
i.
i.
i.
i.
i.
i.
ii.
ii.
ii.
ii.
ii.
ii.
ii.
ii.
ii.
ii.
ii.
ii.
iii.
iii.
iv.
iv.
iv.
iv.
iv.
iv.
IQ
IIQ
22
303, 335, 462, 526
IIQ 276 "?2Q
66
xv
. . .610
27
276 ';*'?
XV. 7...
462
4 ....
. $1 7^, 86 7^2. 7Q7
XV. 2O
611
4, ^
467
xv. 21, seq
268
4-6
;.;. ;\ \l
XV. 22
260 7Qi 600, 610
8.
281
xv. 24 ....
. .619
IQ .
^67
xv. 28
65
;87
xv. 7C-4Q .
611
VL
. ^26
xv. 38
96
?
XV. 44
609
I7-K
221
XV. 4.C
292
14
221
xv. 4C-47 . .
. . 344, -364
17
. . 177, 27^, 280
xv. 46-40 .
-244
17-27
c8A
xv. 47
. W, 394
IQ-2I . .
280
xv. 56. ..
268
24
276
II CORINTHIANS.
i. 12
181 (2), 583
2.
221
C.. ,
7O2
14.
. JWi.
.461
je
CCQ
i. 20
iNS.
3
52
ii. 16
266
iii. 17
7O 71
iii. 18
. . 146, 277 ^67
iv. 2
.. (2) 181
. .117, ?o6 (2), qo8
iv. 6
C
. .IIC. 172. CO6
v. 1-4
7
4C2, 461, 467
v. 2, 4 .
268
121
v. 7 .
621
IO
764. 767
v. 8.::....:
II
.... 108, 115, 121 506
v. 10
14
4J.2
V. II
(?\ iSt
17
6c
v. 14. ... 294, 295, 302, 461, 462' 479
V. 1C ?rC A(\\ Afit Ann
18
IQ
77
v. 17
IQ, 2O. . . .
JO
. CIQ
v. 19. .
21-27 . .
y~y
. .364
V. 21
462. 463 (A\ C28 C7O
22
76^ 767 CQO
vi. 14
277
27. .
xi. 7 .
2O2
I . .
266 276
xi. 31
^y-*
CCQ
xii. 8
... 61
2
QQ
xiii. 14
.68 7i
3. .
...28l. 7QI
GALATIANS.
i. i
.. 63
268
C. .
. 276, qo6
8
co6 C2Q
i. 7, 4...
IO
cii ceo 567 c?6
ii. 15
281
17
4.61
76l, C.27, C7Q
o
14
4 r8
ii. 17
1C
a?
ii. 20
69, 367, t;83
16
6t
ii. 2O, 21 ....
Q2
iii. i . . . .
461
17
c-z-i
ni. 2, 7. .
. .292
5,6""*:.
C2
iii. 6
526
$>...
21, 52
iii. 10 ....
C2Q
8
601;
gi. ii
527
Q. IO. . .
604
Jii 13
. .4CO, 462. 467
12
. .- ^6":, 76*,
iii. n c 14. .
..46l
11, .
. . 146, 37n
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE PASSAGES.
639
iv. 15, 16...
367
I. THESSALONIANS.
iv. 18
276, 277, 280
i c. 6
crq
iv. 22-24
276, 562
ii 10
iv. 23, 24 .
. . ceo
iii IO ii
^8c
IV 24.
->JV
254, 364
^ 6^
226
iv 14.
,.6n
IV. IO
68
iv 1 6 17
6q
(2) 462
iv 17
2cq
v. 5
57, 60
1Vt */
V Q IO
.506
v. |
277
V 21
1 66 585, 609
v. 8, 14
58
* 3
. . 6q, 167
II THESSALONIANS.
x fa
v. 25
462, 591
i 7 10
6lT.
. . col
i 8 9
6ic
C12
1^2
vi. 12 ....
99
i 12
C7
vi. 17
569
ii 8
609
ii. 11. .
(2) 506, 519
PHILIPPIANS.
. .."Uq
i. 6
. . 587, 6o9
Ul6 17
j*"
62
132
607, 621
I TIMOTHY.
k 6
. .c?, iql
l8l, 221
H 6-8
59, 74
92
ii 6 1 1
.. n 2
i. 17
21, 51
M7
.53, 3 o8
i. iq
181
ii 8
461, 463
31, 619
619
ii. 5
21
....61
ii, 6
442 462, 479
260
ii 12
... 33=5,576
. 292
. 262
*
8 ryQ cio' <Lto
181
iii 12
c8i' t;84
iii 16
. . .qq, iql
mi C
583
181
iii 20
607, 609, 611
..cc, 609, 611
479
CdLOSSIANS.
520
II TIMOTHY.
4.6 1 4.6 3
i. i.. ....
583
1. 14
C/l (2\ 7C Q2 l64.
117, 506
i. 10
268, 276
Cd. O7 III l64.
iv. i
60
C1. C4, IO2
iv. I, 8
609
i r8
iv 18
347, 367, 619
i. 20
i. 22
347, 367, 461, 619
268
i. 15
ii. 13
181
57,5 8 6o, 463
i- 27
9
11 jo . . . .
533
60
99, 367, 379, 583
iii. 57
PHILEMON.
529
18
CIO
ii 13
266,276
. .i6c. 167
HEBREWS.
559
i, ii
393
iii. 10
.. .254,364,367,559
164
i. I
i. 2
434
..-55, 92
iii. 14
221
i. 3 55, (2) 5
9, 75, 102,462,463
INDEX OF SCRIPTUKE PASSAGES.
I
i
i
i
i
i
i
ii
ii.
ii.
ii.
ii.
ii.
ii.
iii.
iii.
iv.
iv.
iv.
iv.
iv.
V.
V.
V.
V,
V.
V.
V.
VI.
vi.
vi.
vi.
vii.
vii.
vii.
vii.
vii.
vii.
vii.
viii.
viii.
ix.
ix.
ix.
ix.
ix.
ix.
ix.
X.
X.
X.
X.
X.
X.
X.
X.
X.
X.
xi.
ocii.
4-6 .
. . S4
xii.
xiii.
xiii.
xiii.
xiii.
JAMES.
i.
i.
i.
ii.
ii.
ii.
iii.
23
166, 607
5,6
85
8 3
76
(2\ 6l
12
467
8 , .
C7. (2) 6l, 6c. 477
18 . ..
181
57
21
mo, c,8i;
10
. . c.4, ^7, ^8, 02
2-4 . . .
.ICQ
12
Q2
9.... 2 7 6,
jO
295, 461, 462, 479, 619
re i -j i A/Q'~ >
13
108
11
462
272, 282
14
3 8 9> 39 2 . 393 46i, 462
364
18..
. .ci8, c67, c,6q
14. .....
I4.-IO
18 ..
C.4O
16
. 7Q?
21, 2^-2<;.
..C27
17
"3Q7, 462 467
27
..C.26
I
. . 462
2
1584
4
w
iii.
I PETER
i.
i.
i.
i.
i.
i.
i.
ii.
ii.
ii.
ii.
ii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
v.
V.
II PETEI
i.
i.
i.
ii.
ii.
ii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
I JOHN.
i.
i.
n. .
. . 2C.4
I
"589
2
..71, t;o6
2
y^y
06 104
12
y. u > "rf
lot). C.OQ
14.
402
=> . . ....
. c86
1C. .
7Q2
11 .......
: . . . . 70 780
. . . 462
12
60
2 ...
7Q2
16 . .. .
221 222
4. c. .
IQ. .
. 4CI, 462
c
86
2O
117
I::
462
2.T.. .
rbo
8 . ..
7O'> 467
s . :
COQ
10
. . 462
IQ. .
181
4, seq . . ,
<;8?
21 ....
461
c
07
2I-2C, . .
. . . . 192 221
I7-IQ. . .
.c86
24
20.
1C.
... 58
10
168
16 ...
16
2Q6 All
18.... 167,
18-21..
392, 450, 461, 462, (2)
6O4 60 C
17
477
21
T'jy
. . 706
19. .
q8 166
25
20
18
26
22.
764
28
T-J*
. .3Q6
7.. .
7
.462 48 c.
QQ
"?
. . 440
t.
j
yy
17. .
... . -45 2
14
181, 452, 462 (2)
22
440
24
485
IO
276 '^g
25
462
IQ
Sg
26
430, 462
x y
i
o9
480
28
. . 450, 462, (4) 463
4
OQ I ?8
7-9
462
yy> i j fj
pW-
IO
(2) 462
37
5 5 7
fino
12.
462, (2) 608, 609
7 T-J
9
OT7
14
442, 462 (2)
8 3
U1 J
18
15
67
19
487
IO
3 1
21 ......
462
J7
97> 6l 3
fti
22...
iSi
At
26
. . . 46^
I 2
20..
. 480. qS?
3
92
7
584
7..
393
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE PASSAGES.
641
i.
i.
ii.
ii.
ii.
ii.
ii.
ii.
ui.
iii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
iv.
iv.
iv.
iv.
iv.
iv.
iv.
V.
V.
V.
JUDE.
REVELA
i.
i.
i.
8
. . <?87, <;84
i.
ii.
ii.
iii.
iii.
iii.
iv.
V
V.
V.
V.
V.
vi.
vii.
vii.
X.
17. 18..
c6, 65
8-10 ...
27C
II
271
i.
.586
2^
...56
2
.442 462 I" 1 ) 47Q. 487
7
. . 6otj
c
r87 (
14
14
56
. . C-J2
2O
47Q
IO .
562
II
. .02 (2), 171, 161
16
108 302
6
461
.37
9. . .
. . 461 (2)
2
.60, 146, 621 (2)
4 -
282
12
. . 461, 462
C. .
. .463
n. .
61
c, sea
583
. .166, ?g8
14 ...
: :::::: :..;.::: .y
14
4O2, 403
1 6
77, 462
16, 17. .
159, 396
17
.221
ev..;.:
92
8 7
. 221
XI.
xiii.
xiv.
K. . .
396
IO
462 463
8 5
462, co6
12
C32
ii
..: 5 6i 5
14
463
XIV.
xix.
XX.
XX.
XX.
XX.
XX.
XX.
xxi.
xxi.
xxi.
xxi.
xxi.
xxii.
xxii.
xxii.
xxii.
xxii.
xxii.
xxii.
xxii.
14
3 8c
16
37
6
33
17
c8^
4
..i 66, 1598. 608
2O 2 1
3J
2 !
6
271
II I' 1
586
. 6ic
11 lj>. .
16
72
12. . . .
... ...613
20
*l*
44 ?7 O4
17. .
.669
6
99. I5 8 t 6 9
14
: ei?
o7. 6oL
I
62:
4
. I^Q
8
7
158
"7 1
15
509
22, 23 .
396
T10N.
s J-
4
39^
r
7
76
ii
. 526, 527, 600, 613, 615
7
600
12
609
1
13
..' 56
11
55> 5> 5
6c
17
479
13 ..
' i
19
587
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.AT. Y. Observer : " Dr. Smith's life was full of incident and adventure. His education
was splendid. Foreign travel in youth broadened his view, enlarged his acquaintance
with universities, with men, books, and life. The brightest intellects discerned his great-
ness. As a pnstor, preacher, teacher, lecturer and professor, as a reviewer and editor,
he always made the mark of a first-rate workman, doing everything well. The loving
hand of the wife has fitly held out to the eyes of the world, and bound up in this bundle
such evidence of his greatness and worth, that the present generation and posterity will
know something of what the Church lost when this light went out before eventide."
Copies sent on receipt of price., post paid.
A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON, New York.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
BERKELEY
Return to desk from which borrowed.
This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.
?8Sep'53CJ?
or pi 5 1953 HI
LD 21-100m-7,'52(A2528sl6)476
40903
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY